Posted on 10/16/2005 1:28:00 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Marginalized by his university colleagues, ridiculed as a quack by the scientific establishment, Michael Behe continues to challenge the traditional theory of how the world came to be.
For more than a decade, the tenured Lehigh University biochemistry professor and author has been one of the nation's leading proponents of intelligent design, a movement trying to alter how Darwin's theory of evolution is taught in school.
This week, Behe will testify in a federal courtroom in Harrisburg in a landmark case about whether students in a Pennsylvania classroom should be required to hear a statement before their evolution classes that says Darwin's theory is not a fact.
"The fact that most biology texts act more as cheerleaders for Darwin's theory rather than trying to develop the critical faculties of their students shows the need, I think, for such statements," Behe said.
In papers, speeches and a 1996 best-selling book called "Darwin's Black Box," Behe argues that Darwinian evolution cannot fully explain the biological complexities of life, suggesting the work of an intelligent force.
His life on the academic fringes can be lonely. Critics say the concept is nothing more than biblical creationism in disguise. He long ago stopped applying for grants and trying to get his work published in mainstream scientific journals. In August, his department posted a Web statement saying the concept is not scientific.
"For us, Dr. Behe's position is simply not science. It is not grounded in science and should not be treated as science," said Neal Simon, the biology department chairman.
Behe said he was a believer in Darwin when he joined Lehigh in 1985, but became a skeptic after reading Michael Denton's book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis."
Behe's big idea, published in "Darwin's Black Box" and the one that catapulted him to academic fame, is irreducible complexity. It is the notion that certain biochemical systems are incapable of having evolved in Darwinian fashion because they require all of their parts working simultaneously.
Behe uses a mousetrap to illustrate the concept. Take away any of its parts - platform, spring, hammer, catch - and the mousetrap can't catch mice.
"Intelligent design becomes apparent when you see a system that has a number of parts and you see the parts are interacting to perform a function," he said.
The book "put the positive case for design on the map in a way that some of the (previous intelligent design) work had not done," said Steven Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute [http://www.discovery.org]. Most of academia panned it.
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education [ http://www.ncseweb.org], said that he believes Behe thought he discovered something astonishing. "But no one is using irreducible complexity as a research strategy, and with very good reason ... because it's completely fruitless," he said.
Behe finds community in a Web group that he says includes like-minded faculty from other universities. Most keep their views to themselves, Behe said, because "it's dangerous to your career to be identified as an ID proponent."
He earned tenure at Lehigh before becoming a proponent, which lets him express his views without the threat of losing his job.
"Because of the immense publicity that's mushroomed around this issue in the past six months, more people are getting emotional about the topic," Behe said. "And it's generally not on my side."
No. Someone who leaps to the conclusion that they actually had realtions is making something up. However, it is clear in the text that they were capable of having relations.
If you're saying people are anteriors, we're in complete agreement.
The most evil theory in the world of science is QM. It has everything -- true randomness, uncaused causes, the works. Good thing the folks at DI haven't heard of it.
No, we're not either. I think people are mostly posteriors.
She's dead, but thanks for asking.
If science were to show how resurrection were possible, you would be jumping up and down on the side of science, no?
Actually, science already *has* shown that. There are a ton of documented cases of people, even in this day and age, who were thought dead but had that "fact" improperly verified (instead, they were deeply unconscious due to injury or other factor) who then subsequently "rose from the dead" after several days, much to the shock of their mourners.
And needless to say, this was likely much more common in the days a couple thousand years ago, before stethoscopes, EEG machines, basal thermometers, etc.
Plus, people are routinely "raised from the dead" in hospitals on a daily basis, via CPR, defibrillator, and so on.
Finally, even if one accepts the story about finding Christ walking around a few days after he had been nailed to the cross (and as we know, the written accounts are second-hand at best), there is *no* evidence offerred that he had ever actually been properly declared dead in the first place, in a manner known today to be reliable.
*** that rabbits chew their cud***
Those Wascally Wabbits!
Skeptical Crud About Cud
James Patrick Holding
http://www.tektonics.org/af/cudchewers.html
Do rabbits chew their cud?
The Bible beats the sceptics (again) …
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/rabbits.asp
I so glad your moral compass has more that one needle.
No. We simply don't know whether it happened, and we should leave it at that.
How do you know? The Bible doesn't say He created a fully formed, mature human! You must be thinking about the movie, not the Bible.
Sorry, but these are the facts:
"...Whenever you run across any person who criticizes the Bible, claims findings of contradiction or error -- they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. ... Here's why:
It doesn't take very long to realize that a thorough understanding of the Bible -- and this would actually apply to any complex work from any culture -- requires specialized knowledge, and a broad range of specialized knowledge in a variety of fields.
Obviously the vast majority of believers spend their entire lives doing little more than reading the Bible in English (or whatever native tongue) and importing into its words whatever ideas they derive from their own experiences. This process is very often one of "decontextualizing" -- what I have here called "reading it like it was written yesterday and for you personally." Of course if the church as a whole is locked into this mentality, you may well suspect that critics (whether Skeptics or other) and those in alternate faiths are no better off.
Let's anticipate and toss off the obvious objection: "Why did God make the Bible so hard to understand, then?" It isn't -- none of this keeps a person from grasping the message of the Bible to the extent required to be saved; where the line is to be drawn is upon those who gratuitously assume that such base knowledge allows them to be competent critics of the text, and make that assumption in absolute ignorance of their own lack of knowledge -- what I have elsewhere spoken of in terms of being "unskilled and unaware of it."
And is my observation to this effect justified? Well, ask yourself this question after considering what various fields of knowledge a complete and thorough (not to say sufficient for intelligent discourse, though few even reach that pinnacle, especially in the critical realm) study of the Bible requires: [snip]
Continue here.
***Which one gave rise to the Inquisition?***
The lie that the Roman Catholic Church rightly inherited imperial powers.
And the lie that Jesus is OK with killing those who disagree with you.
Then don't imply that Adam and Eve had sex for pleasure before the fall when there is nothing there to base it on and everything in the Bible implies they did not.
Actually, that text proves the opposite. God said he'd increase her sorrow in conception and childbearing. That implies she already was capable of conceiving.
The second half simply says that Adam will have authority over her that he did not have before.
There isn't even such a claim made.
The lie that the Roman Catholic Church rightly inherited imperial powers.
And the lie that Jesus is OK with killing those who disagree with you.
And the lie that it is OK to lie about evolution ...
I never implied such a thing, and the Bible implies nothing either way. It clearly indicates, however, that they had the capability of having sex before the Fall. Whether or not they did is simply unknown.
Yes. Read them. Nice try. Why would God deliberately mislead his chosen people. The words in the Bible are His words, right? God couldn't figure out a word for "cud"?
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