Re: Behe and common descent

From: glenn morton (mortongr@flash.net)
Date: Thu Jan 06 2000 - 00:50:02 EST

  • Next message: Stein Arild Stromme: "Re: Behe and common descent"

    At 09:01 AM 1/6/00 +0100, Stein Arild Stromme wrote:
    >Friends,
    >
    >I don't have access to Behe's "Darwin's black box", but perhaps
    >someone around the ASA list can answer a quick question: Does Behe
    >disagree with the standard theory of common descent of all life forms?
    >I'm aware of the concept of ID, but my question is rather what
    >conclusions Behe himself draws in his book. And what does the "black
    >box" refer to?

    Here is what Behe says about evolution:

    Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent
    to espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves
    belief in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an
    interpretation of the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I
    have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that
    physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all
    organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no
    particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect the work of my colleagues
    who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary
    framework, and I think that evolutinoary biologists have contributed
    enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin's
    mechanism--natural selection working on variation--might explain many
    things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life. I also do not
    think it surprising that the new science of the very small might change the
    way we view the less small." ~ Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, (New
    York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 7

    As to the term Black Box Behe says,

    "Black box is a whimsical term for a device that does something but whose
    inner workings are mysterious--sometimes because the workings can't be
    seen, and soemtimes because they just aren't comprehensible." p. 6

    glenn

    Foundation, Fall and Flood
    Adam, Apes and Anthropology
    http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm

    Lots of information on creation/evolution



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