For anyone who is well-trained in science, recognizing a charlatan is as easy as recognizing a non-native speaker of English. The fact is that Behe has published very little in the way of genuine scientific articles, and the little he has published is narrowly focused on chemical reactions. Well, there was a letter to the Genetics journal where he tried to criticize some evolutionary mathematics, but it was rebutted immediately. He has limited his career by excluding any topic that requires evolutionary considerations--which includes most topics in the life sciences. His background does not mark him as an expert in evolutionary biology, nor does it suggest that he knows anything about the subject. He is the perfect example of a scientist who clings to dogmatic belief despite all evidence, and ends up not accomplishing much as a result.
I am unclear, are you attacking personal profit, or Behe's charge?
It is Behe and his ilk that I am attacking. I have nothing against someone earning a profit honestly.
I am not talking about research, I am talking about "The God Delusion", for example. Of course I would rather judge the ideas in a book, as opposed to its specific publishing arrangement with the author.
Is "The God Delusion" a book explaining someone's opinion? I had not heard of it before; I googled it just now. Since the existence of God is neither scientifically provable nor disprovable, no book on that subject can be a scientific book. For a scientist to make money from writing pro-evolution pieces, they would have to be able to publish writing based solely on science, and get paid for it. Some scientists have successfully marketed science to the lay public; if they make money from doing so, it has the virtue of being honestly earned.
So anyone who disagrees with you is an immoral anti-scientist out for profit? To you this is a scientific argument?
There are a number of anti-science efforts out there, and they are all immoral. This has nothing to do with whether someone agrees with me or not. I detest country music; I don't think country music fans are immoral. But people who lie about science as a means of separating people from their money are thoroughly immoral. People die because of anti-science; I can't think of a single redeeming aspect to it.
I have spent far too much time working in a university with scientists to buy this shamanistic crap. If he is a charlatan you have to be able to explain why.
Behe makes a very specific claim concerning evolutionary science: There is almost nothing in the field on the specific evolutionary path of just about every complex biochemical system. You talk about evolution working on the scale of individual DNA blocks but when you talk about the evolutionary path you pull out to the 10,000 foot level. There is a whole in the middle.
How did the various protein mechanisms in the cell evolve? Your fish paper makes the point for Behe. I see nothing in it explaining how fish A turned into fish B biochemically.
He is the perfect example of a scientist who clings to dogmatic belief despite all evidence, and ends up not accomplishing much as a result.
Please explain. Elaborate on his dogmatic belief that you can't explain how the protein mechanisms in the cell evolve.