Can the Theory of Evolution be Simulated through Lab Experiments?

Michigan State University biologist Richard Lenski tests evolution and random mutations acting on natural selection to determine what evolution can do. He has experimented with bacteria to see what new functions can evolve just through random mutations acting on natural selection. Biologist Michael Behe has found that there are severe limitations to getting the coordinated mutations that natural selection needs to develop new functions and ultimately new organisms. He determined that there are limits to evolution and what natural selection can accomplish.  

Revolutionary tells the story of biochemist Michael Behe and the revolution he helped spark with his book Darwin’s Black Box. Behe inspired a new generation of scientists and thinkers who are now challenging Darwinian evolution and exploring evidence in nature of intelligent design. Learn about Behe’s journey, how those opposed to his ideas tried to kill intelligent design in federal court, and how recent scientific discoveries have vindicated and extended his work. The Revolutionary website features more information about Dr. Behe’s research, other molecular machines, and evidence for intelligent design, and the stories of revolutionary scientists changing the evolutionary paradigm.

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Peer-Reviewed Scientific Paper by Michael Behe Challenges “Gain of Function” Mutations in Molecular Evolution

Casey Luskin

December 3, 2010

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Michael Behe has published a peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal Quarterly Review of Biology titled “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution’,” arguing that “the most common adaptive changes seen … are due to the loss or modification of a pre-existing molecular function.” The observation that a particular type of molecular change involves loss-of-function has been used by leading evolutionary biologists as argument against that particular mechanism as being an important force for adaptive evolutionary change. In a 2007 article in the journal Evolution, Hopi E. Hoekstra and Jerry Coyne co-authored a review article critiquing cis-regulatory mutations as a mechanism of evolution, stating, …