Behe on Immunology
Michael Behe is a biochemist who supports Intelligent Design. He looked pretty foolish when he testified at Kitzmiller v Dover about the evolution of the immune system.
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Dr. Michael Behe, one of the leading lights of Intelligent Design, wrote in his book Darwin’s Black Box (1996): “We can look high or we can look low, in books or in journals, but the result is the same. The scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system.” (page 138).
How about looking right in front of you? One of the highlights of Kitzmiller v. Dover occurred on Day 12, when Dr. Behe was cross-examined. Eric Rothschild, the ACLU attorney, read the above quote from Behe’s book, and then presented Dr. Behe with the stack of books and peer-reviewed papers shown below, all dealing with the evolution of the immune system:
(Photo excerpted from A. Bottaro et al. (2006), Immunolgy in the spotlight at the Dover “Intelligent Design” trial, Nature Immunology 7:433).
Behe admitted that he had not read all the material, but he did imply that it was all inadequate. In his ruling, Judge Jones noted:
“In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not good enough.
We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof on the theory of evolution.”
Unreasonable, indeed.
Jim Curtsinger
Related Information:
Complete transcripts of the trial can be seen here.
Judge Jones’ ruling is here.