Michael Behe

Michael Behe is a biochemist and professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who wrote Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution, books which present a case for Intelligent Design. He argues that molecular machines, such as the bacterial flagellum are irreducibly complex. Such machines require all of their parts to function, Behe says, and so could not have come into being through an unguided process. He considers this evidence that the flagellum must have been designed.

Behe also said:

"There is no publication in the scientific literature that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations." Darwin’s Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 186

Professor Behe also provides a response to critics concerning peer-review.

Behe also accepts common descent:

"The word "evolution" carries many associations. Usually it means common descent -- the idea that all organisms living and dead are related by common ancestry. I have no quarrel with the idea of common descent, and continue to think it explains similarities among species. By itself, however, common descent doesn't explain the vast differences among species."

Unlike true creationists, Behe believes in many of the principal tenets of evolutionary theory, such as an earth billions of years old, descent from common ancestors, and even natural selection within closely related organisms.

Behe's Criticism of the Materialistic Science of Francis Crick

In 1992, the science journal Scientific American published an interview which explored Sir Francis Crick's belief in the hypothesis Directed Panspermia as a proposed hypthesis for the origin of life on earth. Behe wrote regarding the Scientific American interview the following:

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The primary reason Crick subscribes to this unorthodox view is that he judges the undirected origin of life to be a virtually insurmountable obstacle, but he wants a naturalistic explanation.

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Peer review of his ideas

During Behe's testimony at the trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, opponents of Intelligent Design made the objection that this concept has not been published in peer-reviewed journals. Behe testified that his book was subjected to peer review as rigorous as that of journals:

Q (Plaintiffs' attorney). You would agree that peer review for a book published in the Trade Press is not as rigorous as the peer review process for the leading scientific journals, would you?

A (Michael Behe). No, I would not agree with that. The review process that the book went through is analogous to peer review in the literature, because the manuscript was sent out to scientists for their careful reading.

Furthermore, the book was sent out to more scientists than typically review a manuscript. In the typical case, a manuscript that's going to -- that is submitted for a publication in a scientific journal is reviewed just by two reviewers. My book was sent out to five reviewers.

Furthermore, they read it more carefully than most scientists read typical manuscripts that they get to review because they realized that this was a controversial topic. So I think, in fact, my book received much more scrutiny and much more review before publication than the great majority of scientific journal articles.

Q. Now you selected some of your peer reviewers?

A. No, I did not. I gave my editor at the Free Press suggested names, and he contacted them. Some of them agreed to review. Some did not.