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."
LOL, you're new here, huh?
We haven't. Cosmology (and even QM and relativity) has been attacked many times on these threads, and on creationist websites, etc. According to most of the evolution antagonists, though, cosmology, geological gradualism and evolutionary biology are all part of the same theory called "evolution", though. Get used to it if you continue to read these threads - when a young-earth creationist refers to "evolution", they really mean any finding in any branch of science with implications reaching further back in history than the 6000 years literal Biblical history allows for.
And you will ascend directly?
***One of the key tenets of Christianity is that the nature of God is ultimately unexplainable in rational human terms and therefore Christ cannot have meant that the creation story in Genesis is to be taken literally.***
So you're agnostic or irrational?
***And you will ascend directly?***
???
Which is everything.
Are you blonde?
There's intelligent design by the manufacturer in a mousetrap lest it fail in a competitive marketplace. Asserting that it's an analogy to the creation of the universe and our planet is not just a stretch, it's nonsense.
Sorry, I don't buy into the notion that you can't be a Christian if you recognize the fact that the Bible isn't a literal record of natural history. Christ dealt with a different people in a different age, it's the spiritual meaning of His words that have significance, not His endorsement of pre-medieval science.
If you have to believe EVERY word of the Bible is a 100% absolutely accurate historical record to be a Christian, I guess there's no such thing as a Christian who has read the whole Bible, since there are many places where the specific details of events contradict themselves within its own pages.
as this is Behe, and as the article rather uncritically brings up "irreducible complexity" and the old mousetrap nonsense...
reposting from here, typos and all:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1502917/posts?page=327#327
a problem with the term "irreducible complexity"
it seems a bastardization of a valid engineering concept properly called "irreducible simplicity"
In a well-designed machine:
1. there are present the smallest possible number of components to accomplish the design objective
2. each component is required for the machine to function
3. each component is specialized for function within the machine, and poorly suited for use elsewhere outside of the machine
*Engineering for reality is more complex. For one example: in the theoretical extreme, the machine and all its parts are suited for one application and a single use. In reality, durable repeat function is desirable, so components tend to be made to be more robust than the absolute extreme simplified form would allow. As another example, also stemming from desirable durability, the requirements of maintenance often cause the engineer to include far more parts (fasteners, pins, access ports, etc...) than the design purpose of the machine itself requires.*
The ID crowd seem to have deliberately parasitized a legitimate engineering ethos and warped it for their own ends.
The classic "illustration" they use, the mousetrap, is a good indicator of what I mean.
A spring-jaw mousetrap is indeed a nearly perfectly simplified piece of engineering. Each component is required, no extra components exist, each component is poorly suited to other applications. It is an elegant example of irreducible simplicity.
However... the IDers disingenuously call it irreducibly COMPLEX, and then dance semantic jigs to imply that biological systems display the same characteristics as a deliberately engineered and aggressively simplified mechanical device.
It seems to me that we have had enough of this nonsense.
It is time to slap them with the real and valid concept: Irreducible SIMPLICITY.
While biological features and systems are complex, and while it may be very difficult (or impossible) for random mutation and selective-pressure driven population changes to explain how such features and systems could directly evolve from simpler components, it seems to me that the ToE *can* explain such systems as irreducibly SIMPLIFIED results of evolutionary processes.
Looking at parasitism, symbiosis, and cellular organelles is instructive. Multifunctional features and organisms gradually (as populations) lose features and complexities needed for independent function as they become more specialized for interdependent function. Some features become adapted and combined during the simplification process.
I'm not a biologist, so I turn this over to the Big Dogs for a full flesh-out.
I'm tired of hearing this "irreducible complexity" bullpiuckey.
***like all true Christians I recognize the mysteries of faith***
One of the "mysteries of the faith" is not that the Scriptures are wrong.
***Are you blonde?***
Sorry for ruining your joke but your post was unclear.
Care to try again.
And you've done well, considering.
;-)
***it's the spiritual meaning of His words that have significance, not His endorsement of pre-medieval science***
Did Christ literally rise from the dead or was that "spiritual" to?
*** The Church also threatened to burn Galileo at the stake and has since apologized for its mistake.***
That why I offered it as an aside.
***It has dealt with the Theory of Evolution in a much more intelligent manner.***
Burning your enemies or being rolled by them - neither is a good option.
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