Takedown of 2005

One of the highlights of the Dover trial was the takedown of Michael Behe that occurred on Day 12, where Behe testified that "the scientific literature has no detailed testable answers on how the immune system could have arisen by random mutation and natural selection" only to be shown such literature by plaintiffs' lead counsel Eric Rothschild.

Nick Matzke was instrumental in putting together the literature that Rothschild used, and he and a number of denizens of the Panda's Thumb (Andrea Bottaro and Matt Inlay) have a paper in the current edition of Nature Immunology highlighting Behe's idiocy.

Bottaro, Andrea, Inlay, Matt A., and Matzke, Nicholas J. (2006). "Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover 'Intelligent Design' trial." Nature Immunology. 7(5), 433-435.

While the paper isn't freely available, NCSE has some material of interest on the issue, Of particular interest is an annotated version of the bibliography that clearly demonstrates that at best Behe is a lazy scholar who has no business making any claims about immunology, or at worst, disengenious and willing to ignore evidence that doesn't fit his "theory". You be the judge.

I predict that Luskin and the DI crew will begin spinning, round about now ...