Responding to the first negative review of "Darwin Devolves"

Michael Behe
Evolution News
Thu, 07 Feb 2019 20:18 UTC

Science has just published a review of Darwin Devolves, more than two weeks before the book's official release date. (I suppose they wanted to be the first on the block to take a shot at it.) Let me first say this - Woo-hoo!! I'm simply ecstatic about the review. Not because it's favorable - it surely isn't. But because it is so embarrassingly, cringe-inducingly weak. It's the equivalent of a reviewer being rendered speechless, but soldiering on because he's been assigned to write 700 words - gotta say something. And it's co-authored by no less than Richard Lenski, member of the National Academy of Sciences and world-renowned investigator behind the 60,000-generation long-term evolution experiment (LTEE), to which I devoted most of Chapter 7!

The Overwhelmingly Important Point

In a few days I will offer a detailed rebuttal. But the overwhelmingly important point to notice right up front is that the reviewers (Lenski plus Josh Swamidass over at Peaceful Science and John Jay College biologist Nathan Lents) have absolutely no response to the very central argument of the book. The argument that I summarized as an epigraph on the first page of the book so no one could miss it. The one that I included in the title of a 2010 Quarterly Review of Biology article upon which the book is based. The one for which I chose the most in-your-face moniker that I could think of (consistent with the professional literature) to goad a response: The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution: Break or blunt any gene whose loss would increase the number of offspring. The rule summarizes the fact that the overwhelming tendency of random mutation is to degrade genes, and that very often is helpful. Thus natural selection itself acts as a powerful de-volutionary force, increasing helpful broken and degraded genes in the population.

And they had no response! That's because there is in fact nothing that can alleviate that fatal flaw in Darwinism. Much more to come soon.

Editor's note: Science has taken action two weeks before the release of Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution - and so should you! Be sure to order Professor Behe's new book while there's still time to get the associated pre-order perks, including a bonus chapter and immediate access to a 41-part online video course on intelligent design and evolution.

Comment: Brian Miller adds the following:

... I could not resist pointing out the extent to which the authors rely on circular reasoning. They [Lenski et al.] write:
Missing from Behe's discussion is any mention of exaptation, the process by which nature retools structures for new function and possibly the most common mechanism that leads to the false impression of irreducible complexity...The feathers of birds, gas bladders of fish, and ossicles of mammals have similar exaptive origins...The evolutionary ancestors of whales lost their ability to walk on land as their front limbs evolved into flippers, for example, but flippers proved advantageous in the long run...and developmental innovations in all metazoans through the diversification of HOX genes.
The authors argue that many of the traits found in life give evidence that they are the product of evolutionary processes having dramatically altered ancestral precursors. How do the authors come to this conclusion? First, they assume that all biological features are the result of undirected processes transforming features in ancestral organisms. Second, they identify some remarkable trait in life, such as the auditory ossicles in mammals. Then, they explain its origin through evolution without providing any substantive details. Finally, they use the "fact" that evolution formed the new trait as evidence for its unlimited creative power.

This line of argumentation only appears compelling to those who assume from that start that the core assumptions of the standard evolutionary model are true.

Reader Comments

middleway · 2019-02-09T23:40:23Z

With regards to Behe's phrase: cringe-inducingly "weak", I believe the word "flaccid" would be more appropriate.

LMAO · 2019-02-10T01:41:26Z

Dont worry.We'll find that missing link one damn day.

When we do,we'll discover the complexities of flying pigs too I'd wager

LMAO · 2019-02-10T01:45:33Z

Clear away the fog of confusion, and it becomes clear

whatever camp you pitch your tent in,either takes a leap of faith.

One option vibrates at a high rate

The other,not so much eh

hobnyeba · 2019-02-10T08:58:17Z

"And they had no response!"

"...it has long been known that neutral and even deleterious mutations can provide stepping stones to future adaptations."

I am missing something. I liked the piece in the comment, though, at evolutionnews.