Behe and Intelligent Design

In the paper titled, The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis Michael Behe puts forward the argument that some biological systems at a molecular level are the result of deliberate intelligent design (a maker). Behe rejects the idea that evolution (natural selection) can account for the existence of biochemical complexity in the living cell . Instead Behe tries to show that many complex machines found in nature could not possibly be formed through successive, step-by-step modifications as many scientists envision.

Behe begins his paper by marking an important distinction between his modern argument for Intelligent Design and the argument presented by William Paley, ‘The most important difference is that my argument is limited to design itself… it is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley’s was’. Basically Behe wanted to establish the idea of Intelligent Design without also having to prove that the designer needed to be omnipotent or omniscient. Instead he preferred to leave the identity of the designer open, therefore freeing his argument of problem’s that weighed down Paley’s. Behe regards his theory as ‘scientif

Behe appeals to the every day way in which way people make assumptions over what is designed, and what is not in an attempt to clarify premise one. The example he makes reference to is the one of two people walking in the woods where one is caught up by a vine and left dangling in the air. When the person is let down they reconstruct the situation to find that the vine was in fact covered in leaves, pinned down by a stake. They conclude then that it was a trap, not because of religious conclusions but because of the physical evidence . Behe uses this analogy to show how we reach the conclusion of ID. Although whether or not Behe’s argument is convincing will depend on whether irreducible complexity can arise through evolution. Doolittle uses the blood clotting experiment attempts to prove that it can.

Behe W, ‘The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis: Breaking Rules’, cited in Philosophy Of Religion Reading Guide: 2670’, Monash University, Australia, 2003, p 78-85.

1. There are cases in which the presence of irreducible complexity leads us to correctly infer intelligent design

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