Michael J. Behe

Darwin’s Black Box helped to launch the Intelligent Design movement: the argument that nature exhibits evidence of design, beyond Darwinian randomness. Today, with the movement stronger than ever, Michael J. Behe updates the book with an important new Afterword on the state of the debate. —Time Naming Darwin’s Black Box to the National Review’s list of the 100 most important nonfiction works of the twentieth century, George Gilder wrote that it “overthrows Darwin at the end of the twentieth century in the same way that quantum theory overthrew Newton at the beginning.” Discussing the book in The New Yorker in May 2005, H. Allen Orr said of Behe, “he is the most prominent of the small circle of scientists working on intelligent design, and his arguments are by far the best known.” From one end of the spectrum to the other, Darwin’s Black Box has established itself as the key text in the Intelligent Design movement—the one argument that must be addressed in order to determine whether Darwinian evolution is sufficient to explain life as we know it, or not. For this edition, Behe has written a major new Afterword tracing the state of the debate in the decade since it began. It is his first major new statement on the subject and will be welcomed by the thousands who wish to continue this intense debate.

The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

Darwin's Black Box

The scientist who has been dubbed the “Father of Intelligent Design” and author of the groundbreaking book Darwin’s Black Box contends that recent scientific discoveries further disprove Darwinism and strengthen the case for an intelligent creator. In his controversial bestseller Darwin’s Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe challenged Darwin’s theory of evolution, arguing that science itself has proven that intelligent design is a better explanation for the origin of life. In Darwin Devolves, Behe advances his argument, presenting new research that offers a startling reconsideration of how Darwin’s mechanism works, weakening the theory’s validity even more. A system of natural selection acting on random mutation, evolution can help make something look and act differently. But evolution never creates something organically. Behe contends that Darwinism actually works by a process of devolution—damaging cells in DNA in order to create something new at the lowest biological levels. This is important, he makes clear, because it shows the Darwinian process cannot explain the creation of life itself. “A process that so easily tears down sophisticated machinery is not one which will build complex, functional systems,” he writes. In addition to disputing the methodology of Darwinism and how it conflicts with the concept of creation, Behe reveals that what makes Intelligent Design unique—and right—is that it acknowledges causation. Evolution proposes that organisms living today are descended with modification from organisms that lived in the distant past. But Intelligent Design goes a step further asking, what caused such astounding changes to take place? What is the reason or mechanism for evolution? For Behe, this is what makes Intelligent Design so important.

The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution

Darwin Devolves

the search for the limits of Darwinism

The edge of evolution

Draws on new findings in genetics to pose an argument for intelligent design that refutes Darwinian beliefs about evolution while offering alternative analyses of such factors as disease, random mutations, and the human struggle for survival.

The Search for the Limits of Darwinism

The Edge of Evolution

William A. Dembski

Stephen C. Meyer

Wethersfield Institute

As progress in science continues to reveal unimagined complexities, three scientists revisit the difficult and compelling question of the origin of our universe. As mathematician, biochemist, and philosopher of science, they explore the possibility of developing a reliable method for detecting an intelligent cause and evidence for design at the origin of life. In the process, they present a strong case for opening and pursuing a fruitful exchange between science and theology. Mathematician William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, first argues that new developments in the information sciences make intelligent design objectively and scientifically detectable--he identifies the signs of design. Next, philosopher of science, Stephen Meyer, and biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, argue that these signs are now clearly evident in both the architecture of the universe and the features of living systems. Other essays by the authors defend the scientific status of the theory of intelligent design and show how that theory supports traditional religious belief without necessarily "proving" the existence of God. In a concluding essay, Michael Behe responds to critics of his best selling book, Darwin's Black Box, thus bringing readers up-to-date on the status of the contemporary design argument in biology.

Papers Presented at a Conference Sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute, New York City, September 25, 1999

Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe

el reto de la bioquímica a la evolución

La caja negra de Darwin

Darwinin Karakutusu Evrim Teorisine Karsi Biyokimyasal Zafer

Michael J. Behe

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