New Book, Signature of Controversy, Responds to Steve Meyer’s Critics
Critics of intelligent design often try to dismiss the theory as not worth addressing, as a question already settled, even as being too boring to countenance. Then they spend an amazing amount of energy trying to refute it.

The very evidence of the ongoing debate sparked by Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell should silence that tired trope that there is no controversy over evolution and intelligent design. That controversy has reached a fever-pitch in less than a year since the book’s first release, marking Meyer’s volume as a book serious Darwinists must deal with. And dealt with it, they haven’t – in their responses, some critics have misread it, while others have simply failed to read it at all.

Thus the defenders of Meyer’s book have analyzed these various hostile and futile attacks, and their responses to critics of Signature in the Cell have been gathered and are now published in a new digital book, Signature of Controversy: Responses to Critics of Signature in the Cell, now available for free DOWNLOAD ->HERE<-.

The book features essays by David Berlinski, David Klinghoffer, Casey Luskin, Stephen C. Meyer, Paul Nelson, Jay Richards and Richard Sternberg.
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Director, WindowView
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This post is a mirror posting from Nota Bene dated May 20, 2010.
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Lets Really OPEN the Window!

The  WindowView metaphor is among other things a place holder for seeing unique thoughts and ideas.  This is not mere whimsical thinking.  Consider this: No one yet knows where the mind is or memory is stored.  And, no one yet knows where the blueprints are that direct the assembly of all those proteins and lipids and other molecules that make up your body.  No one yet knows where the body plan is stored.  Think about it!

An Interesting Thought on Memory:

The more we see of modern research on the brain the more we encounter  the presumption that the mind is wholly located within the brain.  We see an organ that interacts with thoughts, but with little to no real evidence that the brain does nothing more than serve as a processor.  Here’s a twist.  A two-way radio receives and sends signals.  When researchers use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to explore the brain, they see areas ‘light up’ with brain activity.  During an operation the surgeon can place a probe on or in the brain and stimulate activity.  Might the brain be like the radio ‘transceiver.’  With no real tangible evidence that the mind and memories  are actually stored in the brain as a whole, we are then faced with the radio analogy pointing to mind beyond the physical location of the brain.

We’d like to see comments regarding the material brain and the more non-material aspects of mind.  Current research may be pointing to a mind and memory that is being tapped by the two-way radio-like function of a brain.  It’s possible.  And if so, the brain and mind become more a marvel than ever.  If the mind is outside, then where is that!

Inheritance Beyond DNA:

Equally interesting is the notion that DNA is not the sole source of inherited biological information.  In recent time science has discovered that the DNA does account for genes that direct protein production.  Some stretches of DNA with no known function were originally called junk DNA.  This is often referred to as leftovers from prior steps in evolution.  But the marvel here is that more and more of the junk is being ascribed to information processing tasks.  This is more like instruction code in a computer program.

The real challenge is the finding the location of the instructions, the blueprints, that put all the proteins and other biological molecules into their proper place in three dimensions.  And it turns out that certain physical locations in the egg cell and in membranes may be part of the blueprint.

What comes to mind is the criticism that apes and humans had to have evolved from one another because the DNA and genes are so similar.  But the sum total of biological information is just not the genes that make proteins!  The blueprints, where ever they end up being located, may prove to truly distinguish man from ape … and distinguish in a way that is orders of magnitude more complex than the apparent similarity in genes.

The Marvel of it ALL

We assume things way too often without knowing the real story.  Might the mind reside in extra-cranial space?  Might the instructions that direct the construction of an ape body be in fact dwarfed by the complexity of the blueprints for a human.  Or, at the very least, let us add the differences in blue print complexity to the known differences in the DNA of ape and human.  The sum of these differences is far greater than just in the genes in DNA alone.

In amidst all the talk of origins we forget the brain is a marvel of complexity that really defies an evolutionary explanation. Something happens in an organ beyond its physical structure that requires as much exploration and explanation than cell or tissue structure alone.  Inherited information that makes the brain (that supports the mind) is also a marvel and we have yet to learn more about this aspect of the complexity of our being.

Time at this window reminds us to consider our being here as the potential product of an act of intelligence.  This comes with some interesting prospects.  Some of which science cannot yet explain–if ever!  We think being here, living today, is a marvel and an opportunity to think of what purpose life offers.  And if we are purposed into being, then the location of the mind and blueprints of our body plan may be a wondrous bit of evidence in support of our being here by design.

Director,  WindowView

In time to come we will post more details, but for now it’s important to note that Illustra Media has released a new video, on DVD, entitled: Darwin’s Dilemma. This video follows on the heals of Dr. Meyer’s book, Signature in the Cell, with a more animated look at making many of the points described in the book–but with one major difference. This time the video adds in fossil evidence from the Cambrian explosion to make additional astounding points.

Both Meyer’s book and the video focus–ultimately in the overall importance of these works–on biological information. In the DNA we see a code that represents a complex set of information sources for making the proteins required for life. Darwin’s real dilemma was that the animals of the Cambrian era just appeared … really, just like that … in a “blink of time” to put it metaphorically. Darwin’s concept of evolution is a gradual series of changes over time leading to species making up separate phyla. But the evidence is the opposite, with phyla, a set of characteristics typical of a group, showing up first and finer differences, as multiple species, showing up over time.

Darwin knew the fossil record showed something troubling, simply because he had enough evidence to see the sudden appearance of the Cambrian life forms showing in the fossil record with no ancestral species developing before these multiple phyla just pop into view. The big distinctions of each phylum show up separately and independently of the others. There are no links between them! The fossil evidence before the Cambrian animals is there, it’s more like simpler sponges and nothing leading up to the animals that burst into view.

Darwin’s Dilemma reveals that the mass appearance of life also means a mass appearance of sophsticated information also arouse rapidly. And the standard explanations that Darwin put forth are beginning to show true failure. To really grasp why … we recommend a viewing of the DVD. The graphical images that bring the Cambrian era alive are great, but the illustrations help make finer points to reveal exactly why Darwin’s real dilemma to him in his day now opens a door to a solution and an explanation that derves serious consideration. And all this is based on the scientific evidence we have–right now!

Director, Windowview