You commented:
>If Behe's argument is that we do not understand many systems in detail,
>that's fine. But how Behe concludes this shows Intelligent Design,
>especially when we do not know all the details yet, is beyond me.
I cannot speak for Behe, but there is a large portion of the Christian
community that welcomes Behe's thesis because it gives the appearance of
scientific support for an interventionist concept of divine creative action.
This interventionist view contrasts with another perspective, deeply rooted
in historic Christian theology (one that I hold): that the essence of God's
creative work is not the manipulation of insufficiently gifted raw materials,
but the giving of being to a world robustly equipped for self-organisation
and transformation of the sort now envisioned by the natural sciences. (See
my essay "Basil, Augustine, and the Doctrine of Creation's Functional
Integrity" in _Science and Christian Belief_, Vol. 8, No. 1, April, 1996, pp.
21-38.)
The label "Intelligent Design" is used by Behe and others to represent the
manipulative or coercive action of some unidentified transcendent being who
imposes form on matter that was never given capabilities sufficient for
achieving the full spectrum of extant forms. Given that concept of the
minimally-gifted Creation, it is not surprising to see the quick leap from "I
don't understand how X could have occurred naturally" (that is, by the
employment of its God-given capabilities) to "Therefore X must be the outcome
of intelligent design (that is, the manipulative or coercive action of some
transcendent agent).
Howard Van Till