Michael Behe, a leader of Intelligent Design, believes in an old earth

An author from the Biologos foundation continues an examination of the most recent book by Michael Behe, who also wrote Darwin's Black Box, which gave scientific credibility to the Intelligent Design movement, and was designated book of the year by Christianity Today, about 15 years ago. (I once used Black Box as the text in a senior seminar.)

Most or all of the statements in that early book, suggesting that natural selection couldn't have worked to bring about some cellular mechanism, have now been discredited scientifically. In other words, credible mechanisms for development of these features by natural selection over time have been found.

In this part of the review, the author, Darrell Falk, points out that Behe, unlike some of the other important figures in ID, continues to believe in development of new species, and larger groups of organisms, through common descent, and an old earth. He just believes that occasional Divine intervention was necessary to bring about cellular mechanisms now in existence.

I personally don't believe that it is possible to scientifically prove (or disprove) such Divine intervention. I'm not alone.

For a post by me, showing that ID and Young-Earth Creationism are mostly not the same thing, see here.

Thanks for reading.

Quintessence of Dust on Behe's _Edge of Evolution_

Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box was an important book. Behe, a practicing scientist, proposed that some cellular mechanisms are too complex to have been brought about by unassisted natural selection. This book was the most important scientific work put forth by the Intelligent Design movement. Since publication, Behe's claims have been mostly, or entirely refuted -- there are reasonable explanations for each of his examples, involving only natural selection.

Quintessence of Dust has posted a few times on Michael Behe's more recent The Edge of Evolution, and he hasn't been very kind to Behe. He claims that Behe's science has been sloppy, at best. However, QofD, in his most recent post, proposes that Behe's hypothesis, namely that not only natural selection, but some occasional intelligent intervention, in the historical development of organisms, is a legitimate one, and can be tests. QofD outlines how such testing might be done. It would be a major research undertaking. Laboratory research, that is. QofD's author, in fact, offers to help in such a project.

Although QofD's analysis concludes that The Edge of Evolution does put forth a legitimate hypothesis, he says that Behe has scarcely touched on it in the book.

Thanks for reading.

Blood Clotting in humans isn't irreducibly complex

The Panda's Thumb is an anti-Intelligent Design blog. Although the authors are sometimes rather tranquil, the posts are often strident. A recent post isn't especially strident, I guess, but it undercuts (not for the first time) the central claim of Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box, with scientific evidence.

Behe's central claim was that some processes, including blood clotting, are irreducibly complex -- they require several separate parts, and wouldn't work if any one of the parts were missing. Thus, these processes couldn't have developed from simpler ones through natural selection. (Behe is not a young earth creationist. He has a doctorate in biochemistry.)

The post indicated shows that blood clotting does work in lampreys (simple fish) without some of the molecules required for blood clotting in humans. It predicts that even simpler animals, thought to be similar to the ancestors of vertebrates, will have a clotting system that works, even though such a clotting system would not have all the molecules of the lamprey clotting system.

We'll see if that prediction holds up. Behe's prediction hasn't.

Thanks for reading.

I believe that the universe was designed intelligently, but I don't believe in the Intelligent Design movement

My wife asked me, "What is your problem with Intelligent Design?" I am trying to post my answer, more or less as I gave it to her.

I believe that the universe, the earth, living things, and humans are here because they were planned by an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal God. I can't prove this. People much smarter than I, with larger audiences, have not been able to make a knock-down argument for this proposition. Hebrews 11:3 implies that I comprehend this by faith. Some people do not believe in such a God. Not surprisingly, they see the same evidence that I do, and come to different conclusions. The converse is true of me and my fellow believers, of course. In other words, I believe in an intelligent designer.

Over the last twenty years or so, a movement has grown up. It calls itself the Intelligent Design movement (ID). I have problems with it, and a lot of other people, some of them Christians, also do. (Here's a recent example of a Christian who has such problems. He has said some of the same things I am, and more.) Why do we have problems with such a group? Here are some of the reasons.

1) ID claims that it is possible to scientifically prove that God designed things. On the face of it, that would be extremely difficult, especially for biological phenomena. An IDer may say (one, Michael Behe, did) that blood clotting is so complicated that it couldn't have come about through random mutation and natural selection. However, even if such an origin couldn't be fully proposed when Behe wrote his book, this isn't a knock-down proof of ID. It is always possible that a plausible path for the origin of blood clotting mechanisms by natural selection will be found. That's what has happened to most or all of the "proofs" in Behe's book.

Being as generous as possible, the number of peer-reviewed scientific articles showing scientific evidence for ID can be counted on one hand. The less generous would say that it would take five less fingers than that. (Behe himself, in his testimony in the Kitzmiller case, agreed that, at the time, there was only one. To be fair, he also said that there were few, if any, peer-reviewed articles showing that what he calls irreducibly complex structures could have arisen by natural selection.)

I believe that the proof for an intelligent designer is not a scientific matter at all. It's a religious or philosophical matter. (ID has also made it political.) Trying to prove God's design in a laboratory is like trying to fry eggs in the shower while the water is running. It's not an appropriate place to do this, it won't work, and it may mess up the shower.

[Added April 18, 2009: Here's an e-mail exchange between a person who doubts ID, and Casey Luskin, a prominent ID advocate. Luskin fails to come up with experimental evidence for ID, and the doubter points out how difficult, if not impossible, such evidence would be to obtain.]

2) ID claims that it is scientific, not religious. A recent court case (presided over by a church-going Republican judge, if that matters) denied this. And no wonder. The Discovery Institute, the most important ID institution, published the "Wedge Document," which lays out ID's strategy. One of the "Governing Goals" is "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” (p. 15 of the document from the previous link.) If that isn't religious, I'm not sure what is.

A statement of the Discovery Institute's Science Education Policy, published in June, 2009, uses the phrases "scientific theory of design," and "scientific debate over design," both referring to ID. (This paragraph added August 7, 2009.)

Why claim to be scientific, not religious? I'm afraid that the answer is to deceive. The court case cited in the previous paragraph was over an attempt to have ID included in public school science classes. If ID is religious, it doesn't belong in a science class.

(Added March 2, 2009. See here for a discussion of the lack of scientific evidence for ID.)

Lest there be any doubt, I believe that God did design nature, and human beings.

3) ID is often presented (to conservative religious publics -- it was not presented this way in the court case) as compatible with young-earth creationism, when it isn't. When the South Carolina state legislature considered legislation that would have opened the door to presenting ID as an alternative scientific theory, at least one legislator hoped, apparently encouraged by IDers, that this would mean teaching that the earth was only a few thousand years old. But the leaders of the ID movement have said that they believe that the earth is probably very old, and two of the main young-earth creationist organizations have severely criticized ID. (See here for documentation.)

Again, this tactic is deceptive.

God doesn't need these sorts of defense.

I thank my wife for the questions. Thanks for reading.

4) ID comes close to, or does, advocate God-of-the-gaps theology. That sort of theology is dangerous, because it restricts the activity of God to things we can't explain. The problem with that is that the more we think we understand, the less room there is for God, which is nonsense. If there is a God, He did things we can explain, or think we can, as well as things we can't. (This point was added on July 3, 2010.)

* * * * *

April 18, 2008. On this date, I modified the introductory portion of this post. There were no changes past the first paragraph.

June 2, 2008. On this date, I became aware of Behe's testimony about peer-reviewed articles in the Kitzmiller case, and added the parenthesis to the second paragraph under point 1).

February 28, 2009. I added a link to a post explaining my problems with Young-Earth Creationism.

October 29, 2015. I recently commented on a post from a person related to, or sympathetic to, the Discovery Institute, who said "We don't have a single example of a mutation resulting in a net gain of information. Not one." That claim is false, or misleading. There are are cases where mutation has been shown to have added new functions.

A new gene, within the past 100 years

The Panda's Thumb presents a summary of the evidence that a new gene (probably more than one) has arisen within the past century, in HIV. (That's the AIDS virus.)

This should not be a surprise to anyone. However, according to the blog post I cited in the previous paragraph, Michael Behe's book, The Edge of Evolution, has this statement, about that same virus: "There is no new molecular machinery." It must, therefore, be a surprise to Behe. I have not yet read Behe's new book. His previous book, Darwin's Black Box, is one of the pillars of the Intelligent Design movement. In it, Behe claimed that some biological phenomena were so complex that they could not have been developed over time by natural selection, but would have required a Designer. The Panda's Thumb has produced explanations, relying only on natural selection, for all of the phenomena Behe wrote about.

I believe that God designed natural selection.

Thanks for reading.

Dialog on Science-Religion issues

My title does not mean to imply that science and Christianity are opposed. I don't believe that they should be. God is the author of truth, whether perceived through experiment, in the Bible, or as revealed to individuals by the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, we are fallen, and don't always perceive such truth as God meant it, through whatever means we are looking for it.

The American Scientific Affiliation is an organization of Christian, most of whom are also scientists. Some of them are quite prominent, like Francis Collins, head of the human genome project. Most aren't. The organization publishes a quarterly journal, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. Articles are released to the Internet roughly two years after original publication. The Affiliation takes no position on issues of origins, other than that there is a God who is creator. Perspectives deals with other matters, such as stewardship of nature and medical ethics, as well as issues related to origins.

I recently received the March, 2007, issue of Perspectives. I found it excellent, mostly because of two dialogues. In both cases, the editor had persuaded authors with differing views to react to each other.

One such dialog concerned Intelligent Design (ID). Loren Haarsma ("Is Intelligent Design 'Scientific'?" Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 59:55-62, March 2007) pointed out, I believe correctly, that ID is partly scientific, partly philosophical, and partly theological, and that it is easy to concentrate on only one of these aspects, missing the others. (Unfortunately, in some court cases about teaching science in the public schools, ID advocates have seemed to claim that ID is only scientific.) Haarsma considers all three aspects in some detail, challenging ID to be good science, good philosophy, and good theology. He also says that ID's claims about origins should be restrained to something like "I believe that current knowledge does not fully explain how certain biological phenomena arose, and doubt if there will ever be a naturalistic explanation" rather than claiming that science has ruled out a naturalistic origin for them. On the other hand, he also says that anti-creation advocates should show similar restraint, as the evidence for anything else is scant, or non-existent, and should say something like "I believe that the evidence points to an evolutionary origin of certain biological phenomena, and that eventually, it will be possible to explain its origin naturalistically."

Michael J. Behe, perhaps the most important ID scientist (author of Darwin's Black Box) responded. He agreed with much of what Haarsma wrote. Here is a quote from Behe:
. . . the message "evolution or design, one or the other," is a flawed choice. To the extent that the public has gotten than impression, it is regrettable. There is nothing in the idea of intelligent design that precludes the design being unfolded over time, and I myself judge that scenario to be the most consistent with all of the data we currently have. What's more, I am mostly happy with [Haarsma's] statement, "suppose the laws of nature are fine-tuned not one for the self-assembly of molecules and stars and planets, but also for the self-assembly of biological life and biological complexity." Michael J. Behe, "The Positive Side of Intelligent Design: A Response to Loren Haarsma," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 59:63, March 2007.

I deeply appreciate the thought of both Haarsma and Behe, and Perspectives for publishing both together.

Another dialog was between Hugh Ross, who is, in this dialog, anyway, labeled a Concordist, that is, one who believes that scientific findings, properly understood, should not contradict scripture, properly understood, and a critic, Paul Seely. Seely was quite critical of Ross, but Ross defended his views rather thoroughly. I don't claim enough expertise to judge between them. The issues are clearly spelled out in this dialog. See the Reasons to Believe website for more about Ross's beliefs. See here and here for some available publications, in previous issues of Perspectives, by Seely on these topics.

Thanks for reading.

Young Earth Creationism vs. Intelligent Design

Many people believe that all Christians are united in their beliefs about origins, or believe that Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) and Intelligent Design (ID) are two different ways of expressing the same beliefs. (In a previous post, I charted some of the different beliefs about origins.) I include, in this post, quotes from the pillars of ID, and from the most important YEC organizations, indicating that there are important differences between the YEC movement and the ID movement. Sincere Christians do have different beliefs about origins. They do, of course, agree that we are not here as a result of purposeless chance.

Statements by important figures in the ID movement, showing that they do not believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old, or that they otherwise reject the main beliefs of YEC:

For the record, I have no particular opinion about the age of the earth and accept for purposes of argument the currently orthodox figure of 4.6 billion years. I guess I would say that the current evidence is most consistent with some continuous or intermittent creation process over a long period of time, with new genetic information appearing from some source unknown to science. Phillip E. Johnson, in "Should Evolution Be Taught in Schools?," on-line dialogue between Johnson and Philip Kitcher, Slate, August 18, 1999. Johnson is the author of several books on Intelligent Design, and one of its founding architects.

The irreducibly complex biochemical systems that I have discussed in this book did not have to be produced recently. It is entirely possible, based simply on an examination of the systems themselves, that they were designed billions of years ago and that they have been passed down to the present by the normal processes of cellular reproduction. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: The Free Press, 1996, p. 227. Behe is also one of the founding architects of Intelligent Design.

This is another statement by Behe:
. . . the message "evolution or design, one or the other," is a flawed choice. To the extent that the public has gotten that impression, it is regrettable. There is nothing in the idea of intelligent design that precludes the design being unfolded over time, and I myself judge that scenario to be the most consistent with all of the data we currently have. What's more, I am mostly happy with [Loren Haarsma's] statement, "suppose the laws of nature are fine-tuned not only for the self-assembly of molecules and stars and planets, but also for the self-assembly of biological life and biological complexity." Michael J. Behe, "The Positive Side of Intelligent Design: A Response to Loren Haarsma," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 59:63, March 2007.
 

Although acceptance of intelligent design has now gone international and includes scholars of many different religious faiths and philosophical worldviews, among Christian proponents of intelligent design, the majority hold to a non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1. I’m one of them. William Dembski, "Why President Bush Got It Right about Intelligent Design," BeliefNet, Aug 4, 2005. Dembski is perhaps the current leading theoretician of Intelligent Design.

Here's another statement by Dembski: ". . . I accept standard astrophysical and geological dating (12 billion years for the universe, 4.5 billion years for the Earth) . . ."
Note that this is out of context, not even being a complete sentence, but the meaning is clear, namely that he rejects the central claim of YEC. The material in parenthesis is from the original. Dembski does indicate considerable sympathy for the Young-Earth view in this 54-page essay, which is on theodicy. (the quote is found on page 18) If there is any doubt in your mind that Young-Earth creationists are not universally happy with Dembski, read this critique of that essay, here.

*  *  *  *
Note added to the above on October 21, 2010: Yesterday, The Panda's Thumb Blog (Which, although it is no friend to the ID movement, usually seems get its facts right, and in this case, is using quotations of Dembski and other sources.) reported that Dembski now says that he is a Young-Earth Creationist. This seems to be a recent development. The same post quotes Dembski as believing that the scientific evidence ruled out YEC, as recently as 2009.


The article indicates that it is possible that Dembski changed his mind on the subject to retain his position at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It doesn't strongly put that forth, and offers no evidence for that possibility.


There doesn't have to be any shame in changing one's mind. I've done it myself, on origins, and a lot of other things. It is possible that Dembski has changed his simply because he now believes that the Biblical evidence for YEC is overwhelming. He seems to believe that Biblical evidence is more important than scientific evidence.


* * * *

Jonathan Wells is an important member of the ID movement. (For his relationship to the Discovery Institute, see here.) He is the author of Icons of Evolution. Wells has written:
Many people have been given the impression that the chronology of Genesis is the root of the conflict between Christianity and Darwinism. Surprisingly, however, biblical chronology played almost no role in the initial opposition to Darwin's theory, because most Christians in the nineteenth century accepted geological evidence for the age of the earth. Nor was chronology an issue at the 1925 Scopes trial, because creationist William Jennings Bryan accepted the old-earth view. Historically and theologically speaking, the basic conflict between Christianity and Darwinism is not chronology, but design.

Stephen C. Meyer is an important ID theorist. He is one of the main experts consulted by Lee Strobel, in his Case for a Creator. He is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute. On Jan 29th, the Dallas Morning News published an op-ed piece by Meyer, in which he said, among other things:
The theory [ID] does not challenge the idea of evolution defined as change over time, or even common ancestry, but it does dispute Darwin's idea that the cause of biological change is wholly blind and undirected.

From the FAQ of the Center for Science and Culture, a part of the Discovery Institute, an important supporter of ID:
4. Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?

No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he "agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement." Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are "the easiest way to discredit intelligent design." In other words, the charge that intelligent design is "creationism" is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case. For more information read Center Director Stephen Meyer's piece "Intelligent Design is not Creationism" that appeared in The Daily Telegraph (London) or Center Associate Director's piece "Intelligent Design and Creationism Just Aren't the Same"in Research News & Opportunities.

Numbers (a widely recognized scholar of the history of science) is a critic of Intelligent Design. 

Statements by important YEC organizations, showing that they are deeply critical of the ID approach:
Our concern with the intelligent design approach probably devolves upon two main factors. First, it is ineffective, no more convincing to evolutionists than is young-earth creationism; second, it is not really a new approach, using basically the same evidence and arguments used for years by scientific creationists but made to appear more sophisticated with complex nomenclature and argumentation. . . .
The intelligent design movement has been quite successful in one aspect, however. Many Christians now seem to think that it has freed them from having to confront the Genesis record of a young earth and global flood. All they need to do, they have decided, is to believe in intelligent design. This result was surely not what Dembski and others intended, but that is what's happening.
Our other hesitation to get on this bandwagon is their use of the same arguments and evidences we Biblical creationists have used for years, while simultaneously trying to distance themselves from us. Our adherence to Biblical literalism is ridiculed by evolutionists, and the ID advocates would be embarrassed to be tarred with the same brush. In fact, Dembski goes so far as to say belief in evolution itself is okay, as long as it's not naturalistic. Henry Morris, "The Design Revelation," review of William Dembski's The Design Revolution. Morris was the co-author of The Genesis Flood, (1960) among many other accomplishments, and founder of the Institute for Creation Research.

Morris also wrote this:
The most serious deficiency in the ID movement, however, is its neglect of the most important of the alleged evidences for evolution—that is, the problem of the fossils. These are the remains of billions and billions of once-living plants and animals now preserved in the sedimentary crust of the earth. These all give abundant evidence of suffering and death during all the supposed geological ages which they are supposed to depict.

Did the Designer do that? If so, just how and why? The only adequate answer is in the Bible, in its record of man's sin, the resulting global Curse and eventual Deluge. But the very purpose of the ID movement is to argue for intelligent design without reference to the Bible and the God of the Bible. Without those factors, however, it would seem that the only alternative would be to assume the Designer to be a sadistic producer of global evil as well as the intelligent producer of irreducible complexity.
The .PDF version of the file gives the copyright date as 2006. (The .HTML version is here.) The entire article is a discussion of ID versus young-earth creationism, and apparently it is meant as the ICR's current word on the subject.

Answers in Genesis (AiG) is another important YEC organization.

See "AiG’s views on the Intelligent Design Movement," by Carl Wieland, 30 August 2002. To summarize, Wieland says that the ID movement has serious philosophical weaknesses.

There is an article posted by Answers in Genesis, which is critical of ID: ". . . the central problem with the ID movement is a divorce of the Creator from creation. The Creator and His creation cannot be separated; they reflect on each other. All other problems within the movement stem from this one."

The Creation Research Society is another important young-earth creationism organization. They do not have as many problems with ID as the ICR does. Their view is that ID is an ally, that, if successful, will make wide acceptance of young-earth creationism possible. See here for an article on the subject, published by this organization in 2000.

Here's a later article in a publication of the Creation Research Society, which calls on the ID movement to publicly embrace a young earth and the importance of Noah's flood. The article states that: "They sometimes say that they hope to discuss such issues in private later on." (emphasis in original)

The Creation Research Society seems to be a society of scientists, loosely organized, and their publications seldom, if ever, have articles that speak officially for the Society. (This is commonly true of other scientific societies.) Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research are more centrally organized, and many of their publications appear to speak officially for the organization.

It is true that at least some of the conflation of ID and young-earth creationism by opponents of both is a strategy to discredit ID. However, it is also true that some of those who wish to require the teaching of ID in public school classrooms have encouraged, and obtained, the support of young-earth creationists. Many people, mostly evangelical or fundamentalist Christians, not well informed, or maybe even deceived, would identify themselves as believing both Intelligent Design and young-earth creationism.

This post was significantly re-worked on August 15, 2007, from the original post date.

In a previous post, I charted some of the different beliefs about origins. There are sincere Christians who believe neither YEC or ID.

I fixed one typo, and edited the last two sentences in the last full paragraph, on October 4, 2007.

On April 18, 2008, I added a link to another post of mine, which summarizes my problems with the Intelligent Design movement, but emphasizes my belief that the universe, and humans, were designed by an Intelligence. I am by no means alone in having such problems, or in believing that there is an Intelligent Designer.

I also added a link to the source of the second quotation of Michael Behe, because the article is now available freely on-line.

On February 3, 2009, I added a quotation from Jonathan Wells.

On August 8, 2009, I am adding a link to a post from the Panda's Thumb, which post claims, without documentation, unfortunately -- I'm not disputing their claim, but can't back it up -- that three new additions to the staff of one of the branches of the Discovery Institute are Young-Earth Creationists.

On September 7, 2009, I made a few editorial corrections in my own writing -- quotations or source citations were not changed.


On July 30, 2010, I am adding a link to an attempt to define ID, by the BioLogos Forum.

On September 17, 2010, I checked most of the links in this post, and corrected some, and made some minor editorial changes.

On October 21, 2010, I inserted material on a change of belief by William Dembski. That material is clearly marked in the above post.

I have indicated some of my own problems with the Intelligent Design movement here, and with Young-Earth Creationism here. 


On March 3, 2012, I became aware of a post, entitled "Intelligent Design is NOT Anti-Evolution," that covers much of the same ground as the post you are reading.


On June 3, 2016, I became aware of a statement by William Dembski, one of the leading theoreticians of the Intelligent Design movement, in which he criticized Young-Earth Creationism.

On November 16, 2017, I read a blog post which quotes Ken Ham, leading figure in Young-Earth Creationism, who strongly disagrees with William Dembski, and which also categorizes Dembski as a leading figure in the Intelligent Design movement.

Thanks for reading.

Michael Behe: will he renounce Intelligent Design?

Bonnie posted a link to "My Conversation With A Cell Biologist About Evolution," and I appreciate it (She also posted a link to a follow-up, on the same blog, The Dawn Treader). The post, on Intelligent Design (ID), is interesting, and so are the comments. The author says he interviewed a professional scientist whose work has been published in academic journals. The blogger is not such a scientist. However, it is clear that he believes in ID, and that the scientist, does, too. Some of the commenters don't. I have comments, pertinent or not, so extensive that I decided to post them on my own blog.

Lest there be any doubt, I believe that there is an omnipotent God, and that He was directly involved in the origin of the universe, of living things, and of humans, and that at least some attributes of the way things are were designed by God. If that makes me an IDer, then I am one.

excerpt:
Blogger: "Is evolution practical in any way to your research?"

Prof: "Your average scientist just uses the word evolution. It is not part of the investing process. Here is the bottom line. Three words. Observable. Reproducible. Testable." [note -- surely investing should have been investigating.]

For what it's worth, which may not be a lot, as it's almost four decades old, I have a Ph. D. in genetics and zoology. My doctoral research, which has been justifiably forgotten by everyone except me, was on relationships between pigeon and dove species, as measured by their blood antigens. Evolutionary relationships were assumed by me, and, as far as I know, by all others involved in the work of my laboratory. We didn't try to test the theory of evolution, at least not to disprove it. It was assumed that natural selection works, and had worked, and that similar species were related to each other by common descent. We did study various similarities between species. I believe that the Prof. is right on the mark.

Forget evolution, whatever that means, (see this post, and the two previous ones it refers to) if you can, for a moment. Although Ph. D. stands for Doctor of Philosophy, I have never taken a course in philosophy, and any expertise I have in the subject has been picked up after I received the degree. That is true of most scientists, at least in the U. S., I believe. I was trained well, at a famous institution, and had acquaintance with three or four Nobel prize winners, and some others who could have been given one. At no time do I recall anyone ever considering the philosophical underpinnings of what we were doing. We never heard of reductionism, determinism, or epistemology. Plumbers probably aren't trained in economics, labor relations, ethics, metallurgy, ceramics, hydrology, and the like, but in how to use their equipment, and in what plumbing hardware is made of, and how it's supposed to work. Based on my experience, biologists are usually trained like plumbers. They learn how the hardware of the cell and the organism are supposed to work, and what they are made of, but not the foundational underpinnings of their fields, or in how their field affects society.

What am I saying? I'm trying to say that scientists don't often question the fundamental assumptions of their field. They just work assuming that they are true. That's one reason for resistance to alternatives to evolutionary theory.

The interview goes on to indicate that it might be dangerous to one's career to stand up for ID, at most universities. Probably. Now, back to evolution. If ID is seen as an attack on the idea of evolution, most biologists will not be happy. Why? Well, one reason is that "evolution" means many things. (ID, also, is not a single coherent set of beliefs--there are serious differences among IDers.) One thing evolution may mean is genetic change under the influence of selection. No biologist that I have ever heard of doubts that such change has occurred. For example, insects have become resistant to insecticides within recent history. For another, the different races of humans have all descended from a single small group. These facts support the idea of evolution. New varieties have arisen. (They don't contradict the Bible, either. In fact, the Bible teaches the second fact.) If evolution, in a sense more fundamental than the appearance of new varieties, occurred, and many types of organisms descended from a few, then you would expect similarities between these different types of organisms, with the amount of similarity depending on how close the relationship is. Similarities, with the amount corresponding closely to the supposed degree of relationship, are found. I know of no biologist who questions this. (They may question the reason for it.) These two ideas, change caused by selection, and similarities, are accepted facts. They can be, and almost always are, related to ideas of evolution. When evolution is questioned, it is seen as an attack on fundamental and accepted facts. If a physicist was told that there is no gravity, or are no electrical charges, she would be extremely skeptical of the teller. Similarly, the first reaction of most biologists to ideas that are said to contradict evolution will be to reject them.

It is also true, of course, that there may be opposition to ID for less valid reasons, such as denying the possibility of a supreme being, or rebelling against religious parents.

What am I saying? I'm saying that there may be what seem, to an honest person, to be reasons to question the sanity of someone proposing ID, and there may also be atheism at work.

Lest there be any doubt, I appreciate the post, and the candor of the anonymous professor.

However, I have trouble with something said in response to a comment:
It would especially be helpful to see Behe himself acknowledge that his confidence in gradualism has been restored. Though I don't know Behe personally, I suspect he has enough integrity to admit when his ideas have been soundly reversed. A good scientist should know when to run up the white flag.

So the writer is not willing to give up on ID unless Michael Behe, credentialed biological scientist, (and author of Darwin's Black Box, one of the cornerstones of ID literature) is willing to recant his support for ID? That's asking an awful lot of Behe. I don't know Behe or the person who made the statement quoted immediately above, and I'm not doubting their integrity, but there is a difference between deliberate dishonesty and self-deception. Almost everyone, surely including me, sincerely believes and supports many things in spite of the evidence--our kids should be in the game, not on the bench; our political party is right, etc., when an unbiased observer would disagree. Scientists usually believe in theories they personally have invested in, even if the evidence is against them. That's just the way people work. I would be amazed if Behe wasn't like that--he's a person. A term which applies in this case, as I understand it, is Cognitive Dissonance. Although good scientists, and others, should know when to run up the white flag, we usually don't even know it, let alone do it.

Thomas S. Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a significant work. Part of what he said is summed up in this quote: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (Kuhn's source is said to have been Max Planck.) Scientists, probably even Behe, won't give up their cherished beliefs easily.

We should be willing to accept evidence that Behe's ideas are wrong, should there be any such evidence, regardless of what Behe might do with that evidence.

(I know, this cuts both ways. Even if ID was completely convincing to an unbiased person, it would be expected to take a generation for it to be accepted generally.)

As I understand Behe, and "gradualism," Behe has no problem accepting at least some gradualism.

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Corrections made, and item reposted: I erred, and mistakenly attributed a name to a poster/commenter. This has now been fixed, I hope.