Nuggets from Occult Invasion—An Embarrassing Silence

Had Darwin known of the incredible basic structural complexity of life on the molecular and cellular level he probably would have had enough common sense not to propose his theory. Since the discovery of this “black box,” evolutionists right up to the present have maintained a discreet silence on this subject. Behe points out that the prestigious Journal of Molecular Evolution, the highest authority in its field, has never “proposed a detailed model by which a complex biochemical system might have been produced in a gradual, step-by-step Darwinian fashion…. The very fact that none of these problems is even addressed…is a very strong indication that Darwinism is an inadequate framework for understanding the origin of complex biochemical systems.”

Between 1984 and 1994 about 400 papers concerned with molecular evolution were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Yet not one “proposed [any] detailed routes by which complex biochemical structures might have developed”—nor have any been offered in any other biochemistry journals. It is at this basic level of life (the complexity of which was unknown to Darwin) that Darwinism must now be defended—but evolutionists have avoided the subject for the obvious reason that it cannot be done. In view of the fact that there has never been “a meeting, or a book, or a paper on details of the evolution of complex biochemical systems,” Behe writes:

“‘Publish or perish’ is a proverb that academicians take seriously. If you do not publish your work for the rest of the community to evaluate, then you have no business in academia…. If a theory claims to be able to explain some phenomenon but does not generate even an attempt at an explanation, then it should be banished…. In effect, the theory of Darwinian molecular evolution has not published, and so it should perish.”

Darwin relied upon similarities in outward appearances. He pointed to the great variety of eyes and assumed that they had somehow developed by “natural selection” over great time. Behe’s comment is shattering:

“Now that the black box of vision has been opened, it is no longer enough…to consider only the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin did in the nineteenth century (and as popularizers of evolution continue to do today). Each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biochemical processes….

“Anatomy is…irrelevant to the question of whether evolution could take place on the molecular level. So is the fossil record…. [It] has nothing to tell us about whether the interactions of 11-cis-retinal with rhodopsin, transducing, and phosphodiesterase could have developed step-by-step….

“The scientific disciplines that were part of the evolutionary synthesis are all nonmolecular. Yet for the Darwinian theory of evolution to be true, it has to account for the molecular structure of life…[and] it does not.”