Darwin's Black Box : The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" is a controversial 1996 book by Michael J. Behe. Behe argues that many biochemical systems are irreducibly complex, and thus not amenable to explanation by Darwinian evolution; he does not rule out evolution as the explanation for other, macroscopic biological phenomena.

The book is considered to be pseudoscience by many in the scientific community, who state that Behe's ideas are not falsifiable, that his definition of an irreducibly complex system is ambiguous, and that he ignores previous work in biochemical evolution. They claim that the book is an attempt to bring religion, specifically creationism, into science.

Conversely, Behe's book has illuminated the philsophical boundaries of much of current scientfic thought—boundaries that exclude evidence which may point in a direction contrary to the underlying naturalism upon which much of scientific thought is grounded.

Overview

The "black box" in the title refers to the conceptual tool in which, for one reason or another, the internal workings of a device is taken for granted, so that its function may be discussed.

Behe begins by reminding the general reader of revolutionary developments in the history of science: "When foundations are unearthed, the structures that rest upon them are shaken; sometimes they collapse. When sciences such as physics finally uncovered their foundations, old ways of understanding the world had to be tossed out, extensively revised, or restricted to a limited part of nature." His idea popularizes the idea of "revolutionary science" presented in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Behe suggests that this is now the case in biology due to discoveries in biochemistry. Behe notes the acceptance of Darwinism by "the great majority" of scientists, and states that, "most (though not all) do so based on authority."

He then notes that proposed elucidations of the evolutionary history of various biological features typically assume the existence of certain abilities as their starting point. As an example, he gives Darwin's explanation of how the eye evolved, which begins with light-sensitive spots, which then develop in depressions of increasing depth, which are then covered by a gelatinous material, which then becomes a lens, etc. Behe points out that Darwin dismissed the need to explain the origin of the "simple" light-sensitive spot; he then follows with his own five-paragraph "sketchy overview" of the modern understanding of the biochemistry of vision. He claims that many other evolutionary explanations face a similar challenge.

The concept of irreducible complexity is then introduced and defined by Behe as "a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." As a simple example, he offers the typical household mousetrap, with its wooden platform, wire "hammer," spring, catch, and holding bar. A response to the dyslogic in this example by John McDonald demonstrated "A reducibly complex mousetrap" [1]

Next, Behe devotes several chapters to particular biological mechanisms: the cilium, the bacterial flagellum, blood clotting, gated and vesicular transport within the cell, and the immune system. In each case, Behe claims that the underlying biochemical mechanisms are vastly underappreciated, and that they, in fact, constitute instances of irreducible complexity. He states that other examples abound, and identifies several more.

Behe anticipates and attempts to address one of the primary counter-arguments: "Perhaps [at] some point several parts that were being used for other purposes suddenly came together to produce a [different function]." He states that an "exhaustive consideration of all possible roles for a particular component can't be done [but] it is extremely implausible that components used for other purposes fortuitously adapted to new roles in a complex system." He further states that "the focus simply shifts from 'making' the components to 'modifying' them."

His entirely unsuccessful attempts to discover elucidations in scientific journals of evolutionary pathways for any complex biochemical systems is then recounted by Behe. Although he does identify "assertions that such evolution occurred, absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations."

He concludes the book by offering intelligent design as an explanation of irreducible complexity.

External links

Reviews

• The publisher's webpage for Darwin's Black Box
• Kenneth R. Miller, Professor of Biology Brown University: an analytic and critical review
• Keith Robison "Darwin's Black Box : Irreducible Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility?": critical review
• John McDonald, University of Delaware, "A reducibly complex mousetrap" supplements the philosophical flaws in Behe's argument with a vivid demonstration
• a biochemists reponse to the "biochemical challenge to evolution

Behe's response

• Behe responds to newsgroup postings