“If you are aware of exceptions, let me know.”[i.e. silence or misrepresentation]

Biologist Gert Korthof certainly seriously reviewed ReMines book in 1999: home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho41.htm”

He comments:

“In this part of the review I focus on two main criticisms of the Message Theory: ‘directly created organisms’ and ‘does life look unlike evolution?’. This article is not a summary of Remine’s book and I don’t claim to be complete.”

Unlike Mr. Korthof, I do like ID (& testability). However, he takes critics serious and gives a thorough response that Mr. ReMine has to address.
Furthermore, IDEA (Pro ID) gives Korthof’s site the highest (4 star) rating: Creation & Evolution Links.

So, Mr. ReMine, I’m looking forward to your response to Korthof’s review.

(Remember I’m pro ID. In fact, the general lack of testability is my main concern.)

I understand you cannot do your entire theory justice on a blog page, and you’d rather people read your book. But, after reading both of your blog posts and visiting the book website, the main thesis of Message Theory is still a mystery to me.

I think it would help generate more interest in your book if you offered a summary of your argument, or at least your main premise. I look forward to hearing more about it.

Cordially,

Clumsy

Cost per book depends on a host of factors including the book length, the binding, and the print run. (I directed a small press once.) Costs are much higher for small print runs.

I would guess that at most ReMine’s book would have an initial print run of under 2000 copies. A $3 per book cost would have to be a pretty small paperback with a large print run. ReMine’s book is 538 pages: no way in the world it’s getting close to that cost.

A long book or a hardback can’t be printed cheaply unless it has a huge print run, and getting remotely close would require that it be made of shoddy materials.

Things are changing these days due to what is called “print-on-demand” publishing, but POD publishing usually leads to a poor quality product. Further, POD publishing wasn’t available when The Biotic Message was published.

A $3/copy cost also assumes no editorial costs for layout, proofreading, design, etc.

Your friend in athletic training also had a distribution method (through coaches). Because bookstores don’t buy vanity press books, and reviewers don’t review them, a vanity press book needs to create alternative channels of distribution. Vanity presses can’t get the attention of bookstores and readers because nobody has a stake in their quality except the authors. (Sometimes bookstores will take vanity press books on consignment, if they have the shelf space.)

Is Mr. ReMine’s book out of print? Used copies are being offered on Amazon for $77.97. If that’s the case, perhaps Mr. ReMine should run another few copies at $3/copy, sell them directly for $12, and save his potential readers money as well.

One is more control and this could be a major issue because the publisher may not think the printing will generate enough money to justify the printing so will want editorial control. And the flip side of this is that there may not be a publisher who thinks it will be financially viable.

Second, you make more money if you do it that way. It cost about $3 per book to get a couple thousand books printed so for an outlay of $6,000 to a printer you can 2,000 books. So if you sell them for $20 you make over $30,000 for this venture. Your time is an issue as you have to write and layout the book and develop graphics etc and this is time consuming so it is not usually done for the money from the book per se but for other reasons.

I have a good friend who I helped with a book and he got it printed by a local printer. It was very good in its area, the training of athletes. The book became well read amongst a small group of high level coaches and my friends services were enhanced by the book. The book was a passion for him and it paid off by his greater acceptance in his field of interest. If he had used a publisher for his book, he would have made about 50 cents per book instead of the $12 for each one sold but still would have had the peer recognition. But he would have had his book edited to death and he did not want that.

This gets to the heart of the debate. I think most of us on the pro-ID side don’t have any moral issue with considering or studying or believing or working form an evo assumption (providing it is not dogmatic) with regard to explaining biodiversity.

The moral problem comes with the claims that our existence has no point and that scientific authority can trump revealed universal values. And evolution certainly was used to do so as were other scientific claims.

If books like that can find legitimate publishers, why does ReMine have to go the vanity route?

By legitimate you mean approved by opinion shapers. If ReMine was published by the Discovery Institute or a religious organization would you accept that?

Evolutionists hypothesize that some changes, such as the evolution of eyes, happened independently at several different times in different lineages, yet their conjecture has no concrete evidence to support it. As far as anyone can tell, such events happen once and every change evolutionists assume happened is unique. Given that evolution fails the tests for testability and repeatability, it certainly fails the final test of falsifiability. Nobody can confirm an invisible, singular phenomenon.

No hypothesis that attempts to explain the origins and diversification of life can be testable or repeatable.

Lisa A. Shiel
author of The Evolution Conspiracy
http://EvolutionConspiracy.com/

Here’s Darwin’s theory in a nutshell: Offspring vary from their parents. There are not enough resources for all offspring to survive to adulthood. Any offspring born with a difference that makes them more likely to survive will replace those less favored.

That sounds like the Ceation model of biological evolution.

IOW there is no way to distinguish betwen Darwin’s theory and the Creation model- that is if we go by what dj posted.

Now to refute what Walter states all Allen, Scott or who-ever has to do is to step up and show that unguided processes can account for what Walter is talking about.

IOW show us the data that demonstrates the changes required (if chimp s& humans shared a common ancestor) are even possible.

That is it- refute Walter by actually supporting YOUR position!

Imagine that!!!!

I’ve been reading ReMine here, on ARN and other various other places for at least five years, both on Message Theory and Haldane’s Dilemma. I’ve asked him to explain both, others have asked him to explain both and he’s never given a satisfactory answer to either.

Here he says his theory is testable, but he doesn’t tell us how to test it. It’s my considered opinion that he has no way to test it, but if he does, let him:

1. Explain the outlines of the theory in one paragraph. I’ll even give him a page if he’ll at least try to describe his theory concisely.

2. Tell us how to test it, for crying out loud! How long are we going to have to wait?

jguy @ 16: Darwin DID publish a concise description of his theory, along with Wallace, in the Linnean Society’s journal, which you can read here:

http://www.linnean.org/index.php?id=380

THEN he wrote the big book showing all the evidence in favor of his theory. Let’s see ReMine do the same.

“1. Life was designed to look like the product of a single designer.
2. Life was designed to resist all other explanations.” is not a description of his theory. Darwin tells you how his theory works: offspring vary, not all can survive, variations that are better at making a living survive to provide the next generation.

Darwin’s equivalent of ReMine would be to say that Species are designed to look designed and frustrate all other explanations. He doesn’t even succeed on that level.

Somebody said that if a poster hadn’t read ReMine’s book, they should be thrown out. How about ReMine describing his theory in enough detail so we can tell if it’s worth spending the $70 or $80 bucks his book is reputed to cost?