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The biochemistry in it, on its own, is mind-blowing. In the first 3 chapters, Behe, Professor of Biological Science at Lehigh University, carefully, methodically, fairly, and clearly uses the latest advances in biochemistry and DNA, along with basic mathematics that anyone can understand to utterly demolish Darwin's theory of the origin of species having anything to do with random mutations combined with natural selection.Dr. Philip Skell, Professor of Chemistry, Penn State and a member of the National Academy of Sciences calls this, "A tremendously important book."No kidding.
A lot of one star reviews get upset at this correlation. When there is sudden drought, does a 5% longer neck really help you survive. In Behe's explanation, everything from the moon's position to electron properties are predetermined for life to happen. What is the statistical possibility that random mutation is the driving mechanism for ALL the changes visible in life's history. This ruinous second half reads like a scientist plagiarizing The Book of Genesis.Nonetheless, the book is a fast and provocative read. Half a fin is better than no fin, and half a giraffe's neck is better than no giraffe's neck, etc. He is a good author and I hope he keeps sticking pins into the random mutation story.
Behe's general response is this: show me how, with random mutation and natural selection, complex objects like cilia are built. Other one star reviews are upset at Behe's intelligent design proposal, which really does not belong in this book. It is hard to call evolution's stated mechanism a theory when it operates like a story. Behe says that if a simple thing like malaria can't jump over a two point mutation hurdle, random mutation is not the model that builds complex organisms. Yet random mutation / natural selection offers no testable hypothesis or predictions, especially with layers of complexity found in organisms.
Based on malaria's mutation rates and failures in defeating sickle cell and cocktail drugs, Behe says that random mutation IN GENERAL cannot do more than make tiny, almost entropic changes in organisms. Evolution is full of adaptations that always 'fit' in 20/20 hindsight. Dawkins will argue that 5% of an eye is better than 1% of an eye. How can you say that malaria's mutation rates and changes can be correlated with the actions of ALL genes in existence. At best, it's entropy that gets exploited in certain situations.
He begins with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, which, as he argues, has yet to find a way to conquer the dysmorphia in hemoglobin caused by sickle cell anemia(112). Behe's argument is devastatingly simple; the natural world is simply too complex to be explained by "Darwinian" principles. In the meantime, Behe uses the space afforded to make a much more controversial conjecture: the natural world had to be designed by an intelligent creator. 30u Bealtaine 2009
Particularly after teaching biology with Richard Strohman at UC Berkeley, where we would begin with Stuart Kauffman's assertions of irreducible complexity cited in Being Human: The Search For Order(168), this reviewer finds it difficult to believe that the ID debate is still going on in the US, and in its current terms. Is there an elephant in the room - the fact that the conquest of this continent was initially legitimated wrt the Christianity that science now eschews with such strange venom.Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. The terms of the debate need to be changed; far better to ask Behe to provide a theodicy for his amoral God than try and answer his correct assertions of order. Ironically, the howls of derision within the biology community are not matched in the physics community; unconsciously following David Hume, string theorists like Leonard Susskind are willing to conceded that we live in a very ordered part of a diverse megaverse.
So, on the one hand; the Manichean Behe. Random mutation, he argues, can do very level to explain such immanent order (156). History will almost undoubtedly prove him right, particularly as there is not a single word of modern genetics in Darwin's writings. Chalmydomonas, he more controversially suggests, has irreducibly complex flagellae (85-98) Proteins coming together to form sophisticated structures is an even harder problem (125-130).
Behe's arguments are correct insofar as they restrict themselves to the wild improbability of our cosmos and ourselves. That creator may not even be benevolent; "Denying design simply because it can cause terrible pain is a failure of nerve" (239). On the other: the algorithmic Darwinians.
For instance, he accepts the idea of common descent, and the idea that human and monkeys have common ancestor. But this is pretty subjective opinion, because it depends on where you come from, and what you look for in the book.In my mind the greatest problem for Darwinists is the problem with the fact that a system needs to be planned and since components of a system are interdependent, it is no way possible to arrive with the living system, and empower it to replicate, store/retrieve coded information, etc. Lots of data is provided to show that naturalistic evolution does not add up.
So, if you're started to read/listen it, stick to it, it will get more interesting. by random shuffling of atoms. I personally think, chapters on malaria and hemoglobin mutations are longer than needed to make the point.
Generally this book accomplishes lots of what it set to accomplish. Beginning chapters were informative, but wasn't as impressive as later ones.
There are times when you feel like you're getting more data than needed to make a point.Behe gives too much to naturalistic evolutionists-Darwinists in a sense that he gives away too much area to play with. I think granting these was not necessary, and it didn't stick with me.However, there were some interesting points, especially toward the end of the book, when Behe gets into more interesting details about the cell and design.
Instead they have their argument from a specific knowledge which is the knowledge about intelligent existence. Humans, who are intelligent beings, plan and create. We know this, so the argument of creation by intelligence is an argument of knowledge, of experience, whereas evolution has no experience on its side. Creation is for them a constructed argument, based on lack of knowledge. The whole design is developed and put into practise to serve the need.
Humans are intelligent existence. But those who believe this ,and Behe seems to belong to them, make clear that their decision to belief is based on the knowledge that all we know for sure is that intelligence can be made responsible for intelligently constructed entities. Therefore, since they are not scientific, they cannot be taken serious. So intelligence is the best available explanation for the origin of complex systems.
Evolution is not observable. Hardly, because they who support "Intelligent Design" or "Creation" do not have the argument of creation from lack of the needed knowledge. Behe cleans up with the idea that the Creator God or the Intelligent Designer is a stopgap for the lack of explanation potency. Evolution is the unproved assumption. Biologic systems dispose over proprieties which are normally the result of intelligence.
Is this true. Creation is observable because we see what human beings do. Each time when we come across a system which has a complexity that cannot be reduced, which means all parts are necessary that the system functions- our mousetrap - the existence must be thanks to intelligence. The representatives of a belief in a Creator are often ridiculed for their assumption that they can fill their explanation gap not scientifically only with the idea of a Creator.
A butterfly for example is developed and created to be a butterfly. We know that mousetraps are made by an intelligent being. The same goes for the complexity of the DNA and the proteins which contain information that make sense as a sign of intelligence. Think of a mouse trap which is a very simple tool for a special purpose. Therefore it is logical to suppose that organic systems are also developed by intelligence to serve a special need.
Intelligence has skills which do not exist in the laws of nature. He thinks to have the foundation from what we know about the laws of nature and intelligence. Intelligent creation is not based on knowing not, but on the well founded experience that intelligent information and non-reducible systems can only be produced by intelligence. The author deduces from this that intelligence must be responsible for the complex molecular motors as the best explanation for the existence of non-reducible complex systems.
Intelligent Design is nothing but a stopgap, they say. And a mousetrap is primitive in comparison with organic systems. Since science does not yet know how biology really came into being with al its complex systems, they even do not know how natural processes started - evolutionists having nothing more than only theories - it is plain, these Intelligent Design proponents say that a creator or intelligent design must fill the gap- this is plain for those who want to believe this. How.
But many scientists say that there is no place within science for creation ideas.
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