OK, this video is 6 years old, but I just noticed it. Previously Behe was known for his admission that the evidence for common descent was strong, even incontrovertible. But here he downplays all that. He accepts common descent “for the sake of argument” because he’s just not interested in it. And he goes so far to say that many IDers have proposed strong evidence against it, though he doesn’t mention who or what that may be. This seems a serious departure from his previous position. Can anyone elaborate? Is there a more recent and/or less coy statement from him? What would be that evidence against common descent that he’s thinking of?
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Let me add that the video does very little to justify the subtitle.
Bill Cole outed Behe on this many months ago in a conversation that is probably somewhere in a Side Conversation (where it belongs). There was some speculation that Bill was singing without Behe’s knowledge/permission, but we were probably wrong about that.
Edit: here is that conversation.
Hi John
This is the same position he had 9 years ago when I first met him. He thinks common descent explains the similarities between species but design is required to explain the differences. He grants common descent for arguments sake.
Discussion starts 1:23 minutes in…
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I always felt like Behe was always doing things for argument’s sake. These people are, in my best and honest assessment, dishonest people. They speak out of both sides of their mouthes and say whatever they think they have to say in the situation if it is politically or socially convenient. In order to get a foot in the door, etc.
What has Behe really said in the past that gave you the impression he considered common descent incontrovertible? I have only ever heard or read him say or write rather mealy-mouthed things in favor of common descent.
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From Darwin Devolves Chapter 1 (fourth paragraph in the section “The Future Starts Now”):
Although its components are often unwittingly conflated, Darwin’s theory
of evolution is actually an amalgam of a handful of separate ideas, several of
which do not depend as strongly as others on an understanding of
biochemistry. For example, the ideas that life has changed over time and that
organisms are related by common descent (both of which were controversial
in Darwin’s time) are supported by evidence from geology, paleontology, and
comparative anatomy. Those parts of his theory have withstood the test of
time very well.
The book was published in February 2019, so a little before the video at the top of the thread.
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FWIW, here is a discussion between Behe and @swamidass where Joshua asserts that, among other subjects, he and Behe agree that humans and chimpanzees share common descent and then asks Behe to correct him if he is mistaken, and Behe doesn’t. It’s a bit later thatn the video you posted, John, but still not unequivocal.
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If common descent explains the similarities, which is quite a lot of data, why reject or even doubt it?
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The Wikipedia page on The Edge of Evolution says this:
Sadly, it cites no source.
I found a video from 2009 in which he advances two lines of evidence against common descent:
- Variant genetic codes.
- Some unspecified features of embryology.
The first is incompetently argued, and the second is too vague to talk about.
I posted the following quote in the thread that @sfmatheson linked to:
The same mistakes in the same [pseudo]gene in the same positions of both human and chimp DNA. If a common ancestor first sustained the mutational mistakes and subsequently gave rise to those two modern species, that would very readily account for why both species have them now. It’s hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans. – Edge of Evolution, p71-2
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I will certainly agree that to say that common descent has stood the test of time is to argue strongly for the reality of common descent.
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The word “trivial” is used in reference to common descent here, but not in quite the same sense:
Common descent is what most people think of when they hear the word “evolution.” It is the contention that different kinds of modern creatures can trace their lineage back to a common ancestor. For example, gerbils and giraffes - two mammals - are both thought to be the descendants of a single type of creature from the far past. And so are organisms from much more widely separated categories - buffalo and buzzards, pigs and petunias, yaks and yeast.
That’s certainly startling, so it’s understandable that some people find the idea of common descent so astonishing that they look no further. Yet in a very strong sense the explanation of common descent is also trivial. Common descent tries to account only for the similarities between creatures. It says merely that certain shared features were there from the beginning - the ancestor had them. But all by itself, it doesn’t try to explain how either the features or the ancestor got there in the first place, or why descendants differ. For example, rabbits and bears both have hair, so the idea of common descent says only that their ancestor had hair, too. Plants and animals both have complex cells with nuclei, so they must have inherited that feature from a common ancestor. But the questions of how or why are left hanging.
I could swear to reading an interview or article where he referred to CD as “trivially true”, but I can’t find it.
In any event, his position is narrowly true: CD by itself doesn’t explain biological diversity. That is true in the same sense that the fact that the earth is millions of years old, and not just 6000, does not explain how the Himalayan mountains were formed. However, the fact of an old earth is a necessary aspect of the ideas that do explain their formation. Similarly, if one denies CD, then one has no way to explain how biological diversity arose. CD provides the necessary framework for the explanation. Behe either does not understand this, or wants to ensure his audience doesn’t.
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