DARWIN'S BLACK BOX: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

Description: DARWIN'S BLACK BOX: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution From Kirkus Reviews Behe (Biochemistry/Lehigh Univ.) offers the thesis that biochemistry provides so many examples of ``irreducible complexity'' in nature that not even Darwinian gradualism can explain their evolution and existence. Intelligent design alone, he says, provides an answer. He then presents a modern-day version of the kinds of anti- Darwin arguments adduced a century ago: How could so intricate an organ as the vertebrate eye evolve through step-by-step chance mutations? Clearly there must be a designer at work, an eye-maker of an eye, just as there is a watchmaker for a watch. Behe's contemporary examples are a biochemistry student's nightmare: How do you make a cilium? Cilia are those fine hairs that stick out from cells lining the lungs and sweep out debris or, when attached to a bacterium, allow the bug to swim. The fine structure and molecular motors that power a cilium are awesome. And what Behe does for the cilium he does in spades in describing the biochemical events that occur when you cut yourself and a clot forms, or when your immune system takes arms against an invader. He emphasizes how each molecular actor must come on stage and go off in precise order or else the process won't work. Allusions to Rube Goldberg inventions pale by comparison. But where is it written that because science can't explain the origins of complex phenomena, the only answer is design? The history of science is replete with enigmas that have succumbed to new concepts, new tools, new paradigms. Complexity theory is in its infancy; Darwinian theory undergoes revisions departing from gradualism. Nonlinear system theory, self- organizing systems, newly discovered developmental and regulatory genes are contributing profound insights into the development of complex organs and systems. Belief that ``irreducible complexity'' implies design may comfort the faithful (Behe is a Roman Catholic), but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for many other practicing scientists. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Product Description 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, bloodclotting, 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. Details Product Dimensions: 6.75 x 1.0 x 9.75 inches Item Weight: 1.34 pounds Shipping Weight: 1.35 pounds Manufacturer: Free Press Item color: BLACK

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