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As the number of unexplained, irreducibly complex biological systems increases, our confidence that Darwin's criterion of failure has been met skyrockets toward the maximum that science allows.

Michael Behe

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Michael Behe
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: January 18
Biochemist
Chemist
University Teacher
Writer
Altoona
Pennsylvania
Michael J. Behe
Confidence
Biological
Toward
Maximum
Number
Systems
Failure
Allows
Unexplained
Numbers
Complexes
Criterion
Science
Complex
Darwin
Mets
Criteria
Increase
Increases

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In order to say that some function is understood, every relevant step in the process must be elucidated.
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Despite some remaining puzzles, there's no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives
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It is often said that science must avoid any conclusions which smack of the supernatural.
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In private many scientists admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life... Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life.
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Skin is made in large measure of a protein called collagen.
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A man from a primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or by an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine he immediately realizes that it was designed.
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We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box.
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It is a shock to us in the twentieth century to discover, from observations science has made, that the fundamental mechanisms of life cannot be ascribed to natural selection, and therefore were designed. But we must deal with our shock as best we can and go on.
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If you take away a rock from a pile of rocks you haven't changed much. It's still a heap of rocks - just a rock or two smaller. Take away a component from the mousetrap and it isn't a mousetrap any more.
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Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don't want there to be anything beyond nature. They don't want a supernatural being to affect nature.
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Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.
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I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it.
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There is no publication in the scientific literature - in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books - that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.
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Proteins are the machinery of living tissue that builds the structures and carries out the chemical reactions necessary for life.
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Irreducible complexity is a problem for Darwinian evolution. Whenever we see these complex functional systems we realise that they have to be designed.
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The strong appearance of design [in nature] allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
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The conclusion of design flows naturally from the data we should not shrink from it we should embrace it and build on it.
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As can be seen even by this limited number of examples proteins carry out amazingly diverse functions.
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In Darwin's time all of biology was a black box: not only the cell, or the eye, or digestion, or immunity, but every biological structure and function because, ultimately, no one could explain how biological processes occurred.
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The trap does not work until all the parts were there. The system itself doesn't work until you fit all of them together.
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