The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism

1. Michael Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution is yet another statement of a scientific fact that is becoming more and more obvious and more difficult to refute: life was not the result of random mutations and natural selection. Nor were the different phyla or even the different classes and species of vertebrates. This is a claim that is perfectly sustainable on the basis of scientific observation alone.In his previous book, Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe had convincingly made the point that molecular machines, such as the flagellum or the cilium, could not be made by random mutations. These are systems that depend on the simultaneous convergence of multiple interdependent parts, within a complex, specified and integrated whole, to perform a totally innovative function in a very efficient and precise manner.Someone had to have this specific function in mind along with the intelligence, information and ability needed in order to determine, conceive, specify, produce and gather all the different parts which, once precisely adjusted, will allow for a complex molecular mechanism to function. The fact that not even all the past and present scientists combined have enough intelligence and information to create DNA and to specify miniaturized machines remotely as complex as the different molecular machines, speaks eloquently for the fact that the One who designed these machines has a whole lot more intelligence and more information than the whole scientific community put together.2. In this new book Michael Behe expands his argument, relying to a great extent on the scientific developments that have been taking place in the last ten years. The recent project ENCODE, if taken into account, would only bring more powerful evidence of intelligent design, since it definitely does away with the concept of junk-DNA and underlines the extreme complexity and functionality of the whole genome, including the so called untranslated regions (UTR's).Michael Behe demonstrates once again what many scientists, both creationists and non-creationists (v.g. Michael Denton, Lee Spetner, Werner Gitt, John Sanford), have been saying for many decades now. Random mutations and natural selection, although observable on a daily basis, have nothing to do with particles to people evolution. They don't create new complex specified information that codes for completely new structures and functions. Not now, not in a million years!That's because all observable mutations are cumulative and degenerative. They destroy information, the genome and the cell functions. As the universe is losing order and reusable energy, so is the genome losing information. Order, energy and information had to be there in the beginning, and they could only have been brought about by a rational, powerful and intelligent God. There is simply no plausible alternative to that conclusion.Mutations don't have the magic properties that would transform them in a "blind watch maker". The "blind watch maker" is, in reality, a "blind watch breaker!" It has a destructive effect!On the other hand, natural selection does nothing else rather than selecting and eliminating pre-existing genetic materials. Natural selection is a "negative-sum game", as far as genetic information is concerned.Relying on the interaction between the human body and malaria parasites as well as between malaria, sickle cell disease and medicine, Michael Behe shows that from these relationships no new genetic information arises that is able to create new protein-protein interactions, much less new molecular machines. On the contrary, the dynamics of human body/malaria/sickle cell disease is a destructive one.The same results come from the observation of HIV's resistance to medication, as well as from the studies of intraflagellum transportation (ITF), frozen Antartic fish, or E. coli, the highly reproductive and mutant bacteria, among other examples.The odds are totally against random evolution, as the many have already understood and Michael Behe competently reiterates. A random and incoherent process has no information to create nothing whatsoever. To create functionally integrated objects one needs intelligence and information, something random mutations and natural selection just can't provide.Mutations and natural selection are not about creation. They are about death, suffering, disease and, at best, adaptation to changing environmental conditions through the elimination of the less fit. Natural selection results in loss and less.3. Michael Behe is certainly not (yet) a Young Earth biblical creationist. However, in my view he ends up making a powerful argument for instant (and recent) creation. I will only sketch the reasons that lead me to say that. One must start by saying that although he speaks about common ancestry, the arguments he puts forward to support it are actually not very strong, and are to a large extent compatible with the concept of a common Creator. Young Earth creationists deal with this subject at length. What's more, Michael Behe makes the important point that the creation of the simplest forms of new three protein interactions is totally beyond the edge of evolution.In doing so, Michael Behe gives strong support to the idea according to which to create life, along with the different classes of functional plants and animals, of incredible complexity, integration and fine-tuning, one needs huge amounts of theoretical information and practical ability. Scientists lack both.All the different parts have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right shape, in the right amounts to perform the right tasks. In my view, this does away with billions of years of random or non-random evolution and speaks loudly about instant, careful and precise creation, jusk like the Bible states.If we bring within this picture the fine tuning of the Universe for life (v.g. right stretching of the Universe, right outward motion of galaxies, right electron charges, right proton mass, right water, galatic habitable zones, Sun, Moon, Earth gravitational interaction), a reality that Michael Behe briefly describes in the ending chapters of his book, we realize that the biblical message of a systematic, integrated, low-entropy, fine-tuned and purposeful creation in six days, as absurd as it may seem to the naturalistic scientific community, becomes not only plausible, but actually the only possible option, when compared with other naturalistic and even non-naturalistic alternatives.And if evolution didn't happen, this can only mean that rocks and fossils are not to be treated of evidence of gradual evolution (as even evolutionists such as Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge would concede), but as the evidence of a cataclysmic event causing rapid deposition and fossilization. What's more, human language, since it also requires anatomical, physiological and informational fine-tuning, cannot be the product of random evolution. And once again all we are left with is the biblical model of creation, fall, global flood, Babel, and dispersion. Like it or not.All things considered, I think this is the only working model! If Michael Behe would take his time to study the matter in depth he would find that the arguments from the various disciplines that are currently used to defend cosmic random evolution and millions years against biblical young earth creationism are as weak as the ones that once tried to establish a strong link between random mutations and information generating evolution.Of course, I am well aware of the fact that young earth creationism makes the relationship between science and religion much more complicated (or simple, depending on the perspective) than the naturalistic establishment previously would have it.But to defend young earth creationism is very far from being an act of blind faith and/or anti-scientific fundamentalism. It is simply based on the verifiable notion that the same naturalistic, materialistic and evolutionary pressupositions that have led biologists in to a misguided belief on mutations and natural selection (or about junk-DNA) have also blurred the vision of scientists and in all other disciplines, leading them to develop a very distorted interpretation of scientific evidence and of reality as a whole.What Michael Behe has realized about the unsubstantiated faith of evolutionary biologists, biblical creationists have long realized about the unsubstantiated faith of evolutionary geologists, astrophysicists, anthropologists, paleontologists, etc. Their models just refuse to work.Biblical creationism is not a thing of the past. It is the only viable alternative for the future.

What in essence is Darwinian Evolution? Many philosophers would find that a fairly difficult question. For Daniel Dennett, it is a universal solvent that dissolves all non-materialist ideas. For some creationists, it is the root of much evil in the modern world, including racism, war, and a lack of compassion for the poor. For Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University, it is an extraordinarily successful set of explanations for the diversity of life. But for Michael Behe, and one suspects many biologists, Darwinism is simply a series of propositions. These are 1) common descent of life, 2) natural selection (sometimes termed "survival of the fittest") and 3) random mutation at the cellular level driving the changes. The difference between Behe, an advocate of intelligent design, and Miller is simply one of the degree to which each thinks these propositions are applicable in describing life as we observe it. (Readers should note that Behe fully accepts common descent and natural selection. It is the random mutation mechanism that he has difficulty with.)In this book Behe strikes off in a new direction from his previous work, 'Darwin's Black Box.' Rather than simply explore cellular mechanisms that seem unlikely to arise from chance, Behe instead considers all the areas where evolution seems to function very well. For example, the rise of resistance among certain diseases, notably malaria, to synthetic drugs. Remarkable evolutionary pressures are at work in the struggle between humans and deadly pathogens. Humans who develop an immunity to maleria have a strong evolutionary advantage over those who don't. Similarly, protozoan parasites which can avoid the drugs we use to combat them also have an evolutionary advantage. Indeed, this is common knowledge among all biologists and most of the literate public. Germ resistance of all kinds to drug treatments is the star example of evolution at work.But what is not so commonly known is that random mutation has severe limits in how effectively it can cope with evolutionary pressure. Indeed, what Behe demonstrates in precise detail is that evolutionary mechanisms are for the most part destructive: a part of the DNA stand is destroyed or replaced with a less efficient coding and the result is a weaker organism, though one which can survive the "trench warfare" of survival with hostile organisms. Thus, for example, humans have developed sickle cell anemia to cope with malaria. This is hardly beneficial, in and of itself, but compared to malarial death, it is a very helpful mutation. Similarly, malaria can rapidly evolve resistance to some drugs, slowly to others (more changes are required, and hence far fewer resistant copies of the cell are likely) but the mutated genes that come from this battle for survival are not optimal. Indeed, like sickle cell anemia, they rapidly die out of the malarial population if not subjected to the pressure of deadly (for the parasite) toxins in the form of antimalarial drugs.So, while malaria (and several other cases Behe examines) suggests the efficacy of random mutation, it also suggests limits to just how much it can accomplish. Indeed, Behe finds that even two or three simultaneous random changes in DNA sequencing is exceedingly unlikely, and more just about impossible. This is very important because it suggests real limits to the amount of random mutation that could happen among higher mammals. People mistakenly believe that time is the most important factor in allowing for evolutionary change but as Behe demonstrates, population, not time, is what determines successful mutations. Malaria, and even moreso HIV are extraordinarily effective at utilizing evolution. There are a lot of such organisms and they reproduce quickly. Humans, and indeed, all vertebrate and most invertibrate animals, do not. Even given the entire history of life on the planet, it is extremely unlikely that the random mutation proposition of evolution could account for a significant amount of the diversity we witness in the world around us.Indeed, the situation is even worse than that according to Behe, because the mutations we actually observe in nature are almost always destructive or at a very minimum, sub optimal. They do not build up new structures. Despite strong evolutionary pressure, neither malarial protozoa nor HIV and similar retroviruses have ever developed a single new cellualar structure. Indeed, as Behe tellingly notes, "Until an organism is found that is demonstrated to be much more adept than the malarial parasite at building coherent molecular machinery by random mutation and natural selection, there is no positive reason to believe it can be done. And the best evidence we have from malaria and HIV argues it is biologically unreasonable to think so."(p.155)So if random mutation does not facilitate change in species, what does? For Behe the answer is clear: non-random mutation. But what causes that? One possibility, of course, is chance. A variant of this possibility is favored by physicists who believe in a multiverse. We are just extraordinarily lucky to have life here, but it looks designed to us. Aside from the fact that there is no evidence for a multiverse, there are logical problems with this solution to the problem of life and the forms it takes on earth. Behe discusses these and then moves on to more serious territory. Should we examine the possibility of a natural law that guides the evolutionary processes of natural selection leading to common descent? In and of itself, Behe finds this approach unappealing. Instead he advocates intelligent design, but in my opinion, especially as described by Behe, this is pretty much indistinguishable from such a natural law. Indeed, many of the natural laws in our universe are at present only explained by the anthropic principle and it is hard to imagine that this one would be any different.Ultimately, of course, Behe moves from science proper (what we can infer from actual observations of evolution--namely random mutation is insufficient to explain common descent) to more philosophical speculations. What would the designer(s) be like? Can we infer anything about motive? What about the problem of evil? After all, any designer who might have "pre-programed" the possibility of intelligent life into the universe, say us, must also be responsible for malaria as well. These are serious issues and Behe is right to raise them. His critics will no doubt hammer him for it. These speculation are not "scientific" but that doesn't mean they are inappropriate. I think Behe is right when he notes that knowledge need not respect the boundaries we set for it in modern universities. Just because a topic does not yield to scientific inquiry hardly makes it unfit for all inquiry. Moreover, considering other questions will hardly invalidate the scientific portion of Behe's book or the considerable math behind it.In my opinion this final chapter, where Behe takes on these philosophical questions, is the most important part of the book. It is also the most controversial. Readers will probably come to different conclusions, but Behe's ideas deserve serious consideration. As for the rest of the book, it lives up to its title. There is a clear edge or limit beyond which evolution is a poor mechanism for understanding life on the planet. That line may not be precisely where Behe claims it is, and future research will undoubtedly refine this edge further. But to persist in maintaining no such line exists requires at this point faith. Indeed, the next time a critic of ID suggests that scholars like Behe should be ignored because "they" are religiously motivated, readers would do well to remember that Freud, like Darwin, is largely discredited. But his theory of projection is still valid, much as Darwin's observations still apply to bacteria and anti-biotics. Indeed, I predict such projections will figure very prominently in some reviews of this book. Those with an ideological axe to grind will not appreciate it. Thoughtful readers, on the other hand, will be fascinated with this excellent book.

Behe deals with the fact that the concept 'That which survives is that which is fittest to survive' is a tautology that actually begs the question 'How does it work?' rather than explaining anything. His putative solution: design is a realistic possibility that can only be rejected by a previously decided metaphysical perspective rather than dispassionate Science. He points to the contemporary search for the real mechanism that makes things like molecular machines within every cell. Is it design - & hence 'God'? He seems to think so. This is a read if only because it throws serious spanners in complacent, contemporary Scientific convention - out of which nothing new ever evolves. The Edge of Evolution could well mark the dawn of a cutting edge of revolution. Time will tell.A serious read for serious Science readers.

Fascinating and eye opening. A must read for all those with an.open mind and readiness to learn the truth about the origin of species.

Brilliantly written and argued thesis regarding certain key aspects in the development and the battle for life at cell level. Couched in terms understandable to non specialists and experts alike, Dr. Hebe explains the impossibilty of random mutation being entirely responsible for where the whole life on the planet is at present. He insists on, and explains why, there is intelligence.behind life from its beginnings,.

A very good book,i find it much more easier to understand then his last book.recomended.

An excellent, well thought out challenge to the accepted Darwinian paradigm. Although it is taught almost unchallenged in schools and universities, evolutionary theory should never be accepted at face value. This book supplies scientific evidence that Darwin was wrong.