User:Jpat34721/My Stuff/Michael Behe

Michael J. Behe
Born	(1952-01-18) January 18, 1952 Altoona, Pennsylvania
Occupation	Professor
Known for	Irreducible complexity
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry
Institutions	Lehigh University in Pennsylvania Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Michael J. Behe (born 1952) is an American biochemist and author most noted for his theory of irreducible complexity that claims the existence of certain biological systems whose function is critically dependent on the presence of all of its composite parts, present a challenge to Darwinian gradualism and are better explained as being "deliberately designed by an intelligent agent". Behe is also noted for his participation as a lead witness for the defense in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a federal district court case which successfully overturned a requirement that intelligent design be taught along with evolution in the Dover Area district schools. He has authored over fifty articles in peer reviewed journals as well as two books popularizing his theories. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.

Behe lives near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with his wife Celeste and nine children.

Acedemic background

Behe attended grade school at St. Margaret Mary's Parochial School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where grew up. He graduated from Bishop McDevitt High School. He graduated from Drexel University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. He got his PhD in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 for his dissertation research on sickle-cell disease. From 1978 to 1982, he did postdoctoral work on DNA structure at the National Institutes of Health. From 1982 to 1985, he was assistant professor of chemistry at Queens College in New York City, where he met his wife, Celeste. In 1985 he moved to Lehigh University and is currently a Professor of Biochemistry. Behe has authored or co-authored over 50 papers in peer reviewed journals, the majority unrelated to his theories on irreducible complexity.

Scientific criticism

See also: Irreducible complexity and Intelligent design

Behe's claim that there are biochemical systems that could not, even in principle, have evolved by natural selection is rejected by most scientist. In Science, Evolution and Creationism, published by the National Academy of Science, the authors state "the claims of intelligent design creationists are disproven by the findings of modern biology.". The book provides alternate natural explanations for many of the systems Behe claims are irreducible complex.

Behe says he once fully accepted the scientific theory of evolution, but that after reading Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, by Michael Denton, he came to question evolution. Later, Behe came to believe that there was evidence, at a biochemical level, that there were systems that were "irreducibly complex". These were systems that he thought could not, even in principle, have evolved by natural selection, and thus must have been created by an "intelligent designer," which he believed to be the only possible alternative explanation for such complex structures.

After the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court barred the required teaching of creation science from public schools but allowed evolutionary theory on the grounds of scientific validity, some creationists felt that new strategies and language were necessary to return religious notions to science classrooms. The supplementary school textbook Of Pandas and People was altered to change references to creationism to use the term intelligent design. The books of lawyer Phillip E. Johnson on theistic realism, which strayed away from direct statements about a Young Earth and stuck to criticisms of evolutionary theory and purported biased "materialist" science, aimed to legitimise the teaching of creationism in schools. In March 1992 a conference at Southern Methodist University brought Behe together with other leading figures into what Johnson later called the wedge strategy. In 1993 "the Johnson-Behe cadre of scholars" met at Pajaro Dunes, and Behe presented for the first time his idea of 'irreducibly complex' molecular machinery. Following a summer 1995 conference, "The Death of Materialism and the Renewal of Culture," the group obtained funding through the Discovery Institute. In 1996 Behe became a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (later renamed the Center for Science and Culture) dedicated to promoting intelligent design.

In 1993, Behe wrote a chapter on blood clotting in Of Pandas and People, presenting arguments which he later presented in very similar terms in a chapter in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box. Behe later agreed that they were essentially the same when he defended intelligent design at the Dover Trial.

Darwin's Black Box

Main article: Darwin's Black Box

In 1996, Behe published his ideas on irreducible complexity in his book Darwin's Black Box, which was rejected by the scientific community. Scientists argued that Behe's comments and examples were based only on a refined form of "argument from ignorance", rather than any demonstration of the actual impossibility of evolution by natural processes.

Behe's credentials as a biochemist gave the intelligent design movement a key proponent. Behe's refusal to identify the nature of any proposed intelligent designer frustrates scientists, who see it as a move to avoid any possibility of testing the positive claims of ID while allowing him and the intelligent design movement to distance themselves from some of the more overtly religiously motivated critics of evolution.

As to the identity of the intelligent designer, Behe responds that if, deep in the woods, one were to come across a group of flowers that clearly spelled out the name “LEHIGH,” one would have no doubt that the pattern was the result of intelligent design. Determining who the designer was, however, would not be nearly as easy. He remarks:

“Inferences to design do not require that we have a candidate for the role of designer. We can determine that a system was designed by examining the system itself, and we can hold the conviction of design much more strongly than a conviction about the identity of the designer.” Darwin's Black Box, pp 195-6.

“… “designer” is often seen as a not-too-subtle code word for God, both by those who like the implications and by those who don’t. …Like it or not, a raft of important distinctions intervene between a conclusion of design and identification of a designer. …The designer need not necessarily even be a truly “supernatural” being. …if one wishes to be academically rigorous, one can’t leap directly from design to a transcendent God. …To reach a transcendent God, other, nonscientific arguments have to be made – philosophical and theological arguments. …It is not my purpose here...to say why I myself find some of those arguments persuasive and others not. Here I’m content to “take ‘purposeful designer’ in a very broad sense.”” The Edge of Evolution, pp 227-9.

Behe gives the following reply to the assertion that intelligent design is “unfalsifiable” or that he is attempting to avoid the possibility of testing the positive claims of intelligent design:

"In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin’s Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can’t be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum--or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven."

To this, these responses have been made:

"Behe’s claim that intelligent design would be ‘disproven’ is not correct for the simple fact that no legitimate test of the intelligent design theory has been provided in his example. Once again, what we have to acknowledge is that in order to test intelligent design theory, the required test conditions must be such that the causal interaction between an intelligent agent and organism must be available to observation.... Behe’s suggestion of an experiment involving active selection for mobility is quite irrelevant to testing an intelligent design theory since the causal conditions involve the experimenter, not the intelligent agent to which the theory refers."

"Behe is wrong. Even if his experiment did produce the flagellum, ID’s proponents could argue that the intelligent agent was merely acting in the test tube. There is no way to tell, from this experiment, whether the intelligent agent was actually working inside the laboratory; therefore, the test does not falsify the theory."

"There simply is no way to replicate the number of sequential trials (i.e. the total population of bacteria or the amount of genetic variation within that population) or the amount of time involved....[A computer simulation] showed that a binding site that Behe himself characterized as irreducibly complex could evolve in 20,000 years. Yet here he is demanding that scientists do an actual experiment with actual bacteria, the numbers of which could not possibly be contained in a lab, on the evolution of a much more complex biochemical system that would almost certainly take longer to evolve than the whole of recorded human history."

Behe has charged that his detractors are inconsistent:

"Coyne's conclusion that design is unfalsifiable, however, seems to be at odds with the arguments of other reviewers of my book. Clearly, Russell Doolittle (Doolittle 1997), Kenneth Miller (Miller 1999), and others have advanced scientific arguments aimed at falsifying ID. ...If the results with knock-out mice (Bugge et al. 1996) had been as Doolittle first thought, or if Barry Hall's work (Hall 1999) had indeed shown what Miller implied, then they correctly believed my claims about irreducible complexity would have suffered quite a blow. And since my claim for intelligent design requires that no unintelligent process be sufficient to produce such irreducibly complex systems, then the plausibility of ID would suffer enormously. …Now, one can't have it both ways. One can't say both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable."

Unlike William A. Dembski and others in the intelligent design movement, Behe accepts the common descent of species, including that humans descended from other primates, although he states that common descent does not by itself explain the differences between species. He also accepts the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth and the age of the Universe. In his own words:

"Evolution is a controversial topic, so it is necessary to address a few basic questions at the beginning of the book. Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect the work of my colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin's mechanism – natural selection working on variation – might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life. I also do not think it surprising that the new science of the very small might change the way we view the less small." Darwin's Black Box, pp 5-6.

"For example, both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C. ... It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans. ... Despite some remaining puzzles, there’s no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives.” The Edge of Evolution, pp 71-2.

"…it’s understandable that some people find the idea of common descent so astonishing that they look no further. Yet in a very strong sense the explanation of common descent is also trivial. Common descent tries to account only for the similarities between creatures. It says merely that certain shared features were there from the beginning – the ancestor had them...In contrast, Darwin’s hypothesized mechanism of evolution – the compound concept of random mutation paired with natural selection…tries to account for the differences between creatures. …What could cause such staggering transformations? …By far the most critical aspect of Darwin’s multifaceted theory is the role of random mutation. Almost all of what is novel and important in Darwinian thought is concentrated in this third concept." The Edge of Evolution, p 2.

In a November 8, 1996 interview Richard Dawkins said of Behe:

"He's a straightforward creationist. What he has done is to take a standard argument which dates back to the 19th century, the argument of irreducible complexity, the argument that there are certain organs, certain systems in which all the bits have to be there together or the whole system won't work...like the eye. Darwin answered (this)…point by point, piece by piece. But maybe he shouldn't have bothered. Maybe what he should have said is…maybe you're too thick to think of a reason why the eye could have come about by gradual steps, but perhaps you should go away and think a bit harder."

In 1997 Russell Doolittle, on whose work Behe based much of the blood-clotting discussion in Darwin's Black Box, wrote a rebuttal to the statements about irreducible complexity of certain systems. In particular, Doolittle mentioned the issue of the blood clotting in his "A Delicate Balance"., Later on, in 2003, Doolittle's lab published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science which demonstrates that the pufferfish lacks at least three out of 26 blood clotting factors, yet still has a workable blood clotting system. This defeats a key claim in Behe's book, that blood clotting is 'irreducibly complex.'

In reviewing a book by Robert T. Pennock, Behe took issue with the "intelligent design" group being associated with "creationism," saying readers would typically take that to mean biblical literalism and Young Earth creationism. In 2001 Pennock responded that he had been careful to represent their views correctly, and that while several leaders of the intelligent design movement were Young Earth creationists, others including Behe were old-earthers and "creationists in the core sense of the term, namely, that they reject the scientific, evolutionary account of the origin of species and want to replace it with a form of special creation."

Behe and Snoke article

In 2004 Behe published a paper with David Snoke, in the scientific journal Protein Science that uses a simple mathematical model to simulate the rate of evolution of proteins by point mutation, which he states supports irreducible complexity, based on the calculation of the probability of mutations required for evolution to succeed. However, the paper does not mention intelligent design nor irreducible complexity, which were removed, according to Behe, at the behest of the reviewers. Nevertheless, The Discovery Institute lists it as one of the "Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design".

Michael Lynch authored a response, to which Behe and Snoke responded. Protein Science discussed the papers in an editorial.

Numerous scientists have debunked the work, pointing out that not only has it been shown that a supposedly irreducibly complex structure can evolve, but that it can do so within a reasonable time even subject to unrealistically harsh restrictions, and noting that Behe & Snoke's paper does not properly include natural selection and genetic redundancy. Some of the critics have also noted that the Discovery Institute continues to claim the paper as 'published evidence for design,' despite its offering no design theory nor attempting to model the design process, and therefore not providing an alternative to evolution.

Many of Behe's statements have been challenged by biologist Kenneth Miller in his book, Finding Darwin's God. Behe has subsequently disputed Miller's points in an online essay.

The Edge of Evolution

Main article: The Edge of Evolution

In 2007, Behe's book The Edge of Evolution was published arguing that while evolution can produce changes within species, there is a limit to the ability of evolution to generate diversity, and this limit (the "edge of evolution") is somewhere between species and orders. It was reviewed, by prominent scientists in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Globe and Mail, Publishers Weekly, Science, and Nature who were highly critical of the work noting that Behe appears to accept almost all of evolutionary theory, barring random mutation, which is replaced with guided mutation at the hand of an unnamed designer.

Popular writing

Behe has written opinion/editorial features in the Boston Review, American Spectator, and The New York Times. Behe, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates William A. Dembski and David Berlinski, tutored Ann Coulter on science and evolution for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Coulter devotes approximately one-third of the book to polemical attacks on evolution, which she terms "Darwinism." In the book, Coulter thanks Behe, Dembski and Berlinski for their assistance with this section.

Court cases

Dover testimony

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the first direct challenge brought in United States federal courts to an attempt to mandate the teaching of intelligent design on First Amendment grounds, Behe was called as a primary witness for the defense and asked to support the idea that intelligent design was legitimate science. Behe's critics have pointed to a number of key exchanges that they say further undermine his statements about irreducible complexity and intelligent design. Under cross examination, Behe conceded that "there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred." During cross-examination Behe even stated that the definition of 'theory' as he applied it to intelligent design was so loose that astrology would qualify as a theory by definition as well. Also while under oath, Behe admitted that his simulation modeling of evolution with Snoke had, in fact, shown that complex biochemical systems requiring multiple interacting parts for the system to function and requiring multiple, consecutive and unpreserved mutations to be fixed in a population could evolve within 20,000 years. This would happen even if the parameters of the simulation were rigged to make that outcome as unlikely as possible.

John E. Jones III, the judge of the case, in his final ruling relied heavily upon Behe's testimony for the defense in his judgment for the plaintiffs, citing:

• "Consider, to illustrate, that Professor Behe remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God."
• "As no evidence in the record indicates that any other scientific proposition's validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe's assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent ID leaders, ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition."
• "First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to 'change the ground rules' of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology. Moreover, defense expert Professor Minnich acknowledged that for ID to be considered science, the ground rules of science have to be broadened to allow consideration of supernatural forces."
• "What is more, defense experts concede that ID is not a theory as that term is defined by the NAS and admit that ID is at best 'fringe science' which has achieved no acceptance in the scientific community."
• "We therefore find that Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large."
• "ID proponents primarily argue for design through negative arguments against evolution, as illustrated by Professor Behe’s argument that 'irreducibly complex' systems cannot be produced through Darwinian, or any natural, mechanisms. However, … arguments against evolution are not arguments for design. Expert testimony revealed that just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot, and will not, be able to explain them tomorrow. As Dr. Padian aptly noted, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.'… Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich."
• "Professor Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity depends on ignoring ways in which evolution is known to occur. Although Professor Behe is adamant in his definition of irreducible complexity when he says a precursor 'missing a part is by definition nonfunctional,' what he obviously means is that it will not function in the same way the system functions when all the parts are present. For example in the case of the bacterial flagellum, removal of a part may prevent it from acting as a rotary motor. However, Professor Behe excludes, by definition, the possibility that a precursor to the bacterial flagellum functioned not as a rotary motor, but in some other way, for example as a secretory system."
• "Professor Behe has applied the concept of irreducible complexity to only a few select systems: (1) the bacterial flagellum; (2) the blood-clotting cascade; and (3) the immune system. Contrary to Professor Behe’s assertions with respect to these few biochemical systems among the myriad existing in nature, however, Dr. Miller presented evidence, based upon peer-reviewed studies, that they are not, in fact, irreducibly complex."
• "With ID, proponents assert that they refuse to propose hypotheses on the designer’s identity, do not propose a mechanism, and the designer, he/she/it/they, has never been seen. ... In addition, Professor Behe agreed that for the design of human artifacts, we know the designer and its attributes and we have a baseline for human design that does not exist for design of biological systems. Professor Behe’s only response to these seemingly insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works in science fiction movies."

ACSI v. Roman Sterns

Behe received $20,000 for testifying as an expert witness on behalf of the plaintiffs in Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Sterns. The case was filed by Association of Christian Schools International, which argued that the University of California was being discriminatory by not recognizing science classes that use creationist books. The 2005 filing claimed that University of California's rejection of several of their courses was illegal "viewpoint discrimination and content regulation prohibited by the Free Speech Clause." In 2007, Behe's expert witness report claimed that the Christian textbooks, including Biology for Christian Schools, are excellent works for high school students. He defended that view in a deposition. In August 2008, Judge S. James Otero rejected Behe's claims, saying that Behe "submitted a declaration concluding that the BJU text mentions standard scientific content. ... However, Professor Behe 'did not consider how much detail or depth' the texts gave to this standard content." Otero ruled in favor of the University of California's decision to reject courses using these books.

Published material

Journal articles

DNA structure

• Behe MJ, Felsenfeld G, Szu SC, Charney E (February 1985). "Temperature-dependent conformational transitions in poly(dG-dC) and poly(dG-m5dC)". Biopolymers. 24 (2): 289–300. doi:10.1002/bip.360240202. PMID 3978220.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Behe MJ (March 1986). "Vacuum UV CD of the low-salt Z-forms of poly(rG-dC).poly(rG-dC), and poly(dG-m5dC).poly(dG-m5dC)". Biopolymers. 25 (3): 519–23. doi:10.1002/bip.360250310. PMID 3754471.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ (December 1987). "The DNA sequence of the human beta-globin region is strongly biased in favor of long strings of contiguous purine or pyrimidine residues". Biochemistry. 26 (24): 7870–5. doi:10.1021/bi00398a050. PMID 3427110.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ, Beasty AM (1991). "Co-polymer tracts in eukaryotic, prokaryotic, and organellar DNA". DNA Seq. 1 (5): 291–302. doi:10.3109/10425179109020785. PMID 1799681.
• Behe MJ (February 1995). "An overabundance of long oligopurine tracts occurs in the genome of simple and complex eukaryotes". Nucleic Acids Res. 23 (4): 689–95. doi:10.1093/nar/23.4.689. PMC 306739. PMID 7899090.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ (1998). "Tracts of adenosine and cytidine residues in the genomes of prokaryotes and eukaryotes". DNA Seq. 8 (6): 375–83. doi:10.3109/10425179809020898. PMID 10728822.

Protein structure

• Behe MJ, Englander SW (July 1978). "Sickle hemoglobin gelation. Reaction order and critical nucleus size". Biophys. J. 23 (1): 129–45. doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(78)85438-1. PMC 1473549. PMID 667302.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ, Englander SW (September 1979). "Mixed gelation theory. Kinetics, equilibrium and gel incorporation in sickle hemoglobin mixtures". J. Mol. Biol. 133 (1): 137–60. doi:10.1016/0022-2836(79)90254-7. PMID 93643.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ, Englander WS (September 1979). "Quantitative assessment of the noncovalent inhibition of sickle hemoglobin gelation by phenyl derivatives and other known agents". Biochemistry. 18 (19): 4196–201. doi:10.1021/bi00586a025. PMID 486417.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ, Lattman EE, Rose GD (May 1991). "The protein-folding problem: the native fold determines packing, but does packing determine the native fold?". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 88 (10): 4195–9. doi:10.1073/pnas.88.10.4195. PMC 51625. PMID 2034665.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Evolution

• Behe MJ (October 1990). "Histone deletion mutants challenge the molecular clock hypothesis". Trends Biochem. Sci. 15 (10): 374–6. doi:10.1016/0968-0004(90)90231-y. PMID 2251727.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Behe MJ, Snoke DW (October 2004). "Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues". Protein Sci. 13 (10): 2651–64. doi:10.1110/ps.04802904. PMC 2286568. PMID 15340163.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Books

• Darwin's Black Box. Free Press, 1996. ISBN 0-684-83493-6
• Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute), September 25, 1999. ISBN 0-89870-809-5
• The Edge of Evolution. Free Press, June 2007. ISBN 0-743-29620-6

Videos

• Flock of Dodos. New Video, (2007) ISBN 0767098196
• Intelligent Design: From the Big Bang to Irreducible Complexity
• Irreducible Complexity: The Biochemical Challenge to Darwinian Theory
• Unlocking the Mystery of Life 2002
• Where Does the Evidence Lead? 2004

External links

• Michael Behe Biography from Lehigh University
• Michael Behe Biography from the Discovery Institute
• Michael Behe Biography from the Access Research Network
• Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe on intelligent design TalkOrigins Archive
• Behe's Amazon Blog
• Michael Behe at IMDb

Reviews

• Inferior Design Richard Dawkins' New York Times Book Review of Behe's The Edge of Evolution
• H. Allen Orr's rebuttal of Behe
• Irreducible Complexity Demystified
• Behe's Empty Box, on Richard Dawkins' academic website