Michael Behe (Fig. 1), author of Darwin’s Black Box and originator of the concept of “irreducible complexity,” has written his third major book: Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution. 1 Behe, a well-known proponent of intelligent design and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, 2 is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University. Over the last three decades, Behe has pointed out many of the unsolved problems for macroevolutionary theory. Behe is a Roman Catholic and can be considered a theistic evolutionist. Behe accepts much of the secular cosmic and biological stories, including descent with modification from common ancestors and deep time. However, based on the evidence in the literature, he rejects the notion that random genetic mutations, acted upon by natural selection, can account for the enormous organized complexity found in the biological world. Instead, he advances the idea that the complexity seen in biology could only have been the work of a supreme intelligence. Although Behe is a theistic evolutionist, his insights into macroevolution are still valuable to the creation/evolution debate. In Darwin Devolves (Fig.

This month we will discuss several notable findings in the recent scientific literature that have relevance to the creation issue. The topics were selected by the author and are by no means exhaustive. Background reading for some of the topics is provided in the references.

Fossils

Chitin. Wikipedia < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin > Accessed 2018 Dec 10

The authors speculated that an associated saturated fatty acid layer protected the material from water, enzymes, and other organisms.

Review of Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design

by Matti Leisola and Jonathan Witt

Heretic 1 by Matt Leisola and Jonathan Witt is a very accessible up-to-date summary of the concepts, history, discoveries, and predictions of the intelligent design (ID) movement. The book is also the story of a scientist’s (Leisola) intellectual and vocational journey from belief in Darwinism to ID. The authors touch on the works of William Dembski, Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, A. E. Wilder-Smith, Dean Kenyon, Philip Johnson, James Tour, Richard Sternberg, Michael Denton, Ann Gauger, and many others. If you were only going to read one book on ID, this is it.

Have you ever heard that “All scientists accept evolution as a proven fact” or “real scientists don’t believe in God?” Did you believe it? This article will show just how untrue these statements are. The article does not go into scientific proofs or disproofs of evolution; rather, it focuses on statements from scientists about evolution, creation, and God.

We will be looking at statements from various scientists, including the inventor of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner and Nobel Prize winners. The result may surprise you.

Most of the quotes here came from two websites:

1. http://nobelists.net, the site of an online book, titled 50 Nobel Laureates and Other Great Scientists Who Believe in God.

2. http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org, the site of a petition that questions evolution, which is signed by hundreds of PhD scientists and MDs who are professors of medicine.

In their new book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow defend scientific determinism, which they define as follows:

Given the state of our universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. This would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God. …It is, in fact, the basis of all modern science, and a principle that is important throughout this book. A scientific law is not a scientific law if it holds only when some supernatural being does not intervene (30). 1

They essentially argue that the laws of nature must hold true in all cases without being overridden by divine intervention. Scientific laws must operate without exceptions, except “under a stipulated set of conditions (28).”