Behe’s New Book

Michael Behe is about to release a new book. I like Behe’s writing style, even though I think he goes nowhere as far as his arguments are concerned. Regarding his previous book, Darwin’s Black Box I wrote:

Thus Behe’s beautiful description of the advance of knowledge as various “black boxes” are opened up is used as an ode to ignorance, rather than to knowledge. We have discovered great things, and thus we can now extract the very powerful idea that we really can’t know certain identifiable things. [More extended note at the link above]

I do think Behe writes very well. It’s too bad he didn’t put his considerable talents in explaining complex scientific topics to use in popularizing actual science.

His new book is titled The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. The subtitle suggest that we’re on the same quest as last time. Rather than laboring to extend the boundaries of knowledge as much as possible Behe is likely in the process of trying to state what scientists simply cannot discover. I will surely get a copy of this book soon and take a look at it myself. In the meantime, here are some responses to enjoy:

Good Virus, Bad Creationist from ERV. This is delightfully written and helped improve my understanding of a fitness landscape. Though I did well enough in math as far as I went, I didn’t go very far, and such simplified explanations are nice to locate.

Behe’s Dreadful New Book: A Review of “The Edge of Evolution”. This one is pretty interesting, and I see that it has also infuriated Bill Dembski. Anything that does that can’t be all bad. As for Dembski’s challenge, my concern would be more the humor impairment of the ID crowd than their technical ability. In general the ID camp’s attempts at humor have been just a bit heavy handed and easily recognizable. But we’ll see.

I’ll save further comments until I actually get my hands on the book, which all things considered will probably be a little while. As always, I’m interested in the theological implications, which I think the ID folks don’t always consider. Anything that masquerades as an argument for God’s existence must be good.