[Evolidaho] Fwd: [AIBS-Evolution-l]Evolution education update: June 15, 2007

[Resources for teaching evolution]

----- Original Message -----
From: Holly Menninger <hmenninger at aibs.org>
Date: Friday, June 15, 2007 11:30 am
Subject: [AIBS-Evolution-l]Evolution education update:  June 15, 2007
To: evolution-l at aibs.org

>  From the National Center for Science Education:
>
> Dear Friends of NCSE,
>
> The latest book from "intelligent design" proponent Michael Behe
> is faring
> poorly with knowledgeable reviewers.
>
> BEHE'S LATEST SCRUTINIZED
>
> The new book from "intelligent design" proponent Michael Behe,
> The Edge of
> Evolution (Free Press, 2007), is supposed to present "astounding new
> findings from the genetics revolution to show that Darwinism
> cannot account
> for the sheer complexity and near-miraculous design of life as
> we know it,"
> according to a press release from the publisher.  There
> were similarly
> grandiose claims in Behe's previous book, Darwin's Black Box
> (Free Press,
> 1996), in which Behe contended that "intelligent design" "must
> be ranked as
> one of the greatest achievements in the history of
> science.  The discovery
> rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schroedinger,
> Pasteur,and Darwin.  The observation of the intelligent
> design of life is as
> momentous as the observation that the earth goes around the sun
> or that
> disease is caused by bacteria or that radiation is emitted in
> quanta."  Such claims notwithstanding, knowledgeable
> reviewers were
> anything but impressed.  In his review of Darwin's Black
> Box for the
> September-October 1997 issue of American Scientist, for example,
> RobertDorit wrote, "as a practicing biologist, and a card-
> carrying molecular
> evolutionist, I cannot but find the premise of this book -- that
> moleculardiscoveries have plunged a wooden stake through the
> heart of Darwinian
> logic -- ludicrous."  The Edge of Evolution is faring no
> better, as three
> recent reviews demonstrate.
>
> First, writing in the Globe and Mail (June 2, 2007), Michael
> Ruse offers
> his assessment with his customary affability, describing Behe as
> "warm and
> friendly" and saying that Darwin's Black Box "makes the case for
> ["intelligent design"] in the most user-friendly manner
> possible."  But he
> was disappointed by The Edge of Evolution, which in comparison
> to Darwin's
> Black Box seemed "a bit of a sad sack.  Nothing very much
> new, old
> arguments repeated, opposition ignored or dismissed without
> argument."  What seems to interest Ruse the most about The
> Edge of
> Evolution is the degree to which it embraces claims that are
> anathema to
> young-earth creationists:  "What does surprise me is how
> emphatic Behe now
> is in putting a distance between himself and the older
> Creationists.  For a
> start, he stresses his commitment to evolution.  He thinks
> the world of
> life is as old as is claimed by any more conventional
> biologist.  He also
> wants to give natural processes of change a role in life's
> history."  But
> in the end, he finds it saddening:  "with so many important
> issues waiting
> for attention in our society, I am just a bit depressed that
> anyone would
> think that something like ["intelligent design"] is worth
> pushing or that
> it gains so much attention others have to spend time refuting
> it."  Ruse is
> a professor of philosophy at Florida State University and a
> Supporter of NCSE.
>
> Second, writing in Science (June 8, 2007), Sean Carroll takes a harder
> line, contending that in The Edge of Evolution "Behe makes a new
> set of
> explicit claims about the limits of Darwinian evolution, claims
> that are so
> poorly conceived and readily dispatched that he has unwittingly
> done his
> critics a great favor in stating them."  "Behe's chief
> error," he says, "is
> minimizing the power of natural selection to act cumulatively as
> traits or
> molecules evolve stepwise from one state to another via
> intermediates."  The error is manifest both in Behe's
> reasoning -- Carroll
> cites a number of problems, particularly a lack of quantitative
> thinking --
> and in his neglect of relevant scientific facts, causing Carroll
> to wonder,
> "Is it possible that Behe does not know this body of data? 
> Or does he just
> choose to ignore it?"  He concludes:  "The continuing
> futile attacks by
> evolution's opponents reminds me of another legendary
> confrontation, that
> between Arthur and the Black Knight in the movie Monty Python
> and the Holy
> Grail.  The Black Knight, like evolution's challengers,
> continues to fight
> even as each of his limbs is hacked off, one by one. ... The
> knights of ID
> may profess these blows are 'but a scratch' or 'just a flesh
> wound,' but
> the argument for design has no scientific leg to stand
> on."  Carroll is a
> professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
> and a
> Supporter of NCSE.
>
> Third, and most thoroughly, Jerry Coyne devotes 7500 words to
> reviewing The
> Edge of Evolution in the June 18, 2007, issue of The New Republic,
> providing a great deal of useful background information in the
> process.  Coyne, like Carroll, worries about the propaganda
> value of the
> book, writing, "The general reader, at whom The Edge of
> Evolution is aimed,
> is unlikely to find the scientific holes in its arguments. 
> Behe writes
> clearly and engagingly, and someone lacking formal training in
> biochemistryand evolutionary biology may be easily snowed by his
> rhetoric."  In fact,
> however, Behe's arguments betray "a profound, almost willful
> ignorance of
> the evolutionary process," and his offered alternative of "intelligent
> design" is "infinitely malleable in the face of counterevidence,
> cannot be
> refuted, and is therefore not science."  Coyne
> summarizes:  "Behe's new
> theory remains the same old mixture of dead science and thinly
> disguisedtheology.  There is no evidence for his main claim
> of non-random mutation,
> and scientists have plenty of evidence against it.  His
> arguments against
> the Darwinian evolution of complex organisms are flawed and
> misleading.  And there is not a shred of evidence
> supporting his claim that
> the goal of evolution is intelligent life."  Coyne is a
> professor in the
> Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.
>
> For Ruse's, Carroll's, and Coyne's reviews of The Edge of
> Evolution, visit:
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/freeheadlines/LAC/20070602/BKEVOL02/science/Science
> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5830/1427
> http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070618&s=coyne061807
>
> For Dorit's review of Darwin's Black Box, visit:
> http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/22794?fulltext=true
>
>
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