Michael Behe

Michael J. Behe ( born January 18, 1952 in Altoona, Pennsylvania) is an American biochemist. He is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and one of the more well-known representative of Intelligent Design.

Career

Behe studied chemistry at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science degree. In 1978 he earned his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in biochemistry with a research on sickle cell anemia. From 1978 to 1982 he worked at the National Institutes of Health on the structure of DNA. From 1982 to 1985 he was assistant professor of chemistry at Queens College in New York City, where she learned to know his wife. Since 1985 he is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University.

Debate about irreducible complexity and intelligent design

Behe initially accepted the scientific theory of evolution fully. After Michael Denton's book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis had read, he began the evolution into question. Later, he developed the conviction that there was at the biochemical level evidence for the existence of irreducible complex systems. This, as he believes not, as the Darwinian theory of evolution says, have been formed by natural selection, and therefore need an intelligent designer (English: designer) have been designed. This he believes to be the only possible alternative explanation for such complex structures.

Behe, published in 1996 his ideas in the book Darwin's Black Box, which was met with keen public interest, but was answered by the scientific community with harsh criticism. Behe used in the reasoning of intelligent design to a series of biochemical systems, in relation to its represented in the 18th century by William Paley classical formulation Behe extends them but to the concept of irreducible complexity ( irreducible complexity ). The systems discussed by Behe include inter alia, blood clotting and the immune system of the human organism, as well as the flagellum, move with the bacteria.

Advanced Behe's hypothesis of the mathematician William A. Dembski was the concept of specified complexity ( specified complexity ). Both the concept of irreducible complexity and specified complexity that rejects the argument advanced by Behe and Dembski form outside of the intelligent design movement as unscientific.

Unlike some other critics of the theory of evolution, Behe accepts both the common descent of species, including humans, as well as the commonly held scientific view on the age of the earth and of the universe.

More

Behe said Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005 Area School District as an expert of.

Publications

  • Darwin's Black Box: Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: Free Press, 1996, ISBN 0-684-82754-9.
  • Darwin's Black Box. Graefelfing: Resch, 2007 ISBN 3-935-19754-3.
  • The Edge of Evolution, New York: Free Press, 2007, ISBN 0-743-29620-6.
  • Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe ( Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute) ISBN 0-89870-809-5

Videos

  • Intelligent Design: From the Big Bang to Irreducible Complexity
  • Irreducible Complexity: The Biochemical Challenge to Darwinian Theory
  • Where Does the Evidence Lead?
Altoona (Pennsylvania) Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) Queens College, City University of New York Charles Darwin Darwinism Hemostasis Integrated Authority File
567832
de