This podcast features a friendly, but spirited debate between Dr. Michael Behe and Dr. Joshua Swamidass over intelligent design, especially as it relates to the notion of “irreducible complexity” and the challenge this poses (as Dr. Behe would argue) to modern evolutionary theory. Dr. Behe is the recent author of Darwin Devolves, to which Dr. Swamidass (author of The Genealogical Adam and Eve) has responded to critically here. Behe’s own responses can be found here.
Previously, I’ve had Mike on to debate Dr. Stacy Trasancos and to field objections from John DeRosa and myself.
Debate on Intelligent Design:
Dr. Michael Behe and Dr. Joshua Swamidass
Mentioned Resources/Articles
Darwin’s Black Box and Darwin Devolves
Paul Draper’s criticism of irreducible complexity here.
Behe’s response to Draper’s criticism here.
Dr. Swamidass has uploaded the conversation with some additional notes on his website here and Youtube channel here.
About Dr. Michael Behe
Michael J. Behe is Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Behe’s current research involves delineation of design and natural selection in protein structures.
In his career he has authored over 40 technical papers and two books, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution and The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, which argue that living system at the molecular level are best explained as being the result of deliberate intelligent design. Most recently, in Darwin Devolves, Behe advances his argument, presenting new research that offers a startling reconsideration of how Darwin’s mechanism works, weakening the theory’s validity even more.
The books have been reviewed by the New York Times, Nature, Philosophy of Science, Christianity Today, and many other periodicals. Darwin’s Black Box was internationally reviewed in over one hundred publications and named by National Review and World magazine as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
Behe has presented and debated his work at major universities throughout North America and England.
About Dr. Joshua Swamidass
Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass MD, Ph.D. is a physician, scientist, and Associate Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis. He leads a computational biology group that studies information at the intersection of biology, chemistry, and medicine (http://swami.wustl.edu/).
He is also a speaker for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and Veritas Forums. Recently, he served as a Science Adviser for AAAS Science for Seminaries, and now blogs at Peaceful Science.
Dr. Swamidass is the author of his new book, titled: The Genealogical Adam and Eve. Here he tests a scientific hypothesis: What if the traditional account is somehow true, with the origins of Adam and Eve taking place alongside evolution?
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