Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

by Michael J. Behe

Book Overview

The groundbreaking, "seminal work" (Time) on intelligent design that dares to ask, was Darwin wrong? In 1996, Darwin's Black Box helped to launch the intelligent design movement: the argument that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684827549
• ISBN13: 9780684827544
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 307 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Condition not as advertised

Bought a Very Good Condition copy of this book. When it came in the mail, the ENTIRE book is underlined in pen with notes in the magins. Not just a few pages, not only 50% of the book, the whole thing (including the back cover)! Should have been advertised as Acceptable.

A Scientist Ahead of his Time

Dr.Behe has done an excellent job. Unfortunately, many people took it upon themselves to misrepresent him. Let it be known, that Dr.Behe has published over 35 peer reviewed papers in the biochemistry journals. This book was peer reviewed by more scientists than usually peer review a journal paper. Including the following comments by scientists:"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." Coyne, J. A. (1996). God in the details. Nature 383, 227-228."In a narrow sense, Behe is correct when he argues that we do not yet fully understand the evolution of the flagellar motor or the blood clotting cascade." Dorit, R. (1997). Molecular evolution and scientific inquiry, misperceived. American Scientist 85, 474-475. "For none of the cases mentioned by Behe is there yet a comprehensive and detailed explanation of the probable steps in the evolution of the observed complexity. The problems have indeed been sorely neglected--though Behe repeatedly exaggerates this neglect with such hyperboles as 'an eerie and complete silence.'" Cavalier-Smith, T. (1997). The blind biochemist. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12, 162-163. "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.'" Pomiankowski, A. The God of the tiny gaps. New Scientist. 9-14-1996. Scientists speaking of one of the molecular machines Behe talks about stated:"we need to think almost in engineering terms about transmission shafts, mounting plates and bushing." Trend in Genetics 1991Another example would be how people put words into his mouth. He never said that ALL parts, even redundant parts, cannot be removed from an irreducibly complex system. One example of this is the hair-like flagellum of eukaryotes called ciliary motion. There are several "patterns" of things called microtubules. There is a 9+2 pattern and a 3+0 pattern. Although the 9+2 pattern is the ancestral state, it is not hard to see why there is also a 3+0 pattern. In the 9+2 pattern, if we remove doublet 6, then doublets 5 and 7 can simply link up, that is an 8+2 pattern. The 3+0 pattern in Daplius works, but it beats very slowly. What Behe stated was that the microtubules themselves, all of them, need to be present. Remove the microtubules altogether, and you do not have ciliary motion. The only reason why ID is hard to accept is because of one simple philosophical rule held by the scientific community:"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism."Scott C. Todd Department of Biology, Kansas State University

Look at the facts - Then dig deeper.

This book is for the lay reader who is interested in the modern objections to evolutionary theory. While tackeling many tough issues and displaying the more glaring "holes" in evolution, Behe leaves open the door for you to delve futher. A good starting place is at LeHigh's website (where he is a professor). His published acticles (that are directed to the scientific community) are noted and might be available.I'm disappointed with those that try to trash a book, (which is intended for a broad audience), on the basis of it's lack of exhaustive details. Throughout the book and in the epilouge, there are apologies for the degree of detail that he does go to, but he says that that is even a cut-back from what was originally there. He constantly encourages the reader to pick up any biology textbook (which I did), or read other scientific literature (such as his own articles mentioned above) and discover for yourself.Behe is also the master of understatement. He will willingly acquiesse to the arguments of neo-darwinists, but then undercut them by going to the molecular level. I found myself laughing at the convulted arguments that now lie in shambles.College Student w/ enough biology classes to understand every word of this book.

Who cares if its true or not?

I'm going to review this book by different criteria than usual. It seems that some reviewers have given this book five stars if they agreed with the author's theory (ie, that you can't evolve the biochemical structures that we've got), and one or two stars if they disagreed. It just so happens that I was convinced by this book and now believe that Darwinism is a crock... HOWEVER, I also realise that I'm a professional accountant who wouldn't know biochemistry if his life depended on it. (Which it does, come to think of it). So my opinion on whether the theory is true or not is really irrelevant. Until I read books by Behe's opponents, (such as the ones mentioned by reviewer Patrick S of Lousiville Kentucky), I'm going to have to review this book based on the extent it drew me into the subject.And on that note, Darwin's Black Box deserves 5 stars. Possibly 6. If you start talking to me in Latin about the structures of the human body, I fall asleep. But talk about the systems a security company uses to secure a building, and then show how those same systems are used by a bunch of teeny-weeny dumb chemicals in the immune system, and my jaw goes "bonk" as it hits the floor. Explain the blood-clotting system in terms of a Rube Goldberg comic strip and I begin to wish I studied biology. I lost count of how many times I went "wow" while reading this. And really, what else do you need in a popular science book?Actually, you also need the theory to be true. Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. (I'm just an accountant remember, so don't ask me). But having read this book, I'm quite looking forward to reading the other side of the argument from Dawkins, Orr, Miller, and the others mentioned below. Let's hope they write as well as Behe! PS: Other biological "Wow" books that I've read include The Body at War by John Dwyer, and Origins by Robert Shapiro.

Minute, incremental, chance steps can't do it

Behe's idea that irreducibly-complex systems can not be created by numerous, minute, undirected, incremental mutations (in accordance with Darwinian gradualism) has been challenged. But even I, a non-biochemist, can refute most of the objections. For instance, it has been mentioned here twice by negative reviewers that there are different bacterial flagella and that they don't all contain the full complement of 40 proteins Behe says are required, so obviously they are not all needed and the system can't be irreducibly complex (as the biochemist reviewer stated: So this irreducible complex of 40 proteins has shrunk to 33 proteins, in the past 2 years of research! Behe's argument is that EVERY ONE of the 40 proteins are necessary.) This is not so - they are attacking their own incorrect interpretation of Behe's statements, not his actual statement. Behe says that the components of the flagella that are absolutely required for functionality are the paddle, rotor, and motor (he mentions these parts using an analogy to various swimming mechanisms) - remove any one of them and the flagellum ceases to function. These are the components of the irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum, and not the 40 or 30 proteins they are composed of. To use an analogy of his mouse trap analogy, Behe says that to be functional a mouse trap must have, among other things, a hammer. The hammer is required for functionality but what it is composed of (steel, aluminum, iron, copper, some alloy, etc.) is irrelevant. Similarly, Behe states that a bacterial flagellum has certain required parts (basically the paddle, rotor, and filament) - remove any one of them and the flagellum ceases to function. But these parts' component proteins can be varied (just as the metal used for the mouse trap hammer can vary). In fact, to be considered essential components of an irreducibly-complex structure, each of the 40 proteins' function would have to be known. Behe explicitly states this is not so (all of my points can be found on pages 72-73). Clearly, the negative reviewers have built up a straw man and managed to refute it - not Behe's actual claim. Most of the objections levied against this book are not scientific (most are typical, reflexive anti-creationist arguments, but these people don't seem to realize that Behe is NOT a creationist). Of the objections that are scientific, many are ill-founded (I can't speak for ALL these - I am not a biochemist). I think it would be terrible for people not to read the book because they have read a few negative reviews - read it and keep and open mind - Behe's scientific argument for the inference of design makes perfect sense.