It appears that the Schilling School is going to have a presentation by Michael Behe on Intelligent Design. I have read his book, *Darwins Black Box*, and found it quite intriguing. He presents several cases in which some fairly complex piece of anatomy exists, but it is hard to see how such a thing could come about gradually, since it wouldnt work at all until it was complete. This was, I believe, Darwins idea, that big changes come about through a large series of small changes; to get a chicken from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, you have to gradually make the T. Rex smaller and smaller, gradually transmogrify the arms into wings, and so on. I think modern Evolutionary Theory has a much more sophisticated view of how change can occur. A very small change in the genome, for example, can produce a large change in the structure of the creature (the phenotype). Also, we are not restricted to mutations that occur as a result of random, normally destructive processes like cosmic rays. Thanks to Lynn Margulies, it is now respectable to believes that many species are the result of merging of two or more species via symbiosis, for example. Also, micro-organisms often exchange chunks of DNA with each other, and they may modify their own DNA spontaneously. Darwin himself knew nothing of this. Thus, I think Behes critique is stronger against Darwins original theory than against modern Evolutionary Theory. The modern theory does not have to rely on the accumulation of small changes.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:52:41 +0000
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