Customer Reviews

Darwin's Black Box

5 star:		(188)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(52)
2 star:		(38)
1 star:		(99)

 

 

It truly amazing the lengths some "scientific" followers of the prophet Darwin will go attack this book. It seems Evolutionary detractors with all their extended courses in substantive Biology, never acquired even a basic understanding in elementary Logic. Merely attacking Behe and Creationists (of Which Behe is not) as Stupid and calling them repeately is a ad Hominem Argument to be rejected by most basic rules of Logic. I look down at number of reviewer who refer Creationists and I.D as drowning in Stupidity over and over again. They then accuse Behe of coming up with his conclusion in advance and twisting the facts to support his conclusion. This argument is used by every side of an issue in virtually every questian puzzling humanity. In the field of Christian Apologetics, Catholics accuse Protestants of "prooftexting the Bible" (Having a Conclusion beforehand, and then searching for texts to support it) and Protestants in turn accuse Catholics of "prooftexting" the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Both sides accuse each other of prooftexting to support a pre-conceived conclusion. What a surprise! The point is both sides of an issue often accuse the other have a preordianed conclusion. The sheer animosity of hard core evolutionists attacks demonstrates what happens to any one blaspheming their Darwinian Dogmas. It reminds of my College Biology Textbook which begins page one with assumption that Evolution is a undeniable fact - no attempt is ever made to prove its scientific truthfulness to reader being indoctrinated. These Biology textbooks usually assumed early on in textbook before the student has adequate knowledge of Biology to form a reasoned judgment. There never is Chaper in a College Biology textbook called "The Case for Evolution" rather Evolution is mentioned only in passing early on without any formal proof. It is assumed but hardly mentioned in a formal way laying before the reader the nature of the evidence. This reader is not a creationist but always questioned the way Biology textbooks in High School and College assumed a lot without proof. Behe gets right to heart of fundamental flaws within Evolution.

1. Absolutely No Transition Fossils have been found.

2. Complex Systems Non-Functionalism in early stages are eliminated by operation of Natural Selection.

*(ie, Early Organism with Non-Functioning Blood Clotting DIE and do not reproduce sufficiently to survive.

3. The amount of Time necessary for earliest living Cells to evolve from inorganic matter (ie, From Non-Living Goo to the first Living Single Celled Organism) first present on priordial Earth is Mathmatically Impossible according to Mathmiticians who have calculated it.

Behe makes people question the underlying assumptions of a "Theory Taught as infalliable Dogma in Public Edcation" and for that he must be silenced by the Scientific inquistion.

Michael Behe's notion of irreducibly complex systems presents a formidable challenge to evolution by natural selection. Behe discusses several such systems: Bombardier Beetle, cilium, flagellum, blood clotting system and the complement cascade which is involved in immunity, as well as the the molecular structure of cells and their various compartments. His idea is very simple, and he makes it even simpler by his mouse trap example. The mouse trap is an irreducibly complex system wherein the absence of one part results in the dysfunction of the rest of the other parts. So, if Darwin's idea of evolution entails piecemeal development by natural selection, how can it account for irreducibly complex systems? In his book "Living with Darwin", the philosopher of science Philip Kitcher admits that the notion of irreducible complexity is a major challenge to Darwinism and evolution. He unsuccessfully puts forward a counterargument. Darwin, as Behe rightly maintains in his book, based his theory on the gross examination of living organism, but recent advances in molecular biology puts his theory of evolution in a very difficult position.

I gave the book three stars just because I thought that it might have been a shorter book. The author spent too much time (Chap 3-7) discussing the different systems. It felt an overkill to me. Those five chapters could have been collapsed into one chapter in which he can briefly disucss those systems. Behe made his thesis very clear just by the example of the mouse trap. However, I didn't have to read those chapters since my background is in the health sciences and I understand the complexity of the different systems he talked about especially the blood clotting and complement systems as well as the cellular production of energy and the cell structure. Still the main thesis is very interesting and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see how evolution by natural selection could be very plausibly challenged.

Charles Darwin,in his famous book The Origin of The Species,wrote:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed,which could not possibly have been formed by numerous,successive,slight modifications,my theory would absolutely break down.

Move over,Mr. Darwin.

Michael J Bede presents a solid treatise supporting Intelligent Design,as he explicates persuausively the Biochemical Challenge to evolution.
Professor Bede has a gift for making the complicated simple.His evidence of Intelligent Design illustrates how unreassonable it is to believe that life developed through evolution.

Illustration 1: The Cilia
Illustration 2: The Eye
Illustration 3: The Bombardier Beetle
Illustration 4: Blood Clotting.

DARWIN'S BLACK BOX is a captivating adventure for readers of every age and persuasion.

It truly amazing the lengths some "scientific" followers of the prophet Darwin will go attack this book. It seems Evolutionary detractors will all their extended courses in Molecular Biology, never acquirment even a basic understanding in elementary Logic. Merely attacking Behe and Creationists (of Which Behe is not) as Stupid and calling them repeately is a Argumet ad Hominem to be rejected by most basic rules of Logic. They then accuse Behe of coming up with his conclusion in advance and twisting the facts to support his conclusion. This argument is used by every side od an issue in virtually every questian puzzling humanity. In the field of Christian Apologetics, Catholics accuse Protestants of "prooftexting the Bible" (Having a Conclusion beforehand, and then searching for texts to support it) and Protestants in turn accuse Catholics of "prooftexting" the Early Church Fathers. What a surprise! The point is both sides of an issue often accuse the other have a preordianed conclusion. The sheer animosity of hard core evolutionists attacks demonstrates what happens to any one blaspheming their Darwinian Dogmas. It reminds of my College Biology Textbook which begins page one with assumption that Evolution is a undeniable fact - no attempt is ever made to prove its scientific truthfulness to reader being indoctrinated. This reader is not a creationist but always questioned the way Biology textbooks in High School and College assumed a lot without proof. Behe makes people question the underlying assumptions of a "Theory Taught as infalliable Dogma in Public Edcation" and for that he must be silenced by the Scientific inquistion.

Haven't Christians grown up from this kind of argument yet? Come on, it's time to move on. Design arguments like this went out with Paley's gang. God is the Infinite Reality, the Source of all, who has endowed the univise with transcendent purpose and meaning. By definition, this cannot be proved or dis-proved, because the Infinite Spirit of the Almighty Christ transcends our finite minds. A child-like faith is all we need to know the truth. What's more, "the Kingdom of God is within", said JC (Luke 17.21). Behe has his ladder against the wrong wall, methinks. The book is well written, mind. Well done Behe.

Behe presents a solid challenge to a Darwinian view of how life started on Earth (though he leaves the question of how it could begin elsewhere unchallenged). Unfortunately to do this, he relies on several esoteric biochemical processes (though i think that is the only sort of biochemical processes available to a neophyte like myself). The first half of the book reads as several iterations of the same argument, though delivered with increasing amounts of sarcasm. The second half of the book, in which he delivers his answer to the questions raised earlier, seems rushed. So if you tire of the seemingly endless stream of enzymes and proteins, skip to the second part -- it's much easier reading for the layperson.

Though to say that this book disproves or even dismisses evolution and natural selection as viable scientific theories is disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst. Behe even says that beyond a limited set of structures that appear to be evidence of intelligent design, there are many structures that are not clearly designed (and most likely aren't, he admits). To explain these structures and organisms, he gives a variety of options, ending with what is clearly natural selection, though he declines to name it as such. Finally, while criticising evolutionary proponents for attacking a straw man (the watchmaker for darwinists, Richard Dawkins for intelligent design-ists), this is exactly what he does -- since Darwin's followers haven't demonstrated a valid argument/scenario for the basic structures of the cell, then entire theory is invalid (including portions that have been experimentally shown true on an organism level).

Finally, Behe doesn't give any sort of explanation or theory for how some basic structures of the cell are evidence of design, but others are not. He implies that those not showing evidence of design could have evolved, but does not explain why some more complicated structures could be designed before other more basic structures evolved.

Enjoy this book and the questions it opens, but it is far from the final word on the origins and progression of life on Earth (just as Dawkins' books aren't, either).

Professor Michael Behe delivers magnificently in, 'Darwin's Black Box' by forceful reminder that Darwin's theory only stood for cursory description of traits and gross anatomy - yet the modern discovery of the vast, complex world of the cell - the 'black box' for Darwin - now reveals multiple layers of function on the molecular level that are both breathtaking to consider and a fierce challenge to Darwin's theory. As we are all aware, countless examples of order and harmony show themselves in the plant and animal world, even down to bacteria - to the degree that an appearance of design is evident. Darwin asserted that mindless, unguided processes rendered this appearance of design to be nothing more than illusory. Behe offers a timeless and cogent rebuttal in his book that persuasively argues for intelligence being the causal substrate of design in the biosphere.

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This three part, eleven chapter book, by Professor of Biochemistry Dr. Michael Behe, has the purpose of showing that the Darwinian theory of evolution does not account for the molecular structure of life. Behe states this in the form of a question: "How could complex biochemical systems be gradually produced?"

A "black box" is anything that has a complex function and can be observed but whose inner workings are mysterious or even unknown. "To Darwin...as to every other scientist of the [mid-1800s] the cell [which contains the molecules of life] was a black box."

Parts one and three of this easy-to-read book are non-technical while part two is highly technical in sections. Part one and especially part two contain helpful diagrams but part three has no diagrams. There is an appendix that gives readers "an overview of biochemical principles that [support] life."

*PART 1 of the book shows why evolution must now be argued at the molecular or biochemical level. Two things caught my eye when I read this part:

(i) Behe states that "I find the idea of common decent [from a common ancestor by gradual steps over very long periods of time]...fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it." In other words, he believes in evolution for large body parts (like the arms or legs).

(ii) He states , "If you search the scientific literature on [molecular and biochemical evolution]...you find an eerie and complete silence."

The most important concept presented in this part is the idea of an "irreducibly complex" system. Behe explains: "By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several...interacting parts that contribute to the [system's] basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to...cease functioning." He uses "the humble mousetrap" as an example of such a system.

**PART 2, the longest part, gives in detail, an example of five irreducibly complex biological and biochemical systems: (a) bacterial flagellum and cilium (b) blood clotting (c) transport within the cell, (d) the human immune system (e) and the biosynthesis of AMP (a critical building block of nucleic acids).

***PART 3 is the most opinionated part of this book that discusses the implications of biochemistry's discoveries. Here, Behe states his conclusion: "The biochemical systems discussed in [PART 2] were designed by an intelligent agent." Besides this conclusion, other things that caught my eye are as follows:

(I) Behe states "that some biochemical systems were designed [but this] does not mean all [such] systems were...designed."

(II) To determine whether a system was designed, you have to look at a system's complexity. Design can be "hard to see."

If you read carefully the above summaries of the three parts of this book, you can design an argument that summarizes this entire book. For this argument, remember something that is irreducibly complex requires all its parts to function properly. Also, for this argument I will be using the bacterial flagellum but any of the systems of PART 2 above can be used.

This is BEHE's ARGUMENT:

(1) A mousetrap is irreducibly complex
(2) The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex
(3) A mousetrap is a product of intelligent design
(4) Conclusion #1: the flagellum is similar to a mousetrap
(5) Conclusion #2: the flagellum is a product of design.

Let's design the exact same argument but with more familiar things:

(1) A table has four legs
(2) A cat has four legs
(3) A table is a product of intelligent design
(4) First conclusion: a cat is similar to a table
(5) Second conclusion: a cat is a product of design.

Clearly, the first conclusion is ridiculous and false. (You have to be very careful in comparing non-living and living objects based on only one similarity.) Hence the second conclusion is false. Similarly, BEHE's ARGUMENT above is false.

In *PART 1 (i) above, Behe states he believes in Darwinian evolution on a large body part scale but, according to this book's purpose, he does not believe this on a molecular, biochemical scale. How can this be? Large body parts are made up of molecules. How can the large parts undergo Darwinian evolution but the molecules that make up these parts evolve by a different mechanism? I found this very confusing!

I did the search suggested in *PART 1 (ii) above. I came up with a site that had links to over 1000 research papers on molecular evolution going back to the mid-1970s. I also found papers that dealt with the molecular evolution of the five complex systems described in part two of this book. Thus, there is not "complete silence" on this subject.

Finally, in ***PART 3 (I) and (II) above, Behe suggests that only some not all molecular systems are intelligently designed. He further suggests that to determine the ones that are designed, all you have do is look at the system. This is very subjective. You would never get agreement using this criterion. Besides, why would some molecular systems be designed and others not?

In conclusion, except for part two and the appendix of this book, I would recommend reading this book both cautiously and critically.

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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Darwin's Black Box was an admittedly good read, and well writen. Behe has an entertaining writing style and scores high points in my view for intellectual honesty in avoiding over enthusiastic passionate writing and also acknowledging objections to his theory. However, in the end his premise fails for three main reasons:

1. Many of his examples of irreducibly complex components aren't really irreducibly complex at all, for instance the flagella exists in a simpler form in eel sperm tails, lacking many of the essential components of Behe's example.

2. Despite his claims to the contrary, possible gradual pathways for some irredicible organs have been formulated by biologists over the years, ie, the eye has evolved independantly at least 40 times, human ear bones,etc.

3. Imperfection. Almost all living things on earth show evidence of jurry rigged design, vestigial organs, redundancy, and appaling design flaws that no intelligent designer would stand for. The backwards wiring of the photo receptor cells in the retina, appendix, coccyx, "junk dna', all are much better explained in terms of evolution and historical restraint than intelligent design.

A far superior book on this subject is Finding Darwin's God, by Kenneth Miller, which IMHO is one of the best reconcilliations of evolution and religion that I've come across.

Flipping through some of the reviews, I just saw one negative one that accused Behe of saying Darwin was wrong. I just finished the work and remember quite clearly in a list of names of scientists who were "correct but couldn't express it at their time" was Galileo, Newton, and Darwin. Behe isn't saying evolution is totally wrong. Nor is he saying Darwin is totally wrong. Behe, using the examples of blood clotting and other things, shows that the current orthodox position on Darwinism contains flaws. Darwin may have answered how man came from pre-historic ape, but he didn't answer where pre-historic ape, or any creature, got the ability to see. Clearly refuting other works that disagree (most titles that disagree actually, as Behe says, offer no explanation but play with words). Any person seriously interested on where the future of the evolution debate is going must read this book.