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Virtually all serious scientists accept the truth of Darwin's
theory of evolution. While the fight for its acceptance has been a long and difficult
one, after a century of struggle among the cognoscenti the battle is over. Biologists
are now confident that their remaining questions, such as how life on Earth began,
or how the Cambrian explosion could have produced so many new species in such
a short time, will be found to have Darwinian answers. They, like most of the
rest of us, accept Darwin's theory to be true. But should
we? What would happen if we found something that radically challenged the now-accepted
wisdom.? In Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe argues that evidence of evolution's
limits has been right under our noses -- but it is so small that we have only
recently been able to see it. The field of biochemistry, begun when Watson and
Crick discovered the double-helical shape of DNA, has unlocked the secrets of
the cell. There, biochemists have unexpectedly discovered a world of Lilliputian
complexity. As Behe engagingly demonstrates, using the examples of vision, blood-clotting,
cellular transport, and more, the biochemical world, comprises an arsenal of chemical
machines, made up of finely calibrated, interdependent parts. For Darwinian evolution
to be true, there must have been a series of mutations, each of which produced
its own working machine, that led to the complexity we can now see. The more complex
and interdependent each machine's parts are shown to be, the harder it is to envision
Darwin's gradualistic paths. Behe surveys the professional science literature
and shows that it is completely silent on the subject, stymied by the elegance
of the foundation of life. Could it be that there is some greater force at work?
Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific
method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these questions.
But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must have been designed --
either by God, or by some other higher intelligence. For decades science has been
frustrated, trying to reconcile the astonishing discoveries of modern biochemistry
to a nineteenth-century theory that cannot accommodate them. With the publication
of Darwin's Black Box, it is time for scientists to allow themselves to
consider exciting new possibilities, and for the rest of us to watch closely.
Michael Behe is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh
University. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. |
