Re: [asa] Review of Behe in Books and Culture

>>> "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> 7/9/2007 1:32 PM >>>writes:
It's interesting to me, though, that
there has been such a violent reaction when Behe apparently concedes so
much. The B&C reviewer, for example, notes the following:

Behe disagrees [with most creationists when he says]: "Evolution from a
common ancestor, via changes in the DNA, is *very* well supported." After
summing up the argument from the genetic similarity of all life, Behe
writes
that "It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common
ancestry of chimps and humans." And again, "Let's acknowledge that
genetics
has yielded yet more terrific (and totally unanticipated) evidence of
common
descent." Finally (though many more examples could be cited), "The
purposeful design of life is also fully compatible with the idea of *
universal* common descent, one important facet of Darwin's theory"
[emphasis
added]. Behe is quite clear that he has no objection to the idea that
species as distinct as mice and whales evolved from common ancestors.

I gather, then, that Behe is making a meta-argument about the role of
"chance" in evolution. How different is Behe's position on this than,
say,
that of Simon Conway Morris, or even in some respects that of Francis
Collins? It sees that Behe is further away from the Uncommon Descent
crowd
than he is from Francis Collins.

Ted comments:
This is precisely why I keep repeating that Mike Behe is a classical
theistic evolutionist, ala Asa Gray. Behe is as David says, much closer to
Collins or Conway Morris than he is to Dembski. I can only conclude two
things from this (1) Collins and Conway Morris are not IDs, probably b/c
they reject the dominant tone of ID, which is clearly quite strongly
antievolutionary (in the sense of Common Descent); and (2) Behe is an ID b/c
he thinks that "design" should have a specific *scientific* component,
rather than being "merely" (my choice of word) a reasonable metaphysical
inference from a variety of information, including scientific information.

When I call Behe a classical TE, however, my friend Nick Matzke at NCSE
objects. He says that Gray wasn't a classical TE either, that anyone who
believes in the need for "design" to supplement NS is not a TE but an ID. I
say, however, that belief in purpose/design alongside evolution--something
often expressed in terms of purposive or goal-directed evolution--is a
classic TE view, and that in this respect at least Behe and Gray are on the
same page, and sometimes on the same paragraph.

ted

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Received on Mon Jul 9 14:03:58 2007