Response to Critics, Part 3: Michael Ruse

Dear Readers,

Today I give you one last response for now, to Michael Ruse’s review of Edge of Evolution. After more reviews are in, I’ll compose a comprehensive response. I leave you with this for now.

Michael Ruse in The Globe and Mail

Michael Ruse is a philosopher of biology who has written over a dozen books on aspects of Darwinian thought. In his review of The Edge of Evolution he says a few kind words about me personally, and I will return the compliment. I like Michael Ruse and have always enjoyed our interactions (well, with one exception that I won’t mention). He is generally an amusing, fun fellow.

Yet he is unwilling or unable to engage my arguments. He spends the first third of his review, and parts thereafter, writing of young earth creationism, while stating somewhere in the middle that, oh yes, Behe is not a young earth creationist. He says that all those arguments of Darwin’s Black Box have certainly been refuted, without bothering with wearying details. And he regrets that there is more of the same pesky trivia in The Edge of Evolution: “we are still where we were with Darwin’s Black Box. The microworld is too complex to be a product of nature.” In fact, he never tells readers of the review what the book’s argument is. No sickle cell, no malaria, no nothing. Unfortunately, the review boils down to mere Darwinian posturing.

Reviews of The Edge of Evolution

Jerry Coyne, “The Great Mutator”, The New Republic, June 18, 2007.

Sean Carroll, “God as Genetic Engineer”, Science, June 8, 2007.

Michael Ruse, “Design? Maybe. Intelligent? We have our doubts”, The Globe and Mail, June 2, 2007.

Read Michael Behe’s responses to Jerry Coyne and Sean Carroll.