"In the first half of the 20th century, neo-Darwinism had not yet become dogma. Speculation about complexity was still considered valid.
But then in 1970 biologist Jacques Monod declared that all life was
reducible and accidental in origin. A legion of acolytes followed to carry on an intellectual purge, including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Ruse, E. O. Wilson, Ernst Mayr, and others. The biochemical revolution was in full swing. Dissent was no longer allowed.
--Eugene Wigner once pointed out that Isaac Newton’s greatest achievement was not in deriving the calculus, given that a century of work leading up to it had already been done. Rather, it was that he had the insight to choose the initial conditions necessary to derive his laws of motion.
--In the same way, it seems to me that Behe’s greatest achievement was not the discovery of irreducible complexity, because that concept had already been described. What he did do, with great artistry and insight, was to articulate the concept in the most vivid terms, at a time when there was just enough doubt among at least a few scientists to listen.
Behe illuminated the elephant that was there all the time to for the rest of us to see. But it was something scientists like me were indoctrinated to ignore — until the truth became undeniable." Stephen Iocaboni
--Eugene Wigner once pointed out that Isaac Newton’s greatest achievement was not in deriving the calculus, given that a century of work leading up to it had already been done. Rather, it was that he had the insight to choose the initial conditions necessary to derive his laws of motion.
--In the same way, it seems to me that Behe’s greatest achievement was not the discovery of irreducible complexity, because that concept had already been described. What he did do, with great artistry and insight, was to articulate the concept in the most vivid terms, at a time when there was just enough doubt among at least a few scientists to listen.
Behe illuminated the elephant that was there all the time to for the rest of us to see. But it was something scientists like me were indoctrinated to ignore — until the truth became undeniable." Stephen Iocaboni
Darwin’s Black Box:
"In Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe argues that evidence of evolution’s limits has been right under our noses, but its undoing is evident at such a small scale that we have only recently been able to see it.
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 defend Darwin’s gradualistic paths.
Behe believes in the scientific method and 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." DI
