pen-people may be interested in my mini-review of a book by Michael Behe, who is trying to open the door to "Intelligent Design" in his book _The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism_. (This was originally a letter to a friend.)
I am continuing to read Michael Behe's book, coming to the conclusion that even though he's a very clear writer and knows a lot, it's no accident that none of the blurbs on the cover are from biologists. He doesn't know evolutionary theory very well. In his section "the importance of the pathway" (pp. 4-7), he wonders about the likelihood of a random process of mutation getting creatures from "biological point A to biological point B." If "you had to walk blindfolded [or "in the spirit of Darwinism, blind drunk"] from one side of an unfamiliar city to the top of a skyscraper on the other side -- across busy streets, bypassing hazards, through doorways -- you would have enormous trouble." I agree: there's little possibility of getting to the top of the skyscraper. The problem is that he looks at evolution backwards from the end result, implying that Darwinism is teleological (which it is not, despite the fact that many such as Herbert Spenser have tried to make it so). He assumes that creatures are currently on top of a skyscraper (with very complex organisms, etc.) and then asks how we could have gotten here blindly. But the exact nature of point B was not predetermined; evolution is an historical, not a teleological, process. We might have ended up with completely different creatures, even with our planet lacking complex organisms. It's more like we stagger starting at one point in the unfamiliar city and we could end up _anywhere_. We might end up at the top of a skyscraper, but which skyscraper it was not predetermined. Once we get to the top of whatever building we end up, it make _look_ like that was the only option, but it wasn't. History is contingent. After that, Behe misinterprets the randomness in Darwinian theory. It's not the randomness of flipping coins or of the blind drunk. Randomness in Darwinian theory refers to processes that are not explained by common descent or natural selection. (It's randomness _relative to_ these.) For example, we see that a parasite and its host can actually learn to live with each other, like a lot of the bacteria in our guts. Sometimes the parasite becomes part of the host, the way that organelles in our bodies' cells seem to have done. There's also the idea that a large number of almost exactly the same kind of cell can form a "colony" (like yeast), which turns out to give them all some adaptive advantage. Next, there's the principle of specialization: a hydra is a lot like a colony, but some cells specialize in doing some tasks, so that the entire creature can get an adaptive advantage. Then there are entire organs inside more complex bodies; each of these is like a colony which specializes in one or more of the body's function. Etc. All of this is totally unexplained by selection, and therefore "random." But it is not random by other criteria. On page 15, Behe seems amazed that the malaria microbes haven't figured out a way to get around sickle-cell anemia. But it's not like all types of germs _have to_ be successful in the sense of killing off all of the people, etc. In fact, if the malaria microbe killed off all of the mammals it infects, it might kill the geese that laid the golden eggs for them: parasites that kill their hosts do not survive to propagate their species. It's quite possible that malaria and sickle cells have reached a rough equilibrium where malaria continues to be reproduced generation after generation, along with its hosts. On page 16, Behe refers to E. coli as devolving. It's becoming simpler over time, so that nothing "of remotely similar elegance has been built." He seems to be assuming that one of Darwinism's ideological overlays -- i.e., that evolution produces more and more complex creatures as part of a unilinear "upward" path toward more and more "improvement" -- is part and parcel of Darwinism. But this is not true: point B might be a cheap motel rather than a skyscraper; it might be a cheaper motel than at point A. It's notable that this increasing complexity is not one of his three components of Darwinism that Behe defines at the beginning of the chapter. Also on page 16, Behe wonders why malaria hasn't gone beyond the tropics. Again, what matters for evolution is survival to propagate, not expansion. In any event, though human beings have altered our ecological niche, the environment in which we live (especially once cultural evolution took over), that isn't true for all species. One problem is that other species are competing for access to the same resources, blocking the expansion of malaria. Some of that is due to the ideologies others have attached to Darwinism, but that's no excuse. I'm not an expert on malaria, so my criticisms may be wrong. But I'm beginning to worry about whether it's worth my while to continue to chapter 2. Behe has created his scare-crow figure of Darwin and has started the pre-determined process of knocking it down. In addition to advocating the use of "intelligent design" as an after-the-fact rationalization to fill gaps not yet explained by Darwinism, he has misrepresented the subject of his book. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
