A Mousetrap for Darwin

by Michael J. Behe

In 1996 Darwin's Black Box thrust Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe into the national spotlight. The book, and his subsequent two, sparked a firestorm of criticism, and his responses appeared in everything from the New York Times to science blogs and the journal Science. His replies, along with a handful of brand-new essays, are now collected in A Mousetrap for Darwin. In engaging his critics, Behe extends his argument that much recent evidence, from the study of evolving microbes to mutations in dogs and polar bears, shows that blind evolution cannot build the complex machinery essential to life. Rather, evolution works principally by breaking things for short-term benefit. It can't construct anything fundamentally new. What can? Behe's money is on intelligent design.

Genres: Science, Evolution

556 pages, Hardcover

Published November 18, 2020

About the author

Michael J. Behe is Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Behe's current research involves delineation of design and natural selection in protein structures.

In addition to publishing over 35 articles in refereed biochemical journals, he has also written editorial features in Boston Review, American Spectator, and The New York Times. His book, Darwin's Black Box discusses the implications for neo-Darwinism of what he calls "irreducibly complex" biochemical systems. The book was internationally reviewed in over one hundred publications and recently named by National Review and World magazine as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.

Behe has presented and debated his work at major universities throughout North America and England.

Department of Biological Sciences
Iacocca Hall, Room D-221
111 Research Drive
Bethlehem, PA 18015
610-758-3474 voice
443-346-2436 fax
mjb1@lehigh.edu

Reviews

[Larry White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shades of Galileo Before the Inquisition?

Few, if any, issues raise the hackles and ire of the establishment academic community in the fields of biology and biochemistry more than the theory of Intelligent Design (ID). Quick to conflate ID with Creationism (particularly the scientifically unsupported Young-Earth Creationism), the academic establishment shows little capacity for keeping an open mind on this intriguing theory and its scientific evidence. In spite of the enormous discoveries in the relatively new field of biochemistry in recent decades, they accept nineteenth century Darwinism and its offshoots more as resolved science than as theory. Science is never resolved. They beg the question as to motivation: are they willing to follow the evidence and consider objective critiques of Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism, or do they categorically deny any possibility of alternative theories regardless of evidence? In other words, are they practitioners of science or scientism? Ironically, their objections smack of the condemnations of Galileo’s theories and evidence by the geocentric establishment viewpoint of the early seventeenth century. In that controversy (and we all know the outcome), ironically it was the scientific establishment aligned with the Church, much the opposite of today, where the possibility of the metaphysical is unacceptable.

Michael J. Behe, professor in the biology department at Lehigh University, has been, for a quarter of a century, the lead proponent of ID. His excellent first book (Darwin’s Black Box) introduced the Darwinist problem of “irreducible complexity”, the issue that Darwinist processes of numerous, successive small changes can’t explain the emergence of complex cellular features that would be nonfunctional absent any of the components. He famously used the analogy of a common mousetrap in explaining the problem. His evidence included such biological features as the bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting cascade among other things. Behe followed that original work a decade later with another fascinating book (The Edge of Evolution), which explored the Darwinist problem of the statistical (im)probabilities of successive small changes resulting in the complexity observed in the biochemistry of the cell. Finally, in 2019, Behe wrote Darwin Devolves, exploring the Darwinist problem that mutations almost always result in deterioration of function, not building of new biological capabilities. Importantly, while tangentially acknowledging that his personal belief is that the designer is God, Behe makes his case for design on the scientific evidence and not whatsoever on whom the designer might be.

The scientific establishment, for over 25 years, has been vociferously, sometimes apoplectically, critical and dismissive of Behe’s work. In A Mousetrap for Darwin, Behe compiles the specific rebuttals made to his critics since 1996, issue by issue, point by point, scientific article by article in 109 short essays. He is exceedingly effective. Generally polite and professional, and often expressing admiration for his critics otherwise, Behe is not shy about answering caustic criticism in kind. He does so with acerbic wit and biting sarcasm when disparaged or demeaned. Those peripheral polemics are never the thrust of Behe’s rebuttals and only are used responsively to the initiative of his critics. But, when he uses these techniques it is with great effect and humor. It brings smiles and chuckles to an often-technical subject, and convinces that you would like to know Behe better.

This is not an easy read, however, and many won’t stay the course. Behe acknowledges the difficulty of explaining a complex subject when much of the audience has a limited attention span for such matters. But he does it quite well. It is helpful to have read the three precursors, but he includes excerpts to give the essentials of the issues. Highly recommended for those with an interest for this subject.

[Kenneth Ross Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great addition to anyone's Behe collection.

A couple years back I discovered that Behe had made responses and interacted with his critics online so I decided to track them down. I found a handful, some to Miller, some to Thorton, but I didn't comprehend the breadth and the multiplicity of the responses that I didn't find. It was a joy and a rigorous to read and re-read Behe's responses in a marathon through an era of early to present ID and Darwinism debates. It was like time travelling where I could picture a Behe 20 years ago writing and skipping back in forth through time.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Behe Stands Tall

I remember reading “Darwin’s Black Box” by Dr. Michael Behe way back in 1996. At the time, readers such as myself who were convinced by the arguments in this book and by the other fresh arguments for intelligent design put forward around that time by such people as William Dembski and Phillip Johnson – we thought we were seeing a revolution taking place before our eyes in the field of biology. Two of the three great atheist luminaries of the 19th century – Marx and Freud, had been largely discredited. And now the third – Charles Darwin – was finally getting his comeuppance.

Now, 25 years later, we look back and see that those heady days have not borne the sea-change results that we had hoped. The reasons for that are complicated, and will become clearer with the passage of time. One of the things I heard was that, “Oh, Behe’s been refuted.” I heard that from Christians.

And if you look today at the Lehigh University website, you don’t see veteran biochemist Michael Behe’s name being proudly displayed as a Copernican free-thinker who by his bold proposals and challenge to Darwinian orthodoxy, brought honour to this institution.

Instead, you read the following embarrassed disclaimer: “The [Department of Biological Sciences] faculty… are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.”

Wow. No love for Dr. Behe there. Love the scare quotes around “intelligent design.” It makes you wonder if Dr. Behe regrets rocking the boat with the audacious claims of his youth and has quietly retreated back to his laboratory, eating his lunch alone, not meeting the gaze of his colleagues.

Well, this massive 500-page book answers that question with a resounding “No!” It is simply a delightful read. What we are presented with is a large collection of papers that Dr. Behe has written in response to his critics. Some of these papers have been accepted for publication, while others have not. The book is divided into three sections, each dealing with his three books: “Darwin’s Black Box,” then “The Edge of Evolution,” and finally his recent book “Darwin Devolves.”

500 pages might seem like a daunting read, but I assure you, it is not. The book becomes much more approachable when you see that it is divided into 109 short pieces, and if you want, you can limit yourself to reading those dealing with just one of his books.

There is a bit of overlap and repetition in places because these 109 essays are responses to his critics in different journals. I actually found the repetition to be helpful, as I did the different levels of technical language that the essays were written in.

As I said, this book is simply a delight, because despite the disrespect and misrepresentation which has been aimed at him for a quarter century now, he responds with grace, generosity, and even a healthy dose of wit. Far from having been worn down by the constant opposition in the literature, he seems to enjoy the interaction and doesn’t seem at all defensive or irritated at having to repeat his basic points over and over again.

The bottom line is, his tenor makes me want to re-read his first two books and pick up “Darwin Devolves” for the first time. I would encourage anybody with an open mind to read the book and decide for yourself if the scathing disclaimer by his Lehigh colleagues is warranted.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF ALL OF BEHE’S PUBLISHED RESPONSES TO CRITICS

Michael J. Behe (born 1952) is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design (ID) advocate. He is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 2020 book, “The present book is a selection of my writings and talks over several action-packed, fun-filled decades in many battles over Darwinism and intelligent design. Although I hope that the reader will be persuaded by the merit of design both by the force of the arguments in its favor and the weakness (in my view) of those against, the book offers more than that… it provides an insight into how people who think about these things reason. It vividly shows that even the smartest of scientists and intellectuals are human and fallible… In an ideal world this book would include all of my critics’ articles as well as my responses, but that would have made for an unwieldy and expensive book, even if I could have gotten permission to reprint them all. However, many of their essays are freely available online… The original publications ranged widely, from formal science journals to newspaper op-eds to popular magazines to blog posts. So… the style and level of technical detail ranges widely, too… Nevertheless, even in the technical articles the gist of the argument is easy to follow.” (Pg. 17-18)

He notes, “Darwin dismissed the question of the eye’s ultimate origin: ‘How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated.’ He had an excellent reason for declining the question: it was completely beyond nineteenth century science. How the eye works… simply could not be answered at that time. As a matter of fact, question about the underlying mechanisms of life could be answered… To Darwin vision was a black box, but today, after the hard, cumulative work of many biochemists, we are approaching answers to the question of sight… Now that the black box of vision has been opened, it is no longer enough for an ‘evolutionary explanation’ of that power to consider only the anatomical structures of whole eyes… Each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biochemical processes that cannot be papered over with rhetoric. Darwin’s simple steps are now revealed to be huge leaps… It must be explained.” (Pg. 21-23)

He explains, “The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself, not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent … requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way we reach conclusions of design every day.” (Pg. 31-32)

He acknowledges, “The design process … may have involved no contravening of natural laws… Suppose the designer is God, as most people would suspect. Well, then, as Ken Miller points out… a subtle God could cause mutations by influencing quantum events such as radioactive decay, something that I would call guided evolution. That seems perfectly possible to me. I would only add, however, that that process would amount to intelligent design, not Darwinian evolution.” (Pg. 39) Later, he recounts, “I grew up in a Catholic family and have always believed in God. But beginning in parochial school I was taught that He could use natural processes to produce life.” (Pg. 43) Still later, he states, “it can be… extremely difficult to determine who the designer was. I do not argue that the designer was God, although it could have been… I argue simply for the conclusion of design itself.” (Pg. 60)

Returning to Kenneth Miller, he argues, “perhaps Miller wanted to say that God was responsible for life taking the direction it did, but we can never prove it scientifically. That has a nice sound to it… but in the end it too breaks down… ‘God exercises the degree of control he chooses’ [is] compatible only if God chooses to exercise no control. To be consistent, either Miller has to give up Darwinism to allow for the active God of Christianity, or settle for a deistic God at best to allow for Darwinism.” (Pg. 67)

He states, “evidence of common descent is not evidence of natural selection. Homologies… are the evidence for descent with modification---that is, for evolution. Natural selection, however, is a proposed explanation for how evolution might take place… and so must be supported by other evidence if the question is not to be begged… from reviewers’ responses to my book, the distinction is often overlooked.” (Pg. 92) Later, he concludes, “remember here the central point of my second book, ‘The Edge of Evolution.’ We now have data in hand that show what Darwinian processes can accomplish, and it ain’t much… Random mutation/natural selection works great in folks’ imaginations, but it’s a bust in the real world.” (Pg. 109)

He clarifies, “even if one does think that the designer is God, subscribing to a theory of intelligent design does not necessarily commit one to ‘miracles.’ At least no more than thinking that the laws of nature were designed by God… one could hold that that information for the subsequent unfolding of life was present at the very start of the universe, with no subsequent ‘intervention’ required from outside of nature.” (Pg. 143)

He responds again to Kenneth Miller: “In recent years it has been shown that the bacterial flagellum is an even more sophisticated system than had been thought. Not only does it act as a rotary propulsion device; it also contains within itself an elegant mechanism to transport the proteins from the inside of the cell to the outside. Without blinking, Miller asserted that … some proteins of the flagellum could be missing and the remainder could still transport proteins… Again he was equivocating, switching the focus from the function of the system … as a rotary propulsion machine… However, taking away the parts of the flagellum certainly destroys the ability of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine… Thus, contra Miller, the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex.” (Pg. 172-173)

He critiques Richard Dawkins’s ‘Methinks it is a weasel’ analogy… where a string of letters is compared to that phrase in Dawkins’s computer’s memory, the letters that match are kept, and the ones that don’t are randomly replaced until all letters match. But even Dawkins acknowledged … that the analogy ‘is misleading in important ways’ because the results were judged by his computer ‘according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target… Life isn’t like that.’ Well, little problems like ‘life isn’t like that’ apparently don’t matter to some Darwinists…” (Pg. 183)

He says, “Readers of my posts know that I’m a big fan of Professor Richard Lenski, a microbiologist at Michigan State University… he has been conducting the largest laboratory evolution experiment ever attempted… he has been following evolutionary changes in the bacterium for over 50,000 generations… his work enables us to see what evolution actually does when it has the resources of a large number of organisms over a substantial number of generations… For this, we ID proponents should be very grateful… He demonstrated without doubt that beneficial mutations exist and can spread very quickly in a population… However… many of the beneficial mutations turned out to be, surprisingly, degradative ones… What was conspicuously not seen in his work were beneficial mutations … improvements had been made by breaking existing genes… but not by making new genes or regulatory elements.” (Pg. 276-277)

Of Joseph Thornton, a University of Chicago biologist, he comments, “Thornton’s lab does terrific work… Thornton’s approach holds great promise for helping to determine a rigorous edge to random evolution… Thornton himself---apparently a conventional Darwinist, and certainly no sympathizer with intelligent design---does not attribute the protein receptor’s new function to Darwinian processes. Rather, he ascribes it mostly to ‘historical contingency.’ That’s another way of saying ‘dumb luck.’” (Pg. 320-321)

He recounts, “I used to believe that a Darwinist process did indeed build the wonders of life… yet I believed it on the say-so of my instructors and the authority of science, not on hard evidence. When I read a book [Michael Denton’s ‘Evolution: A Theory In Crisis’] criticizing Darwin’s theory from an agnostic viewpoint, it startled me, and I then began a literature search for real evidence that random mutation and natural selection could really do what was claimed for them. I came up completely empty. In the thirty years since then, I’ve only become more convinced of the inadequacy of Darwinism, and more persuaded of the need for intelligent design…” (Pg. 450)

He points out, “Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture… doesn’t even recommend that intelligent design be introduced into public school science biology classes. They don’t want to politicize ID in this way. Instead, they… urge that evolutionary theory be taught in a balanced manner, with students [also] exposed … to some of the evidence from the peer-reviewed scientific literature against it… But for defenders of the status quo, even this is too much. The dogmatic Darwinists demand that only an airbrushed case for their theory be presented to students.” (Pg. 460-461)

Of the peppered moths in England, he notes, “textbook photographs showing moths resting in the day on tree trunks, where birds supposedly ate them, run afoul of the fact that the moths are active at night and don’t normally rest on tree trunks. After learning about the problems with this favorite Darwinian example, an evolutionary scientist wrote in the journal ‘Nature’ that he felt as he did as a boy when he learned there was no Santa Claus.” (Pg. 462)

He says of the 2004 Dover case, “the school board… voted to have a (surprisingly poorly written) statement concerning evolution read to high school students in biology class. The statement was frankly skeptical of Darwin’s theory, and informed the students that there was a book in the school library---‘Of Pandas and People’---that discussed intelligent design… The judge ruled for the plaintiffs. Fair enough. It’s no more appropriate for that school board to urge students to read a book explicitly because they think it supports their theistic views than for another school board to assign ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ because they agree with Richard Dawkins’s atheism.” (Pg. 496)

Later, he adds, “I was the lead witness for the defense… One of the biochemical systems I discussed on the stand was… something called the ‘lac operon’… The reason I selected it is that … [Kenneth Miller] had featured it in his 1999 anti-intelligent design book, ‘Finding Darwin’s God’… I thought this would be a grand example to show the judge… the way Darwinists such as Miller often distort or badly spin research results to favor their theory. But… it all depends on the willingness of the audience to make an effort to understand. I naively thought that would be pretty much guaranteed at a federal trial. Boy was I wrong.” (Pg. 499-500) He continues, “During my ‘very long’ three days on the stand I had discussed EVERY SINGLE PAPER on immunology that had been raised in the plaintiff’s expert-witness testimony and showed that it was either terminally speculative, concerned only with common descent rather than with Darwin’s mechanism, or both… You’d think that, while copying material for his opinion, the judge might have… vaguely recalled what I had said. I guess not..” (Pg. 505)

This isn’t the “easiest” book to read, since Behe’s counter-arguments often repeat themselves, as he is writing for a different publication, or critiquing a different author, etc. (The book would have been more effective if he had SUMMARIZED all the various arguments against him---using representative quotations occasionally---then just given all of his counter-arguments in a systematic manner.) Although he attempts to be scrupulously fair to his opponents, the lack of being able to see their ACTUAL writings (since most of us are not going to stop reading, go to the Internet, and try to look them up online) next to his critiques makes the book seem ‘out of balance.’ (Perhaps he should have tried to get permission to just republish some of the ‘key’ papers of his opponents, such as Miller, and not ‘all’ of them.)

Nevertheless, this book certainly accomplishes what Behe explained he was trying to accomplish, and it will be absolute ‘must reading’ for anyone studying the Intelligent Design/Evolution controversy.

[Glen Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can you say rebuttal?

I thought the rebuttals were thoughtful and pointed. I am completly confused by the inability of darwinist to comprehend the fact of the malaria took so long to come up with two mutations. So much hand waving and just so stories from darwinists. I enjoyed some of the funny retorts as well. Very good. I recommend it.

[Rod Innis · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was some great information about the problems of evolution. It also pointed to how the vast majority of evolutionists refuse to see the difficulties, and when confronted with these problems, simply rant against anyone who dares to question the "science".

H9owever the author, perhaps in an attempt to gain a hearing, distances himself from creationists and particularly those who believe that God created the world in only six days in the recent past, thousands, not millions of years ago. He does believe that God is the designer in his "Intelligent Design argument. But he also believes in guided evolution. that God began with one common ancestor of all life and used evolution to produce all the varieties of life that we now have. He never explains why he rejects the Genesis record. He just seems to assume that evolution is true, but that God was involved in the process because random mutations usually degrade genes, resulting in loss of function, and there are many complex machines in living creatures that have to have all the parts in order to function, something that he calls irreducible complexity. His arguments for that are brilliant, but he just doesn't go far enough.

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting compilation of two decades of responses to critics. Committed Darwinists are fond of dismissing Behe's work by saying 'Behe has been refuted, many, many times!' or 'Behe got his *** kicked at Dover!' (as if that dealt with any of the issues he has raised). Behe explains in a very readable style (caution, sometimes the science is hard to follow) why his critics are mistaken.

These collected responses document the level of anger and anxiety that is provoked by well-informed, science-based criticism of the proposed biochemical basis of molecules to man evolution by natural selection acting on random mutations.

[Esteban]

The parts they wouldn't publish

Hehe sets out very clearly but in considerable detail several responses to various criticisms of his work. Many of these were refused publication by the journal's concerned, even as a right to reply to previous articles. Despite the necessary detail the articles are short and fairly easy to digest.

[Mark Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful, but sometimes very complex.

[Luke Batty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little monotonous, with it being in blog or essay form, but the gems are well worth the mining.