Could Mike Behe jump ship? Larry Arnhart writes:
As I noted in my first post on Ben Stein’s movie Expelled, the absence of Michael Behe was remarkable. After all, Stein interviewed most of the “senior fellows” at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. So why didn’t he interview the most famous one and the one who has been the leading scientist for “intelligent design”?
It is now almost a year since the publication of Behe’s new book The Edge of Evolution. The Discovery Institute funded the writing of that book, and it heavily promoted the book when it first appeared. But now if you go to the website for the Center for Science and Culture, there are few references to Behe’s new book. The lists for “Essential Readings” and “Books by Center Fellows” include Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, published in 1996, but not his new book. Ever since the end of November, the blog for the CSC has given almost no attention to Behe’s new book.
I now suspect that my early predictions last year have come true–the folks at the Discovery Institute now realize that Behe’s new book subverts their rhetorical strategy, and that it was a big mistake for them to promote it.
Interesting to consider whether this might lead eventually to Behe rethinking his whole commitment to the Discovery Institute. Imagine the ID movement’s worst nightmare: Michael Behe and Ken Miller on the same side, touring the country in support of good science education.