I have read two books about Darwinian thought recently; What Darwin Really Said: An Introduction to His Life and Theory of Evolution by Benjamin Farrington and Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe. (They are both scanned in to my Delicious Library, thanks for asking.) One of the many, many reasons I signed up for “The Darwin Class” at Arizona State this fall was to read. This class is not a science class, but a work-in-progress theatre course. It will be conducted by Jake Pinholster and Lance Gharavi. This fall a group of ASU students will meet with the purpose of creating a work based on the life of Darwin and Darwinian thought- well, or in any direction that we take it. (Lance mentioned something about a monkey and an angel playing chess…) This is, of course in honor of his 200th birthday and in celebration of the passing of 150 years since the first edition of The Origin of Species was published.

At any rate- my theatre friends always appear to be very well read. As I have studied composition for the past 4(ish) years, I am well listened, but not as well read as I should be. I figured if I signed up for a theatre course, I would get some real summer reading. I would have read over the summer anyway, but I probably wouldn’t have learned as much. Anyway- I recommend one of the following books:

What Darwin Really Said by Benjamin Farrington

This book did a wonderful job in placing Darwin’s views back in Darwin’s time and then comparing those ideas and how they relate to present day. Farrington first points out that Darwin was a “born naturalist” and not a philosopher. The text makes it clear that Darwin was a great observer of things, but not much more. He eventually became so holed up in his own methods of observation, he too easily lumped humans in with other higher animals due to our physiological resemblance (referring to Decent of Man). Farrington goes on to show that evolutionary theory cannot be directly applied to humans. Mental capacity, education, culture are not inherited genetically. They are learned, therefore Darwininan theory does not apply. Farrington did make it clear that Darwin’s observations were still very important due to the debate it cause in the scientific community. Origin prompted Mendel to cross-breed peas and essentially discover recessive genes. Some of Darwin’s works are still used as vital text (one about the development of choral reefs).
Darwin’s Black Box by Michael J. Behe
CORRECTION: For those of you who actually read my original summary of this book, I do apologize. I could not articulate exactly what was bothering me about it. Now I can.

SUMMARY: If you had a decent Bio teacher your freshman year, you do not need to read most of this book. If you have completely forgotten anything and everything about cell function, then read on! Despite the over use of analogy to make easy-to-grasp points, this books puts forth an intriguing case against the Darwinian Theory of Evolution (he puts forth a case, but doesn’t really prove anything). Part I gives examples of Darwinian and Creationist views on evolution. Each can only disprove each other (this is also what he tries to do for the remainder of the book, funny). They both fail at explaining their theory in full (not true, one just has actual proof and the other thinks it has actual proof). Evolutionists say that evolution occurred because we can see similarities between more complex species and simpler ones. On a large scale this seems true, but here are many layers and “nuts and bolts” to complex species. When you reach the cellular and molecular level of things, even the simplest organisms and functions are frighteningly complex. Chapters 3-7 or Part II, give several examples about how the interdependence of most of these systems (let’s say, the way a cell metabolizes food) is so complex that there is no possible way for it to have evolved. (Yes it can, I like to call it the Pac-Man incident. One day a cell was wondering around and then chomp! It “ate” a mitochondria-like organism. Or the mitochondria invaded the cell, but I like the Pac-Man version better.) Behe continues to state that if one tiny part of the system is removed, the cell will cease to function. (This is true, but there was a time when it was functioning without or differently. Just like how light-sensitive cells eventually became eyeballs.) Part III brings all of these examples together to form a startling conclusion: because it is impossible for certain systems to have evolved and science has absolutely no explanation or proof of spontaneous life (Meaning amino acids randomly forming from the elements to form proteins to form cells, etc. The well-calculated tests done by Stanley Miller are “debunked” in Part III), life must have been created by intelligent design. Wait, what? Now, Behe does not say that the designer is God. Or his God, I think he is a Catholic. He only recognizes that in order for life to have been created, not only on the molecular and cellular levels, a planned design was involved. Granted, back in kiddie-bio class you study cells and how they work and their structural make-up, but how they formed is typically not addressed. At least not in Texas, ha ha. That’s beside the point.

I do not feel that Behe made a new case against evolution. It is a typical creationist view masked by science. And just as he said in the beginning, neither theory (only one is a real theory in my view) is complete and each side only strives to disprove each other. Not true, the Theory of Evolution by way of natural selection actually has been proven.

CORRECTION PART II: I forgot about this post, but now I am finally able to articulate why it is so weird for a scientist to write in favor of intelligent design. Because his arguments SUCK. Yeah, that’s right. They are interesting, they are detailed, but overall, they are not applicable. He is an example (paraphrased) , “You can’t make a bike into a motorcycle without intervention because the parts to make a motorcycle just aren’t there!” Um, yeah, bikes are not biological systems, so therefore your argument has absolutely no pull. And if a bike were a living thing, it would take many, many steps for it to evolve into a motorcycle. Of course systems may generate new and different systems. We see it in mutations, overall height of the population… genetic codes have been mapped proving that this is possible (tobacco could become as potent as pot any minute now…). As for the original formation of amino acids… sure, we may not know how that happened. But what if Miller got it right? We don’t know the precise conditions of the world pre-existence of life. so you can’t call someone out for knowing under what conditions amino acids are formed. What if that’s actually how it happened. Well then, cool. I’ve decided that Behe feels there is a conflict between his career and religion and this is his way of calming his own personal fears and/or contradictions. He also talks about aliens and time travel in the last chapter, so maybe he’s just not all there.