Once you are at the cell stage and DNA is fully established then I believe the argument is that information is added to the system via gene duplication and retro viruses, etc.

Yes I have heard that also. A few points on gene duplication:

1- Duplicating something does not increase information. 2 copies of a M-W dictionary contains the same amount of information as one copy.

2- Gene dupication could very well be a non-random event, ie programmed to occur.

3- It could be irrelevant unless someone ties “form” in with DNA.

On point 3 that is the book that is missing- what provides the form.

My point follows from Denton who told us that although genes may influence every aspect of development they do not determine it. (see his entry in “Uncommon Dissent”)

It also follows from geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti who told us:

The scientist enjoys a privilege denied the theologian. To any question, even one central to his theories, he may reply “I’m sorry but I do not know.” This is the only honest answer to the question posed by the title of this chapter. We are fully aware of what makes a flower red rather than white, what it is that prevents a dwarf from growing taller, or what goes wrong in a paraplegic or a thalassemic. But the mystery of species eludes us, and we have made no progress beyond what we already have long known, namely, that a kitty is born because its mother was a she-cat that mated with a tom, and that a fly emerges as a fly larva from a fly egg.- chapter 6 of “Why is a Fly Not a Horse?”

Or save your spare change each day in a jar until you have enough to buy your own copy.

Not everything worthwhile in life is free. Some things you have to lift a finger to get.

Tim

There are thousands of Christian colleges out there and I’d like to see the numbers that adopt it when those numbers are available.

You would think they would be eager to use this as the cornerstone of their science programs/classes.

I wonder if Lehigh will allow Dr Behe to use it as a science text in one of his classes.

Tim

Mirriam Webster says:
1: Decisive, conclusive
2: Authoritative and apparently exhaustive.
3: Serving to define or specify precisely.

I would agree with you that ID is a dynamic and growing field of study. To produce something that is “apparently exhaustive” when the field has not yet begun to run, let alone be exhausted, is a bit much. I would agree that this book cannot be “difinitive” by definition 2. I recognize that this is the common understanding of “definitive” as used in this context.

By definition 3, however, we do recognize that we live in a world that is quite determined to mis-define ID. For instance, recently some scientists wrote that they had proof that ID was in error, yet their understanding of ID was a young-earth model. I have not yet had opportunity to read this book, but I would hope that it provides a rich definition of what ID is and is not. As such, one could say that it is definitive.

There will always be room for more evidence, more arguments, more information…

We’re “have not yet begun to fight”!

Vestigiality at best documents a degenerative form of evolution in which preexisting functional structures change and lose their function.”

This is consistent with the concept of genetic entropy.

I would add in some cases that apparent vestigiality may also represent something the function of which has not yet been discovered.
I suspect that we may eventually find that at least some are not actually vestigial.
In the case of the vermiform appendix, for example, it now appears plausible that it serves as a reservoir of normal GI bacteria to “reboot” the system when infection destroys the normal flora of the intestinal tract.
This is analogous to some pseudogenes and ERVs being lately found to in fact have function.
I’d pay extra for a signed copy of the book: any chance of selling such through this site?