Michael Behe, that Don Quixote of "intelligent design" who never tires of tilting at windmills of "fatal flaws" in evolutionary theory that he think he's identified, did quite a bit of tilting at HIV in his book.
Watch his blathering taken down by a pre-graduate student named Abbie. It's so good it's been republished at Panda's Thumb.
Enjoy.
More like this
Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 15, 2005. Enjoy!
One of the…
Check it out here. I mentioned previously that I'll be reviewing another chapter of the book in the future, and PZ has a write-up of the chapter on developmental biology here (that will be posted to Panda's Thumb in the coming days), and he also has some suggestions here on how bloggers can help…
We won't have a transcript of the Behe cross examination for a few days yet, but here are a couple of reports on it. Laurie Goodstein's article in the NY Times details some of the problems that Behe ran into. For instance, he is arguing for an incredibly broad definition of science, one not…
Apparently William Dembski, over at Uncommon Descent is *not* happy with my review of
Behe's new book. He pulls out a rather pathetic bit of faux outrage: "Are there any anti-ID writings that the Panda's Thumb won't endorse?"
The outrage really comes off badly. But what's Debski and his trained…
The commenters over at the Panda's Thumb mentioned Behe's appearance on The Colbert Report, so I had to watch it.
I loved Abbie's post! If I weren't happily married, I would have to get divorced, just so I could propose to that Abbie. What a beautiful mind!
Behe looked and sounded like a clown on Colbert, which makes sense, as Behe is like the Colbert of the ID movement. He acts and talks one way, but he can't really believe in the inane drivel he spews, can he?
Has Behe taught any undergrads that have done anything useful?
Enjoy a lot. That's one of the best takedowns of a creationist argument that I've seen in years.
The ignorance surrounding evolution is just astounding sometimes. Most creationists wouldn't be convinced of evolution if an HIV virus evolved into an ape right before their eyes. The problem is that IDers can wax eloquent about their theories in the vernacular while any scientific refutation requires some level of education. Maybe that's why they don't want evolution taught in schools.
Thanks, Orac :) Im very glad you all enjoy it!
You all can see for yourself exactly how often and how firmly Behe states that there are no new genes and no new protein-protein interactions if you thumb through 'EoE' at a bookstore. Page 137-ish forward. I think that makes Vpu even funnier.
Now now, noted Nobel prize winner Yasser Arafat said that evolution is a lie, so maybe there's something to it all, right? I mean, Nobel Prize winners are experts on absolutely everything, right? Right?
I saw Behe's performance on Colbert just a moment ago. Poor man--he should feel so very embarrassed, yet cannot.