So, Michael Behe is still at it, 13 years after his book, Darwin’s Black Box, which has been a complete failure in proving Intelligent Design. Apparently a recent article in Science (or read the blog article) has caused Behe to write a letter in response, which Science did not wish to publish, naturally. Instead Behe posted it on his Amazon blog. He is apparently unhappy with the way his involvement in the Dover trial (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) is portrayed. He claim that  Travis did not understand what the points he was trying to make were. Well, I beg to differ. I think we know very well what the real point Behe and his minions are trying to make is. This was also covered in the Dover trial. It was shown that the underlying purpose of the Intelligent Design movement was to promote religion, ID is not science, it is just good old creationism in disguise, and not even a good disguise. The second paragraph of Behe’s letter reads:

Although some news reporters, lawyers, and parents are confused on the topic, “intelligent design” is not the opposite of “evolution”. As some biologists before Darwin theorized, organisms might have descended with modification and be related by common descent, but the process might have been guided by some form of intelligence or teleological driving force in nature. Darwin’s chief contribution was not the simple idea of common descent, but the hypothesis that evolution is driven completely by ateleological mechanisms, prominently including random variation and natural selection. Intelligent design has no proper argument with the bare idea of common descent; rather, it disputes the sufficiency of ateleological mechanisms to explain all facets of biology.

Well, ID may not be the opposite of evolution, that doesn’t even make sense. However ID is religion, and religion is not science. Evolution on the other hand is science. This significantly distance ID from evolution, and also rules it out, by US law, of being used in education! This was after all the whole purpose of the Dover trial! The fact that Behe does not want to give up his defence of superstition in his field of science, does not change the fact that ID is and will always be religion and superstition. He fully admits that it is a teleological view, and though the philosophical idea is not necessarily religious, it has been shown, in this court case, to be religious in the context of ID.

Now, the argument for ID is that of irreducible complexity. The idea that some feature (say the eye, though a bad example as this one has been debunked long ago) cannot function with less parts than the whole, thus cannot have evolved gradually. The whole irreducible complexity approach is non-scientific, it has the retrospective view that “this item is too complex and we cannot immediately see  how it evolved gradually, therefore it didn’t, thus goddidit”. However no such complex feature is proven to exist beyond any reasonable doubt. Nearly all examples of such complexity has been proven to be fully capable of evolving through natural processes. The new pet of Behe seems to be the human immune system, but the fact that we do not yet fully understand how it evolved, does in no way mean that it did not evolve.

Somehow Behe and his minions believe if they can just find one thing in nature that cannot be explained by the theory of evolution by natural selection or genetic drift or whatever other explanatory devices biologist may have, then there must be a designer (read God). The logic, in a scientific context, of such an approach to reality is just ridiculous. Evolution by natural selection is well proven, and even Behe acknowledges this. So isn’t it then more logical to assume, give such a powerful theory at hand, that if we have something which we cannot explain at first, the problem is most likely a matter of further investigation, rather an incentive to impose a deity? The important difference between the explanatory value of science versus religion is just that, science does not cop out when faced with something we at first do not understand and instead claim “goddidit”. That is exactly what religion does, and worse, it then becomes doctrine and is ruled absolute and truth. Now, Behe knows better than that I suspect, but he still has an absolute idea that he superimposes upon everything he does, he is specifically looking for a designer where no designer exist or even is needed. Honest Christians believe by faith, which is fine. I prefer evidence. But people like Behe are cowards and intellectually dishonest. They know the truth, or at least should, those who are well educated like Behe, but have an irrational need to superimpose their faith on their work, rendering it valueless. What a waste of time and resources.

It is just not science!

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