Disclaimer: The opinions presented here are solely my own, and do not necessarily represent the...

Disclaimer: The opinions presented here are solely my own, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Lehigh University or any of its departments or employees.

The Argument for Intelligent Design in Biology

Michael J BeheLehigh University

Bethlehem, PA

My argument :My argument :

Design not mystical. Deduced from Design not mystical. Deduced from physical structurephysical structure of a system of a system

Everyone agreesEveryone agrees aspects of biology aspects of biology appear designedappear designed

There are There are structural obstaclesstructural obstacles to to Darwinian evolutionDarwinian evolution

Grand Darwinian claims rest on Grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined undisciplined imaginationimagination

Bottom lineBottom line: Strong evidence for design, : Strong evidence for design, little evidence for Darwinismlittle evidence for Darwinism

What is “intelligent design”?What is “intelligent design”?

““de-sign' (de-sign' (nn) — The purposeful or ) — The purposeful or inventive arrangement of parts or inventive arrangement of parts or details”, details”, www.thefreedictionary.comwww.thefreedictionary.com

Design is simply the Design is simply the purposeful purposeful arrangement of partsarrangement of parts

We infer design whenever parts We infer design whenever parts appear arranged to accomplish a appear arranged to accomplish a functionfunction

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

What is “intelligent design”?What is “intelligent design”?

The strength of the inference is The strength of the inference is quantitative.quantitative.

Sawtooth mountains, Idaho

Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

Dawkins R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: Norton, p. 1

• “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”


• “We may say that a living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes that an intelligent and knowledgeable engineer might have built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, seeing … [A]ny engineer can recognize an object that has been designed, even poorly designed, for a purpose, and he can usually work out what that purpose is just by looking at the structure of the object.”


• “Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.”

William Paley

. . . when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive. . . that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; . . . The inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker.

Cell (1998) 92, table of contents.

• “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines”• “Polymerases and the Replisome: Machines

within Machines”• “Mechanical Devices of the Spliceosome: Motors,

Clocks, Springs, and Things”

Alberts, B.A. (1998). The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists. Cell 93, 291-294.

• “The chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered. ... Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.”

Alberts, B.A. (1998). The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists. Cell 93, 291-294.

• “Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like the machines invented by humans …, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. ”

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, p. 158

• 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. But I can find out no such case.

Voet & Voet, 1995

The Bacterial Flagellum

Darwin’s Black Box has been reviewed or profiled in the following:

• New York Times• Washington Post• Allentown

Morning Call

• Aboard (Bolivia)• Christianity Today• Skeptic

Darwin’s Black Box has been reviewed or profiled in the following:

• New York Times• Washington Post• Allentown Morning

Call• Nature• American Scientist• Chronicle of

Higher Education• Boston Review

• Aboard (Bolivia)• Christianity Today• Skeptic• Quarterly Review

of Biology• Philosophy of

Science• Biology &

Philosophy• and many others...

“Provocative, audacious, and original.” Richard Restak, Brainwork (The Neuroscience Newsletter)

• “Mr. Behe may be right that given our current state of knowledge, good old Darwinian evolution cannot explain the origin of blood clotting or cellular transport.” James Shreeve, New York Times

• “There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.” James Shapiro, National Review

• “There is no doubt that the pathways described by Behe are dauntingly complex, and their evolution will be hard to unravel.... We may forever be unable to envisage the first proto-pathways.” Jerry Coyne, Nature

• “Pick up any biochemistry textbook, and you will find perhaps two or three references to evolution. Turn to one of these and you will be lucky to find anything better than ‘evolution selects the fittest molecules for their biological function.’” Andrew Pomiankowski, New Scientist

Griffin, D. R. Religion and Scientific Naturalism; SUNY Press: 2000, p. 287.

• The response I have received from repeating Behe’s claim about the evolutionary literature—which simply brings out the point being made implicitly by many others, such as Crick, Denton, Shapiro, Stanley, Taylor, Wesson—is that I obviously have not read the right books. There are, I am assured, evolutionists who have described how the transitions in question could have occurred.

Griffin, D. R. Religion and Scientific Naturalism; SUNY Press: 2000, p. 287.

• When I ask in which books I can find these discussions, however, I either get no answer or else some titles that, upon examination, do not in fact contain the promised accounts. That such accounts exist seems to be something that is widely known, but I have yet to encounter anyone who knows where they exist.

Franklin M. Harold, The Way of the Cell, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 205

• “We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity (Behe 1996); but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”






Bottom lineBottom line: Strong evidence for : Strong evidence for design, little evidence for Darwinismdesign, little evidence for Darwinism


• “Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.”

An In-duck-tive Argument

Encyclopedia Brittanica Onlinehttp://search.eb.com/ebi/article?tocId=204014

• Inductive reasoning. • When a person uses a number of established

facts to draw a general conclusion, he uses inductive reasoning. This is the kind of logic normally used in the sciences. … An inductive argument, however, is never final: It is always open to the possibility of being falsified. … It is by this process of induction and falsification that progress is made in the sciences.

My responses to critics can be found at: • Behe, M.J. 2004. “Irreducible Complexity: Obstacle to Darwinian

Evolution.” In Debating Design: from Darwin to DNA, Ruse, M. and Dembski, W.A., eds., Cambridge University Press, pp. 352-370.

• Behe, M.J. 2003. “The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis: Breaking Rules.” In God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science, Neil Manson, ed., Routledge, pp. 277-291.

• Behe, M.J. 2001. Reply to My Critics: A Response to Reviews of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Biology and Philosophy 16, 685-709.

• Behe, M.J. 2000. Self-Organization and Irreducibly Complex Systems: A Reply to Shanks and Joplin. Philosophy of Science 67, 155-162.

• WWW.CRSC.ORG

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