This easy-to-read book does a top notch job of explaining one of the most vexing problems in biology: the origin of the complexity that permeates all of life.

---

Product Description

Virtually all serious scientists accept the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution. While the fight for its acceptance has been a long and difficult one, after a century of struggle among the cognoscenti the battle is over. Biologists are now confident that their remaining questions, such as how life on Earth began, or how the Cambrian explosion could have produced so many new species in such a short time, will be found to have Darwinian answers. They, like most of the rest of us, accept Darwin's theory to be true.
But should we? What would happen if we found something that radically challenged the now-accepted wisdom? In "Darwin's Black Box, " Michael Behe argues that evidence of evolution's limits has been right under our noses -- but it is so small that we have only recently been able to see it. The field of biochemistry, begun when Watson and Crick discovered the double-helical shape of DNA, has unlocked the secrets of the cell. There, biochemists have unexpectedly discovered a world of Lilliputian complexity. As Behe engagingly demonstrates, using the examples of vision, bloodclotting, cellular transport, and more, the biochemical world comprises an arsenal of chemical machines, made up of finely calibrated, interdependent parts. For Darwinian evolution to be true, there must have been a series of mutations, each of which produced its own working machine, that led to the complexity we can now see. The more complex and interdependent each machine's parts are shown to be, the harder it is to envision Darwin's gradualistic paths, Behe surveys the professional science literature and shows that it is completely silent on the subject, stymied by the elegance of the foundation oflife. Could it be that there is some greater force at work?
Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these questions. But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must have been "designed" -- either by God, or by some other higher intelligence. For decades science has been frustrated, trying to reconcile the astonishing discoveries of modern biochemistry to a nineteenth-century theory that cannot accommodate them. With the publication of "Darwin's Black Box, " it is time for scientists to allow themselves to consider exciting new possibilities, and for the rest of us to watch closely.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #354086 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Michael J. Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University, presents here a scientific argument for the existence of God. Examining the evolutionary theory of the origins of life, he can go part of the way with Darwin--he accepts the idea that species have been differentiated by the mechanism of natural selection from a common ancestor. But he thinks that the essential randomness of this process can explain evolutionary development only at the macro level, not at the micro level of his expertise. Within the biochemistry of living cells, he argues, life is "irreducibly complex". This is the last black box to be opened, the end of the road for science. Faced with complexity at this level, Behe suggests that it can only be the product of "intelligent design".

Review
David Berlinski

Author of "A Tour of the Calculus"

Mike Behe...makes an overwhelming case against Darwin on the biochemical level. No one has done this before. It is an argument of great originality, elegance, and intellectual power. For readers who have been persuaded that biologists have long since demonstrated the validity of Darwinian theory, [Behe's] observations are apt to be a source of astonishment.