Darwin's Black Box Analysis

Conscious Design:

Addressing Validity, Religious Concerns, and Presentation within Public Schools

Behe, M. J. (1996). Darwin's black box: The biochemical challenge to evolution. Simon and Schuster.

In Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe argues that evidence of evolution's limits has been right under our noses -- but it is so small that we have only recently been able to see it. The field of biochemistry, begun when Watson and Crick discovered the double-helical shape of DNA, has unlocked the secrets of the cell. There, biochemists have unexpectedly discovered a world of Lilliputian complexity. As Behe engagingly demonstrates, using the examples of vision, blood clotting, cellular transport, and more, the biochemical world comprises an arsenal of chemical machines, made up of finely calibrated, interdependent parts. For Darwinian evolution to be true, there must have been a series of mutations, each of which produced its own working machine that led to the complexity we can now see. The more complex and interdependent each machine's parts are shown to be, the harder it is to envision Darwin's gradual paths, Behe surveys the professional science literature and shows that it is completely hushed on the subject, obstructed by the elegance of the foundation

Under the evolution overview, Bowman claims that evolution is harmonious with religion. Then while discussing creationism, Bowman explains the differences between “young earth creationism” and “old earth creationism”. Both overviews refer to primary sourced works from supporters of those perspectives. The intelligent design outline, by contrast, has lax citation, and presents many critiques. Bowman habitually refers to news reports to represent intelligent design arguments, as opposed to allowing the intelligent design supporters to share their