Talk:Michael Behe

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Michael Behe's Religious Belief

Can anyone find a reference confirming Behe's religious belief? He's listed as an "American Roman Catholic". This is particuarily relevant as I have heard him described as an atheist (or at least a stated agnostic), giving extra weight to his intelligent design stance (as it minimises confirmation bias). A reliable reference to his religious history would be pertinent to this article, I think. Confuseddave (talk) 10:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article continues to be biased, libelous, childish

WP:NPA-ridden, histrionic WP:SOAPboxing that made no attempt to make any substantiated discussion of the article's content userfied to User talk:GusChiggins21. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 06:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PZ Myers quote

I respect PZ Myers, but think we're better quoting the actual judge's words, rather than his summary of them. I've tried to format the reference correctly, but legal documents are arcane things... Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK to me, I hate formatting court docs too :) WLU (talk) 11:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expert witness?

Someone just added Category:Expert witness. I'd say it's a bit of a stretch. WLU (talk) 11:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Too large a category to be meaningful, I would have thought. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 13:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Timmer article on Behe

Molecular Machines: Michael Behe, a Discovery fellow, has advanced the argument that some aspects of cellular life are analogous to machinery, and thus must have required the same attentive design that a machine does. This proposal is flawed on a number of levels, and has not gained enough traction within the biological community to rise to the level of anything beyond a distraction. But items Behe might consider molecular machines did appear in the talks, and their role was informative.
The proteasome is one complex of dozens of proteins that was mentioned in a couple of talks. Despite the enormous complexity and large number of specialized proteins in a proteasome, evolution readily explains its origins through gene duplication and specialization. Simplified forms, with fewer proteins, exist in Archaea and Bacteria. Not only are these simple versions of the proteasome an indication of its evolution, the gradual increase in its complexity allowed researchers to use it to infer evolutionary relationships among the three branches of life.
Similar analyses were performed with actin and tubulin, essential components of the complex skeletons that support Eukaryotic cells. Structural relatives of these genes appear in Bacteria and Archaea, where they appear to act to separate cell components even in the absence of a complex skeleton. An essential component of some Eukaryotic RNA interference systems also shows up in Archaea, where it does something completely unrelated to RNA interference. In all of these cases, parts of the supposedly designed machinery exist elsewhere, where they perform more limited but often related roles. Their use in determining evolutionary relationships didn't so much as elicit a blink from an audience of scientists.

[1] Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]