Michael Behe

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 arguments of the book… The question Behe is addressing is whether a genetic adaptation in polar bears that enables them to live on a high-fat diet is actually a convenient loss rather than a gain. In much the same way, a broken side window might help you get into a house if you forget the key code. In extremely cold weather, that may save your Read More ›

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 than its competitors will be fodder for natural selection—even if the alterations make a species less able to adapt in the future (200). In hindsight, that is what we should have expected. Despite the boost in plausibility it receives from its metaphorical name, over multiple rounds natural selection is clearly nothing like the opposite of chance, no more than, say, gravity is the opposite of Read More ›

In American Association for the Advancement of Science’s magazine, Science,  we read, In the grand scheme of evolution, mutations serve only to break structures and degrade functions, Behe argues. He allows that mutation and natural selection can explain species- and genus-level diversification, but only through the degradation of genes. Something else, he insists, is required for meaningful innovation. Here, Behe invokes a “purposeful design” by an “intelligent agent.” There are indeed many examples of loss-of-function mutations that are advantageous, but Behe is selective in his examples. He dedicates the better part of chapter 7 to discussing a 65,000-generation Escherichia coli experiment, emphasizing the many mutations that arose that degraded function—an expected mode of adaptation to a simple laboratory environment, by the Read More ›

Of course, just now, one suspects that it is mainly the editors in Frisco who have pored over it. But now, Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry “Why Evolution Is True” Coyne  tells us,l Michael Behe, author of the intelligent-design (ID) creationist books Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution, has a new book coming out next February, Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA that Challenges Evolution. (Let me point out here that the phrase “that challenges evolution” has an unclear antecedent, either the new science that challenges evolution—what he clearly means—or the DNA itself that challenges evolution. Bad title!) The construction that offends Dr. Coyne is a clause, not a phrase; however, why be picky and it will doubtless be Read More ›

Here: While Stephen Colbert has called Michael J. Behe the “Father of Intelligent Design,” Behe’s arguments have been called, “close to heretical” by the New York Times Book Review, and Richard Dawkins has publicly taken him to task for his “maverick” views. Wherever he goes, Behe makes waves, but has remained singularly focused on doing rigorous scientific analysis that points to controversial but incredible results that other scientists won’t touch. Twenty years after publishing his seminal work, Darwin’s Black Box, Behe shows that new scientific discoveries point to a stunning fact: Darwin’s mechanism works by a process of devolution, not evolution. On the surface, evolution can help make something look and act different, but it doesn’t have the ability to Read More ›

 Or here. Note: Behe has a new book coming out. See New book from Michael Behe on how today’s DNA findings “devolve” Darwin See also: The bombardier beetle, the toad, and – after all these years – Mike Behe