Darwin slayer

Interview: Scientific discoveries on the foundations of life, argues MICHAEL BEHE in his new book, fatally strike the theory of random mutations | Marvin Olasky

Michael Behe's debut work, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), was the Intelligent Design movement's magnum opus, its biggest book of the decade. Here was a biology professor (at Lehigh University, where he has taught since 1985) who could write well and develop good metaphors.

Behe's emphasis on "irreducible complexity" explained why chance mutations could not be the driving engine of macroevolutionary change. He showed how the complexity of organs and organisms means that not one mutation but dozens would have to kick in all at once, an event as improbable as would be the production by complete chance of a spring-driven mousetrap.

Now Behe is back with his second book, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism (Free Press, 2007). Those who wonder why he doesn't publish more often should know that he has nine children. But a book once every decade or so is about as much as Darwinians can take. Behe's new work shows that Darwinism's random mutation and natural selection explain little about how one species has led to another.