Darwin's Black Box

The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

De: Michael J. Behe

Narrado por: Marc William

Naming Darwin's Black Box to the National Review's list of the 100 most important nonfiction works of the 20th century, George Gilder wrote that it "overthrows Darwin at the end of the 20th century in the same way that quantum theory overthrew Newton at the beginning".

Discussing the book in the New Yorker in May 2005, H. Allen Orr said of Behe, "He is the most prominent of the small circle of scientists working on intelligent design, and his arguments are by far the best known." From one end of the spectrum to the other, Darwin's Black Box has established itself as the key text in the Intelligent Design movement - the one argument that must be addressed in order to determine whether Darwinian evolution is sufficient to explain life as we know it, or not.

For this edition, Behe has written a major new Afterword tracing the state of the debate in the decade since it began. It is his first major new statement on the subject and will be welcomed by the thousands who wish to continue this intense debate.

©1996 Michael J. Behe (P)2019 Tantor

facts

I have no real criticism of the book itself. However, after reading many of the critical reviews of this book, I noticed a pattern emerge. Almost every single critical review of "Darwin's Black Box" either has an extremely biased perspective against creation and/or they fail to differentiate between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Perhaps this is not by accident.

Behe's goal is not to disprove evolution. The point of the book is to show the fragility of Darwinism. Read more carefully.

well argued

excellent well reasoned arguments based on science. it seems strange how often evolutionist tell story's that are not based on science. they often say it just happened this way...

Well built thesis on ID and problem of Darwinian Evolution at the biochemical level.

This book is quite complex to read/listen to. However, the author gives his explanation for that. Some things are just irreducibly complex - such as biochemistry.

Behe has provided a real challenge for Darwinian proponents that have yet to respond. Biochemistry may be the nail in the proverbial coffin for Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

Unfortunately, evolutionary scientists have a philosophical reason for accepting the data. They simply don’t want to see it or believe it. To do so would lead to a different conversation about exactly WHO is the intelligent agent behind life and matter.

There is no logical argument

Behe did extensive and exhaustive work to literally stitch together this boat piece by piece protein by protein nucleotide by nucleotide to portray the extensive complexity of a living organism.

I one example is that evolution would be like a tornado going through a junkyard and creating a 747. however after listening to the book I counter that it would be more like a tornado creating a fully organized and functioning City as big or bigger than New York. That is not just improbable but I would venture to say impossible.

if we were ever to see something like that occur we would call it miraculous. Such is life...

Great layman’s level explanations

I have watched way more than a dozen YouTube videos with Michael be he explaining this book before I listened to it, so I was familiar with what was about to be presented. His ability to describe these things in ways that the layman can understand was impressive!

He used enough technical jargon to make his work feel authentic and accurate, as well as let you know that he does not consider his listeners to be “too dumb to understand.“

At the same time, he used enough descriptions that were at the layman’s level so that us “normies” can understand.

Better than The Origin of Species

Where Darwin made huge leaps from astute observations to pure speculation, this guy comes in and provides real science, not just theory.

INCREDIBLE READ!

This is the BEST description of DNA replication ever done for the general population. i only wish he had been more specific at the end about how there is NO REASON for the many COMPLEX PROCESSES to go awry. Scientists have done an abysmal job...INTENTIONALLY O think...at pursuing the IMPOSSIBILITY of what we see happening at the simplest levels without a CONTROLLER to direct the COMPLEX and INTRICATE process. No one would ever accept a process had happened like this ACCIDENTALLY in any other environment. the insanity of BELIEF in the ACCIDENT of the GAPS FALLACY has become quote laughable now. Excellent attention to detail and FACT!

A timeless explanation against evolution

This book goes over several examples of irreducibly complex systems and explains why it could not be produced step by step in Darwinian fashion. Although it does go over some complex mechanisms of the cellular world, the general conclusion is easy to grasp and understand.

The masterpiece that launched the ID movement

I had avoided Darwin’s Black Box, having already read many rebuttals to it, and rebuttals to the rebuttals. From these, and from Behe’s subsequent work, I thought I grasped his line of reasoning and could skip his first book. I also assumed it would be an out of date, dull treatise on the bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting cascade. I was wrong; it is a masterpiece, wide ranging and full of timeless concepts. And with respect to both Michael Denton’s and Philip Johnson’s earlier books, I believe Darwin’s Black Box is the first full articulation of intelligent design. It was interesting to juxtapose Behe’s book with Michael Denton’s more recent: Evolution—Still a Theory in Crises, which I had just finished before going all the way back to Black Box. The intervening 20 years of discoveries in molecular biology have exponentially strengthened the case against Darwinism, as Behe predicted. Despite his detractors, Behe’s arguments stand stronger than ever. Highest recommendation.

A lesson in argument from analogy, incredulity and ignorance

The book can be summed up as “we don’t yet understand how these natural systems could have evolved, and they’re pretty complex, and have loose similarities to these actually designed systems, so they must also have been designed”.

Behe’s arrogance in declaring the “discovery” of design (as opposed to it being a modern refurbishing of an older idea used to explain complexities we didn’t yet understand at the time) is laughable.

Well narrated though 👍