Best Action of the Week

Got this from DefCon, a recent addition to my blogroll.

For the first time since the trial began in a U.S. Middle District courtroom three weeks ago, a scientist testified that intelligent design is science, one based on a fully testable, falsifiable theory.
Attorneys for Dover Area School District started presenting their case with Michael Behe, the Lehigh University biochemistry professor who came up with the term "irreducible complexity."

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Just as a mouse trap's working parts reveal a designer, design can also be determined in nature by the "purposeful arrangement of parts," Behe said.


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He (Behe) uses the bacterial flagellum as an example, arguing that for the propeller-like appendage to move, between 30 and 40 protein parts are needed. Removal of any one of those parts causes the system to stop working — just as a mousetrap depends on all its pieces to operate.

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Miller had testified that if 10 of the protein parts were removed, the flagellum would take on a different function, one allowing bacteria to inject poisons into other cells.


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Miller says the separate purpose is an explanation for how a complex system might have evolved through genetic mutation and natural selection. To illustrate his side of the argument, Miller showed up the first day of the trial wearing a partially disassembled mousetrap as a tie clip. He took it off before taking the stand.