What he is saying is precisely Behe’s point in Darwin Devolves. Cell evolution is mostly about destroying complex equipment that hinders immediate survival. (The question of how the equipment came to be so complex beforehand is separate from the question of what life forms actually do when they evolve.)
Tag: devolution
Michael Behe: New paper supports my “Darwin Devolves” thesis
The trouble with Darwin Devolves is that it is likely to be both quite right and a big problem for schoolbook Darwinism. Just as it is much easier to—without thinking much—throw something out than fix or adapt it, life forms will far more likely randomly mutate by dumping complex equipment than by reengineering it. It’s not that life forms can’t develop complex new equipment. But such changes probably aren’t an instance of natural selection acting on random mutation. And in these times, that’s the controversial part: design in nature.
Michael Behe and the broken wolves
In Darwin Devolves, he explains how much evolution depends on breaking genes. He picks up the theme in this video series. In the case of wolves, we call the broken ones dogs.
Earliest known DEvolution in an animal at 518 mya
So yunnanicus started out more complex and evolved to be LESS complex. Maybe Darwinism can explain that more easily than it can explain most evolution because we are looking at a loss of information.
First known animal that doesn’t breathe
That’s called devolution, when life forms simply junk complex equipment they never use. One wonders if there is any characteristic of live that some life form or other has not devolved to get rid of. But they will, of course, likely be parasites like salminicola.
Red algae thrives despite losing 1/4 of genes, a billion years ago
This is a classic story of devolution, where an organism thrives by losing information, as Michael Behe explains in Darwin Devolves. Devolution is a form of evolution; it just isn’t glitzy.
Researchers: Whales took to water by LOSING genes
But isn’t that the kind of thing the villain Michael Behe argues in Darwin Devolves?
Bird “goes extinct” twice
Note that loss of the ability to fly is treated in this story as a form of evolution, as if the loss resulted in greater complexity rather than less. As if it wasn’t fatal when the island was inundated. But it enables evolutionary biologists to say that “evolution happened.”
Eric Metaxas interviews Michael Behe
Media personality and author Eric Metaxas talked to him in his university’s home town in Pennsylvania: Eric Metaxas interviews biochemist Michael Behe on “the new science about DNA that challenges evolution” as told in Behe’s book, Darwin Devolves Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) 9:50 am EST #1 in Developmental Biology (Books) Read More…
Michael Behe responds to the critics at his university, Parts 2 and 3
Contra Lang and Rice, it’s preposterous to say that the data “are more than sufficient to convince any open minded skeptic that unguided evolution is capable of generating complex systems.” Unless one defines a skeptic of Darwin’s theory (the most prominent proposed “unguided” explanation) as closed-minded, a quick visit to the library will disabuse one of that notion.
Michael Behe’s response to Lehigh colleagues’ criticism
If Behe’s critics were right, new life forms would be popping into existence all the time.
Darwin vs the polar bear ;)
Michael Behe, author of Darwin Devolves, responds to claims that he has misunderstood the polar bear: This is the first in a series of posts responding to the extended critique of Darwin Devolves by Richard Lenski at his blog, Telliamed Revisited. Professor Lenski is perhaps the most qualified scientist in the world to analyze the Read More…
A review of Behe’s Darwin Devolves that looks at what Behe actually says
In a review, one reviewer has decided to talk about what Michael Behe actually says in Darwin Devolves. For example, In a section called “The Blind Metaphor,” Behe notes: “The primary way by which natural selection makes evolution self-limiting is by promoting poison-pill mutations. Whatever genetic alterations that help an organism survive and reproduce better Read More…
How Darwinism misled biologists about lichens
They spent a lot of time ridiculing what they should have been studying. They ridiculed the now commonly accepted idea that a lichen was algae and fungi living as if they were one organism: The very notion of different organisms living so closely with—or within—each other was unheard of. That they should coexist to their Read More…
Worms challenge idea that complexity just arises from simplicity
Maybe it’s the other way around in many cases.