It’s a strange thing to read another review of Behe’s Edge of Evolution. This one is by David Levin, and it strongly highlights the compromises and the irrelevancy of the book.
In the end, the most irritating aspect of this book is Behe’s selective use of the ever-expanding base of scientific knowledge as a soapbox from which to shout his embrace of perpetual ignorance. The better our understanding of the intricate details of complex biological systems, the stronger is his belief that they must have been designed and that science will never unravel how they came to be. This is a trend for him. As Eric Rothschild, chief counsel for the plaintiffs at the Dover trial, observed of Behe’s claim that the immune system is irreducibly complex, “Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system … Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. By contrast, Professor Behe and the entire “intelligent design” movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don’t bother.” Scientists have never listened to him. But with so many concessions to evolution mixed with his new message of God-as-mutagen, will anyone?
It’s a good review, but does anyone care anymore? His thesis is rejected by biologists and ignored by creationists, and the man is on his way to well-deserved obscurity.
Behe-mothed!
(What can I say? The writer’s strike is still on.)
PZ, I come from a simple place. Here in Kentucky, home to the Horse Capitol of the world, we take pleasure in life’s simpler things. Every now and then we get together for a good ol’ fashioned horse flogging. Inevitably, the poor animal usually dies, but we just keep on beating it anyways. We’ll beat that dead horse into the weeeee hours of the morning, whilst drinking our best bathtub moonshine we can affords.
Seriously though, this guy can’t retire to obscurity fast enough for my taste. Even if everyone forgot about this guy, I’m sure his name would somehow pop up in colloquial expressions. “Oh you really Behe-d that one!” or “Don’t be such a fracking Behe.” (that’s right, brought out the Battlestar curse words) Good riddance, and please allow the door to smack you as many times as possible on your way out.
.Did you read this stupid news story about a family that get stranded in the mountains and then get saved after three days by humans but they blame a dead man (Jesus Christ)?
Worse than wrong, Behe’s stance is useless. How do you build on a claim of irreducibility? What research does it point toward? Nil and zip.
Since, on top of that, his favorite example has been debunked, what’s left to even discuss?
Could we move on to more useful hypotheses, like phlogiston?
Phlogiston, like aether, was a very elegant solution in its own way. It recognised that there was a problem that needed to be solved, and it substituted a variable for it. Not exactly an unknown, not an “x” — a bit more like an “i”, something we can’t express but we can use and predict and test. A placeholder until the Mitchelson-Morley experiments come along.
Behe is a lot less interesting and useful.
You might not remember this, but David Levin got ‘The Uncommon Descent Treatment’ this March. You see, Michael Behe has the delicate sensibilities of a dew-drop on a rose petal, and Levin ATTACKING HIM with SCIENCE was just the cruelest thing ever. Levin got the “YOURE WRONG CAUSE YOURE MEEEEEEEEEEEAN!!! SQUUUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” response out of them.
WAD– “Briefly, a Johns Hopkins biologist named David Levin sent an unsolicited and wonderfully insulting letter to Michael Behe (the entire letter is given toward the bottom of this post).”
Example of MEAN MEAN Levin– “Many of the weaknesses inherent to your argument that irreducible complexity of a structure or a biochemical pathway precludes its having evolved in a gradual stepwise manner were evident directly from some of your various examples. However, just a modest review of the scientific literature beyond your presentation revealed a pattern of omission of critical information that utterly decimates every one of them.”
Behes oh so polite response– “Hello, Professor Levin, nice to meet you. Well, I see that even though you work in Baltimore, you’ve managed to avoid acquiring any Southern charm. Most folks consider it rude to send insulting, unsolicited mail to people you’ve never met, even if you don’t like their views. I hope at least you are polite toward people who agree with you.”
Cause Baltimore is in the South, anyway. What a friggin IDiot.
Saying one does not need worry about Behe anymore is like saying, “Oh good, I brushed my teeth, I guess i don’t need to worry about bad breath anymore.”
Apropos:
“One time you was a real high-stepper
On the high trapeze
But you know you ran out of money
Wound up on your knees
I’m the one you never made
Now I’m the one
Dancing on your grave”
If only. I wonder what insidious form the wingnuts will build their next Trojan Horse in. :/
Baltimore is below the Mason-Dixon line. At the time of the Civil War, there was some concern that Maryland might succeed and effectively isolate Washington, DC. So depending on where you grew up, your knowledge of US history, etc., you would know that Maryland is in the South.
(Damn, did I just defend Behe? WTF?)
I just find it interesting that Behe assumes someone is a Southerner based simply on where they currently work. Although it does fit with some of his other habits.
The only problem I see is that as long as ID and the DI are around you will have people like Behe and who use his examples for proof of ID. I am waiting to see if the ID dolts here in Floor-e-duh trot out any of Behes wonderful advances for the scientific community.
I’m wondering where he came up with the idea of a characteristic “charm” in the culture of an area apparently comprising a plurality of the “Me, mah wife, mah sister, an’ mah cousin uh-gree: we jess don’ trus’ John Kerry. Tha’s why we’s both votin’ fer Bush!” crowd.
Ron– Then Missouri is in ‘the South’. I maintain that Behes attempt at an insult is retarded.
I sold all of my ID books, so I can’t verify this, but I believe that the reviewer is mistaken when it comes to his assertion that Behe has substantially changed his views. I’m pretty sure that Behe admitted in the preface to Darwin’s Black Box that he accepted the scientifically established age of the earth, and accepted most of evolutionary theory. He may have spoken as though he were against natural selection at times, but that was only because he wanted to emphasise what might be termed divine selection. His new book would apparently be more of a clarification rather than a change: he believes in natural selection, provided it is God guiding it. It is possible that there was some modification on Behe’s part, but from what I’ve seen it seems more like clarification.
ERV-
We can talk about it elsewhere if you like. The insult is retarded because Behe is behaving like a two-year old and making assumptions about the person based strictly on geography. However, he is correct about Baltimore being a southern city. Call him an idiot for being a pansy; it’s so rare when he is factually correct.
Missouri was a “Southern” state. Lots of people died in MO and KS because of slavery issues. Missouri was a border state that leaned southern, but never seceded from the union as recognized by the union. The confederate states recognized a “government” in MO that had seceded. The Mason-Dixon line defining “Southern” falls apart as you head west. Remember, some of the states weren’t even states at that point in our history (or were just recently admitted).
That was a great read. Thank you, David Levin!
Whether Behe is, or becomes irrelevant or not, I still appreciate any valid critique of the ID side.
Azkyroth:
As far as the south, don’t paint us all with the same brush. I was born in Tennessee, lived for 10 years in Georgia, and am now back in TN. I think most would consider me far from being the knuckle-dragging, Bush fanboy, redneck you describe. But certainly there seems to be a high concentration of that type in this region. But that type can be found everywhere- only the accent differs.
Ron:
Civil war buff? I engjoy a bit of civil war history myself. Amazing stuff.
Missouri is in the Central US.
Maryland is on the NE Atlantic coast.
Unless Behe is 175 years old or an incarnation of General Custer, Maryland is not a ‘Southern state’, and telling Levine he should have ‘Southern Charm’ because he lives in Baltimore is retarded.
I’m thinking much of what Behe says is retarded, ERV.
And they were much more worried that Maryland might secede than whether it would succeed. Although they have little worry about Baltimore succeeding as long as Boller is qb.
And having a coach that goes for a field goal rather than touchdown on fourth and goal on the one VERSUS MIAMI adds little to worries of success.
“Southern charm”. Heh.
Odd that Behe, living in Pennsylvania and not far from Philadelphia, is unfamiliar with ‘Quaker charm’ in which you pretty much tell people where you think they stand and don’t mince words. And then there’s ‘New York charm’…
PZ: I agree that his thesis has been rejected by scientists. Since when was he ignored by creationisits? As of a few months ago DaveScott on UD was still agog over _The Edge of Evolution_. He’s been one of their “leading lights” for a while. When did that change?
Brian
I wish this were true, but the creationists don’t give a damn about theories. All they want is to be able to trot out an honest-to-goodness Biochemist to say “see, ID is too science”.
“Maryland is on the NE Atlantic coast.”
But south of the Mason-Dixon line. There’s a contrasting ‘edge-effect’ among hicks that live close to the border of a Northern state (ie. Pennsylvania). In Rising Sun, MD, I see far more idiots with Confederate flags flying from their pickups than in most towns of North Carolina. In large cities of Maryland and along the coast and bays the ‘southern-ness’ is not as common. Go west and south in the rural communities and you may feel it. Granted, the full effect kicks in with Virginia, but Maryland is a transition zone.
Note that southern Delaware (south of the canal) also had Confederate tendencies.
Deepsix:
More of a history buff fostered by being relocated many times in my youth as my father moved from place to place (Air Force brat). Having to learn how to avoid the vile concoction known as “tea” in Virginia and other parts south scarred me for life. :-)
ERV:
Your absolute geography is correct, but your sense of history and culture could use some work. For example, Ohio being considered a Midwestern state (in fact a lot of the midwest) is weird if you don’t understand the history behind when that name was used. Should we stop calling it the Midwest just because it no longer is really the Midwest anymore?
Behe was being an ass and trying to cover it up by his attempt at being clever. Let’s leave it at that.
Hey, I resemble that remark! ;)
(Since I’ve been living in the “Midwest” i.e. the Cleveland area, I’ve noticed that people tend to find my way of expressing myself to be, er, a bit blunt at times. But I think that’s better than “Minnesota nice” passive-aggression- right PZ? ;))
“Minnesota nice” passive-aggression- right PZ? ;))
I wouldn’t necessarily call PZ “passive-aggressive”. Maybe “aggressive-aggressive” :)
I’ve lived each in Maryland, Missouri and Georgia. I know the South and I know a bit of Southern history….a bit of a civil war buff.
ERV, give it up. Ron is absolutely correct. Secessionist sentiment was very high in Baltimore and throughout southern and eastern Maryland, but the rest of the state was more pro-Union.
Nevertheless, its leanings and sympathies during the War of Northern Aggression caused considerable angst in Washington DC. In fact, the first Union casualties in the War occurred in Baltimore when regiments passing through from Massachusetts were attacked by a secessionist mob.
Why Maryland never seceded is a complicated story of high stakes political intrigue, and the state was essentially occupied by Union forces for the duration to ensure it didn’t secede.
The situation in Missouri has many parallels and in some respects was even more complicated.
As to Behe’s allusion, I kind of see it as some sort of primitive form of impulsive ingratiation. Much in the way a low ranked chimp might approach a dominant member of his troop, forcing a huge smile, baring all his teeth, in a clownish display of supplication.
Where the dominant one is unamused.
But PZ didn’t grow up in Minnesota. He grew up in the Seattle area where everybody’s over-caffeinated. ;)
But his cachet as a scientist has completely evaporated outside traditional creationist circles. IC has become just another creationist mantra in the same bucket with polonium halos and flood geology. There are still yokels on various school boards who haven’t figured out that ID isn’t going to get them a free pass to teach creationism, but a few more court cases will clue them in.
Behe had his 15 minutes of fame, and didn’t spend it wisely.
Abbie: Who knew – you’re a Southerner! Ha. Imagining you with a South Carolina accent has me laughing to the point of tears. I love it!
Obscurity? Who will we make fun of? I will never forget Mr. Behe as long as malaria is with us.
Well if you want to use the Mason-Dixon line as the determination, then yes it is south.
However I guarantee if I went out on the streets of Charleston, SC today and asked if Baltimore was southern there is no doubt in my mind what the answer would be.
Yes using the historical marker of the M-D line will put Baltimore as a southern city.
However the way Behe was using the “Southern Charm” he is pointing to the cultural aspect of being southern (imagined or real). Baltimore is far from being a part of the Cultural south (not making any judgment calls on whether cultural south is better or worse than cultural Baltimore).
Sickle hemoglobin, therefore design?
Resistance to chloroquine, therefore design?
Behe’s God sounds like a real shit!
I grew up in Baltimore. It isn’t “South” in any cultural way. A friend’s wife was from a suburb south of Baltimore and she affected a fake southern accent, but that was only because her father was a Southern Baptist preacher.
Now I’m in Tampa. Most of the folks I meet around here are from New Jersey. It gets more “southern” the farther north you go.
“Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system … Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions.”
Thank you. Now I feel my work is not worthless anymore, but that I am, ever so humbly, helping to build a better tomorrow.
One of my favorite prank in bookstores is to move Behe’s books from the ‘Life Science’ or ‘Biology’ sections to the ‘Christian Fiction’ section, where they belong… Always a disappointment to see the crap that can be classified under Science.
Behe’s a biochemist, as mentioned previously, and he can repackage old creationist arguments, sometimes using numbers.
So sure, he’s pathetic, but he’s not going anywhere. He’s damaged goods on the science side, but he’s one of the few “scientists” that the creos have. They’re not going to get rid of him and his cheesy books, especially not DBB.
DBB is all the science that a host of creos and IDists even know, and since it bolsters their prejudices with the same old “arguments” that were what they knew before reading DBB, only with sciency language that impresses them to no end, they’ll never send that old nag out to pasture. Only if someone who really could do ID science (no one is that good, or bad, though) would the current sorry crop of “experts” be finally laid to rest.
Remember, this is religion, which rests on authority–plus they have no science at all. Hence they cling to their authorities forever. How sickening is Henry Morris, and how many times has he been shown to be utterly wrong about science? Doesn’t matter, he has a Ph.D, and he bolsters their prejudices. And don’t forget that George McReady Price, poorly-educated Adventist that he was, inspired the appalling Morris long after he himself was dead–fundy religions need their little stock of lies.
Of course the creos aren’t too thrilled with God as the designer of malaria, like Behe makes God out to be, but they understand necessary lies (not that they’ll admit this). So they forgive him for that, just as long as he fights for God and against the evil of philosophical naturalism. And with Behe using impressive jargon to boot, they’ll be his ho’s forever.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I will admit that in some of my more mischievous moments I have done the same thing to copies of the Bible. Someone always moves them back, though.
Should we stop calling it the Midwest just because it no longer is really the Midwest anymore?
Yes. Yes, I think you should do exactly that. I think you should do it approximately several years ago, retroactively, by psychic manipulation of the persistence of memory, if at all possible.
Not only is it hopelessly inaccurate and confuses the fuck out of non-Americans (“What do you mean, Ohio is the ‘midwest’? Isn’t, uh, like Iowa the ‘midwest’?”), that would, at least, make Americans stop trying to tell me that I live in an area with “Midwestern” culture, despite being Canadian, simply because my area of Canada is contiguous with Michigan and reasonably near Ohio, as such things go. I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, live in the “Midwest” of anywhere; being in SW Ontario, I live in the central region of Canada (or, contrastively, Canada’s equivalent of the Deep South). Further, what Americans see as evidence of “Midwestern” culture here are actually artifacts of generic US hegemonic monoculture that have washed up here. “Midwest,” my aggrieved Canuck ass.
On topic, actually, I must say that as a student of discourse, Behe’s little scribblings always amuse me slightly. I am never quite sure how right-wingers manage to pack so much smugness and contempt into their discourse (I must deconstruct it one day to find out), but they do, and it’s really quite a feat.
@ #23 (Ron): “Should we stop calling it the Midwest just because it no longer is really the Midwest anymore?”
God, YES!!! Drives me nuts. I grew up on the Pacific coast, and I could never believe that they would call Michigan and Ohio *any* kind of “west.” It sure ain’t the Midwest. Let’s move out of the 19th century, people!
And I’ve spent some time in Baltimore, and it’s downright silly of Behe to suggest that it’s characterized by “Southern” charm.
A certain nearby city whose major industry is government was famously characterized by JFK as possessing “Northern charm and Southern efficiency”.
Re: #41 (Physicalist)
We ain’t givin’ up nuffin. :-)
“Damaged goods”?
He’s an empty cabinet that’s been welded closed.
Hence the use of “plurality” rather than “majority.” O.o
“People of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers.
I bid you stand,stand and fight, men of the West!
Grew up in NC, lived in GA (as well as WY and CO) now in Charleston SC. Irritates the hell out of me the stereotypes of the south. Yes there are morons here but I’ve spent time in 45 of the 50 states, and there are idiot Red Necks in every one of them. Pointing to the south every time someone needs to make fun of a group of people for being stupid just shows how fucking pig ignorant that person is.
Roger that. Two very Northern places where I’ve lived for extended periods- upstate NY and Northeast Ohio- have plenty of ’em. Conversely, I met quite a few delightful people in the 3 years I spent in Jackson, Miss, back in the 80s.