Michael Behe Quotes

Proteins are the machinery of living tissue that builds the structures and carries out the chemical reactions necessary for life.

The theory of undirected evolution is already dead, but the work of science continues.

We can look high or we can look low in books or in journals, but the result is the same. The scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system.

Irreducible complexity is a problem for Darwinian evolution. Whenever we see these complex functional systems we realise that they have to be designed.

Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent. But the root question remains unanswered: What has caused complex systems to form?

The conclusion of design flows naturally from the data; we should not shrink from it; we should embrace it and build on it.

I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it.

In many biological structures proteins are simply components of larger molecular machines.

It was only about sixty years ago that the expansion of the universe was first observed.

The basic structure of proteins is quite simple: they are formed by hooking together in a chain discrete subunits called amino acids.

As the number of unexplained, irreducibly complex biological systems increases, our confidence that Darwin's criterion of failure has been met skyrockets toward the maximum that science allows.

Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken.

As can be seen even by this limited number of examples proteins carry out amazingly diverse functions.

We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box.

In order to say that some function is understood, every relevant step in the process must be elucidated.

Thus it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life could easily be produced from inanimate material.

It is often said that science must avoid any conclusions which smack of the supernatural.

Despite some remaining puzzles, there's no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives

Skin is made in large measure of a protein called collagen.

Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don't want there to be anything beyond nature. They don't want a supernatural being to affect nature.

The trap does not work until all the parts were there. The system itself doesn't work until you fit all of them together.

Throughout history there have been many other examples, similar to that of Haeckel, Huxley and the cell, where a key piece of a particular scientific puzzle was beyond the understanding of the age.