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

Ted,
Were you surprised by Behe's testimony in Dover or by his apparent plans to
testify on behalf of the schools using Bob Jones materials in the case
against the University of California? It seems like the later case,
especially, is shaping up as more of a YEC position than an ID.

Louise

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.

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Received on Tue Jul 10 08:29:18 2007