In the continuing evolution of modern scientific thought, Darwinism has been deselected, or so Michael Behe believes. As his seminal work Darwin's Black Box explains, advances in microbiology have rendered Darwinism untenable. by Paul Benedict
(libertarian)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
A scientific theory, besides being readily testable, should explain the natural environment and predict future scientific discovery. As Darwin's Black Box introduces more recent developments in the biochemistry, it illuminates the utter failure of Darwinism as a scientific theory.
Michael Behe's summary of the latest in microbiology is a manageable and yet thorough read. Even college level biology students would profit by the review. Behe points out the tips of icebergs as he touches on the various peaks of scientific development, but it’s enough. The magnified view of life’s complexity at the cellular level reveals Darwinism as a drooling, infantile failure. None of it could have happened accidentally, and none of this was anticipated by the evolutionary science of the 1890’s. While elements of Darwin’s Black Box are technical, Behe salts his writing with clear analogies designed to usher readers into the sparkling, jeweled caverns modern science has unearthed by delving into the nature of microbiological processes.
The Battle Against the Mousetrap
Some of Behe's analogies, such as a mousetrap for the key concept of an irreducibly complex system, have become folk lore in the rhetorical sparing over Darwinism. Yes, there is still sparing. Though written in 1996, more than a decade later, there seems to be little in the Behe's work that has been clearly refuted or widely accepted. However, Behe, like his the mousetrap analogy, has completely moved the discussion. For instance, a number of Intelligent Design's more vociferous opponents have all but completely abandoned Darwin in their war with Behe's mousetrap. Rather than random mutation they have opted for notions such as self-organization (at Part 3), redundant complexity (at Part 4), or symbiosis and cooperation (Margulis). Though these alternative explanations for the irreducibly complex systems within a single cell remain riveted in naturalism, they are simply not Darwinian. If Darwin is still kicking, it's like a hind in the jaws of a lion. In the parlance of the ready scientific mind: in the Darwin-Behe bout: "Darwin got lit up."
Though it represents a battlefield over a decade old, Darwin's Black Box remains an important read. Behe's arguments are often dismissed by an appeal to authority rather than an appeal to evidence and reason. Likewise, his detractors often truncate his arguments to the point of misrepresentation. At times too, his work is grouped with the work of others and then the examples of others are criticized; Behe's arguments are simply ignored. There is sort of a religious vehemence in the resurrect-Darwin crowds. It's as if they seriously believe that scientific knowledge can only be produced by atheistic minds.Newton did OK. Mendel did well enough. When such emotions are engendered over any topic, it is all the more important to go to the source.
Microevolution and Macroevolution
Behe fully embraces what is known as microevolution, or evolution within a species. He does, however, reject macroevolution as an explanation for the irreducibly complex systems that are the foundation of biologic life. If the building blocks are irreducible, their combinations in complex organs are surpassingly irreducible. The likelihood, statistically, of irreducibly complex building blocks giving rise to even more irreducibly complex interactions are staggering. Some other force, reasons Behe, must be in operation besides random chance.
Of course, it is impossible not to recognize microevolution as scientific. From horse-breeding to rose hybrids, evidence for genetic change within a species is irrefutable. However, unlike many biology textbooks that, seemingly, seek to blend both microevolution and macroevolution into a single spectrum, Behe competently walks the reader through the distinctions between the two. From mammalian life to the virus, Darwin's Black Box catalogs examples of microevolution errantly used as evidence for macroevolution.
Unlike microevolution, macroevolution has never been observed. It is the speculative part of Darwinism; it is the theoretical conclusion of Charles Darwin based on his observations of the natural world. Behe believes that the study of genetics, a field of science that has evolved since Darwin's passing, really puts the nails in the coffin of the blurred distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. In "The Natives are Restless" section for instance, Behe quotes George Macdonald of the University of Georgia who wrote: "...Those [genes] that are obviously variable within natural populations (species) do not seem to lie at the basis of many major adaptive changes, while those that seemingly do constitute the foundation of many, if not most, major adaptive changes apparently are not variable within natural populations."
This genetic strength within a species, this orderliness in nature, is so profound of the millions of forms of life in existence today we witness no cat-dogs or mice-hares. Nor, over the century since Darwin, have we seen ought but the catfish and the horsefly as examples of macroevolution.
Behe, though, is still filled with such scientific piety that he will not willingly cast off its set traditions so easily. He yet will allow endless time for the age of the earth and eons upon eons for the spawn of chance to arrive. It is only because of the statistical impossibility of random chance giving rise to irreducibly complex systems that Behe has strayed from the flock.
Of Philosophy and Science
As a reader, I would have liked to have seen Behe take on the formulation of scientific theory. For instance, while gravity is an invisible force, its qualities are everywhere testable. Likewise, while microevolution is everywhere observable, the invisible laws of its regulation can be tested over and over. To my thinking any scientific theory based on a definition that cannot be observed or tested is inadequate. Perhaps this, though, is more philosophy than science. Behe does, in his two sections "Acculturation" and "How Do You Know," take on the usefulness of Darwinism as a theory in microbiology. He lists biology textbook after biology textbook with almost no index entries for evolution. He does so to show the lack of academic enthusiasm for testing Darwinian explanations, but, at least, implicitly, he also shows just how useless Darwinism has become to the actual business of science itself.
Beginning in chapter 10, Darwin's Black Box takes on elements of natural philosophy as a guide to primitive theories of Intelligent Design. In chapter 11 this search for historic understanding of irreducibly complex systems begins to touch on the ontological and philosophical ramifications of a continued committed belief in Darwinian macroevolution. Behe does finally talk about ideas held as part of science that are not ideas formed scientifically. Likewise, he does an adequate job surrounding the counter argument of his detractors that his conclusion that life arose by Intelligent Design is an argument from ignorance.
Behe's casual foray into philosophy is the only place he touches on Darwinian evolution as a philosophical idea, and he does not do so directly. Darwin's theory of evolution is, of course, plainly a philosophic notion. We would not even discuss Darwinism if the origin of life was not the question. Is such a question even in the purview of the natural sciences? Like accurate or inaccurate history, the way we answer these questions affect the way we look at ourselves, our actions and the actions of others. While Mendel's two, very testable laws of microevolution, made no claims about the origin of life, macroevolution depends on a specific answer to this ancient philosophical debate.
Darwin's macroevolution supposes, or potentially can be construed to suppose, no starting point. All arises from chaos. Additionally, the claims of macroevolution are that biologic life arises according to no consistent law. Instead, it arises from the principle of randomness, again from chaos itself. Even the zero in math represents the start of a period or sequence. Even the laws of probability and chance require known factors as well as unknown, variables and constants.
Conclusions
If Darwin's answer to the origin of life is philosophical rather than scientific, then is Behe's answer also philosophical? Ultimately, Behe's argument for Intelligent Design contains two conclusions. The first is that Darwin is toast; microbiology cannot be explained by evolution. His second is that since chance cannot explain the natural world, only design can.
His first thesis is certainly correct. The second will be up to each reader. For some there will never be enough evidence. But the first conclusion is more than enough. Let each high school student see that the Darwin theory is insufficient and let the question boil within each heart. Think of the inspiration for further discovery that will result.
For other readers who, like myself, need little prompting to believe that spring rains, the human family, and a waddling mallard with her ducklings all mean this old world couldn't have happened accidentally, Darwin's Black Box represents the start of a great excursion. What was once the purview of personal observation has come into the dominion of man's greatest observational tools in math and science. It is as dramatic as going from seeing the dim outlines of a great lion in the distance to suddenly having a telescopic lens detailing his blood shot eyes and shaking mane as he roars upon the prey.
Oddly, where philosophers have haggled themselves hoarse on the matter of the evidence of the divine in the logic of man, Darwinism may, by being discredited as a science, allow science to witness to the things of God known to the created things from the beginning.
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It is a shame that the author of this thread has so thoroughly misrepresented the response to Behe. Some of his fundamental concepts such as the irreducible complexity of enzyme have been debunked through simple gene doubling in organisms.
There are fundamental logical flaws with intelligent design that are incompatible with what we know today:
1. Different species have existed at different times without overlapping. For example, there are definable epochs when no mammals existed. Similarly, there are creatures that existed that would be incompatible with today's environment such as giant insects that would require a much higher concentration of oxygen. Conversely, there are species that could not have existed in times past. If creatures did not evolve in the "macro" sense, than creation must be a continuous event where new species come and go according to the designers will.
2. Intelligent design would seem to indicate not that creatures be perfect, but that biological structures be parsimonious and direct. Comparative morphology shows structures across species that have been "reused" for various purposes as creatures changed. This reuse has had consequences such as the circuitous paths of nerves in the human body.
3. Irreducible complexity does not align with geological history of our planet. If some structure is irreducibly complex, then either the structure or the being with the structure must appear complete on the planet. Every structure Behe has hit upon such as the eye has a clear chain of complexity. For example, eyes vary from light sensitive receptors, to simply cup eyes, to motion detection, to multifaceted eyes, to color sensitivity, to full color sensitive binocular vision. Example creatures can be shown with all these levels of complexity, so how can the eye be irreducibly complex?
Unfortunately for the author, reality and the scientific community do not agree with his assessment of the impact of Behe. For all intents and purposes, he has been discredited through the thoughtful and complete analysis of his claims and not through some heretical witch hunt. Behe has had his day in court and he has lost.
Posted By: Paul Benedict
Date: June 12, 2011 08:33:26 PM
CRW’s first enumerated point is not one Behe discussed in Darwin’s black box. I have almost no idea how Behe would have responded. I believe you mention it again in your third enumerated point. I will say Behe refuses to give a name or a description to the designer. He might say that why the Designer went so complex so often is not the issue at all.
CRW, I’m not sure I get your second enumerated point. There are other arguments for Design about the transfer of cellular information by DNA that involve high odds when the information is, well, “poetic.” That is, the information has no garble. However, that is not one of Behe’s arguments. Within your second point you also seem to be talking about redundant complexity, but not of the redundant complexity in microbiologic systems. Behe does take time to answer his critics on redundant complexity as championed by Scott Kaufman. He makes the argument more clearly than I am likely to. I will say Behe’s description of Scott’s theories (189-190) as involving the spontaneous organization of complex components (that exist in the first place because of redundancy) did not sound Darwinian. I mentioned this in my review of Darwin’s Black Box.
CRW’s third point is focused on complex systems that are part of biology, not microbiology. Behe carefully explains that species based traits are not the subject of his argument. This is especially true for the “eye.” It is the microbiological processes involved in the simplest eye that Behe finds irreducible.
Behe did have his day in court and so did Galileo!
My first and third points are subtly different. However, both attack irreducible complexity with respect to time from two different directions. The first has to do with the appearance of individual species, while the second has to do with the appearance of structures across multiple species such as the light sensitive eye, complex enzymes, lungs, etc. Since all creatures are not contemporaneous, and could not be, how do we explain the comings and goings of species that are not biologically compatible? The second point refers to structures. For example, Behe specifically refers to enzymatic compounds as being irreducibly complex. However, creatures with complex enzymes are not contemporaneous with all creatures with simpler compounds. How did these new structures come into being? Similar points, but not the same.
Galileo had made scientifically verifiable claims. His arguments with the church have been verified by the scientific community. His hypotheses are now theories with the force of scientific law. Relativity has expanded and completed Galileo's work, but his basic principles still stand. The same cannot be said for Behe.
Let's explore one of Behe's claims from Darwin's Black Box. He specifically says that clotting agents only serve the purpose of forming clots and could not have evolved from something simpler enzyme with a different function. Clotting agents come from the general class of protein breaking enzymes known as proteases. These enzymes break down many proteins, including fibrinogen. This is a generic enzymatic function and not specific to thrombin. In fact, several protease enzymes share common ancestor enzymes which are the simple result of the common mutation mechanism known as gene doubling - a relatively common transcription error. Each of these gene doubling error produces a different enzyme with different functions. Consequently, to say that thrombin could not have evolved from some simpler structure with a different function is provably false.
Behe's discussions and claims around eyes have "evolved" over time. In some of his earlier work, he stated that the human eye could not be reduced in function. The gradations of complexity from human binocular vision down to mollusk cup eyes more or less has blown that argument up. Referring to the irreducible complexity of light sensitivity, a very clear evolutionary path is "illuminated" by examining the ion channel forms of light sensitivity (rhodopsins) in some bacteria to the more complex opsins, which form the basis of light sensitivity in invertebrates. Simple mutations lead to more complex binder proteins, linking rhosdopsins to opsins, and eventually replacing ion pumping with chemotactic pathways. The research papers are readily available and some are searchable with google. Many of these papers were in their initial forms while Behe was writing Darwin's black box.
Without spending hundreds of pages refuting Behe claim by claim, each of his molecular biological arguments has been debunked by the scientific community. Combine this with the time based issues of irreducible complexity, and you end up with an hypothesis that does not stand up to the facts and could not be true from a time sequencing perspective.
A valid scientific theory cannot start out with contradictions or gaps. Time sequencing of organisms and structures is a contradiction or gap in irreducible complexity/ID theory. To supplant evolution, a valid theory must:
1. Find clear contradictions in evolution.
2. Explain everything evolution explains and explain the contradictions.
3. Provide predictions that are testable or at least observable in the world.
Darwin's original theory has been refined and expanded through the use of genetics, molecular biology and comparative morphology. Behe's claims do not provide verifiable contradictions, they do not explain everything evolution can explain, and they do not provide predictions that are verifiable. In short, irreducible complexity is not science.
An example of this process is how relativity has supplanted Newtonian mechanics. In particular, relativity describes time dilations related to relativistic speeds. Newtonian mechanics does not predict nor explain these observable phenomena. In short, Newtonian mechanics is the degenerate case of relativistic physics. Relativity accounts for all of Newtonian mechanics and relativity goes forward to explain phenomena that Newtonian mechanics cannot.
Behe's claims of irreducible complexity do not supplant evolution as a valid scientific theory.
Posted By: Paul Benedict
Date: June 13, 2011 10:11:30 AM
The courtroom is no place for science. If a scientific theory must pass only the test of man’s opinions, it isn’t scientific.
The 1999 edition of Darwin’s Black Box only talks about the biochemical reactions within the simplest eye as irreducible. Behe himself points out Darwin’s study of the human eye’s evolution as an example of how science has changed over time. It is not enough, claims Behe, to consider only the outward features when applying Darwinism.
Your time based arguments about why Design isn’t possible do not seem very clear at all. If one is to suppose a Designer, His efforts at Design could be vast.
There is a conundrum that Behe points out in chapter 11. If evolution is wrong and design is correct, that’s the end of the line for science. Science simply cannot tell us the mind of the Creator. However, based on its ability to predict phenomenon, the Darwin theory is certainly unscientific. Where’s that cat-dog? More importantly for Behe’s work, Darwinism anticipated simpler forms of life as the building blocks of complex organisms. He was very wrong. Complex organisms are built from blocks of life at greater and greater complexity. The Darwin theory certainly did not predict microcellular irreducible complexity,
“Debunked,” CRW, is quite strong considering that all of the counter-claims insist on ‘could-haves’.
Ultimately, although I cannot say Behe would agree, the biggest contribution of Darwin’s Black Box is to show, quite plainly, that Darwin’s theory of evolution cannot possibly explain life at the biochemical level.
In chapter 11 Behe seems to grant that design will not be self-evident to every scientist. There is also an interesting discussion of Einstein’s resistance to the Big-Bang theory in chapter 11. It was informative. I’d never heard the story before. Again, unlike the theory of relativity, the Darwin theory seems almost irrelevant to the business of scientific biological discoveries.
