Features: Behe's empty box
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Behe's
Empty Box |
Reviews
and Criticisms of Michael Behe's book:
"Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution" ...and the hypothesis of Intelligent Design |
( and yes, I have read the book -- John )
Introduction
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From Michael Behe |
Current Best Excerpt |
Alive and Published |
Reviews and
Criticisms |
Related
Topics |
Strange Bedfellows |
? QUIZ TIME ? |
Behe's Empty Box Headlines and News
Last Updated: Friday, December 09, 2005
- "The Wedge Strategy" -
A recently-circulated position paper of The Center for the Renewal of Science
& Culture (the CRSC - where Michael Behe is a "Senior Fellow"
) reveals an ambitious plan to replace the current naturalistic methodology of science
with a theistic alternative called "intelligent design."
- The Case of the Tell-Tale Traces:
A Mystery Solved; a Skyhook Grounded - Comments on Micahel Behe by Daniel C. Dennett,
March 19, 1997 (penultimate draft)
- Is God in
the details? By Faye Flam - the disturbing influence of John Templeton on science, and
science education
- Essays on Religion and Science by Norman and Lucia Hall
- The "Information
Challenge" by Richard Dawkins - what exactly is "information" and how
can it increase via evolution.
- The Evolution of Improved Fitness
by random mutation plus selection by Edward E. Max, M.D., Ph.D. [Talk.Origins archive]
Michael Behe likes to talk about the human immune system, but what lessons should we really
learn from such a system?
- Researchers Engineer
A Way To Improve T-Cell Receptors - using Darwinian selection
- Transposition
mediated by RAG1 and RAG2 and its implications for the evolution of the immune system
- The Evolution of
Hemoglobin by Ross Hardison, (Abstract) American Scientist, March-April 1999
- Minor Shuffle Makes Protein
Fold - "the finding makes the evolution of new protein shapes easier to
understand, because it implies that proteins can adapt through small changes and preserve
some structural elements while discarding others."
- Genetic
Stowaways May Contribute To Evolutionary Change
- Flatworms Are
Oldest Living Ancestors To Those Of Us With Right And Left Sides Researchers Report In Science
- Vastly Different
Virus Families May Be Related
- HIV Mutating Too Fast For Drug
Cocktail - "Because of HIV's high mutation rate, it provides a unique opportunity
to study the processes of evolution,"
- Are the Odds Against the Origin
of Life Too Great to Accept? : Addenda to Review of David Foster's The Philosophical
Scientists by Richard C. Carrier. From Bad Science Worse Philosophy the
Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster's The Philosophical Scientists
- book: Evolutionary Design by Computers
edited by Peter J. Bentley Foreword by Richard
Dawkins Book & CD-ROM edition (May 1999) Amazon.com
or Amazon.co.uk
- Yes, evolution does produce irreducible complexity!
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Orgel's second rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are."
"Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, 'I cannot believe that
so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection.' I have dubbed this kind of fallacy
'the Argument from Personal Incredulity.' Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an
intellectual banana-skin experience." Richard Dawkins - River out
of Eden
Introduction |
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'Scientists say...'
Yes, Michael Behe is a scientist, but is "Intelligent Design" science? If so,
it will be the first science established without
a single technical paper published for peer-review, including zero by Behe
himself. For some reason Behe has decided to completely bypass professional review
and go directly to a Darwin-doubting
public. But more to the point, what is wrong with this book? Here is a summary of the
critiques you will find included on this page and others:
Irreducible or just Complex?
Michael Behe thinks he can detect
design in biochemical systems and structures that are "irreducibly complex"
(IC)...
"By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is composed of several
interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one
of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex
system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor
system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition
nonfunctional." [*]
But that conclusion is wrong. By his definition, many systems we see around us are IC,
and yet have developed gradually and without any overarching design. Think of the
chaotic growth of towns into large cities,
the self-organizing forces behind market economies, and
the delicate causal webs that define complex ecosystems. So given an IC system, it will
either be a product of design, or of an undirected, stochastic process. The truth
is, we should expect Darwinian evolution to produce such systems in biology, and
not be surprised to find them. The underlying processes are called co-adaptation and
co-evolution, and they have been understood for many years. Biochemical pathways are not
built up one step at a time in linear assembly-line fashion to meet some static function. They evolve layer upon
layer, contingency upon contingency, always in flux, and retooling to serve current
functions. The ability of life to evolve in this fashion has itself evolved over
time. Detecting IC does not indicate design, and therefore Behe's hypothesis collapses. H.
Allen Orr says it best in
his perceptive review:
"Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities,
he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly
complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just
advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very simple. Some
part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets
added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But
later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable.
This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the
day, many parts may all be required."
"The point is there's no guarantee that improvements
will remain mere improvements. Indeed because later changes build on previous ones,
there's every reason to think that earlier refinements might become necessary. The
transformation of air bladders into lungs that allowed animals to breathe atmospheric
oxygen was initially just advantageous: such beasts could explore open niches-like dry
land-that were unavailable to their lung-less peers. But as evolution built on this
adaptation (modifying limbs for walking, for instance), we grew thoroughly terrestrial and
lungs, consequently, are no longer luxuries-they are essential. The punch-line is, I
think, obvious: although this process is thoroughly Darwinian, we are often left with a
system that is irreducibly complex. I'm afraid there's no room for compromise here: Behe's
key claim that all the components of an irreducibly complex system 'have to be there from
the beginning' is dead wrong." [*]
The Fallacy of Conclusion by Analogy
When it comes to explaining science to the public, analogies and metaphors are
essential tools of the trade. We all can better understand something new and unusual, when
it is compared to something we already know: a cell is like a factory, the eye is like a
camera, an atom is like a billiard ball, a biochemical system is like a mouse trap. An A
is like a B, means A shares some conceptual properties
with B. It does not mean A has all the
properties of B. It does not follow that what is true for B
is therefore true for A. Analogies can be used to explain science, but
analogies cannot be used to draw conclusions or falsify scientific theories. Yet
Behe commits this fallacy throughout his book. For example:
- A mousetrap is "irreducibly complex" - it requires all of its parts to work
properly.
- A mousetrap is a product of design.
- The bacterial flagellum is "irreducibly complex" - it requires all of
its parts to work properly.
- Therefore the flagellum is like a mouse trap.
- Therefore the flagellum is a product of design.
The Psychic Detective
Is it fair to ask for a frame-by-frame instant replay of the evolution of the bacterial
flagella or the Krebs cycle? Should Evolutionary Biology perish without it? Of course not.
As with any historical science, we arrive on the scene after the fact, as a detective to a
crime. We look for evidence and rational explanations to account for that evidence. Even
the best detective cannot, and should not, reconstruct every footstep, and every
word that took place. But he does not need to in order to solve the crime. Consider the
following: The evidence for evolution is
overwhelming at all levels of biology. Published attempts have
been made to uncover possible historical scenarios. The evidence for intelligent
design is simply non-existent.
Designer in the Gaps
I should point out that Behe's hybrid vision of life does accept common descent as
reasonable, and does allow for cases of Darwinian natural selection and random genetic
drift. So how can we distinguish evolution from design? Simple: To Behe, a system has
evolved when he, or others, can imagine how it has evolved, otherwise it was a
product of intelligent design. "Irreducible Complexity" has nothing to do with
it.
An unnamed designer?
In the last few years Michael Behe has become the new poster boy for religious groups who
are hostile to evolution and Darwinism. Meanwhile, Behe has refused to identify
the 'designer' when confronted, even though he professes belief in
the Judeo-Christian God, is more than willing to speak at religiously-sponsored events,
and get his attacks on evolutionary biology published in conservative magazines. I
feel he should not be allowed to have it both ways.
From Michael
Behe |
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Alive and
Published |
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"There has never been a meeting, or a book, or a paper on details of the evolution
of complex biochemical systems... In effect, the theory of Darwinian molecular evolution
has not published, and so it should perish" --Michael Behe (Darwin's
Black Box p.179)
- Alive and Published: some
published works on biochemical evolution -
books, papers, conferences, and news. (now mirrored on Talk.Origins!)
- Did someone say publish or perish?: The Elusive Scientific Basis of Intelligent
Design Theory by George W Gilchrist, Reports of the
National Center for Science Education (NCSE),
Volume 17, number 3
- Cells,
Embryos, And Evolution: Towards a Cellular and
Developmental Understanding of Phenotypic Variation and Evolutionary Adaptability
- a recent textbook by John Gerhart and Marc Kirschner (1997 Blackwell Science) -
"In writing Cells, Embryos, and Evolution, our aim has been to
continue what Darwin started: to understand not only the influence of selection on the
path of evolution, but also the capacity of the organism to generate heritable variation
upon which selection can act."
Preface
/ amazon.com
bookstore
Current Best
Excerpt |
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The danger of this book -- and why it receives so much attention -- is partly that it
is so well written (or so some find; I among them, I must confess). I learned a huge
amount from it (I think), and it was only my wary eye that held me back from slipping
along with the argument. Moreover, here we have a real, and very competent (but deeply
misguided) scientist purveying some very good science and pointing up some very important
omissions in our current understanding. Dr. Behe and his book must be as gold-dust among
the dross of the general run of creationists and their so-called literature. The general
reader will not know the limitations of his argument, or be aware of his
misrepresentations of the facts, and will easily be seduced by his arguments. After all,
it seems so very much easier, and certainly avoids a lot of intellectual effort, to accept
that God did it all, even though we have to interpret the carefully coded allusions to
this incompetent figment of impoverished imaginations.
--Review of
Michael Behe's, Darwin's Black Box by Peter Atkins,
University of Oxford
Book Reviews
and Criticisms |
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- The Elusive Scientific
Basis of Intelligent Design Theory by George W Gilchrist, Reports of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Volume 17, number 3
- Nature - God in the details: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution by Jerry A. Coyne
- New
Scientist: Planet Science - the god of the tiny gaps by Andrew
Pomiankowski
- A Biochemist's Response to "The
Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by David Ussery - A
key review that meets Behe head-on! (and filled with graphics and fascinating
links)
- Rebuttal of Behe by
Clare Stevens (biologist) - with good examples of evidence for biochemical evolution
- Boston Review:
Darwin v. Intelligent Design (Again), H. Allen Orr
(Dec 96) Excellent!
- Darwin's Black Box: Irreducible
Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility? - by Keith Robison of
Harvard University. From talk.origins.
- The Case of the Tell-Tale Traces: A
Mystery Solved; a Skyhook Grounded - Comments on Micahel Behe by Daniel C. Dennett,
March 19, 1997 (penultimate draft)
- Behe and the Blood
Clotting Cascade by George Acton - [Talk.Origins] Post of the Month:
February 1997
- Review of
Michael Behe's, Darwin's Black Box by Peter Atkins,
University of Oxford
- American
Scientist - by Robert Dorit, Biology,
Yale University
- Analysis of Darwin's Black Box
and many other anti-evolution books. From the NCSE's "What's Wrong with These
Books"
- Is the
"Intelligent Designer" argument a Scientific One? by Lenny Flank
- The
Wall Street Journal - "The dissent of man" by Paul R. Gross
(co-author of Higher
Superstition)
- A Reducibly Complex Mousetrap by John
H. McDonald - FUN! mousetraps in several stages of reduced
complexity. (NOTE: even if a moustrap were "irreducibly
complex", the analogy implies nothing about biological evolution- John C)
- Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam (text not online) by Neil W Blackstone.
The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 72, Number 4, December 1997 .
- Think Tank: Richard Dawkins on Evolution and
Religion - an interview by Ben Wattenberg. They discuss Michael Behe. Note: They
misspelled "Behe" as "Beahy"!
- Oxford University Professor Preaches Darwinian Evolution to
Skeptics - about Richard Dawkins, with comments on Michael Behe
- Economic
irreducible complexity - by Glenn Morton
- Skeptic Magazine - from the real Skeptics
- The Reality Fellowship of
Tennessee: Reviewed by Kenneth R. Miller Professor of Biology, Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island
- Michael Behe shows why Phillip
Johnson is wrong in claiming that Darwin created a nonfalsifiable theory! by Gert
Korthof -a review from his website Was Darwin
right?: Personal Book Reviews Creationism - Evolution
- The Knee Bone
Connected to the Thigh Bone by Nancy Pearcy
- Scientific American
- brief note (scroll down)
- How
Science Responds When Creationists Criticize Evolution by Boyce Rensberger, a
science writer for The Washington Post and author of an excellent book called LIFE
ITSELF: Exploring the Realm of the Living Cell
- Many
short reviews from users of the Amazon.com online bookstore.
- A Creationist Criticism
of Irreducible Complexity - a creationist comes forward to meet Behe's challenge.
- Contrasting Views on
Behe from Braxton M. Alfred and Alice Fulton. [From
Perspectives on Science and Christian
Faith (The journal of the American
Scientific Affiliation), 49:119-122 (1997)]
- Origin of the
Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin? By Ronald
Bailey, Reason magazine.
- "The following are excerpts from my letter to a friend who
requested that I read Behe. The friend is a Catholic, I am an atheist; we were in a
monastery together for some time." --Anselm Atkins
- The Real Scoop on
Michael Behe...and why creationism is still a bad idea. from Barry A. Palevitz
- Thinking Critically By Francis
Assaf - University of Georgia
- The Sunday Times: Reverend
Michael Roberts defends Darwin
Related
Topics |
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- Design in Nature:
- Naturalism:
- Michael Denton and Phillip Johnson
influenced Behe to doubt evolution:
- Science, Religion & Evolution Denial:
- "The Wedge Strategy" -
A recently-circulated position paper of The Center for the Renewal of Science
& Culture (the CRSC - of which Michael Behe is a "Senior Fellow"
) reveals an ambitious plan to replace the current naturalistic methodology of science
with a theistic alternative called "intelligent design."
- When Religion
Steps on Science's Turf by Richard Dawkins - from Free
Inquiry, Spring 1998
- How
Science Responds When Creationists Criticize Evolution by Boyce Rensberger
- Dumping
on Darwin TIME Magazine March 18, 1996: "Pat Buchanan's attacks on the teaching
of "godless evolution" tap a rich vein of unscientific thought"
- Oppressed
by Evolution, DISCOVER Vol. 19 No. 3 (March 1998)
- Has Science
Found God? by Jeffery Jay Lowder - "Contrary to a recent
report in Newsweek, the answer is 'no'."
- Essays on Religion and
Science by Norman and Lucia Hall
- Religion - the antithesis to science -
commentary by Peter Atkins, a chemist at Oxford, along with responses.
- Next time you hear of an article, book,
conference, or course on "Science AND Religion", consider where the funding may
have come from: Is God in the
details? By Faye Flam - the disturbing influence of John Templeton on science, and
science education
- Public Understanding of Evolution:
- Other Related Topics:
Strange
Bedfellows |
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"I'm a Roman
Catholic, I believe in God, but as far as the scientific evidence, I just say that the
-- you know, that these things were designed. I don't claim anything about the personality
of the designer..." --Michael Behe
Has Behe identified this unnamed designer by his associations and actions? You
decide...
? Quiz Time
? :) |
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When the conservative magazine National
Review needs to find someone to review Richard "atheist"
Dawkins' recent book Climbing Mount Improbable, who do they ask?
- Darwinian thinker Daniel Dennett
- Semi-Darwinian thinker Steven Jay Gould
- "Intelligent Designist" Michael Behe
Questions to John Catalano catalj@spacelab.net