Michael Behe

Michael J. Behe (born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist and intelligent design advocate. Behe is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He advocates the idea that some structures are too complex at the biochemical level to be adequately explained as a result of evolutionary mechanisms. He has termed this concept "irreducible complexity".

Behe's claims about the irreducible complexity of key cellular structures are strongly contested by the scientific community. The Department of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University has published an official position statement which says "It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific." ^[1] Behe's ideas about intelligent design have been rejected by the scientific community and characterized as pseudoscience.^[2][3][4]

Behe's testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is extensively cited by the judge^[5][6][7][8] in his ruling that intelligent design is not science but essentially religious in nature.^[9]

Behe is married and has nine children.^[10]

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Academics

Behe grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he attended grade school at St. Margaret Mary's Parochial School and later graduated from Bishop McDevitt High School.^[11][12] 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. Due to Behe's views on evolution, Lehigh University exhibits the following disclaimer on its website:

Controversy: irreducible complexity and intelligent design

Main articles: Irreducible complexity and Intelligent design

Behe claims 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.^[14] 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, creationists felt that new strategies and language was necessary to return religious notions to science classrooms. The books of lawyer Phillip E. Johnson on intelligent design, which strayed away from direct statements about a Young Earth and stuck to criticisms of evolutionary theory and purported biased "materialist" science, provided such a model. Through his efforts and those of his colleagues a new organization devoted to what they called intelligent design sprung up, 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.

By this time, Behe had published his ideas on irreducible complexity in his book Darwin's Black Box, which was popular with the public^{[citation needed]} but 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. Furthermore, Behe aimed the publication of this book at the general public,^[15] gaining maximum publicity while avoiding peer-review from fellow scientists or performing new research to support his statements, contrary to normal interpretations of the scientific method.^[16][17]

Nevertheless, 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.^[16]

Unlike William A. Dembski ^[18] and others in the intelligent design movement, Behe accepts the common descent of species,^[19] 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 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." Richard Dawkins on Evolution and Religion

In the March/February 1997 issue of Boston Review, Prof. Russell F. Doolittle wrote a rebuttal to the statements about irreducibly complexity of certain systems, in particular he mentioned the issue of the blood clotting in his "A Delicate Balance". [1]. Later on, in 2003, Doolittle's lab published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, ^[20] which demonstrates that the pufferfish lacks at least three blood clotting factors, and still is a workable system, defeating a key claim in Behe's book, that blood clotting is 'irreducibly complex'.

Behe and Snoke (2004)

Behe published a paper, together with David Snoke, in the scientific journal Protein Science,^[21] 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".^[22]

Michael Lynch authored a response,^[23] to which Behe and Snoke responded.^[24] Protein Science discussed the papers in an editorial.^[25]

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 it offering no design theory or attempting to model the design process, and therefore not providing an alternative to evolution.^[26]

Many of Behe's statements have been addressed by biologist Kenneth Miller in his book, Finding Darwin's God. Behe has subsequently addressed Miller's points in an essay.^[27]

Popular writing

Behe has written 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.^[28] Coulter devotes approximately one-third of the book to polemical attacks on evolution, which she terms "Darwinism".^[29]

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".^[30] During this testimony Behe conceded 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.^[31] Also while under oath, Behe admitted that his simulation modelling 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, even if the parameters of the simulation were rigged to make that outcome as unlikely as possible.^{[32] [33]}

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."^[5]
• "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."^[5]
• "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."^[6]
• "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."^[7]
• "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."^[8]
• "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."^[34]
• "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."^[35]
• "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."^[36]
• "...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. ...

Other cases

Behe has been employed as an expert witness, for which he received $20,000, on behalf of the plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit filed by Association of Christian Schools International, which is representing a number of Christian schools against the University of California in Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Sterns. ^[37] The 2005 filing claimed that University of California's rejection of several of their courses was illegal "viewpoint discrimination." In 2007, Behe's expert witness report claimed that the Christian textbooks are excellent works for high school students and defended that view in a deposition.^[38][39]

Published material

Books

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

Videos

• Intelligent Design: From the Big Bang to Irreducible Complexity
• Unlocking the Mystery of Life 2002
• Irreducible Complexity: The Biochemical Challenge to Darwinian Theory
• Where Does the Evidence Lead? 2004

References