The Edge of Evolution

The Search for the Limits of Darwinism

By: Michael J. Behe

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

In a tour de force of science and logic, the best-selling author of Darwin's Black Box combines genetics, laboratory results, and mathematics to prove, once and for all, that the universe and life on Earth are designed.

Michael J. Behe launched the intelligent design movement with his first book, Darwin's Black Box, by demonstrating that Darwinism could not account for the complexity of biochemistry. Now he takes a giant leap forward. In The Edge of Evolution, Behe uses astounding new findings from the genetics revolution to show that Darwinism is nowhere near as powerful as most people believe. Genetic analysis of malaria, E. coli, and the HIV virus over tens of thousands of generations, not to mention analysis of the entire history of the genetic struggle between them and "us" (humans), make it possible for the first time to determine the precise rates, and likelihood, of random mutations of varying kinds. We now know, as never before, what Darwinism can and cannot accomplish. The answers turn conventional science on its head and are certain to be hotly debated by millions. After The Edge of Evolution, life in the universe will never look the same.

©2007 Michael J. Behe (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

"Though many critics won't want to admit it, The Edge of Evolution is very balanced, careful, and devastating. A tremendously important book." (Dr. Philip Skell, Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences)

Design In The Molecular World

This was an excellent read as it bolstered my belief in the " Grand Designer " while raising the eyes of my friends in the Materialistic World still not being able to explain the Cambrian Explosion in a rational scientific manner. It is in the hidden world of the molecular biology that science in a purposeful and deceitful way hide from school children that there is a designer as they know all to well that they are short millions of years to produce man as he is today. I let you call the designer what you may but I call him God. This book is pure science but I will wait for science to be forthcoming with their explanation of the Cambrian Explosion and then move on to the tough questions like finding how to make sense out of an old man named Darwin who left England twice in his life yet was able to write a book basically out of nonsensical science as he knew it in the 19th century. His book should be called Extreme Conjecture and what was his one doubt? Yes, That's Correct. The period of time where higher forms of animals showed up nearly overnight with no lower animals first after all, That's Evolution in a nutshell. I am convinced science has discovered design but do not hold your breath waiting for them to actually let it be known, as the pillars that hold biology up would turn to dust. The hidden world of science and the scientists that keep this information quiet are the real gangsters of this world and would like to be around to watch them explain away their pure dogma to God, The Designer of us All. They are directly responsible for moving our children away from God and that my good folks is not your run of the mill sin. NASA scientists have to sneak to church if they discount the evolution of man, and if they dare to mention it at work they are fired and there are employees suing NASA for stopping RESEARCH into evolution. NASA exists for one reason and that is to find life anywhere but earth. There would be a cure for Cancer if it were not for Congressmen giving them trillions over the years, but the cure will come out of Europe as they have taken the shackles of their researchers years ago, as science stops when you have preconceived notions and that is our Achilles Tendon in the USA, along with Pharmaceutical Giants. What are we becoming folks when we let complacency rule our life's? This book will give you the keys to the Castle but get ready for a shock and if you re a fence straddeler push you over to an All Loving God and Eternity.

Hox genes 50 million years before the Cambrian!!

Dr. Behe lucidly explores yet many more inadequacies of a theory conceived more than a 100 years before genes and molecular machines and in a time when the cell was still a mere "drop of undifferentiated plasm".

Amazing Scholarship.

So many details. Much easier to listen to than to read. It reads like a text book.

Excellento Manifesto

Very well thought out presentation of some difficult facts. Evolutionists.... the clock is ticking and your time is almost up. If it wasn't for the public indoctrination centers continuing to corrupt young undeveloped minds, I would say that the theory of Evolution will go to the same place that Al Gores global warming scam is already at.

fascinating followup to Darwins Black Box

the narration is excellent. my only very minor complaint is that he adopts somewhat demeaning voices when other authors are quoted. maybe it was just me. =)

scientific and worshipful experience

I liked this book. Reader was perfect. I have a technical background, and what I didn't hear (but usually do in such a book) was some howler of a mispronunciation or complete mis-understanding of text ending up with wrong emphasis. The book is persuasive, though it has a bit of a blind spot: yes, it is impossible to see that a particularly complex design happened by chance, but I'm didn't hear any calculation of how SOME design that solved the problem was possible by random mutation. But, still, looking below the gross anatomy level to the biochemical level makes it hard to see how there was enough time to come up with the complexity that we see in the world.
This book makes a distinction between evolution and common descent. It firmly agrees with the 2nd, but also with evolution, but with limits.
I'd recommend both this book and "The Language of God" for those who are willing to dig deep into a science book. I find doing so a worshipful experience, and all the more so if the writer is a believer.

Thought provoking

I don't think the debate of evolution is over and Michael Behe keeps the rational of thought and reason in check. I find the more and more I know the less and less evolution is viable. It becomes an ever increasing decent into intellectual suicide to support evolution as Darwin presents it. Michael Behe presents clear and thought provoking insights that for me, further push me away from Darwinism and its absurdities.

Critique of Natural Selection

A good explanation of what natural selection can and can't do. The book is well thought out.

Fascinating

This is a fascinating and in depth explanation of the complexity of life, and why the theory of random, undirected mutation is simply not an adequate causative agent to drive evolution. Not only is there no scientific evidence to support the theory at the molecular level, but a look into the complex sophistication of irriducibly complex nano machines within a single cell drives home the point that one simply can't gaze upon complex design without knowing there must be designer.
I've often argued that should one be walking through a forest and stumble upon a perfectly formed wooden bowl or even a simple, square wooden table with four perfectly even wooden legs, one would NEVER gaze in wonder at how all of the available resources of wood and natural errosive forces of wind, water and sand could, given enough time and random atmospheric events, have formed them. The design alone tells us that someone designed the bowl and the table even though each is composed simply of wood and designed with the simplest of shapes; a hollowed half sphere and a square with four columnar legs. Each are remarkably simple, but undeniably designed.
How much more so then, when we gaze into the intricacies of a single cell at the molecular level. As a young college student, I first accepted the theory of evolution as fact, but the more I studied genetics and cellular biology, the more implausible that theory became in my mind. Now, 30 years later, advancements in technology and research simply confirm every doubt I had back then.

A great read of the previous uncomprehend world

An ethically challenging view of what we assumed we knew about our own Biochemistry. I greatly appreciated the examples of the Malaria cell as well as HIV to demonstrate the limits of mutations as well as evolution. The fact that you can numerically quantity and demonstrate probability for the extend of genetic changes needed to produce new evolutionary structures is very interesting. Regardless of your like or dislike for the idea of intelligent design, Behe does a thorough job of sharing what is reasonable in biochemistry and what is at the extreme edge of it.