If Behe's work is considered pseudoscience, why did he obtain a PhD? After all much of his book is based on his own research with sickle cell disease and malaria. He may be wrong about certain things, just like Darwin or anyone else for that matter, but let's not toss his entire work for the sake of dogma. The man researched microorganisms longer than you've been alive and some of his findings have been confirmed by concurrent or independent studies.
It is considered pseudoscientific nonsense. Having a PhD doesn't make all one's future output valid. Why doesn't Behe have loads of published papers on these ideas supporting ID like the people whose work he criticises? No, he'd rather stick it all in a book. Major red flags. It's not just me, it's the scientific community - the experts in this field - who dismiss these ideas. Why are you choosing to believe him rather than them and the enormous body of work published in peer reviewed journals?
I asked you if you were a believer in Intelligent Design, a question you maybe forgot to answer? The reason I ask, and am still asking, is because I want to know if I dealing with an ID proponent coming on here to attempting to prove ID is a real thing. Or whether you're a genuinely intellectually interested individual who has stumbled on that book thinking it's a genuine scholarly work on Evolution.....which it isn't. I already have you a link to probably the best site on the internet for discussions about such things
www.talkorigins.org.
In this particular book he's attempted to backtrack a bit from his tired old "oh that's pretty complex, nature couldn't do that" Irreducible Complexity schtick (because it's been destroyed already). He's now admitting Common Descent and trying to prove god, The Designer, leaves his footprints in more subtle arguments, now retreating to mutation as the
in Evolution's armour. Although really it's the same old thing.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7396/full/nature10995.html said:
This goes directly in line with Behe's conclusion, that random mutation is a destructive process and that whatever beneficial changes occur, they cannot be random.
No it doesn't. But this paper is very commonly quoted on creationism sites which is interesting. That paper shows that bacteria have
evolved a mechanism that protects important genes from random mutation, effectively reducing the risk of self-destruction. It does not show that random mutation is a destructive process and that whatever beneficial changes occur, they cannot be random. The author Luscombe states: “We discovered that there must be a molecular mechanism that preferentially protects certain areas of the genome over others". But creationists seize on the title of the paper has some sort of evidence that mutations are non random (and therefore guided by god).
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I'm sorry to say but the only thing random here and out of place are your attacks against Dr. Behe.
No just like the Selection part of evolution, my attacks against Behe are not random. They are directed and very relevant. He's not a good source of scientific evidence. He's a religiously motivate man who has dedicated his life to trying to convinced people that god is making evolution happen.by writing paperbacks rather than publishing scientific papers on these theories and subjecting them to proper scientific scrutiny. Scientists have however taken the time to read and critique the ideas and they're shown to be incorrect.
Let's look at his claims pertaining to Malaria. He says that sickle cells are a "destructive mutation" in that they damage existing genes rather than creating a new structure. This is essentially the old creationist argument that evolution supposedly cannot create new information but argued on a molecular level. But we know this isn't true and just because humans haven't developed a better, more positive set of mutations to combat malaria doesn't mean anything. Humans haven't died out due to this single example of not evolving in the manner he thinks we should. Evolutionary theory does not make such a prediction and therefore is not broken by it not happening.
He then goes on to say that he has a problem with adaptions which rely on more than one mutation. He thinks that if the first mutuation doesn't provide an advantage then it can't stick around and therefore they must happen together, does a bit of dodgy maths, and concludes it's too unlikely to happen. His example is chloroquine resistance which "requires two mutations"
He's wrong. Firstly there IS evidence that malaria developed just one of these genes for chloroquine resistance. We have found strains of malaria parasites with just one of them (both, individually, in fact) so that example instantly becomes useless. He picked a bad one. But even if we didn't have prima facia evidence of the step-by-step mutations required, it's still a bad argument. The fact of the matter is that mutations that confer no benefit occur all the time. Neutral mutations can occur and sit around in the genome for long periods only to be used by a second mutation later. Genetic drift alone provide a mechanism for this.
A second mechanism is that the first mutation can confer a very small advantage and then join up with latter mutations.
And another explanation is by change of original use. I.e. a mutation can occur and confer a DIFFERENT benefit and then later on be co-opted into being used, in conjunction with later mututions, for an entirely new use. It then becomes somewhat difficult to imagine how these multiple mutations "all happened at once to create such a complex solution" - well apparently impossible for Behe, but not for most evolutionary scientists out there. There are other, more complex mechanism but just these are enough to show that his argument from incredulity (which is all this is at the end of the day) is erroneous.
This is just his Irreducible Complexity argument taken to the genetic level, and it's still wrong. He looks at the starting and end positions and concludes you cannot get there from there. He doesn't take into account all the evidence showing us perfectly good rational explanations of how these things can happen due to the selective pressures on random mutations.
There are many complex and interesting arguments being had, by genuine evolutionary scientists, about the exact mechanisms at work in evolution. It's endlessly complex and we are developing new ideas all the time. Who knows what we'll discover in the future, but Behe's dogmatic arguments from incredulity don't add much to the mix.
Dawkins does a pointed review of this trash:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/books/review/Dawkins-t.html
If you are genuinely interested in the molecular evidence of evolution then the Evolution 101 Podcast
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/evolution-101/id121787620?mt=2 is good. Dr Zach has a Phd in molcular biology. He covers these sorts of arguments pretty well.
