Michael Behe Publishes (and other Irreducibly Complex News)

That someone engaged in scientific research publishes a scientific article is par for the course, not news. That Michael Behe’s publication of an article in a respected science journal (The Quarterly Review of Biology) is an occasion for surprise and considered noteworthy is itself noteworthy. If one searches for publications by Behe in an academic database, the only results going back several years are letters to the editor and contributions to theology journals. I have no problems with anyone contributing to theology journals, including scientists, if they can get their work accepted. But I expect scientists to also be publishing in science journals.

It remains to be seen what Behe’s article will say. A contribution of his to Theology and Science indicates that he does not regard common ancestry as incompatible with intelligent design. The latter, he suggests, is only incompatible with random mutations, and he says ID is compatible with a view of evolution as unfolding according to a front-loaded program that does not require subsequent intervention.

If that is so, it isn’t clear why he could not actually do research on the relevant processes, irrespective of whether the results supported, contradicted, or were simply irrelevant to his theological views.

The same issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology features an article that shows problems with Intelligent Design and categorizes it as pseudoscience. That article is already available online.

Troy Britain and Hemant Mehta shared this video about irreducible complexity:

Finally, let me mention the cartoon illustrating the wages of scientific sin which PZ Myers shared.