Michael J. Behe

Archives

Citrate Death Spiral

_{Michael Behe
June 17, 2020}

Michigan State University biologist Richard Lenski and collaborators have just published a terrific new paper.

Michael Behe on COVID-19, Chloroquine, Malaria and the Edge of Evolution

_{Michael Behe
March 30, 2020}

On this episode of ID the Future, biochemist Michael Behe and host Andrew McDiarmid discuss the anti-malarial drug chloroquine, now being investigated as a treatment for COVID-19, and how it may work on the cellular level against the coronavirus. The same drug was featured in Behe’s 2007 book The Edge of Evolution, as part of his demonstration that evolution has strict limits: It can do adaptive work for organisms with single mutations, but if just two coordinated mutations are required at once, evolution’s random processes have great difficulty even with natural selection helping them along. In cases where population sizes are enormous, as with malaria, it can eventually overcome the need for two simultaneous and coordinated mutations, but only just barely. Because the odds go up …

Michael Behe on COVID-19 and ‘Why Are There Viruses, Anyway?’

_{Michael Behe
March 16, 2020}

On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid and biochemist Michael Behe discuss the pandemic coronavirus known as COVID-19. The two move through a series of questions, some straightforward, others more speculative. What is a virus and where did this one come from? Why is it so much worse than other coronavirus strains? What sort of evolution is involved here? Does the human species have any ancient, shared genetic relationship with viruses? And why are there viruses in the first place? …

Evolution, Design, and COVID-19

_{Michael Behe
March 10, 2020}

From time to time a storm arises in the virosphere and affects humans.

Helpful Devolutionary Mutations Are Rapid and Unavoidable: Paper Reinforces Darwin Devolves

_{Michael Behe
March 5, 2020}

There is simply no way for any unguided, unintelligent account of the unfolding of life to avoid the bane of helpful degradative mutations.

Philosophical-ish Objections to Intelligent Design: A Response to Paul Draper

_{Michael Behe
February 19, 2020}

Recently I was asked by several people whether I had ever responded to an old review of my book Darwin’s Black Box.

Michael Behe on the Design Idea That Won’t Go Away (and Shouldn’t)

_{Michael Behe
February 10, 2020}

On this episode of ID the Future, Jonathan Witt caught up with Darwin’s Black Box author and biochemist Michael Behe at the 2020 Dallas Science and Faith conference, where the two discuss an idea that many wish would just go away, but hasn’t. Charles Darwin himself told us how his evolutionary theory could be overturned: identify a biological system that couldn’t possibly have evolved by “numerous success successive slight modifications.” It’s to Darwin’s credit that he put his theory in “empirical harm’s way,” to quote philosopher Del Ratzsch, but as Witt and Behe note, Darwin also cleverly placed the burden of proof on his opponents, an arguably dubious maneuver given that his proposed evolutionary mechanism has never once been observed to generate a …

Important Medical Effects but Modest Mutations

_{Michael Behe
February 4, 2020}

It’s important to remember that Darwinian factors are indeed real and can have important medical effects, but they only modify life around the edges.

Honoring Phillip Johnson, Pt. 3: Michael Behe

_{Michael Behe
January 27, 2020}

On this ID the Future we continue a series of messages from a November 2019 symposium in Berkeley, California, presented in honor of the late Phillip Johnson, who played a crucial role in the flowering of the intelligent design movement. On today’s episode Lehigh University biology professor Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box, The Edge of Evolution, and Darwin Devolves, tells about his earliest memories of Phillip Johnson and speaks on the long history of science: how ancient science pointed to purposeful design in life, and how current science is coming full circle, so that the conclusion of design is as strong or stronger than it’s ever been. …

Michael Behe Opens a Black Box for Christmas

_{Michael Behe
December 9, 2019}

On this episode of ID the Future, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe discusses the closing sections of his new book Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA That Challenges Evolution. He compares evolutionary biology in Darwin’s time and today to the world of astronomy before and after the telescope was invented. The cell was a black box to Darwin and his contemporaries. Today we can explore that black box like never before, much better even than even two decades ago, allowing us to observe what evolution can actually do at the molecular level. According to Behe, the answer is, not much. Evolution can create niche advantages by breaking certain things, but it doesn’t build fundamentally new structures or new machines. That’s because it can’t do what mind can do. It …

Behe Barnstorms Brazil

_{Michael Behe
November 11, 2019}

On this episode of ID the Future, Darwin Devolves author and Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe sits down with host Rob Crowther to discuss Behe’s recent speaking trip to Brazil, and on where he sees the Darwinism/design debate heading in the next few years.

Darwin on Trial — As Fresh and Relevant as Ever

_{Michael Behe
November 7, 2019}

Because of Phillip Johnson’s leadership no informed person will ever again honestly say that Darwin’s theory flows straight from the data.

Darwin Devolves — Evidence Keeps Rolling In

_{Michael Behe
October 2, 2019}

The second paper is an in-depth look at genetic changes associated with the evolution of whales and dolphins. They found a lot of devolution.

Puppy Dog Eyes for Darwin

_{Michael Behe
June 19, 2019}

A study in PNAS has gotten tons of affectionate press, probably because puppies are so darned cute.

Déjà Vu at National Review

_{Michael Behe
May 14, 2019}

Some guy once wrote that there’s nothing new under the sun. He must have had political conservatives’ pro-Darwin arguments in mind.

Michael Behe on the Darwinist Math Mirage

_{Michael Behe
April 22, 2019}

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid continues his series with Michael Behe about Behe’s new book Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA That Challenges Evolution. Here Behe explains the “Revenge of the Principle of Comparative Difficulty,” According to this principle, evolution it is much easier for evolution to create a new adaptive niche by damaging one or more genes than even the simplest new genes and irreducibly complex structures. Along the way, Behe also explores how biology got enamored of mathematical theory built on “hopeful ignorance” regarding the nature of …

Michael Behe on Natural Selection’s Inability to Build New Systems

_{Michael Behe
April 15, 2019}

On this episode of ID the Future, biochemist Michael Behe speaks further about his new book Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA That Challenges Evolution. Behe explains how evolutionists in the past had freedom to use their imaginations to suppose ways evolution could achieve major innovations, but new research at the molecular level now reveals obstacles previously unimagined. The most productive adaptations in nature tend overwhelmingly to be in one direction, Behe says, degrading or destroying genes, and no series of mutations have ever demonstrated the kind of coordinated effects needed to produce new …

Can’t Anybody Here Make Distinctions?

_{Michael Behe
April 12, 2019}

Professor Lenski revisits a series of experiments on the bacteriophage lambda begun by his lab around 2012.

Michael Behe on How Darwin Devolves Everything from Birds to Bacteria

_{Michael Behe
April 1, 2019}

On this episode of ID the Future, biochemist Michael Behe discusses part 3 of his new book Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA That Challenges Evolution. Behe explains new research showing that although evolution really can bring about adaptive changes, it does so at the nickel-and-dime level of genus and species, and apparently only by breaking or degrading genes. Behe further argues that natural selection, supposed by evolutionists to be the great driver of new developments, actually limits …

Thanks, Professor Lenski, the LTEE Is Doing Great!

_{Michael Behe
March 29, 2019}

Lenski agrees that the beneficial mutations seen in his Long Term Evolution Experiment are overwhelmingly degradative or loss-of-function ones.