Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Last week I mentioned the new paper by Richard Lenski at MSU, which showed that an unselected mutation could fix in a population and then later combine with a second mutation to produce a new trait that can be selected for. Now Michael Behe has written a silly and substance-free "critique" of the Lenski paper, the second time Behe has tangled with Lenski and come out looking absurd.
The thing that jumps out about Behe's response is that it's really not a response at all. He ignores all the relevant things about the experiment, highlights the one thing everyone knew to be true long before this experiment, and declares victory. Here's the sum total of the substance of his response:
I think the results fit a lot more easily into the viewpoint of The Edge of Evolution. One of the major points of the book was that if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has little problem finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. "If two mutations have to occur before there is a net beneficial effect -- if an intermediate state is harmful, or less fit than the starting state -- then there is already a big evolutionary problem." (4) And what if more than two are needed? The task quickly gets out of reach of random mutation.
What a bizarre response. This paper shows precisely what Behe claims is a "big evolutionary problem" has, in fact, happened. Just as importantly, it showed how such results could occur even in a relatively small population over a relatively small amount of time (a few trillion bacteria in a single lab is the barest fraction of the number that exist in nature and 20 years is barely a microsecond on a geological scale). If you can get two such mutations to develop a trait that would confer an enormous survival advantage very rapidly in even a small population, how on earth does this "get out of reach of random mutation"?
To get a feel for the clumsy ineffectiveness of random mutation and selection, consider that the workers in Lenski's lab had routinely been growing E. coli all these years in a soup that contained a small amount of the sugar glucose (which they digest easily), plus about ten times as much citrate. Like so many cellular versions of Tantalus, for tens of thousands of generations trillions of cells were bathed in a solution with an abundance of food -- citrate -- that was just beyond their reach, outside the cell. Instead of using the unreachable food, however, the cells were condemned to starve after metabolizing the tiny bit of glucose in the medium -- until an improbable series of mutations apparently occurred. As Lenski and co-workers observe: (1)Such a low rate suggests that the final mutation to Cit+ is not a point mutation but instead involves some rarer class of mutation or perhaps multiple mutations. The possibility of multiple mutations is especially relevant, given our evidence that the emergence of Cit+ colonies on MC plates involved events both during the growth of cultures before plating and during prolonged incubation on the plates.
Behe continues to duck into the punch. He's basically arguing that this combination of mutations is so unbelievably rare that it could never occur in nature - yet it occurred here in a small population in a very small period of time. A rational person would think one of two things: 1) such a situation is not that rare; or 2) even extremely rare mutations are inevitably going to take place in populations of trillions of organisms that reproduce so rapidly.
If such a mutation is extremely rare - say one in a trillion organisms is going to have mutation X - but you have a population of 500 trillion organisms, that mutation is going to occur 500 times per generation in that population. And this number is hardly farfetched; the average ton of soil contains 1016 bacteria.
By the way, the results of the Lenski study are remarkably similar to the results of Behe's own computer simulation experiment on the evolution of a disulfide binding site. In that experiment, by Behe's own admission under oath in the Dover trial, they found that a multiple residue binding site - one requiring not just one but several point mutations that were unselected for - could develop in only 20,000 years (again, a geological microsecond on the scale of the 3.7 billion years bacteria have been evolving on Earth). And that was despite having deliberately rigged the experiment to make it as unlikely as possible.
Behe's response to the Lenski paper is a textbook example of just how bad the ID arguments are. It reads like he isn't even attempting to make a serious argument anymore, like he's just going through the motions.
Life Science
Comments
Of course, Uncommon Descent are touting Behe's response as a major victory.
Posted by: Rich | June 11, 2008 9:57 AM
"I think the results fit a lot more easily into the viewpoint of The Edge of Evolution."
Surprised he didn't leave a link to amazon as well, the shameless shill.
...and who references popsci(fi) in a rebuttal like this, rather than actual research papers. Oh, yeah, people with no case, selling woo for a cheap buck.
Posted by: Jason Failes | June 11, 2008 10:09 AM
FUCK Uncommon Descent. As far as I'm concerned, they've lost all credibility over there with respect to any science commentary, not just evolution. They're a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first ones with their backs against the wall when the revolution comes.
Papers like this one are tremendously important, not only for the science but for the educational value. One of the things about evolution that is the least user-friendly is the deep time aspect of it. Studies like this do a very good job of illustrating things that we tend to discuss usually only in very theoretical terms, such as the long term behavior of populations (in this case tens of thousands of generations) with respect to mutation and selection. I love this paper for the actual research, but at least as much additionally for its implications as a teaching tool.
Posted by: Josh | June 11, 2008 10:16 AM
If you look at the language he uses, it really does seem that he thinks the timescales and numbers involved are large - "... all these years ...", "... for tens of thousands of generations trillions of cells ...".
I'm really starting to think the fundamental problem with creationists is an inability to appreciate scale.
Posted by: Dunc | June 11, 2008 10:21 AM
Only a creationist could look at research which reports multiple mutations arising spontaneously in a laboratory population which result in a new beneficial trait, and claim that this result confirms his own claim that this result could never happen.
Posted by: Wes | June 11, 2008 10:21 AM
Dunc said:
Or merely an inability to count?
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | June 11, 2008 10:24 AM
I'm really starting to think the fundamental problem with creationists is an inability to appreciate scale.
This isn't a problem with creationists...this is a problem with people. This is one the central problems in communicating any aspect of earth history. The scales we deal with are difficult to understand.
Posted by: Josh | June 11, 2008 10:29 AM
Neil Shubin, the project lead that discovered Tiktaalik reports in his wonderful book, Your Inner Fish, that another research team ran an experiment where single cell organisms evolved into multi-cellular organisms in a mere eight years.
Posted by: Michael Heath | June 11, 2008 11:20 AM
Some people see Christ on a slice of Cheese Toast, Behe sees Christ through a double-triple mutation. It's really the same way of fooling yourself. And about as scientific.
re: Josh and UD - So what was your name when you got banned there, and what did you get banned for?
Posted by: J-Dog | June 11, 2008 12:07 PM
Let me get this straight. Behe previously claimed there was a flaw in evolutionary theory because the odds of a certain series of events happening were impossibly small. A scientist then publishes a paper proving the very type of unlikely events Behe was talking about did occur. Behe then points to that paper and says, "See I was right," and repeats his original argument. Is that about the gist of it?
Why do I suddenly feel as if I'm in one of Shakespeare's comedies but without the pretty prose? Tis the moon. Tis the sun... Whatever you say Behe.
Posted by: Abby Normal | June 11, 2008 12:14 PM
Methinks it is something like a camel...DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | June 11, 2008 12:17 PM
Why in the name of common sense is this man even allowed to continue teaching? He can't possibly be competent even to teach basic biology to freshmen.
I hope it's only because he has tenure, or because Lehigh is afraid of a wrongful termination suit. Even so, there have to be ways around it.
Posted by: cipher | June 11, 2008 12:26 PM
Josh pretty much nails it. Human beings simply have a hard time grasping the enormity of big numbers. And they also have a really hard time thinking about probability.
The human brain is simply not wired to think about these concepts intuitively.
Consequently, we get Behe's response. True, random mutation is "clumsy" and "ineffective". But just because it is clumsy and ineffective doesn't mean that evolution doesn't happen. Given enough time, the laws of probability mean that mutations happen, beneficial traits arise and get fixed in a population.
And that is the real beauty of evolution. There is no guiding hand. New species arise simply because, by random chance, they happen to be well adapted for survival in a particular environment.
Posted by: David C. Brayton | June 11, 2008 12:35 PM
while i agree with josh's comments on scale, i think the class is missing a fundamental point: behe doesn't write for rational people. his "work" is intended to prop up the belief systems of individuals who cannot decipher scientific text, not to convince science-minded folk. as long as their "experts" continue to say evolution never happened, that is what they believe.
class dismissed. ;)
Posted by: coreydbarbarian | June 11, 2008 12:57 PM
re: Josh and UD - So what was your name when you got banned there, and what did you get banned for?
Didn't get banned (sorry if that was anyway implied). Just have no respect for them given their well displayed behaviors and attitudes.
Posted by: Josh | June 11, 2008 1:11 PM
Let me get this straight. Behe previously claimed there was a flaw in evolutionary theory because the odds of a certain series of events happening were impossibly small. A scientist then publishes a paper proving the very type of unlikely events Behe was talking about did occur. Behe then points to that paper and says, "See I was right," and repeats his original argument. Is that about the gist of it?
Aside from a nitpick about there being no proof in science, yep, that pretty much hits it.
his "work" is intended to prop up the belief systems of individuals who cannot decipher scientific text, not to convince science-minded folk. as long as their "experts" continue to say evolution never happened, that is what they believe.
Sigh. Sadly, I think that this also pretty much hits it.
Posted by: Josh | June 11, 2008 1:24 PM
This is a big part of why I think defending science education should involve exposing and discrediting the liars who lead the creationist movement. Making good science available, and refuting creationist arguments, will help sway those who understand science. But it won't have much effect on those who don't. I think that an effective campaign to keep creationism out of schools should involve directly and vociferously pointing out lies and incompetence, so the public can see that these people are not experts. Taking a deferential or accommodating attitude towards creationist leaders only reinforces the image for the public that creationists are respected authorities with standing in the scientific community.
But all of this comes with the caveat that it's important to distinguish between the lying, incompetent leaders of the creationist movement and the ignorant but probably honest followers who just don't know any better. The point is to discredit the leadership, not to attack and insult people just because we disagree with them.
Posted by: Wes | June 11, 2008 1:48 PM
"Josh pretty much nails it. Human beings simply have a hard time grasping the enormity of big numbers."
Big Numbers have enormity only when used by Dembski. When used by the mathematically literate they have enormousness.
Posted by: midwifetoad | June 11, 2008 2:20 PM
Well there's your problem. Utterly impossible! It's at least 13,000 years longer than the age of the entire universe! I mean, geez. Haven't you ever read Genesis?
Posted by: Nentuaby | June 11, 2008 3:07 PM
Who has a blog on Amazon.com? I would assume that's people trying to sell books, not people interested in doing science.
Posted by: megan | June 11, 2008 4:00 PM
OT but kinda funny in reference to UD: I recently googled "Hello Kitty crop circles," and one of the entries I got was a post in Uncommon Deceit, in 2006, by DaveTard hisself, trying to make a case that since we apply a "design inference" to crop circles, it therefore makes perfect sense to apply it to living systems. And despite DaveTard's valiant efforts to insert his own commentary into the responses, his argument still got dissed and dismissed.
Posted by: Raging Bee | June 11, 2008 4:26 PM
I agree; pseudo-scientists like Behe are either utterly shameless snake oil salesmen...or they are (ironically) the missing link. Someone should cat scan their brains and see which lobe is underdeveloped. I had the humorous experience of going to college with another such character from the Discovery Institute--David Klinghoffer. While an undergrad at Brown, he took great pride in being self-labeled as (similarly) an "oppressed martyr of alternate thinking" after his article in the Brown Daily got shredded for its inane absurdity and ignorance. At Brown, he claimed he was the "only student not brainwashed" by liberal thought-oppression (he fancied himself a conservative, as opposed to an idiot), which, like he just did in a Discovery Institute article re. evolution recently, he compared to nazism. Clearly he has neither gotten over the injury to his adolescent pride, nor grown up. For more info, check out his self-absorbed blathering in April's (I think) Brown alumni magazine. The responses in the following month's issue are even better! Almost 20 years later, and the same people injure his pride again--lol!
Posted by: CJ | June 11, 2008 5:45 PM
Come to think of it, I highly recommend you read his alumni article and the responses! It will give you a sort of longitudinal view of these Creationist "experts!"
Posted by: CJ | June 11, 2008 6:05 PM
Midwifetoad--I really appreciate your comment. I guess that after Cal I, II, III, DiffEq, Prob&Statistics, Design of Experiments, Numerical Methods and Matrices, and Complex Numbers, I'm still not "mathematically literate". Oh well.
Posted by: David C. Brayton | June 11, 2008 6:06 PM
David, I think midwifetoad wasn't commenting on your mathematical literacy, but rather riffing on the fact that "enormity" (as opposed to "enormousness" or "immensity") strictly refers to something that is a "grave crime or sin", i.e. the way Dembski uses numbers is a crime.
Posted by: Squiddhartha | June 11, 2008 6:45 PM
Behe: "But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. "
"Needed"? Needed for what? Looks like Behe is thinking that all traits are teleological, that whatever trait comes about by this process was "the goal".
That pretty blows his whole 'response' right there.
Posted by: slpage | June 11, 2008 9:12 PM
I wonder what its like for people who spend their whole lives grasping at straws.
Posted by: Julian | June 11, 2008 10:14 PM
"As far as I'm concerned, they've lost all credibility over there with respect to any science commentary, not just evolution. "
When did they ever have any credibility to lose?
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | June 12, 2008 7:19 AM
I wrote: "As far as I'm concerned, they've lost all credibility over there with respect to any science commentary, not just evolution. "
Ginger smartly queried: When did they ever have any credibility to lose?
To which I reply: Ahhh...another excellent point. I'm stand happily corrected (Well, I guess I'm sitting as I type this, but you know...).
Posted by: Josh | June 12, 2008 8:11 AM
Yeah, OK, I see what you're saying... I guess what I meant was that they have a problem with scale which is several orders of magnitude worse than most people's problems with scale, to such an extent that they can't see that a lab flask is much smaller than the Earth, or that several years is much shorter than several billions of years. Any number larger than 10 causes an overflow error and gets interpreted as "many", where all values of "many" are considered equal.
Posted by: Dunc | June 12, 2008 11:09 AM
I guess what I meant was that they have a problem with scale which is several orders of magnitude worse than most people's problems with scale, to such an extent that they can't see that a lab flask is much smaller than the Earth, or that several years is much shorter than several billions of years. Any number larger than 10 causes an overflow error and gets interpreted as "many", where all values of "many" are considered equal.
Yep. Well put...and which I think is much more the "immediate" problem we face than the one I was going on about. Actually, maybe I was thinking about the problem and you were focusing on a symptom of it, but the symptom is what needs to be treated first.
Posted by: Josh | June 12, 2008 11:18 AM
David Klinghoffer's article How Brown Turned Me into a Right Wing Religious Conservative . . . in Jan/Feb 2008 Brown Alumni Magazine and the following issues responses to it.
Posted by: angst | June 12, 2008 9:56 PM
Wait now, there is such a thing as an Atheistic Left Wing CONSERVATIVE now? Surely conservative implies right wing, and possibly (but not absolutely*) relgious, by definition. - pedantically DJ
*Except, perhaps, is the US, where it seems conservative and relgious are virtually synonymous.
Posted by: DingoJack | June 13, 2008 1:54 AM
I think you should reread Behe's critique. Many of the people posting here clearly have not and have taken it for granted that your summary is accurate and meaningful which it isn't.
Behe is a very competent scientist, irrespective of one's views on ID, one has to acknowledge that he understands biochemistry.
He is actually expressing doubt that Lenski is correct, because it is Lenski who is CLAIMING that two successive mutations took place, Behe is doubting that this is the case and reminds the reader of the basic arithmetic reasoning as to why this is hopeless as an explanation for what we see today in nature.
Lenski may think that the change observed in e-coli is the result of two succesive mutations, but this is not proven, and this is what Behe is saying, which he is quite entitled to.
Posted by: Hugh | July 7, 2008 5:41 PM
I'm with Hugh. I think Behe's critique of Lenski's paper is neither silly nor substance-free.
I think it's significant that speciation has yet to be observed in experiments of this type, and salute Dr. Lenski's patience and perseverance in cultivating his cultures for such a long time. This is an important study, as much for what it failed to accomplish as for what it did. Behe is respectful of Lenski's work, and simply disagrees with what it means. That's called science, by the way. Those here and elsewhere who demean Behe while howling that macroevolution has occurred in the laboratory (?) do their cause harm. While we're at it, contingency in and of itself is at best a minor sidebar in the modern synthesis - - and it seems Gould put it forward (along with punctuated equilibrium, etc...) to account for the shortcomings of neo-Darwinism. To celebrate the triumph of contingency as some great victory for evolution is ironic to say the least. But thanks for including the link to Behe's blog - those interested can make up their minds for themselves.
Posted by: Steve | July 9, 2008 11:47 AM
Is that you, StCynic?
Posted by: Robb | July 10, 2009 3:50 AM
Yes Robb, Ed used to go by the name St Cynic.
Posted by: doctorgoo | July 10, 2009 7:39 AM
I live in hope that a willingness to believe in creationism confers some form of genetic disadvantage.....
Posted by: cedley | February 26, 2010 11:24 AM