Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 10 (October 17), AM Session, Part 1

THE COURT: All right. Good morning to all. We have some exhibits to take before we get into our first witness. So let's take -- what's your pleasure? What do you want to take first from the Plaintiffs?
MR. HARVEY: Mr. Stough's exhibits.
THE COURT: All right. I have -- it looks like, predominantly, we have, I'm not sure that I should or want to read all of them, but they look like news articles that are not going to be admitted yet, at least at this point. The non-news articles, so to speak, would be.
MR. HARVEY: Letters to the editor.
THE COURT: P-671 would be -- that's correct, the letters to the editor chart. The affidavit is 670. 674, again, I think, is the chart. 672 is the chart. 675 is the chart.
MR. HARVEY: Just to be clear, Your Honor, those exhibits were the editorials and the letters themselves with the chart.
THE COURT: With the chart, that's correct. And P-702 was the letter that the witness received. I think all the other exhibits were articles themselves. Tell me if I'm wrong.
MR. HARVEY: You're correct, Your Honor, with the exception of two article exhibits that were already admitted.
THE COURT: All right. So are you moving for the admission of the exhibits that I recited?
MR. HARVEY: Yes, Your Honor.
MR. GILLEN: Your Honor, we object. We object to the -- it looks to me like we object to everything except the affidavit prepared by Mrs. Aryani, which is, I believe, 670.
THE COURT: That would be 670. And I think you interposed objections -- I understand the gist of your objections having had those placed on the record at the time those exhibits were referred to. All right.
Well, 670, the affidavit, will be admitted. P-702, I'll hear argument on that, but I would not be inclined to admit 702. But if you want to make additional argument, you can.
MR. HARVEY: Your Honor, I have nothing further to say.
THE COURT: All right, I'm not going to admit 702, which is a letter by an unknown author, handwriting on it is unreliable, and he testified about the receipt of the letter, and I think that was sufficient. But I don't believe the letter itself should be admitted.
Now, Mr. Harvey, what do you want to say about the other exhibits? They would be 671, 674, 672, and 675, all of them being letters to the editor and/or editorials and the chart? The charts, I would certainly be inclined to admit.
I understand the objection, but I don't think the chart, as being summaries of the contents, are objectionable, so I'll admit the chart so you can focus your argument on the letters themselves and the editorials.
MR. HARVEY: It's simply that they come in on the effect test. They're probative on that issue. The Supreme Court in the Epperson case considered letters to the editor. So this is -- they're certainly relevant. They're probative. They're not unduly prejudicial. They're authentic. They cover the time period, June 2004 to September 2005, so that the relevant time period. They should come into evidence. And they're not offered for the truth of the matter asserted, of course. They're offered for the effects test, so there's no hearsay issue either.
MR. GILLEN: Your Honor, I do think I have a little more to offer you by way of value here. I thought all weekend about our colloquy on Friday. I want to suggest, this is why the request for admissions is erroneous and why the question that you posed on Friday is addressed in the law and doesn't require admission into evidence.
First, I want to suggest that what's being offered to you here is a flawed chain of reasoning, and it runs as follows: Mr. Stough has no personal knowledge, but he read the articles, which are hearsay. Based on that hearsay, he formed a belief, a state of mind that Dover Area School District was advancing religion. Based on that hearsay in his state of mind, his state of mind is now being offered with the support of these articles to prove the fact he believes that Dover Area School District was advancing religion.
For the reasons I've stated, I believe that that cannot happen under the Federal Rules of Evidence. But on Friday, Judge, you asked me a good question that I've thought about. It is this. You said, Mr. Gillen, I think you set the bar too high. I think that he doesn't have to attend the board meetings to be apprised of the effect.
Your Honor, in thinking of that, I want to suggest that the law and the way the law treats the test that you have to apply in this case addresses your concern without requiring the admission of this hearsay. And this is why.
The test that you're asked to apply in this case, if you believe the endorsement test applies -- we say it doesn't. We say it doesn't get outside the classroom. But if you so hold, then the test asks you to find what a reasonable observer would believe. Now, Judge, when the law asks you to make that determination, there is no necessary connection between the actual knowledge of a given Plaintiff and the knowledge that the law imputes to the objective reasonably informed observer for the purpose of the test.
Let me give you two brief examples that demonstrate this is the way the law treats it and this is why the problem that you see isn't a problem that comes from the evidence. Just take a display case right up there in the State Capitol. There's a cross. A Plaintiff could see that cross and believe that the State is advancing religion.
THE COURT: Well, that's why the endorsement test is used for displays such as the Ten Commandments.
MR. GILLEN: Exactly. Now, Judge, look at the outcome of such a case. If that Plaintiff comes in and brings a claim, there's two different outcomes. It could succeed or fail. But my point to you, Your Honor, is, it could succeed or fail based on knowledge or facts in evidence that were utterly unconnected to the actual knowledge of the Plaintiff.
In one case, the claim could fail, because the evidence of record, the facts of the matter could demonstrate that, although the Plaintiff didn't know it, the reality is, it's a forum.
THE COURT: Well, you argue the endorsement test, and I might agree with you on the endorsement test. I understand your point exactly. But I think what Mr. Harvey argues is that, and the courts have done this, as you know, they've done alternative analysis. They've done it under purpose and effect, and then they've interposed endorsement in case, I suppose, appellate courts want to see it done both ways.
I might agree with you that, if we do it on an endorsement analysis, admission is problematic. Now Mr. Harvey says, they get admitted on the effect test, the straight effect test. What I grapple with on the effect test, I all tell you all rather candidly, is effect upon whom? And I have yet to decide that, obviously. You would say, I think, Mr. Harvey, that it's broader than simply the 9th grade students. I think you would say not. Is that --
MR. GILLEN: Correct, Judge. The effect of a curriculum change is the effect on the instruction in the classroom.
MR. HARVEY: Regardless, Your Honor, it's the reasonable observer in the community, whether it's the 9th grade student or somebody else. And --
THE COURT: Well, but are we sure about that? You say that for the effect test, but admittedly, courts have done it both ways. Some courts have limited it to the recipients or the direct recipients of the policy, being the 9th grade students. You cast it in a conjunctive sense.
Other courts have said, no, it's limited to the intended recipients, being the 9th grade students. In that case, of course, the testimony doesn't come in on the effect test in any event; so no harm, no foul, from your perspective.
MR. GILLEN: Correct, Your Honor.
MR. HARVEY: Your Honor, I believe the courts have looked at the reasonable observers in both contexts and have discussed these --
THE COURT: In both the endorsement and the effect?
MR. HARVEY: Yes, and looked at the effect on the community, what message is being sent to the community as preceived by this reasonable observer. And the reasonable observer, whether it's a 9th grade student or not, would read this note that's being handed to me by my counsel -- no.
THE COURT: Always great to have co-counsel.
MR. HARVEY: Absolutely. Would certainly be reading what's in the paper, the letters to the editor and editorial. These are the local papers. I mean, this is about a good as source as you can get.
THE COURT: But Mr. Gillen says, it's hearsay, it hasn't been established, and why should the reasonable observer be permitted to rely on something that is not conceded to be true.
MR. HARVEY: Well, Your Honor, I guess we're going to determine in this case whether that's true or not. But nevertheless, that is what is out there in the community. And another point is, it's not just what was published in the classroom. This was published in the entire community. So we have it put out there for the entire community.
THE COURT: I understand that. And I think you have evidence on that point to be sure, and in your case, you've established that. But on these particular areas, which would be editorials, you know -- and I'll address this to you, Mr. Gillen. These are editorials, these are opinion pieces. You say though, implicitly they assume facts.
MR. GILLEN: Exactly, Your Honor. The difference between these letters that were published in the newspaper and 702, which is a deplorable thing to send to someone, is a difference of degree not kind. They're both just someone's opinion as to what's going on and in a paper.
It is not evidence for this Court. They are not here in front of you. All it is, is, on that, on that sort of evidence, Judge, a man could be convicted of something based on nothing more than what people think and put in the paper. I mean, let me suggest that the western legal tradition did not give up trial by ordeal, trial by combat, trial by compurgation, so we could have trial by press clipping. I mean, it's just --
MR. HARVEY: Mr. Gillen apprehends this fundamentally. He is continuing to assume that we're offering these for the truth of the matter asserted to prove the underlying facts. Let me be clear about that. We have put in much evidence to prove the underlying facts. We will put in additional evidence, including the testimony of the reporters themselves, that these things were said, that they actually happened. These articles for this are not being offered for this purpose.
THE COURT: Here's what I want to do. I'm going to ask that -- I'm going to defer a ruling on 671, 674, 672, and 675. I believe that it's appropriate for me to read, particularly the underlying documents, not the charts. I saw the charts, but I didn't see the underlying documents. I'll do that. And I would like to ask Mr. Harvey, if you would do me the favor of reminding me that we need to revisit that.
I know you're burdened with a lot. All counsel are. But if you would allow me to circle back after I've read those, and then I might take some additional argument at that time. One of the disadvantages I have is that I have not read the contents.
And I will say, too, that I recognize, Mr. Harvey, your argument that it doesn't go to the truth. I think that's the argument that you need to make under the circumstances. I understand Mr. Gillen's argument, that it necessarily has to go to the truth.
One of the things that will happen between now and perhaps the time that we revisit these is that we're going to have testimony, I believe, from the reporters that may tie up some of these ends, or may not tie up some of the ends, as the case may be.
I think it's prudent to withhold ruling on 671, 674, 672, and 675. We will not admit 702. We will admit 670. Now are there any other exhibits for that witness that I missed, Mr. Harvey?
MR. HARVEY: No, Your Honor, just the articles, and I understand you're withholding ruling on those as well.
THE COURT: Right. So we'll not take those at this time. I'll rely on you at a later point in time also to indicate that you want to move for admission of the articles, if you choose to do so, any or all of the articles. All right. Now the -- for Padian, we have, his CV is 292. Are you move for the admission of that?
MR. WALCZAK: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: That's admitted, I assume without objection, is that correct, Mr. Gillen? It's a CV.
MR. GILLEN: It is. Actually, Mr. Muise will speak to that.
MR. MUISE: There is no objection.
THE COURT: And the D-282 was referred to on cross. That was the U.S. Office of Special Counsel letter. What is your pleasure on that? Do you want to do anything with that at this time?
MR. MUISE: Well, we would move for its admission, Your Honor.
MR. WALCZAK: We would oppose, Your Honor. It's hearsay. The document was not discussed in court. We don't know about the authenticity. We don't know whether it's reliable. We don't know whether it's accurate. It was used to attempt to impeach the witness, and he didn't have any knowledge. We would object.
THE COURT: Mr. Muise.
MR. MUISE: Well, again, Your Honor, I think for the purpose of what we want it for the contents of that document, I mean, it was read into the record.
THE COURT: Well, I gave you latitude on it, and I allowed part of it to be read into the record over counsel's objection. But I would be reluctant to admit the letter on the whole. I think Mr. Walczak's point is well-taken. It is essentially a hearsay document.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, at this point then, we would like to reserve the admission of that until, because we're actually pursuing the possibility of getting a way to have that authenticated.
THE COURT: That's fine.
MR. MUISE: We'll reserve. We won't move that right now. We'll reserve the admission of that document until later.
THE COURT: That's fine. I'll certainly give you the opportunity to do that. But at this point, I'll not admit D-282 then. So the only exhibit for that witness would be 292, which would be the CV, unless I am missing something.
MR. WALCZAK: Your Honor, in this case, we actually would like to move in the slides from Professor Padian's demonstrative exhibit.
THE COURT: Do you have numbers on them?
MR. WALCZAK: We have -- it's going to be Exhibit 720. We have not. We're trying to get a nice color copy.
THE COURT: That would encompass all the slides?
MR. WALCZAK: I would think it would be easier for the Court to consider all of the slides. And what we have are quotes from either Pandas, quotes from some of the creationist writers. And then the rest of them are either photographs or charts that were prepared by Professor Padian about which he testified here. So certainly on the latter two, there should be no problem. The first two are really, I mean, it's --
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I think the same thing was so done with Dr. Miller. And in terms of, to assist this Court in making its final determination, obviously, there's a lot of testimony that the Court is going to have to review. If they want to provide it to the Court for demonstrative purposes to assist in review of the testimony, we would have no objection to that.
We would actually prefer to do the same thing with our expert witnesses, because we're going to have similarly quite a few demonstrative exhibits that I think would facilitate the Court. And as long as it's going to be presented to the Court for that purpose, then we wouldn't object, and we would appreciate the same latitude as well.
THE COURT: Well, you're talking about nothing more than a slide that was up during his presentation, is that correct, or some version thereof?
MR. WALCZAK: I think there was about a hundred slides. Up to now, we have only introduced those to assist the Court. And I guess they're not properly part of the record. What we're saying with Professor Padian is, at least for the photographs and the charts that he prepared, we would like to move those into evidence.
THE COURT: All of which though were viewed or referred to during his testimony, that was my --
MR. WALCZAK: Absolutely. Only what's been put up.
THE COURT: I think Mr. Muise is correct. There was a similar issue with respect to Professor Miller at the outset of the case, was there not? Didn't you want to do the same?
MR. MUISE: I think that Mr. Rothschild --
THE COURT: I thought you did, because I think some of the -- I may have the wrong witness. But I think some of the demonstrative slides that were shown were not marked as exhibits, and we did have a discussion, unless my memory fails, and you were going to revisit that and mark those up.
So that's fine, but I think what you need to do is, just everybody get on the same page, and I'll take those whenever. I don't need them until the end of the case, obviously. And the same courtesy to Defendants. So if you're going to put the slides up, it will go both ways. But I think it will be helpful for the record.
It is certainly helpful for me to revisit those and to put them back in so, however, you want to reproduce them and then enter them. If you want to do it under one exhibit number with bate stamps or one exhibit number with subnumbers, letters, however you do it, it matters not to me.
MR. WALCZAK: I'm sorry. I guess I'm not understanding. Mr. Muise is saying that it would be okay to enter the entire demonstrative into evidence?
THE COURT: I thought that's what he said, yeah.
MR. MUISE: For demonstrative purposes, Your Honor, to assist the Court, not as substantive evidence in addition to the testimony. It's part and parcel to his testimony is the demonstrative exhibits that are going to be provided to assist the Court.
MR. WALCZAK: So our position is that, we want to go a step beyond that for the photographs and for the charts.
THE COURT: Well, I don't want to waste an excessive amount of time on this, but they were up, and they were up without objection. So I don't know how you separate demonstrative out. I mean, if there's something on the slide -- that's why I said, I think you're going to have to coalesce a little bit on this.
If there's something on the slide that's problematic -- here's what I would suggest you do. Let's cut to the chase. Why don't you get a packet of what you want to introduce. From the defense standpoint, you're going to have to do the same. Share it with opposing counsel.
I guess there could be statements on an individual slide or presentation that may be at issue. And then let's argue over those, if we have to. Otherwise, they come in for all purposes, as far as I'm concerned. That's what you're saying, I think?
MR. WALCZAK: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Demonstrative? What does that mean in the context of this trial? If they're part of record, they're part of the record. I don't think they come in for a limited purpose. If you think that there's something on the slide, and the same for you as far as their slides are concerned, then I think you should argue over that individual.
MR. MUISE: That's fine. Again, as long as we have the same latitude with our experts.
THE COURT: So I think you have to put a packet together so we see what it is you want to do.
MR. WALCZAK: We'll get that packet together. We'll share it with defense counsel. We'll discuss it. And then only if there are some problems --
THE COURT: Not only with Professor Padian, but any other witness, because I really suspect there are other ones that you may want to put in. And you may, too, in your case-in-chief. All right. Any other exhibits?
MR. WALCZAK: No. Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. With that, then we will take your witness. And again, to reiterate, we're going to start the defense case, although the Plaintiffs reserve, by the cordial agreement of all counsel, the right and the opportunity to present some witnesses out of turn at a later point in time.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, at this time the Defendants call Dr. Michael Behe.
Whereupon,
MICHAEL BEHE
having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
COURTROOM DEPUTY: State your name and spell your name for the record.
THE WITNESS: My name is Michael Behe. M-i-c-h-a-e-l. The last name is B-e-h-e.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
ON QUALIFICATIONS
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Good morning. Could you please introduce yourself to the Court?
A. Good morning, Your Honor. My name is --
THE COURT: I got it.
THE WITNESS: Professor Michael Behe.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, where do you reside?
A. I live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Q. Are you married?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. Do you have children?
A. Yes, we do. We have nine children.
Q. And you are a Catholic, sir?
A. Yes, I am, uh-huh.
Q. You share the same religion as Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Ken Miller, is that correct?
A. Yes, we do.
MR. MUISE: May I approach the witness, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, I handed you two binders. One of them has exhibits that are marked that we're going to be working through, through the course of your testimony, so you can refer to those when necessary. Now I'd ask at this time, if you could, just open up that binder and refer to Defendant's Exhibit 249, which should be your curriculum vitae under tab 1; is that correct?
A. That's correct, yes.
Q. Is that a fair and accurate copy of your CV?
A. Yes, it seems to be.
Q. Again, I want you to refer to it as we go through some of your background and qualifications to offer your expert opinions in this case. Sir, what is your profession?
A. I am a professor in the department of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Q. And you're a biochemist?
A. That's correct, yes.
Q. How long have you taught at the college level?
A. For 23 years.
Q. Now you say you presently teach at Lehigh University, is that correct?
A. That's right.
Q. Have you taught in other colleges?
A. Yes, I taught at Queens College of the City University of New York for three years.
Q. So how long have you taught at the college level?
A. A total of 23 years.
Q. Has that been in chemistry and biochemistry?
A. Yes, both chemistry and biology departments. I'm a biochemist. It fits into both.
Q. So you're a tenured professor at Lehigh University?
A. Yes.
Q. And what subjects have you taught at the college level?
A. A number of subjects. I've taught biochemistry at the undergraduate level. I've taught courses on protein structure and (inaudible) --
COURT REPORTER: Would you repeat that? What did you say after protein structure?
THE WITNESS: Nucleic acid structure.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. We're obviously going to be talking about some difficult things throughout this morning, some technical terms. We need to make sure we go slow and articulate those to help out our court reporter here.
A. Sure.
Q. Okay. Could you continue, please?
A. I also taught organic chemistry, general chemistry on occasion. I have taught a, what's called a, college seminar course, a writing course for biology majors, and others as well.
Q. And what are the subjects that you presently teach at Lehigh University?
A. Well, this term, I'm teaching the general biochemistry course.
Q. Have you taught any courses about evolution?
A. Yes, I teach one. It's that college seminar course that I mentioned. It's titled Popular Arguments on Evolution.
Q. And is that a course that's for all majors, is that correct?
A. Yes, it's for incoming freshmen with any background or any intended major.
Q. And during that course, you discuss Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes, it's a discussion course where we read popular arguments on the topic of evolution. We discuss Darwin's theory. We discuss alternative ideas as well.
Q. How long have you been teaching this seminar?
A. Oh, about 12 years now.
Q. So in total, you have 23 years of teaching science at the college and graduate level, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Now you said you were a biochemist, and we heard testimony from Dr. Miller that he was a cell biologist. What's the difference between a biochemist and a cell biologist?
A. Well, a biochemist studies the molecular bases of life, and sometimes these things blur together, but a biochemist generally studies molecules that are too small to see with a microscope. Cell biology, on the other hand, as its name implies, studies cells, things that can be seen with light microscopes, electron microscopes, and which generally consist of large aggregates of molecules rather than individual ones.
Q. Now we're going to hear some testimony later in this trial from a microbiologist. How does a microbiologist differ from a biochemist?
A. Well, classically microbiology is concerned with single celled organisms, bacteria, viruses, single celled eukaryotic cells as well, and sometimes focuses on the sorts of diseases that those things cause.
Q. Now, sir, do you conduct experiments in your work?
A. Well, at this point, for the past couple years, I've been more interested in theoretical issues rather than experimental ones.
Q. Have you though conducted experimental work in your past?
A. Yes, quite a bit.
Q. Was there a particular focus of your experimental work?
A. Yes, I focused on nucleic acid structure.
Q. Is that the focus of your current research?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. What is the focus of your current research?
A. Currently, I'm interested in the issue of intelligent design in biochemistry and aspects of that.
Q. And how long have you been doing that?
A. Oh, I guess, perhaps the past seven, eight years.
Q. Sir, what degrees do you hold?
A. I have a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Drexel University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
Q. And when did you receive your Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania?
A. In 1978.
Q. I take it, you wrote a dissertation to get your Ph.D.?
A. Yes, I sure did.
Q. What was that dissertation?
A. It was entitled Biophysical Aspects of Sickle Hemoglobin Gelation. It dealt with the behavior of something called sickle cell hemoglobin, which underlies sickle cell disease, which many people have heard of.
Q. Do you belong to any professional memberships?
A. Yes, I do. I am a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. I'm also a member of something called the Protein Society.
Q. Now, sir, have you published articles in peer reviewed science journals?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Do you have an approximation of how many peer reviewed articles you published?
A. I think at about 38 or 39.
Q. And what are some of the scientific journals that you published in?
A. Well, I have published in Nature, Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Molecular Biology, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Biochemistry, Nucleic Acids Research, and some others as well.
Q. Doctor, you're a fellow with the Discovery Institute?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. What does that mean?
A. Well, pretty much it means that, my name gets put on the letterhead, and every now and again, we get together and talk. And it's pretty much a means of communicating with other people who are interested in issues that I am.
Q. Does the Discovery Institute maintain any control over the work that you do?
A. No.
Q. Are you considered an employee of the Discovery Institute?
A. No.
Q. Do they direct you in the work that you do?
A. No.
Q. Now, sir, you're the author of a book called Darwin's Black Box, correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. And that's a book about intelligent design, is that accurate?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. How many copies has that book sold?
A. Somewhere over 200,000 at this point.
Q. Has it been translated into other languages?
A. Yes, it's been translated, I think, into 10, a little more than 10 languages; Portuguese, Spanish, Hungarian, Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and some other ones, too, I think.
Q. Now you also contribute to the 1993 version of the Pandas book, is that correct?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. What was your contribution?
A. I wrote a portion that dealt with the blood clotting cascade.
Q. We've heard testimony about some prior versions of Pandas. Did you make any contributions to any prior versions of the Pandas other than that 1993 version?
A. No, just that second edition.
Q. Now, sir, you've been described as an advocate for intelligent design, is that accurate?
A. Yes, uh-huh.
Q. And you stated that you are a Catholic, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Is Darwin's theory of evolution inconsistent with your private religious beliefs?
A. No, not at all.
Q. Do you have any religious commitment to intelligent design?
A. No, I don't.
Q. Do you have any private religious convictions that require you to advocate in favor of intelligent design?
A. No, I do not.
Q. Sir, why did you get involved with intelligent design?
A. Well, I used to think that Darwinian theory was a complete and good explanation for life, but in the late 1980's, I read a book by a scientist by the name of Michael Denton. The book was called Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which raised questions about Darwinian theory that I had never thought about before. At that point, I began to think that it might not be an adequate scientific explanation as much as it was claimed; and at that point, I began to think more about these topics and think about the topic of intelligent design as well.
Q. Is your interest in intelligent design based on what the scientific evidence shows?
A. Yes.
Q. Sir, are you familiar with a term called young-earth creationist?
A. Yes, I've heard.
Q. Do you consider yourself to be a young-earth creationist?
A. No, I'm not.
Q. Are you familiar with the term old-earth creationist?
A. I've heard that one, too.
Q. Do you consider yourself to be an old-earth creationist?
A. No, I do not.
Q. Are you familiar with the term special creation?
A. Yes, I've heard it.
Q. Do you consider yourself to be a -- I'm not sure if the term is a special creationist or a creationist in terms of special creation. Either way, do you consider yourself that?
A. Neither one, no.
Q. As you testified to, you authored Darwin's Black Box, which is a book about intelligent design. And we have up on the screen. Is that what's shown up on the screen, is that exhibit, is that demonstrative, is that a picture of the cover of your book?
A. Yes, that's a picture of the hard cover edition of the book.
Q. What is the subtitle?
A. It's called The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.
Q. Now you use the term black box in this book. Does that have a particular meaning in science?
A. Yes. In science, it's used sometimes to indicate some system or some structure or some machine that does something interesting, but you don't know how it works. You don't know how it works because you can't see inside the black box and, therefore, can't figure it out.
Q. So what's the connection then with Darwin's Black Box?
A. It turns out that in Darwin's day, the contents of the cell were unknown. People could see it do interesting things. It could move. It could reproduce and so on. But how it could do that was utterly unknown. And many people at the time, many scientists at this time such as Ernst Haeckel and others, Thomas Huxley thought that, in fact, the basis of life, the cell, would be very simple, that it would turn out to just be a glob of protoplasms, something akin to a microscopic piece of Jell-O.
But in the meantime, in the past 150 some odd years, science has advanced considerably and has determined that the cell is, in fact, full of very, very complex machinery. And so the Black Box of the title is the cell. To Darwin and scientists of his time, the cell was a black box.
Q. Now when was this book published?
A. It was published in 1996.
Q. And if you could, give us sort of the Reader's Digest summary of what's in this book?
A. Well, in brief, in Darwin's day, the cell was a -- an obscure entity, and people thought it was simple, but the progress of science has shown that it's completely different from those initial expectations, and that, in fact, the cell is chock full of complex molecular machinery, and that aspects of this machinery look to be what we see when we perceive design.
They look like they are poorly explained by Darwin's theory. And so I proposed that a better explanation for these aspects of life is, in fact, intelligent design.
Q. So again, this is a book about intelligent design?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you write this book to make a theological or philosophical argument?
A. No.
Q. What was the purpose of writing the book?
A. The purpose of the book was to say that the physical empirical evidence, the scientific evidence points to a conclusion of intelligent design.
Q. I take it that, this book does address Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Does it do so by relying on scientific data and research?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Sir, is it accurate to say that, in this book, you coined the term irreducible complexity?
A. Yes.
Q. Had you used that term previous to the publication of this book?
A. Not in any publication that I can remember.
Q. Through the writing of this book, did you become familiar with the scientific evidence as it relates to the Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Sir, was this book peer reviewed before it was published?
A. Yes, it was.
Q. By whom?
A. Well, the publisher of the book, Free Press, sent it out to be -- sent the manuscript out to be read prior to publication by five scientists.
Q. What were the backgrounds of some of these scientists?
A. One is a man named Robert Shapiro, who is a professor in the chemistry department at New York University and an expert in origin of life studies. Another man was named Michael Atchinson, I believe, and he's a biochemistry professor, I think, in the vet school at the University of Pennsylvania.
Another man, whose name escapes me, I think it's Morrow, who was a biochemistry professor at Texas Tech University. Another biochemist, I think, at Washington University, but his name still escapes me. And I have forgotten the fifth person.
Q. Now did you suggest any names of reviewers for the publisher?
A. Yes, I suggested names, uh-huh.
Q. From your years as a scientist, is that a standing practice?
A. It's pretty common, yes. A number of journals, a number of science journals require an author, when submitting a manuscript, to submit names of potential reviewers simply to help the editors select reviewers. Oftentimes, the editor is not really up-to-date with who's working in which field.
Q. Dr. Padian, if my recollection is correct, testified on Friday that it wasn't a standard practice to identify potential reviewers for your work. How do you respond to that?
A. Well, Professor Padian is a paleontologist. Maybe I'm not familiar with paleontology journals. Perhaps in those, it's not common. But it certainly is common in biochemistry and molecular biology journals.
Q. Now after this book was published, was it reviewed by scientists?
A. Yes, it was reviewed pretty widely.
Q. And some criticisms were offered, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's fair to say.
Q. Did you respond to these criticisms?
A. Yes, in a number of different places.
Q. Did you respond to them at all in any articles that you published?
A. Yes, I've published several articles. One, I published, which is perhaps the most extensive, is called a Reply to My Critics in Response to Reviews of Darwin's Black Box.
Q. Sir, if you could look in that binder that I gave you at Defendant's Exhibit 203-H. And I believe it should be under tab 2 in front of you.
A. Yes, thank you.
Q. Is that the article you are referring to?
A. Yes, this is it.
Q. And when was this article published?
A. That was published in the year 2001.
Q. And where was it published?
A. In a journal called Biology and Philosophy.
Q. Is that a peer reviewed journal?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. What kind of journal is it?
A. It's a philosophy of science journal.
Q. Now we have heard testimony in this case about peer reviewed science journals. Are science journals the only medium by which scientists publish their scientific ideas and arguments?
A. No, scientists publish other ways as well.
Q. Do they publish their ideas and arguments in books, for example?
A. Yes, that's certainly a prominent medium by which to publish scientific arguments.
Q. Does the scientific community take science books seriously?
A. They certainly do.
Q. Have you prepared some exhibits to demonstrate this point?
A. Yes, I do. If you can show the next slide, please. This is a -- the table of contents from an issue of Nature from May of this year. And if you could advance to the next slide, this is a blow-up of a part of the portion. You can see that this is the spring books issue. In every issue of Nature, they review at least one or two different books on scientific topics.
Once or twice a year, they have a special issue in which they concentrate on books. Altogether, Nature reviews perhaps 100 to 200 science books per year.
Q. This is the prominent Nature magazine that we've heard some testimony about here in court?
A. Yes, Nature is the most prominent science journal in the world.
Q. Have you provided some examples of some books where scientists are making scientific arguments?
A. Yes, to help see what's -- what is done here, if you could go to the next slide. These are some relatively recent books by scientists making scientific arguments. For example, up on the upper left-hand corner is a relatively new book called Rare Earth by a couple of scientists at the University of Washington named Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee.
In this book, they argue that the position of the Earth in the universe is so rare, so special, because of factors such as its existing in a portion of the galaxy where heavy metals are relatively common, where super novas are not so common, that it may be one of the few places, perhaps the only place in the universe where intelligent life could exist.
Up on the upper right-hand portion of the slide is a book entitled The Fifth Miracle by a physicist by the name of Paul Davies who writes about -- often writes about physical topics such as The Big Bang and the laws of nature and so on. In this, he reviewed the literature on the origin of life, and concluded that, currently, we have no understanding of how life could have originated on the earth. And he says that a completely new understanding or completely new ideas on that topic are required.
On the bottom left-hand corner of the slide is a picture of the cover of a book called At Home in the Universe by a man named Stuart Kauffman, who is a professor of biology at the University of Toronto currently. And in this, he explains his ideas about something called self-organization and complexity theory. And he writes why he thinks Darwinian mechanisms are insufficient to explain what we know about biology.
On the lower right-hand corner of the slide is a relatively new book called Endless Forms Most Beautiful, subtitled The New Science of Evo Devo, which stands for evolutionary developmental biology.
Q. Now my understanding from the testimony from Dr. Padian on Friday, that's a fairly up and coming area in scientific research?
A. Yes, that's right. It's generated some excitement, uh-huh. And this is written by a man named Sean Carroll, who's a professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin. And in this book, he gathers a lot of data and cites a lot of papers to argue the case that, in fact, much of evolution is not due to changes in protein structure as had once been thought, but perhaps is due to changes in regulatory regions that tell the cell how much of a particular protein to make.
If we could go to the next slide then. Here are four more books of scientists making scientific arguments. The top two are by the same author. The first one might be difficult to read. It's Richard Dawkins on the top left and the top right. His book here is entitled The Selfish Gene. And in this book, he argues that evolution is best understood not at the organismal level, but rather at the level of the gene, a fragment of DNA which can be replicated.
On the upper right is another book by Dawkins entitled The Extended Phenotype in which he argues that genes cannot only affect the body of the organism in which they reside, but can affect the larger environment as well.
And I think a good example he uses is that of a beaver in which, presumably, genes in the beaver's body push it to cut down trees and build dams thereby affecting the environment. I'm not sure if I mention, but Richard Dawkins is a professor of biology at Oxford University in England.
I have a copy of the cover of my book there in the lower left, which I include in this category. On the lower right-hand side is a book called The Astonishing Hypothesis, The Scientific Search for the Soul, which is a written by a man named Francis Crick, who is a Nobel laureate, Nobel Prize winner who, along with James Watson, first deduced the double helical structure of DNA.
And in this book, he argues that, in fact, what we call the mind, or what some people think of it as the soul, is, in fact, in actuality the effects the chemical and neurological processes in the brain.
Q. Do you have several more slides?
A. Yes, I do. Actually, the next slide here, I wanted to concentrate a little bit on this book, which is a brand new book published about a month or two ago, and it's entitled The Plausibility of Life, and it's subtitled Resolving Darwin's Dilemma. It's written by two authors, a man named Mark Kirschner, who is a chairman of the department of systems biology at Harvard University Medical School, and a man named John Gerhart, who is a biology professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
And Darwin's dilemma that they proposed to resolve in this book is that, in Darwinian theory, natural selection needs a source of variation to select among. And they argue that random variation is insufficient to supply that. And instead, they offer arguments for, what they call, a form of essentially directed variation.
But what I want to concentrate is on some text that they have in the beginning of the book. Let me just read this. They write, quote, This book is about the origins of novelty in evolution. The brain, the eye, and the hand are all anatomical forms that exquisitely serve function. They seem to reveal design. How could they have arisen?
Let me make a couple points about this. First of all, they treat the origins of novelty as a live question. This is something that is currently unresolved. And the further point is that, they think that the physical structures of these forms seem to, in their words, reveal design.
Q. Now this book was published by Yale University Press, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. That's an academic press?
A. Yes, it is, a very prestegious one. If we could look at the next slide. They go on further in their introduction to make some points that I thought would be useful to make here. In this, they say, In this book, we propose a major new scientific theory, which they call facilitated variation. Let me just emphasize that the point that, in fact, these eminent biologists are saying that they are proposing a new theory, and the means by which they are proposing that new theory is to write about it in this book.
And if you look further along on this slide, they write, quote, We present facilitated variation not only for the scientist, but also for the interested nonscientist.
So the point is that, scientific books can propose new scientific theories, and they can be addressed to a broad audience, not only to scientists, not only to specialist groups, but also to the wider public as well.
And if we can go to the next slide. They explain in this slide why, in fact, they use the language that -- kind of language that they use in their book.
They write, quote, Even if we had tried to confine the message to professional biologists, we would have had problems. In which subfield would this book be understood? We decided that a common, straightforward vocabulary was essential just to reach scientists as a group. To move beyond scientists to the lay public required further adjustments, but fewer than one might expect.
So the point here is that, if you are addressing a scientific topic which cuts across subdisciplines, the subdisciplines, which might have their own specialized vocabulary, the best way to do it might be to write the book in plain English or as in plain English as is possible. That's what Kirschner and Gerhard tried to do.
Q. Is that what you, in fact, tried to Darwin's Black Box?
A. That's exactly what I tried to do.
Q. You authored numerous peer reviewed articles, many in scientific journals, which you eluded to previously. Is there one area in which you have published the most in these science journals?
A. Yes, nucleic acid structure.
Q. Have you authored any articles appearing in peer reviewed science journals that make intelligent design arguments?
A. Yes, I did, one.
Q. What article is that?
A. It was an article that I published with a man named David Snoke, who's in the physics department at the University of Pittsburgh, and was published in a journal called Protein Science.
Q. Sir, again, I would direct your attention to the exhibit book that was provided. And if you look under tab 3, there should be an exhibit marked Defendant's Exhibit 203-J. Do you see that, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that the article you're referring to?
A. Yes, that's right. It's entitled Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features That Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues.
Q. Again, you said that was published in Protein Science?
A. Yes.
Q. A peer reviewed science journals?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. And published in 2004?
A. That's right, last year.
Q. Could you give us a thumbnail sketch of what that article is about?
A. Yes. It's a theoretical study that uses models to describe the process of protein evolution of new features, and we say that it seems to present, focus on problems for Darwinian evolution.
Q. Now you stated that you consider this to be an intelligent design article, is that correct?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And why is that?
A. Because it asks questions about how much unintelligent processes can explain in life and, therefore, points our attention to what intelligence is required to explain as well.
Q. Now we eluded to a concept of irreducible complexity, a concept that you introduced in your book, Darwin's Black Box. Did you use the term irreducible complexity -- let me back up. Did you use the concept of irreducible complexity in this particular paper?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did you actually use the term irreducible complexity in this paper?
A. No, in fact, we did not use that term.
Q. Why not?
A. Well, in the original manuscript as we had written it and sent it to the journal Protein Science, the term did, in fact, appear. But one of the reviewers of the manuscript told us to remove the term from the manuscript and find another description for what we were trying to focus on.
Q. Why did he tell you to remove that term?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, Your Honor. We haven't been produced any of these materials, these drafts, or any responses to the drafts.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I don't know why they need a copy of the draft. He was asked about these questions during his deposition about this particular article. I'm just -- I'm not recounting any drafts. They, obviously, have a copy of the article.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: We do have a copy of the article, Your Honor, but if they're going rely on this exchange here, I think they have to produce the evidence that it actually occurred.
THE COURT: If he's going to talk about a manuscript, that could be a problem.
MR. MUISE: Well, Your Honor, he's only eluded to that he made changes on this particular article based on recommendations from the editorial board. And I asked him why they asked him to make those changes on it. He was asked these same questions during his deposition, Your Honor. It's kind of surprising they're objecting to this.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: This did come up in the deposition. But if they're going to rely on this as evidence, as this being actually an article about irreducible complexity, and this is the evidence they're going it rely upon, then they got to produce the evidence. Otherwise, it's hearsay.
THE COURT: What are you asking they produce?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: The manuscript that Dr. Behe sent which used the term irreducible complexity and any written responses that they received.
THE COURT: Are you saying that there is a discovery request that could arguably have been intended to cover production of that manuscript and you didn't get it or -- I guess Mr. Muise's point is, you didn't ask for it.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Well, I mean, there's no discovery request that specific. Though we're entitled to the materials that the expert relies upon as the basis for his opinion, which, as a general matter, has certainly been exchanged by both sides and were cited in reports and exchanged.
And this is an instance where I don't -- I don't believe the burden is on the Plaintiffs to request documents because the issue is, if you're going to bring hearsay into this case, which is what Dr. Behe is doing, or counsel is doing for a very substantive point, then I object that it's hearsay and --
THE COURT: That is the change to the manuscript?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: The change to the manuscript and any response which, I think, Professor Behe is portraying as the reason why an article about irreducible complexity suddenly became an article not about irreducible complexity.
MR. MUISE: I don't believe that's what he received to. He said he discussed the concept of it. He was told to take the word out in one of the drafts, and so he did. And the article that they have a copy of is the one that the article came out. They were asked, they asked him those same questions. He said the same thing. The the editor told me to take the word out.
THE COURT: Do you have the manuscript?
MR. MUISE: I don't have it here with me, Your Honor. I'm not sure if that manuscript is still here. Again, the point is, it's the editorial, the editor told him that, and that's all he's testified to.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: It's hearsay.
THE COURT: Isn't that hearsay?
MR. MUISE: Well, Your Honor, as we've gone through time and time again, the experts can rely on hearsay when they're formulating opinions. And it's an explanation of why this concept is not going to be in there.
And I'm certain that Mr. Rothschild is going to cross-examine him as to why that concept is not in here, and it's just making it plain. The editor told him to take the term out, argue the concept, but take the term out.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: This is exactly the point, Your Honor. I mean, this is not the kind of hearsay that an expert in biochemistry or intelligent design would rely upon, which is presumably other scientific materials. This is a personal exchange about what happened with this article. And I would like to cross-examine him about it. But this is hearsay, and I don't have the evidence.
THE COURT: Well, I do think the quality -- I think you attempt to equate this hearsay with the hearsay that might otherwise be allowed with an expert. I think there is a distinction here. And I think this is hearsay arguably that's of a quality that ought not be admitted.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, it's also -- it's offered to demonstrate what it is, why he took that term out. I mean, you don't have to even rely --
THE COURT: Isn't that a highly material point?
MR. MUISE: It certainly explains his actions why he did that.
THE COURT: Sure. But I think that the hearsay that we're talking about is a different type of hearsay than the hearsay that might customarily be that an expert's report might customarily be predicated on. I see a distinction. I understand Mr. Rothschild's point.
Well, let me ask you this. If Mr. Muise produces the manuscript for the purpose of -- is it in the building, the manuscript? Does it exist here?
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I'd have to consult with Dr. Behe about whatever the letter exchanged, if there's anything available.
THE COURT: If you can't produce a manuscript for the purpose of cross examination, then I'll sustain the objection at this point, and you can move on.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, with the article that was actually published, did you discuss the concept of irreducible complexity?
A. Yes.
Q. But the term itself was not included in there, correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Have you submitted any other articles on intelligent design to peer reviewed science journals?
A. Yes, I did. One article I submitted to a journal called the Journal of Molecular Evolution. And it actually contained a subset of the material that was eventually published in the article or Reply to my Critics in the journal of Biology and Philosophy.
Q. Did they publish that article in that journal?
A. No, they didn't.
Q. Did the publisher give you a reason for not doing so?
A. Yes, he did.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, Your Honor. The same hearsay.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, it kind of remarkable to me. He's -- you've heard throughout this trial that, you know, they are not submitting their articles for peer review. Here, he's attempting to do that, and he's got publishers that are telling him that they're not going to publish them.
And I'm enlisting from him what it is the publishers are telling him why these things aren't being published. That's entirely relevant to this -- to these proceedings.
THE COURT: But it's hearsay.
MR. MUISE: He can certainly testify to that because that demonstrates what he -- what he was told, and what the effect of that is, is relevant. It doesn't necessarily even have to go to the substance of the conversation. It goes to what is being told as to why these peer reviewed journals are not being published.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I think the fact that they are being rejected by peer review publications are certainly relevant, and he can testify about that, because that's what happened to him. But the reasons are being introduced for the truth. This is why we are rejecting it.
THE COURT: I agree with that. The objection is sustained.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Sir, do you perceive a bias against publishing intelligent design articles in science journals?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Could you explain?
A. It's based on my personal experiences trying to publish such material. It's based on conversations with other people. It's based on news stories about persons who did, in fact, publish an article mentioning intelligent design. So, yes, I do.
Q. Now, sir, you had a part in drafting a section contained in the 1993 version of Pandas, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. I believe you testified it was the blood clotting section?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Is that section still valid based on current scientific evidence?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Did you write about the blood clotting cascade in Darwin's Black Box?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Is that section similar to the blood clotting cascade section you wrote in Pandas?
A. Yes, it's similar. It's lengthier, but it's similar. Yes.
Q. I believe you testified you didn't contribute to any parts of the prior drafts of Pandas, is that correct?
A. That's correct, just to this one.
Q. In the blood clotting cascade section of Pandas, were you advancing any religious or philosophical arguments?
A. No, I was not.
Q. What were you doing in that section?
A. I was making a scientific argument that the blood clotting cascade is poorly explained by Darwinian processes but is well explained by design.
Q. Now is it your understanding that this book Pandas is part of the controversy in this lawsuit?
A. Yes, I understand that.
Q. What is your understanding of how this book will be used at Dover High School?
A. I understand that there is a short statement that is read to students that says that the book Of Pandas and People is available in the school library for students to access.
Q. Do you see that as a good thing?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Why?
A. Because the book Of Pandas and People brings a different viewpoint, a different perspective to the same data that is viewed oftentimes through a Darwinian perspective, and it can show students that viewing data from different directions oftentimes can affect how we judge the strength of data, how we judge the problems associated with a particular viewpoint and so on.
Q. Now this book was published in 1993, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And you're aware that Dr. Miller has criticized several sections in this book?
A. Yes, I heard him.
Q. Do you intend to address his claims in your testimony today?
A. Yes, I intend to, yes.
Q. Of the sections that he addressed, are they still scientifically valid?
A. Yes, they are.
Q. Now would you recommend this book as a primary text for biology class?
A. No, I wouldn't recommend it as a primary text. It's not intended as a primary text.
Q. Any other reasons?
A. Well, yes. It was written in 1993. And so science advances pretty quickly, and so it's not appropriate for use as a primary text because of that.
Q. Has intelligent design advanced since 1993?
A. Yes, it certainly has.
Q. Would you recommend that it be used in the manner that Dover High School is using it?
A. Yes, I think that's a fine way to use it.
Q. And I believe for the reasons you stated previously in your testimony?
A. Yes, that's right, because it gives students a different perspective on data, allows them to separate data from theory, allows them to view problems from different perspectives, and some people who think one theory is correct will oftentimes view problems as less severe than people who view the data from a different perspective.
Q. Do you think that schools should teach the theory of evolution?
A. Yes, I certainly do.
Q. And why is that?
A. Well, the theory of evolution is widely used in science. It is, in many aspects, well substantiated. It's used by working scientists and any well-educated student should understand it.
Q. By advocating intelligent design, is it your goal to not have the theory of evolution taught in the biology class?
A. No, certainly not.
Q. Has that ever been your goal?
A. Never, no.
Q. Now Dr. Miller testified on direct as follows: Quote, It's important to appreciate as well what peer review actually means. And what it means is subjecting your scientific ideas to the open scrutiny and criticism of your colleagues and competitors in the field, end quote. Do you agree with that?
A. Yes, wholeheartedly.
Q. Have you subjected your scientific ideas on intelligent design to open scrutiny and criticism of your colleagues and competitors in the field?
A. Yes. I have to say that my ideas on intelligent design have been subjected to about a thousand times more scrutiny than anything I've ever written before.
Q. And how have you subjected your ideas to such scrutiny?
A. Well, in a number of ways. I've written those papers that were described earlier here. I wrote the book itself. The book has been reviewed. It was sent out earlier to be reviewed. And also, I've been, since the book was published, giving seminars, engaging in discussions and so on before academic groups.
Q. And have you had -- have you prepared some slides to demonstrate this point?
A. Yes, I have. Here is a selection of a number of seminars and discussions that I've had specifically with academic groups on my ideas about intelligent design since the book was published. Soon after the book came out in the summer of 1996, I spoke with the department of biology at a place called King's College, which is near Lehigh in Wilkes-Barre.
Q. Again, these are with academic or science groups, is that correct?
A. Yes, these are exclusively academic groups.
Q. Included in these seminars are other scientists?
A. Yes. A seminar in a department like this normally involves much of the faculty of the department, graduate students, undergraduates, and so on. Sometimes faculty from other departments as well.
Q. Could you continue, please?
A. Yes, the text in bold are seminars and talks to science departments. So the department of biology at the University of South Florida, I gave a talk in 1996; at the department of chemistry at Villanova University; the department of philosophy, there was a symposium with a man named Daniel Dennett and a man named David Haig held at the University of Notre Dame.
Now that's underlined. I underlined talks in which opposing speakers were there presenting alternative points of view. And David Haig is a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University. Daniel Dennett is a philosophy professor at Tufts University, and has published several books on Darwinian thought and its philosophical ramifications.
Q. Now that was in the department of philosophy. But did you also -- did you argue the scientific arguments?
A. Yes. Myself and David Haig made scientific arguments, and Daniel Dennett made both scientific and philosophical arguments. I should add that a number of philosophers are oftentimes interested in scientific ideas and seek philosophical implications for them. So I do get invitations from philosophy departments as well.
Q. Continue, please.
A. There was a symposium held at a school called Wheaton College, and participants in that symposium included a man named James Shapiro and David Hull. James Shapiro is a professor of microbiology at the University of Chicago. And while he's skeptical of Darwinian theory, he is not a proponent of intelligent design. So he presented an alternative point of view. David Hull is a philosopher of biology at Northwestern University and a firm believer in Darwinian theory.
Also, I gave a presentation to the department of mathematics at the University of Texas, El Paso, in 1997.
Q. Is there -- I mean, is there a relationship between science and mathematics?
A. Yes. Yes, there certainly is. Mathematics is called the language of science. Practically all scientists rely on mathematics for their work and it -- mathematics is used to reach conclusions and to view evidence and to marshal arguments.
Next slide, please. A couple more. The department of chemistry at Colgate University in 1997; the department of philosophy, they have a place called Saint Norbert College in Wisconsin. They have a lecture series called the Killeen Chair Lecture. They invited me to present under that lecture series. That was in 1998.
I presented to the department of genetics at the University of Georgia in February of 1998; the department of biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, May 1998; the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of South Carolina in 1999; and at the University of Massachusetts, there was a panel discussion held with Professor Lynn Margulis.
Lynn Margulis is a very prominent biologist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who has questioned aspects of Darwin's theory. She and I gave 15 minute presentations, and then there was a panel discussion with a number of panelists, which included the chancellor of the university, David Scott. It was presented in front of an audience of about 1000 members of the university community.
Q. Again, in these discussions and seminars that we're going to be reviewing here, you're arguing regarding the scientific evidence for intelligent design, is that correct?
A. That's correct, yes. Next slide, please. 1999, I gave a presentation at the department of biochemistry at the Mayo Clinic; in April of that year, I talked to the Brooklyn section of the American Chemical Society.
Q. What is that?
A. Well, the American Chemical Society is the largest organization of professional chemists in the country, and they have, of course, many local sections. And the invitation for this was from the Brooklyn section of the ACS.
Q. Continue, please.
A. One of the members of the ACS in Brooklyn is also on the faculty of the department of chemistry at a place called Saint Francis College in Brooklyn, and I also then spoke the next day to the department of philosophy at Saint Francis College. I spoke in the summer of 1999 to a Gordon Research Conference on organic reactions and processes.
Gordon Research Conferences are very prominent meetings of scientists on very many different topics. And oftentimes, they're usually attended by between 100 and 200 scientists. And I received an invitation to speak in front of this group. In February of the year 2000, I was invited by an organization called the Royal Society of Medicine, which is in England, to speak at something called an -- a conference on evolution and Darwinian medicine.
The Royal Society of Medicine is an organization of physicians and scientists in England that sponsors a large number of conferences. This particular conference was focused on, as its title suggests, what evolution, and in particular, Darwinian theory has to say about diseases and medicine.
I debated and discussed the topic of Darwinian evolution and design with a man named Robert Fowley, who was a paleontologist and a member of the Royal Society in England, which the Royal Society is akin to the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
The next one. In April of the year 2000, I gave a plenary lecture to a conference that was held at Baylor University entitled The Nature of Nature Conference.
Q. Who participated in that conference?
A. This was a large conference with, I think, 50'ish, 50 or so invited speakers in it. It was one of the most eminent conferences that I have ever been to. The topic was The Nature of Nature. It was very widely construed.
There were academicians there from a large variety of different disciplines. There were physicists there, such as Alan Guth (phonetic), who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a professor of physics at MIT, discussing the nature of the universe, whether the universe is eternal, whether it is undergoing something that he calls inflation, or whether it began in time.
There were conversations on that. There were philosophers who discussed the question of whether the mind is a physical object or whether it is not. There were mathematicians there to discuss the topic of whether the fit between mathematical theory and nature, which seems to, many of them, to be uncanny is unreasonable to expect or whether it is reasonable.
And, of course, there were also people there discussing Darwin's theory of evolution and intelligent design. I participated in a session on biochemistry and design and Darwinian evolution. And if I recall the order correctly, the first speaker in my session -- there were four speakers.
The first speaker was a man named Simon Conway Morris, who is a paleontologist at Oxford University in England and a fellow of the Royal Society. Again, a fellow of the Royal Society is akin to a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
And I think afterwards, I presented. And then I think up next was a man named Mark Tashney, who is a biology professor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center in New York City. And he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and also a biochemist.
And the last person speaking in our session was a man named Christian DeDuve, who is a Nobel Prize winner and also a biochemist who teaches at the Catholic University of Louvan in Belgium.
Q. Now we heard testimony in this case, I believe it was from Dr. Forrest, and she described that conference as a creationist conference. How do you respond to that?
A. Well, it would surprise many of the speakers there. I would say that, that's simply ludicrous. And I think it says more about the person making such a comment than it does about the conference itself.
Q. Let's go to the next slide. In here, you have a few underlined in red. What is the purpose of that?
A. Yes, I put in red conferences in which other expert witnesses who are going to be testifying at this trial have participated. For example, in the summer of the year 2000, there was a conference held at a place called Concordia College in Wisconsin, which includes myself, Ken Miller, and Scott Minnich, who, I think, will be up later.
In the fall of 2000, I presented a lecture at Catholic University on the general title Fides et Ratio and Scientific Inquiry. Fides et Ratio is the title of an encyclical which was written by Pope John Paul, II, and this was a commentary on the encylical plus a commentary on the relationship of science and religion.
Q. Fides et Ratio means faith and reason?
A. Yes, that's right. It's Latin for faith and reason.
Q. I believe the encylical, was that what Dr. Miller had referred to or testified to?
A. Yes, I heard him mention the encylical in his testimony.
Q. Continue, please.
A. I presented at the department of biology at Wilkes University, which is, of course, close to Bethlehem at the invitation of a former student in the department of biology at Lehigh, who is now on the faculty there; Los Alamos National Laboratories in March of 2000; I participated again in a conference at Haverford College, which was sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And they title it Interpreting Evolution. And I spoke there along with Ken Miller and also Warren Nord, who, I believe, is going to testify in this trial.
Q. So the American Association for the Advancement of Science put on a seminar entitled Interpreting Evolution, and you were permitted to be one of the speakers there?
A. I was invited, not just permitted.
Q. Okay. Continue.
A. I spoke with the deans of the medical school at the University of New Mexico. I presented at a meeting of the Protein Society in Philadelphia. That doesn't have a date there. But that was also in the year 2002.
Q. Now was that presentation related to that article that you wrote with David Snoke?
A. Yes, that's correct. This was a presentation, actually a poster session, which laid out the data and the ideas which would later be written up and sent out and published as that paper.
Q. And this is one of those professional organization's annual meetings?
A. Yes, that's right. This is a meeting of the Protein Society. I guess there was about a thousand people there. It was presented in something called a poster session, like many other presentations there.
Q. Next slide.
A. In the spring of the of the year 2002, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City sponsored a panel discussion and debate between my -- with myself and William Dembski on one side speaking of intelligent design, and Kenneth Miller and Robert Pennock on the other side advocating Darwinian evolution. This was well attended. Several hundred people, scientists, members of the community.
In the fall of the year 2002, a man named William Provine, who is a professor of the history of science and also a revolutionary biologist at Cornell University invited me to come and present a lecture to his introductory class on evolutionary biology.
Q. And who is -- is Professor Provine an intelligent design advocate?
A. No. Professor Provine is a very, very strong advocate of Darwinian evolution.
Q. He invited you though to come up and give a presentation to his biology class at Cornell University?
A. That's right. I gave an entire lecture of 45 to 50 minute lecture, I believe.
Q. Did he explain to you why he wanted you to come on up?
A. Yes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, hearsay.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, he's going to explain why he came up and his understanding as to why he was given the presentation.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Exactly my objection.
THE COURT: I'll allow it. I'll overrule the objection.
THE WITNESS: His stated purpose was that he wanted students in the class to hear an alternative view to Darwinian evolution so that they could better make up their minds which they thought was more accurate.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Apparently, he didn't consider this was going to cause some harm to his students?
A. No, his opinion --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained. Sustained.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Go to the next one, please.
A. Yes, there's a college called Hillsdale College in Michigan. They sponsor a lecture series for their students every year in something called the Center for Constructive Alternatives. They sponsored a lecture series on intelligent design. And I was one of the participants.
Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, they have a lectureship for students who are going to enter biomedical professions. I was invited to speak before that group. I was invited to speak before the department of department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, in the year of 2003.
In 2004, the Claremont-McKenna College in California has a lecture series called the Atheneum series, and in that year, it was a series on intelligent design. I spoke at that. And, I believe, later on, Eugenia Scott spoke in the same series, and Professor Scott -- or Dr. Scott is a, I think, the director of the National Center for Science Education.
Q. Now you made -- now these are presentations that were given to academic groups, scientific groups, is that correct?
A. Yes, these are specifically ones before academic groups.
Q. Focused principally on areas of science, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. You also made presentations in other settings, is that correct?
A. Yes. I've given a number of other lecture as well before most any group that would invite me, including many student groups.
Q. You gave a presentation at Dover High School, is that correct?
A. Yes, in the spring of this year, I gave a seminar in Dover High School.
Q. Now you're a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Now Plaintiffs' experts, and Dr. Forrest, and Dr. Miller have criticized you for not taking the opportunity to present your argument for intelligent design at the Society's annual meetings. How do you respond to that criticism?
A. Well, I think it's disingenuous for a couple of reasons. The first reason -- all three reasons, let's put it that way. I'm a member of the Protein Society, and I did present my work before a meeting in the Protein Society in the year 2002, I believe.
Number 2, Professor Miller and I appeared on a show called Firing Line on the public broadcasting system that was hosted by William Buckley at that point to debate and discuss the topic of evolution and intelligent design. And on that show, Professor Miller said --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, Your Honor, hearsay.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, it's going directly to the point -- I mean, you'll understand when he continues his testimony that they had a joint agreement. They submitted a joint request to do this. And this was denied. So, I mean, Dr. Miller had -- he's recounting a conversation he had with Dr. Miller, which is going to explain the actions that he took.
THE COURT: What joint agreement?
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, he's responding to -- Plaintiffs' experts have criticized and particularly criticized him --
THE COURT: I understand what you're doing, but he's about to recite something that Dr. Miller said on Firing Line that sounds to me like it's going to be hearsay.
MR MUISE: No, Your Honor, it's going to explain subsequent actions. It's going to be like if somebody said, you know, I went to the store because he asked me to go to the store. It's explaining subsequent conduct.
THE COURT: Where is that in the hearsay exceptions? Is it a present sense impression?
MR. MUISE: It explains his actions, Judge. It explains why he's done, why he's going to take the actions that he did. You'll get Dr. Miller complaining that they're not presenting. He challenges them. That's all he's going to testify to. And he's going to testify that they wrote a joint letter and submitted it off. It explains the purpose of the joint letter.
THE COURT: He can say that they wrote a joint letter. I understand that. That's not what he's about to do. He's about to apparently quote Dr. Miller, Professor Miller chapter and versus what he said. I'll sustain the objection.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And the letter hasn't been produced either, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Well, we'll get to that. Let's not anticipate what we don't have. I'll sustain the objection to that question.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Have you been challenged to give a presentation at one of these annual meetings?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Who challenged you?
A. Professor Ken Miller.
Q. How did you respond to that challenge?
A. I said I'd be delighted to make a presentation before any group of scientists.
Q. Did you follow that up, take any action on that?
A. Yes, I did. I co-signed a letter with Professor Miller addressed to the Presidents of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and also the American Society of Cell Biology, proposing that at their next meetings, they --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, Your Honor.
THE WITNESS: Sponsor --
THE COURT: Hold on.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: The letter hasn't been produced, and I do think it's hearsay. I mean, if he has it and can, you know, read it into evidence, that's one thing. But, first of all, it's another declarant that he's effectively taking credit here for, Ken Miller, and we don't have a letter to cross-examine.
THE COURT: He says he was a co-author of the letter. He's paraphrasing the letter. He's not reading from it.
MR. MUISE: In fact, it's a greater objection to read from the actual letter than from him to explain.
THE COURT: I think that would be a problem. No, I'll overrule the objection. If he is summarizing or paraphrasing the letter, which he is the co-author of, I'll overrule the objection, and you may proceed.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I also have an objection. We haven't been produced the letter, which deprives us of the opportunity to cross-examine.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I mean, they had an opportunity to request any of the documents that they wanted to request. There's no -- there's been total disclosure in this particular case. There's been a lot of documents that's been gone back and forth.
THE COURT: I bet that letter is readily available, and I'm going to further bet that we're not going to finish with this witness today. Why don't you get the letter -- I'm not -- I've overruled the objection. But I think it's a fair request, that if some of the testimony is predicated on the letter and the summary of the letter, that that be produced. I don't think that's a hardship to ask that the letter be produced.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, this certainly was not part of, in any way part of his expert report or a rebuttal report, to the best of my recollection.
THE COURT: Are you objecting that it's beyond the scope of his expert report?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Well, I do think it's beyond the scope, but the greater concern is, you know, Mr. Muise is suggesting that, you know, we somehow missed out on our chance to discover this in advance of testimony.
THE COURT: I've cured that. I've asked that he produce the letter, so I'm going to -- let's proceed. Let's move on. Were we in mid answer when we got the objection?
MR. MUISE: He was in the middle, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I think you were in the middle, Professor, of summarizing the contents of the letter, and you can proceed with your answer, wherever you left off, if you would like.
THE WITNESS: We wrote a letter proposing a symposium at the annual meeting of the societies. We sent it off and received an acknowledgment that it had been received, but then no further action from the societies. And furthermore, I think that, the original question --
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Regarding the criticism. I believe you answered there were three points you wanted to make, and you've made two. I think this is the third point?
A. The third point is that, one has to understand the structure of meetings to see why they may not be the best place to present such ideas. As I mentioned before, large national scientific meetings have many people, but generally most presentations are made as what are called poster presentations, where you get a large poster board, tape up figures and text on it, and go into a large hall with hundreds of other scientists, and display your poster.
People wander by and look at it, and can either read it by themselves or continue on or they can stop and talk with you a bit. But it is not a place for a sustained conversation, a sustained discussion about topics such as intelligent design which require a lot of preliminary background, explanation, and so on.
Rather, the seminars and discussions that I've just gone through are, in my opinion, much better forums for presenting such material, because generally you can speak continuously for 50 minutes to an hour.
There are generally 20 to hundreds of other scientists, active admissions, and so on, who are listening quite closely to the argument you are making and who can respond with discussion and questions and counter arguments of their own. So I view it as a much better forum than a large national meeting.
Q. Sir, I'd like to refer you back to your CV. It's Defendants' Exhibit 249. I want to review some of the additional articles or writings that you have done relating to the topics of intelligent design and evolution and defending intelligent design against claims such as it's religion and it's not science and so forth.
If you look at your CV under publications, there's one published in 2004, a chapter entitled Irreducible Complexity, Obstacles to Darwinian Evolution. And that was a chapter you wrote for a particular book, correct?
A. Yes, that's right. It appeared in a book called Debating Design, From Darwin to DNA, which was edited by a man named Michael Ruse, who is a philosopher of biology and a strong proponent of Darwinism and a man named William Dutsky, who is a proponent of intelligent design, and it was published by Cambridge University Press.
Q. I believe, if you look at the exhibits that have been provided to you, that chapter is included on the tab 7 as Defendants' Exhibit 203-I under tab 7. If you could verify that for me, please?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Were there opponents of intelligent design that contributed chapters to that book?
A. Yes. It was debating design. That included proponents of intelligent design, of Darwinian evolution, of something called self-organization and complexity theory, a wide range of viewpoints.
Q. Was Dr. Miller one of the people that contributed a chapter of that book?
A. Yes, he also contributed a chapter.
Q. If you go down to the next publication on your curriculum vitae, there's a chapter written in 2003 entitled Design and Details, The Origin of Biomolecular Machines, close quote. And that was published in a particular book?
A. Yes, it was. It was published in a book called Darwinism, Design and Public Education, which was published by Michigan State University Press. I contributed a chapter to that as well.
Q. Were there again competing arguments, arguing intelligent design and teaching it in schools and so forth?
A. Yes, that's right. Again, this was a companion book which had many different viewpoints.
Q. And further down your CV, in 2003, you contributed a chapter entitled The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis, Breaking Rules, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right. Again, this was a collection of essays published by Routledge Press, which also contributed -- contained a contribution by Professor Miller.
Q. And that book was edited by Neil Manson?
A. Yes, he's a philosopher of science.
Q. If you go to the next page in your curriculum vitae, you have an article in Natural History, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right, entitled The Challenge of Irreducible Complexity.
Q. That was published in 2002?
A. That's correct. This was part of a section in the issue of the magazine which kind of was associated with the discussion and debate that they sponsored, that the American Museum of Natural History sponsored. The American Museum of Natural History is the publisher of Natural History. It contain contributions from myself, William Dembskie, and Robert Pennock and Kenneth Miller, as well as several others.
Q. Going down again in your curriculum vitae, there was a chapter you contributed to a book by another one of Plaintiffs' experts, Robert Pennock, and the chapter was entitled Molecule, Machines, Experimental Support for the Design?
A. Well, it's called Molecular Machines.
Q. Sorry.
A. It was published by MIT Press, yes.
Q. And if you go down further on that page in your -- I'm sorry. Go to the next page of your curriculum vitae. I believe it's page 4. It appears there's an article, Self-organization and Irreducibly Complex Systems, A Reply to Shanks and Joplin. Do you see that?
A. Yes, that's correct. That --
Q. I'm sorry.
A. I'm sorry. That was published in a journal called Philosophy of Science, which is a very prestegious journal in its field. And in it, I respond to objections to the concept of irreducible complexity which were advanced by a man named Neil Shanks, who is a philosopher, and Carl Joplin, who is a biologist, and argued why their objections were incorrect.
Q. If you look again at your exhibit book, I believe under tab 4, it's marked as Defendants' Exhibit 203-G?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that the article you are referring to?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. And then down further on that page, you contributed an article in 1998 to Rhetoric and Public Affairs, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right, entitled Intelligent Design as an Alternative Explanation for the Existence of Biomolecular Machines.
Q. And I believe one more. If you turn over to page 6, at the top, there's a contribution to the Boston Review in 1997. Do you see that?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What was that?
A. Well, Boston Review is actually a publication of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I believe, their political science department or some such thing. They had a review of my book, Darwin's Black Box, published or written by a man named Alan Orr, who is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Rochester.
And after his review, they invited contributions, further discussion by, I think, around a dozen academics, from a dozen academics or so. And the symposium was discussing my book and also a book that was published recently by a man named Richard Dawkins, who is a professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford in England.
And it included contributions from myself, from a man named Russell Doolittle, who is a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, a man named James Shapiro, who is at the University of Chicago, and many others.
Q. And I believe you also have contributed three pieces that were actually published in the New York Times, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right. They called me up and asked me to write about my ideas in, I think, in 1996, 1999, and this year as well.
Q. So the New York Times solicited your ideas on intelligent design?
A. That's correct.
Q. Is it fair to say that in these writings and in these conferences that we've just gone through, that you've been defending your arguments, you've been defending the scientific argument for intelligent design, as well as defending against arguments that it's creationism?
A. Yes, I've done that continuously.
Q. And again, arguing the scientific evidence in support for intelligent design?
A. That's correct.
Q. And were you also arguing with regard to the perhaps lack of scientific evidence for some aspects of Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes, I argued that as well.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, may it please the Court, I tender Dr. Michael Behe as an expert in biochemistry, evolution, intelligent design, creationism, and science education.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I'm not sure he was ever actual previously proffered as an expert on science education.
THE COURT: All right. Let's handle biochemistry, evolution, intelligent design, and creationism. Any objection there?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Do you know if you have any objection with respect to science education?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I mean, he was not tendered as an expert in science education. I'm not sure what the basis of his expertise is in science education. I mean, I understand he teaches, but --
THE COURT: Do you want to ask him some questions?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.
THE COURT: I think it's probably an appropriate time for a break.
MR. MUISE: I was kind of timing it to that, Your Honor, looking at that. But if I may say, we have a stipulation that they're qualified to testify as to their opinions that are in their reports, and he certainly is opined about the value of Pandas and of intelligent design to be part of the science curriculum. I mean, it's fairly embraced by that. And we have a stipulation on this, so it's kind of surprising that he's objecting.
THE COURT: Why don't you talk about that during the break and see if it triggers the need for any voir dire on qualifications, specifically on science education, and if it does, we'll hear that. If it's fairly encompassed within the stipulation and it does not, then we'll admit him for that purpose. He's certainly admitted for the other purposes then based on the stipulation and the fact that there's no objection.
We'll reserve judgment on the science education. Although, you know, I will say that, it seems fairly contemplated within his report, but I'm not sure what the essence of your stipulation was, so I recognize that you reserve your right to conduct some voir dire if you see the need to do it, and I'll hear you on that after we return.
So let's break for 20 minutes. We'll return after that period, and we'll see what your pleasure is with respect to the expert qualifications. We'll be in recess.
(Whereupon, a recess was taken at 10:40 a.m. and proceedings reconvened at 11:00 a.m.)

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 10 (October 17), AM Session, Part 2

THE COURT: All right. What's your pleasure with respect to the last qualification?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, we'll withdraw the objection and save the questions for cross.
THE COURT: All right. He's admitted then for the purposes as stated by Mr. Muise, and you may proceed.
MR. MUISE: Thank you, Your Honor.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, I first want to review with you the opinions you tend to offer in this case before we get to the basis of those opinions, okay?
A. Yes.
Q. Sir, do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is science?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And what is that opinion?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design makes testable scientific claims?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design posits a positive argument for design?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design requires the action of a supernatural creator?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And what is that opinion?
A. No, it doesn't.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is young-earth creationism?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is old-earth creationism?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And, sir, what is that opinion?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is special creationism?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And what is that opinion?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is a religious belief?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether Darwin's theory of evolution is a fact?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether there are gaps and problems with Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. Yes, there are.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether making students aware that Darwin's theory is not a fact promotes good science education?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether making students aware of gaps and problems with Darwin's theory of evolution promotes good science education?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether making students aware of intelligent design promotes good science education?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And what is that opinion?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. And, sir, do you have an opinion as to whether providing students with the opportunity to review the book Of Pandas and People promotes good science education?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is that opinion?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Sir, what is intelligent design?
A. Intelligent design is a scientific theory that proposes that some aspects of life are best explained as the result of design, and that the strong appearance of design in life is real and not just apparent.
Q. Now Dr. Miller defined intelligent design as follows: Quote, Intelligent design is the proposition that some aspects of living things are too complex to have been evolved and, therefore, must have been produced by an outside creative force acting outside the laws of nature, end quote. Is that an accurate definition?
A. No, it's a mischaracterization.
Q. Why is that?
A. For two reasons. One is, understandable, that Professor Miller is viewing intelligent design from the perspective of his own views and sees it simply as an attack on Darwinian theory. And it is not that. It is a positive explanation.
And the second mischaracterization is that, intelligent design is a scientific theory. Creationism is a religious, theological idea. And that intelligent design is -- relies rather on empirical and physical and observable evidence plus logical inferences for its entire argument.
Q. Is intelligent design based on any religious beliefs or convictions?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. What is it based on?
A. It is based entirely on observable, empirical, physical evidence from nature plus logical inferences.
Q. Dr. Padian testified that paleontologists makes reasoned inferences based on comparative evidence. For example, paleontologists know what the functions of the feathers of different shapes are in birds today. They look at those same structures in fossil animals and infer that they were used for a similar purpose in the fossil animal. Does intelligent design employ similar scientific reasoning?
A. Yes, that's a form of inductive reasoning, and intelligent design uses similar inductive reasoning.
Q. Now I want to review with you the intelligent design argument. Have you prepared a slide for this?
A. Yes, I have. On the next slide is a short summary of the intelligent design argument. The first point is that, we infer design when we see that parts appear to be arranged for a purpose. The second point is that the strength of the inference, how confident we are in it, is quantitative. The more parts that are arranged, and the more intricately they interact, the stronger is our confidence in design. The third point is that the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming.
The fourth point then is that, since nothing other than an intelligent cause has been demonstrated to be able to yield such a strong appearance of design, Darwinian claims notwithstanding, the conclusion that the design seen in life is real design is rationally justified.
Q. Now when you use the term design, what do you mean?
A. Well, I discussed this in my book, Darwin's Black Box, and a short description of design is shown in this quotation from Chapter 9. Quote, What is design? Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts. When we perceive that parts have been arranged to fulfill a purpose, that's when we infer design.
Q. Can you give us a biochemical example of design?
A. Yes, that's on the next slide. I think the best, most visually striking example of design is something called the bacterial flagellum. This is a figure of the bacterial flagellum taken from a textbook by authors named Voet and Voet, which is widely used in colleges and universities around the country. The bacterial flagellum is quite literally an outboard motor that bacteria use to swim. And in order to accomplish that function, it has a number of parts ordered to that effect.
This part here, which is labeled the filament, is actually the propeller of the bacterial flagellum. The motor is actually a rotary motor. It spins around and around and around. And as it spins, it spins the propeller, which pushes against the liquid in which the bacterium finds itself and, therefore, pushes the bacterium forward through the liquid.
The propeller is attached to something called the drive shaft by another part which is called the hook region which acts as a universal joint. The purpose of a universal joint is to transmit the rotary motion of the drive shaft up from the drive shaft itself through the propeller. And the hook adapts the one to the other.
The drive shaft is attached to the motor itself which uses a flow of acid from the outside of the cell to the inside of the cell to power the turning of the motor, much like, say, water flowing over a dam can turn a turbine. The whole apparatus, the flagellum has to be kept stationary in the plane of the bacterial membrane, which is represented by these dark curved regions.
As the propeller is turning, much as an outboard motor has to be clamped onto a boat to stabilize it while the propeller is turning. And there are regions, parts, protein parts which act as what is called a stator to hold the apparatus steady in the cell.
The drive shaft has to traverse the membrane of the cell. And there are parts, protein parts, which are, which act as what are called bushing materials to allow the drive shaft to proceed through. And I should add that, although this looks complicated, the actual -- this is really only a little illustration, a kind of cartoon drawing of the flagellum. And it's really much more complex than this.
But I think this illustration gets across the point of the purposeful arrangement of parts. Most people who see this and have the function explained to them quickly realized that these parts are ordered for a purpose and, therefore, bespeak design.
Q. If I could just direct your attention again to the exhibit book. In tab 5, there's a Defense Exhibit marked 203-B, as in bravo?
A. Yes.
Q. And is that a depiction of the bacterial flagellum from the same textbook as we see up here in the demonstrative?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. That's a fair an accurate depiction of the bacterial flagellum?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Now does the conclusion that something was designed, does that require knowledge of a designer?
A. No, it doesn't. And if you can advance to the next slide. I discussed that in Darwin's Black Box in Chapter 9, the chapter entitled Intelligent Design. Let me quote from it.
Quote, The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer.
Q. So is it accurate for people to claim or to represent that intelligent design holds that the designer was God?
A. No, that is completely inaccurate.
Q. Well, people have asked you your opinion as to who you believe the designer is, is that correct?
A. That is right.
Q. Has science answered that question?
A. No, science has not done so.
Q. And I believe you have answered on occasion that you believe the designer is God, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Are you making a scientific claim with that answer?
A. No, I conclude that based on theological and philosophical and historical factors.
Q. Do you consider your response to that question any different than Dr. Miller's response that he believes God is the author of the laws of nature that make evolution work?
A. No, in my view, they're quite similar, yes.
Q. Have other scientists acknowledged these design features of the flagellum?
A. Yes, they have. And if you advance to the next slide. In 1998, a man named David DeRosier wrote an article in the journal Cell, which is a very prestegious scientific journal entitled The Turn of the Screw, The Bacterial Flagellar Motor. David DeRosier is a professor of biology at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and has worked on the bacterial flagellar motor for most of his career.
In that article, he makes the statement, quote, More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human, close quote. So David DeRosier also recognizes that the structure of the flagellum appears designed.
Q. Again, sir, if I could direct your attention to the exhibit book, under Tab 18, there is an exhibit marked Defendants' Exhibit 274. Is that the article from Dr. DeRosier that you've been referring to?
A. Yes, that's it.
Q. And I believe we have additional quotes from that article, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right. On the next slide, I quote a paragraph from the article to show that Professor DeRosier not only says it looks like a machine, he treats it as a real machine, as a real machine, not as a metaphorical machine. Let me just read the quotation from the article.
Quote, In E. Coli and S. typhimurium, flagella turning at speeds of 18,000 rpm push cells at 30 microns per second, but the speed records are set by motors in other bacteria that turn at rates exceeding 100,000 rpm and push cells at hundreds of micrometers per second. What is all the more remarkable is that flagellar motors can run in both directions, that is clockwise and counterclockwise. These motors also deliver a constant torque of 4500 piconewton nanometers at speeds over 6000 rpm.
And if you continue onto the next slide, he has a table in the article listing mechanical properties of this structure. Table 1 is entitled Statistics for Flagellar Motors of S. typhimurium/E. coli versus Myosin, Kinesin, and -- I can't read the rest. And he writes, he lists values for the rotational speed, the linear speed, the torque of the motor, the force it generates, and the efficiency of the motor.
And if you look under the efficiency of the motor, he says that it's unknown, but the efficiency could be upwards of -- it could be approaching 100 percent, which would make it the most efficient motor in the universe.
Q. So these are machine like properties?
A. Yes, they are, and he treats them as such.
Q. Now you indicated that he used the term machine. I believe Dr. Miller had testified that it's just a metaphor. Do you agree?
A. No, I completely disagree. Biologists routinely talk about machines in the cell, and they use the term literally not metaphorically.
Q. Is the bacterial flagellum the only machine in the cell?
A. No. The flagellum, while a good visual example, is just one example of molecular machines in the cell. The cell is chockful of molecular machines.
Q. Have you prepared some slides to demonstrate that point?
A. Yes, I have. The next slide is showing the cover of an issue of the journal Cell from the year 1998. Then they issued a special review issue on the topic of macromolecular machines, molecular machines. And can I draw your attention down to the lower left-hand corner of the figure where the artist who prepared the drawing illustrates something that resembles a watch or some sort of mechanical object, apparently to convey the topic of machinery.
Q. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
A. Let me continue. If you advance to the next slide, I have a photocopy of the table of contents of the journal Cell. And on the next slide, the first seven articles in this special issue on molecular machines are listed. I'd like to read the titles of some of those articles.
The first is entitled The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines, Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists. The next article is Polymerases and the Replisome, Machines within Machines. Eukaryotic Transcription, An Interlaced Network of Transcription Factors and Chromatin-Modifying Machines. Mechanical Devices of the Spliceosome, Motors, Clocks, Springs, and Things. And several other articles along the same vein.
So the point is that, the cell is full of machines and that they are treated as such by scientists.
Q. Now this journal that you're referring to, Cell, that's a fairly prominent scientific journal?
A. Yes, it is a prestegious journal.
Q. I believe we have another slide to demonstrate this point?
A. Yes. On the next slide, it shows the bottom of the second page of the table of contents. That, I just inserted a little picture of the cover there. It didn't actually occur in the original page. But down at the bottom of that page, they have a little blurb describing this special issue of the journal Cell.
If you look at the next slide, that blurb is blown up for easier reading. And let me quote from it. It says, quote, Like the machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. Reviewed in this issue of Cell are the protein machines that control replication, transcription, splicing, nucleocytoplasmic transport, protein synthesis, protein assembly, protein degradation, and protein translocation. The machines that underlie the workings of all living things. So again, this special issue recognizes that these are machines and that the cell is run by machines.
Q. So again, if I direct your attention to the exhibit book, Tab 6 in particular, Defendants' Exhibit 203-C, as in Charlie, is that the cover of the Cell, the table of contents and that section that you just referred to in your testimony?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Did any scientist explain why these are indeed machines?
A. Yes. In the initial article in this special review issue, which is shown on the next slide, the initial article was written by a man named Bruce Alberts, who was, until a couple months ago, the president of the National Academy of Sciences. He wrote the initial article called The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines, Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists.
And in his article, he wrote, quote, Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like the machines invented by humans, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.
So he was emphasizing that this is why we call them machines. They act like machines. They contain highly coordinated moving parts. They transduce energy just like the machines of our experience.
Q. So they're machines and not metaphors?
A. That's exactly right.
Q. Up top here in that title of that article, it says, preparing the next generation of molecular biologists. Does Dr. Alberts make any suggestions in this article?
A. Yes, in the article, he makes the suggestion that upcoming generations of molecular biologists should be trained in engineering principles so that they can better understand the operation of the cell.
Q. Do sciences recognize evidence of design in nature?
A. Yes, they do.
Q. And do you have some examples to demonstrate that point?
A. Yes, I do. On the next slide is the cover of a book written by a man named Richard Dawkins, who is a professor of biology at Oxford University and a very strong proponent of Darwinian evolution. In 1986, he wrote a book entitled The Blind Watchmaker, why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. Nonetheless, even though he is, in fact, a strong Darwinist, on the first page of the first chapter of his book, he writes the following.
Quote, Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose, close quote. So let me just emphasize that here's Richard Dawkins saying, this is the very definition of biology, the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.
Q. Does he explain why they appear design, how it is that we can detect design?
A. Yes, he does. And that is shown on the next slide. It is not because of some emotional reaction. It is not due to some fuzzy thinking. It's due to the application of an engineering point of view. He writes on page 21 of the first chapter, quote, We may say that a living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes that an intelligent and knowledgeable engineer might have built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, seeing. Any engineer can recognize an object that has been designed, even poorly designed, for a purpose, and he can usually work out what that purpose is just by looking at the structure of the object, close quote.
So let me just emphasize that he, in other words, is stating that we recognize design by the purposeful arrangement of parts. When we see parts arranged to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, and seeing, we perceive design.
Q. Now is it fair to say that he's looking at, and intelligent design proponents look at physical structures similar to like the paleontologist does and then drawing reasonable inferences from those physical structures?
A. That's exactly right. What intelligent design does is look at the physical, observable features and use logic to infer deductions from that.
Q. Now you, as well as Dawkins in the slides that we've just been looking at, refer to purpose. Now when you use -- when you were using purpose, are you making a philosophical claim by using that term?
A. No. The word purpose, like many other words, can have different meanings. And the purpose here used by Professor Dawkins and in intelligent design does not refer to some fuzzy purpose of life or some such thing as that. It's purpose in the sense of function.
And I think on the next slide, I emphasize that Dawkins is using some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, seeing. An engineer can work out the purpose of an object by looking at its structure. He's talking about purpose in the sense of function.
Q. Now this appearance of design, is this a faint appearance?
A. No, indeed. This is not just some marginal vague impression. Richard Dawkins, a strong proponent of Darwinian evolution, insists, he says, quote, Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design, as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning, close quote.
Let me make two points with this. He thinks that this is an illusion because he thinks he has an alternative explanation for what he sees. Nonetheless, what he sees directly gives him the overwhelming impression of design.
Q. Have other scientists made similar claims regarding the evidence of design in nature?
A. Yes. On the next slide is a quotation from a book written by a man named Francis Crick. Francis Crick, of course, is the Nobel laureate with James Watson who won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the double helicle structure of DNA.
In a book published in 1998, he wrote, quote, Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. So apparently, in the view of Francis Crick, biologists have to make a constant effort to think that things that they studied evolved and were not designed.
Q. I want to return to Richard Dawkins here for a moment and The Blind Watchmaker. Did he borrow his title from somewhere?
A. Yes, the watchmaker of his title has an illusion which he explained on page 4 of his book. He says, quote, The watchmaker of my title is borrowed from a famous treatise by the 18th century theologian William Paley. And he starts to quote William Paley. So he is using his book as an answer to, or an argument to, William Paley's discussions of these issues. And he treats William Paley with the utmost respect.
Q. I believe we have a slide to highlight that.
A. Yes, here's a quotation from William Paley. Paley is best known for what is called his watchmaker argument. And that is briefly this. He says that, when we walk -- if we were walking across a field, and we hit our foot against a stone, well, we wouldn't think much of it. We would think that the stone might have been there forever.
But if we stumble across a watch and we pick it up, then Paley goes on to say, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose; for example, that they so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day. Let me close quote here, and say that, he is talking about the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Let me continue with a quotation from William Paley. Quote, he says, The inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker, close quote. So he is inferring from the physical structure of the watch to an intelligent designer.
Q. Is that a theological argument?
A. No, this is a scientific argument based on physical facts and logic. He's saying nothing here about any religious precept, any theological notion. This is a scientific argument.
Q. Does Richard Dawkins himself recognize it as an argument based on logic?
A. Yes, he does, and he goes to great lengths to address it in his book, The Blind Watchmaker.
Q. What sort of reasoning or argument is this that we're talking about, this scientific argument that you're referring to?
A. This is an instance of what is called inductive reasoning when we --
Q. I'm sorry. We have a slide here to demonstrate this point?
A. Yes, thank you. Just to help illustrate this point, I just grabbed an article from the Encyclopedia Britannica online entitled Inductive Reasoning. And the Encyclopedia Britannica says, quote, When a person uses a number of established facts to draw a general conclusion, he uses inductive reasoning. This is the kind of logic normally used in the sciences.
Let me skip the middle of the quotation and say, It is by this process of induction and falsification that progress is made in the sciences. So this William Paley's argument, the kind of argument that, say, Professor Padian made about bird feathers and so on are all examples of inductive reasoning, and they are all examples of scientific reasoning.
Q. This is the sort of reasoning that is employed in science quite readily?
A. Yes. As the article makes clear, this is the normal mode of thinking in science.
Q. Is that the sort of reasoning you employ to conclude design, for example, in your book Darwin's Black Box?
A. Yes, this is exactly the kind of reasoning that I used in Darwin's Black Box. On this slide here, which includes an excerpt from Chapter 9 entitled Intelligent Design, I say the following.
Quote, Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles as our ability to be confident of the design of anything, the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components, close quote. In other words, the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Q. Did you provide specific examples of that in your book?
A. Yes, I did. In that Chapter 9, if you continue, I applied that same reasoning to the biochemical examples that I had discussed in earlier chapters. Let me quote a couple of passages here. Quote, The function of the cilium is to be a motorized paddle. In order to achieve the function microtubules, nexin linkers, and motor proteins all have to be ordered in a precise fashion, close quote.
Next quote. The function of the blood clotting system is as a strong-but-transient barrier. The components of the system are ordered to that end. They act to form an elegant structure that accomplishes a specific task, close quote.
Next quotation. Quote, The functions of the other biochemical systems we have discussed are readily identifiable and their interacting parts can be enumerated. Because the functions depend critically on the intricate interactions of the parts, we must conclude that they were designed, close quote. So again, the reasoning is exactly the same. It is the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Q. Again, I would ask you to, if we could return to the summary of the argument for intelligent design.
A. Yes. Thank you. Here again is the slide that we looked at earlier summarizing the argument for intelligent design, and perhaps, in retrospect, more of it will be understandable.
The first part is that we infer design when we see that parts appear to be arranged for a purpose. Not only I do that, not only did William Paley do that, but Richard Dawkins and David DeRosier do the same thing. The strength of the inference is quantitative. The more parts that are arranged, and the more intricately they interact, the stronger is our confidence in design.
The third part is, the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming, as everybody, including Richard Dawkins, admits. And the final point is that, since nothing other than an intelligent cause has been demonstrated to be able to yield such a strong appearance of design, Darwinian claims, notwithstanding, the conclusion that the design seen in life is real design is rationally justified.
If I could just take a moment to point out something. This argument for design is an entirely positive argument. This is how we recognize design by the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Q. Now Plaintiffs' experts, including Dr. Miller, testified that they have yet to see a positive argument for design advanced by intelligent design proponents. I believe we have a slide from his actual testimony here.
A. Yes, that's a photocopy of his testimony. And on the next is a transcription of a portion of that testimony. And he was asked about the argument, and he said that the design argument is in every respect a completely negative argument. If one combs the pages Of Pandas and People, or for that matter, if one looks at Dr. Behe's book, or if one looks at the writings of other people who -- that one can't find such an argument.
And he goes on to say, quote, I have yet to see any explanation advanced by any adherent of design that basically says, we have found positive evidence for design. The evidence is always negative, and it basically says, if evolution is incorrect, the answer must be design, close quote.
Q. How do you respond to that criticism?
A. Well, in two ways. First of all, let me just say that, of course, I think it's a mischaracterization. But on the second, it's kind of understandable, because Professor Miller is looking at the evidence through his own theoretical perspective and can only see things that seem to fit with his own theoretical perspective.
So this, I think, shows the importance of being able to look at data from different points of view so that one can see, can see it from different perspectives. But additionally on the next slide, in order to help him see, I would direct him to read more closely Chapter 9 of Darwin's Black Box, the chapter entitled Intelligent Design, where I explain exactly how one perceives design and explains why the biochemical systems that I discussed earlier in the book are good examples of design.
I would further direct him to go and look at the structures of the machinery found in the cell without Darwinian spectacles on and see the very, very strong appearance of design, which everybody admits to, David DeRosier, Richard Dawkins, and so on, which is easily perceived even by a lay people in the figure of the flagellum, and also to read such material in the professional scientific literature, as I refer to in the journal Cell, the special issue on molecular machines.
Q. Dr. Behe, is intelligent design science?
A. Yes, it certainly is.
Q. And why is that?
A. Because it relies completely on the physical, observable, empirical facts about nature plus logical inferences.
Q. And that again is a scientific method?
A. That is the way science proceeds.
Q. I want to ask you if you agree with this testimony provided by Dr. Miller. He testified that it is a standard scientific practice for scientists to point to the scientific literature, to point to observations and experiments that have been done by other people in other laboratories, have been peer reviewed, have been published, and to cite to that evidence, cite to those data, and to cite to those experiments in their arguments. Do you agree with that?
A. Yes, I agree completely.
Q. Is that what you have done, and intelligent design has done in presenting its arguments?
A. That's what I have done. That's what the scientists that wrote those books I showed earlier have done. That's have a very common practice in science.
Q. Did Crick and Watson employ the same procedure?
A. Yes, that's correct. Francis Crick and James Watson, whose names I have mentioned earlier, who won the Nobel Prize for determining the double helicle structure of DNA, actually did not do the experimental work upon which their conclusions were based.
The experimental work, which consisted of doing x-ray fiber defraction studies on DNA, was actually done by a woman named Rosalyn Franklin, and they used her data to reach their conclusions.
Q. I want to ask you if you also agree with Dr. Miller that the question is not whether you or any other scientist has done experiments in your own laboratories that have produced evidence for a particular claim, the question is whether or not the inferences that you and the scientists draw on your analysis from that data are supported?
A. Yes, I agree completely. Again, those books that I showed in the beginning, that is exactly what those scientists did. They looked very widely for all relevant scientific information that would bear on the argument that they were making.
Q. Again, is that what Crick and Watson employed?
A. Yes, that's what Crick and Watson did, too. Scientists do it all the time.
Q. Is that what you're doing in support of your claim for intelligent design?
A. Yes, that's exactly right.
Q. And have you argued that intelligent design is science in your writings?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Is intelligent design falsifyable?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. And I want to get to that in a little bit more detail later. Now just to summarize. When you say you are relying on logical inferences, you're referring to inductive reasoning, correct?
A. Yes, inductive reasoning.
Q. And other than intelligent design, as you discussed, and you discussed a little bit about paleontology, do you have an example of this sort of reasoning, inductive reasoning that's used in sciences?
A. Well, I think an excellent example of inductive reasoning is the Big Bang theory. Most people forget that in the early part of the 20th century that physicists thought the universe was timeless, eternal, and unchanging.
Then in the late 1920's, observations were made which led astronomers to think that galaxies that they could observe were rushing away from each other and rushing away from the Earth as if in the aftermath of some giant explosion.
So they were using inductive reasoning of their experience of explosions to, and applying that to their astronomical observations. And let me emphasize that they were -- the inductive method, as philosophers will tell you, always extrapolates from what a we know to instances of what we don't know.
So those scientists studying the Big Bang were extrapolating from their knowledge of explosions as seen in, say, fire crackers, cannon balls, and so on, and extrapolating that to the explosion of the entire universe, which is quite a distance from the basis set from which they drew their induction.
But nonetheless, they were confident that this pattern suggested an explosion based on their experience with more familiar objects.
Q. And basically, we don't have any experience with universes exploding, correct?
A. I do not, no.
Q. And scientists do not?
A. No, scientists don't either.
Q. Again, is this similar to the reasoning used in paleontology? For example we haven't seen any live pre-historic birds, for example, but they have features that resemble feathers, as we know them from our common experience today, and we infer that they were used for flying or similar functions, again based on our common experience?
A. Yes, that's right. That's another example of induction from what we know to things we don't know.
Q. Again, that's scientific reasoning?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Can science presently tell us what caused the Bang?
A. No. I'm not a physicist, but I understand the cause of the Big Bang is still unknown.
Q. Is that similar to intelligent design's claim that science presently cannot tell us the source of design in nature?
A. Yes, that's very similar. All theories, when they're proposed, have outstanding questions, and intelligent design is no exception. And I'd like to make a further point that I just thought of and was going to make earlier, but that, that induction from explosions of our experience to explosions of the universe is analogous to, similar to the induction that intelligent design makes from our knowledge of objects, the purposeful arrangements of parts in our familiar world and extrapolating that to the cell as well. So that, too, is an example of an induction from what we know to what we have newly discovered.
Q. Now was the Big Bang theory controversial when it was first proposed?
A. Yes, it turns out that the Big Bang theory was, in fact, controversial because -- not because of the scientific data so much, but because many people, including many scientists, thought that it had philosophical and even theological implications that they did not like.
And on the next slide, I have a quotation of a man named Arthur Eddington, which is quoted in a book by a philosopher of science, Susan Stebbing. Arthur Eddington wrote, quote, Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of nature is repugnant to me, as I think it must be to most. And even those who would welcome a proof of the intervention of a creator will probably consider that a single winding up at some remote epoch is not really the kind of relation between God and his world that brings satisfaction to the mind, close quote.
Let me say a couple things. I don't think I mentioned that Arthur Eddington was a very prominent astronomer of that age. The second point is that, notice that the reason that he does not like this theory, this scientific proposal, is not because of scientific reasons, but because of philosophical and theological reasons.
But nonetheless, that does not affect the status of the Big Bang proposal, which was based completely on physical, observable evidence plus logical inferences. And because of that, it was strictly a scientific theory, even though Arthur Eddington saw other ramifications that he did not like.
Q. I believe you have another quote to demonstrate that point?
A. Yes. Here's a passage from a book by a man named Karl von Weizsacker. Karl von Weizsacker was again an astronomer in the middle part of the 20th century, and he wrote a book in 1964 entitled The Relevance of Science where he recalled his interactions with other scientists when the Big Bang theory was being proposed.
Let me quote from that passage. Quote, He, and he's referring to Walter Nernst, who was a very prominent chemist of that time, said, the view that there might be an age of the universe was not science. At first, I did not understand him. He explained that the infinite duration of time was a basic element of all scientific thought, and to deny this would mean to betray the very foundations of science.
I was quite surprised by this, and I ventured the objection that it was scientific to form hypothesis according to the hints given by experience, and that the idea of an age of the universe was such a hypothesis. He retorted that we could not form a scientific hypothesis which contradicted the very foundations of science.
He was just angry, and thus the discussion, which was continued in his private library, could not lead to any result. What impressed me about Nernst was not his arguments. What impressed me was his anger. Why was he angry? Close quote.
Let me make a couple comments on this passage. This is an example of when people are arguing about what science is. To Walter Nernst, the very idea that there could be a beginning to the universe was unscientific, and we could not entertain that.
On the other hand, von Weizsacker said that science has to take its hints from what evidence is available. We have to form hypotheses according to the hints given by experience. And to me, this is very similar to what I see going on in the debate over intelligent design today.
Many people object that this can't be science, this violates the very definition of science, whereas other people, myself including, say that we have to form hypotheses according to the hints given by experience.
Q. Does the Big Bang continue to be controversial in more modern times?
A. Yes. Surprisingly, it's still controversial and still mostly because of its extra scientific implications. For example, here is an image of an editorial which appeared in the journal Nature in the year 1989 with the surprising title Down with the Big Bang. And if you advance to the next slide, we can see it more easily.
The subtitle of the article, where it is written, quote, Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big Bang is an over-simple view of how the universe began. So let me point out that this was written by a man named John Maddox. John Maddox was the editor of Nature, the most prestegious science journal in the world.
For 20 years, he was the editor, and he wrote an editorial entitled Down with the Big Bang, at least partly because he viewed the idea of the Big Bang as philosophically unacceptable.
Q. Do you have another quote from this?
A. Yes, I do. Actually in the test of the Maddox article, he goes on to explain in further detail some of his objections to the Big Bang. And he says the following. Quote, Creationists and those of similar persuasion seeking support for their opinions have ample justification in the doctrine of the Big Bang. That, they might say, is when and how the universe was created, close quote.
Let me make a couple of points here. Again, he does not like this theory apparently because of its extra scientific implications, because he sees theological implications in the theory. He says that creationists have ample justification, and he objects to that justification.
Let me make another point. He's using the word creationist here in a very broad sense to mean anybody who thinks that the very beginning of the universe might have been a -- an extra -- a supernatural act, that the laws of the universe might have been made, have been set from somewhere beyond nature.
And he uses the word creationist in a very pejorative sense to incite the disapprobation of the readers against people who would hold this view.
Q. Do the implications that Maddox refers to here, does this make the Big Bang theory creationism?
A. No, it certainty does not. One has to be very careful in looking at scientific ideas, because many scientific ideas do have interesting philosophical or other ramifications, and the Big Bang is one of those. Nonetheless, the Big Bang is an entirely scientific proposal, because again, it is based simply on the observable, empirical, physical evidence that we find in nature plus logical inferences.
Q. Do you see similarity between the Big Bang theory and intelligent design?
A. Yes, I do. I see a number of similarities. First, some people have seen controversial philosophical and perhaps even theological implications of those two proposals. But in both cases, they are based entirely on the physical, empirical evidence of nature plus logical inferences.
Q. Is it true that the Big Bang bracket can be a question of cause?
A. Yes, that's a good point to consider. The Big Bang hypothesis struck many people, such as John Maddox and Arthur Eddington and so on, as perhaps having pretty strong, even theological implications. Maybe this was a creation event.
But nonetheless, physicists were able to work within the Big Bang model that the question of what caused the Big Bang was just left as an open question and work proceeded on other issues within the Big Bang.
Q. Do you see any similarity in that regard with intelligent design?
A. Yes, I do. The design in life can be readily apprehended by the purposeful -- by the purposeful arrangement of parts. However, identifying a designer or identifying how the design was accomplished, they are different questions which might be much more difficult and much harder to address. Questions such as that can be left aside and other sorts of questions could be asked.
Q. Does this make intelligent design a, quote, unquote, science stopper, as we heard in this case?
A. No more than it makes the Big Bang a science stopper. The Big Bang posits a beginning to nature which some people thought was the very antithesis of science. It presented a question, the cause of the Big Bang, which could not be answered, and which has not been answered to this very day, and nonetheless, I think most people would agree that a large amount of science has been done within the Big Bang model.
Q. So after the Big Bang theory was proposed, we didn't shut down all our science departments and close up all the laboratories and just stop scientific exploration?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. I believe you have a quote from one of your articles making the point regarding the scientific nature of intelligent design, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right. I think it's on the next slide in the article Reply to my Critics, which I published in the journal Biology and Philosophy, I pointed this out explicitly. Let me just go to the underlined part, the bold part. Quote, I wrote, The conclusion of intelligent design in biochemistry rests exclusively on empirical evidence, the structures and functions of the biochemical systems, plus principles of logic. Therefore, I consider design to be a scientific explanation, close quote.
Q. Now another complaint that we've heard in the course of this trial is that intelligent design is not falsifyable. Do you agree with that claim?
A. No, I disagree. And I think I further in slides from my article in Biology and Philosophy in which I wrote on that. If you get to the next slide -- oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. You got that. In this, I address it. I'm actually going to read this long quotation, so let me begin.
Quote, In fact, intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin's Black Box, I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can't be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process.
To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure, for mobility, say, grow it for 10,000 generations, and see if a flagellum, or any equally complex system, was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven. Close quote.
So let me summarize that slide. It says that if, in fact, by experiment, by growing something or seeing that in some organism such as a bacterium grown under laboratory conditions, grown for and examined before and afterwards, if it were seen that random mutation and natural selection could indeed produce the purposeful arrangement of parts of sufficient complexity to mimic things that we find in the cell, then, in fact, my claim that intelligent design was necessary to explain such things would be neatly falsified.
Q. I got a couple questions about the proposal that you make. First of all, when you say you place something under selective pressure, what does that mean?
A. Well, that means you grow it under conditions where, if a mutation -- a mutant bacterium came along which could more easily grow under those conditions, then it would likely propagate faster than other cells that did not have that mutation.
So, for example, if you grew a flask of bacteria and let them sit in a beaker that was motionless, and the bacteria did not have a flagellum to help it swim around and find food, they could only eat then the materials that were in their immediate vicinity.
But if some bacterium, some mutant bacterium were produced that could move somewhat, then it could gather more food, reproduce more, and be favored by selection.
Q. Is that a standard technique that's used in laboratories across the country?
A. Yes, such experiments are done frequently.
Q. And I just want to ask you a question about this grow it for 10,000 generations. Does that mean we have to wait 10,000 years of some sort to prove this or disprove this?
A. No, not in the case of bacteria. It turns out that the generation time for bacteria is very short. A bacterium can reproduce in 20 minutes. So 10,000 generations is actually, I think, just a couple years. So it's quite doable.
Q. Have scientists, in fact, grown bacteria out to 10,000 generations?
A. Yes, there are experiments going on where bacteria have been grown for 40,000 generations. So again, this is something that can be done.
Q. So this is a readily doable experiment?
A. That's correct.
Q. Sir, do you believe that natural selection is similarly falsifyable?
A. No. Actually, I think that, in fact, natural selection and Darwinian claims are actually very, very difficult to falsify. And let me go back to my article, Reply to my Critics from the journal Biology and Philosophy.
And I don't think I'm actually going to read this whole thing, because it refers to things that would take a while to explain. But let me just try to give you the gist of it. Let me read the first sentence. Quote, Let's turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify a claim that a particular biochemical system was produced by Darwinian processes? Close quote.
Now let me just kind of try to explain that in my own -- well, verbally here. Suppose that we did that same experiment as I talked about earlier. Suppose a scientist went into a laboratory, grew a bacterium that was missing a flagellum under selective pressure for motion, waited 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 generations, and at the end of that time, examined it and saw that, well, nothing much had been changed, nothing much had changed.
Would that result cause Darwinian biologists to think that their theory could not explain the flagellum? I don't think so. I think they would say, number 1, that we didn't wait long enough; number two, perhaps we started with the wrong bacterial species; number 3, maybe we applied the wrong selective pressure, or some other problem.
Now leaving aside the question of whether those are reasonable responses or not, and some of them might be reasonable, nonetheless, the point is that, it's very difficult to falsify Darwinian claims. What experiment could be done which would show that Darwinian processes could not produce the flagellum?
And I can think of no such experiment. And as a matter of fact, on the next slide, I have a quotation, kind of putting a point on that argument. In that same article, Reply to my Critics, I wrote that I think Professor Coyne and the National Academy of Sciences have it exactly backwards. And Professor Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist who said that intelligent design is unfalsifyable, and in a publication of the National Academy, they asserted the same thing.
I wrote that, A strong point of intelligent design is its vulnerability to falsification. A weak point of Darwinian theory is its resistance to falsification. What experimental evidence could possibly be found that would falsify the contention that complex molecular machines evolved by a Darwinian mechanism? I can think of none, close quote.
So again, the point is that, I think the situation is exactly opposite of what much -- of what many arguments assume, that ironically intelligent design is open to falsification, but Darwinian claims are much more resistant to falsification.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, if I may say, I know we took kind of a later break, but I'm about to enter into another area. The noon hour is almost --
THE COURT: How about we go to about 12:15? Does that work for you?
MR. MUISE: That may end up causing me to stop in the middle of a line of questioning, that's why I'm just raising it now.
THE COURT: You would be better off now?
MR. MUISE: I would prefer it now.
THE COURT: Let's do that then. We'll take our lunch break at this point. Why don't we return at about 1:20. After our lunch break, we'll pick up with our next topic by Mr. Muise at that time. We'll be in recess until 1:20.
(Whereupon a lunch recess was taken at 12:00 noon.)

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 10 (October 17), PM Session, Part 1

THE COURT: Be seated, please. All right. We return, and Mr. Muise, you may continue.
DIRECT EXAMINATION CONTINUED
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Behe, I want to ask you some questions about the term theory and its understanding in the science community. As the record has shown so far that the statement that is read to the students in this case uses this definition, " A theory is defined as a well tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations." Is that a good definition of a theory?
A. Yes, it seems to be.
Q. Are you aware of the National Academy of Sciences' definition of the word theory?
A. Yes, I've heard it.
Q. Let me see if this is what your understanding of that definition is. In science "a well substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." Do you agree with that definition?
A. Well, that's certainly one definition of the word theory, but you have to be sensitive to the fact that the word theory can be used in other senses as well.
Q. It can be used in other senses in the scientific community?
A. Yes, in the scientific community itself.
Q. Now, using the National Academy of Sciences' definition of theory, does that mean a theory is almost certainly right?
A. No, it's not. And that might surprise some people unless you, until you start to think of a couple of examples, and perhaps I'd like to discuss two examples of a well substantiated theory that was widely held, but nonetheless which turned out to be incorrect. The first --
Q. I'm sorry, and you prepared a slide to make this point?
A. I did, but first let me mention something else. Before -- let me ask, let me mention an older example that most people are familiar with, and that's the example of geocentrism, the idea that the earth is the center of the solar system, the center of the universe, and that the stars and sun circle around the earth. Now, it turns out that was very well substantiated because people could look up and watch the stars and the sun circle around the earth.
So they had very good evidence to support their view. Furthermore, that theory was used for ages to help sailors and so on navigate the seas. So it was pretty well substantiated. Nonetheless, of course as everybody knows it turned out to be incorrect, and Copernicus proposed that in fact the sun is the center of the solar system and that the earth, while revolving on its axis, travels around the sun. So again that's an old example, but nonetheless it shows that a well accepted theory nonetheless is not necessarily correct.
Q. And you have an example of that in more modern times?
A. Yes, a more modern example from the late 19th century is something called the ether theory of the proposition of light, and that's shown on this slide here. I pulled off an article from the web describing ether theory from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and they say that, "The ether theory in physics, ether is a theoretical universal substance believed during the 19th century to act as the medium for transmission of electromagnetic waves, much as sound waves are traveled elastically such as air. "The ether was assumed to be weightless, transparent, frictionless, undetectable chemically or physically, and literally permeating all matter and space."
Now, this theory arose from the fact that it was known that light was a wave, and like waves in the ocean and waves in air that we perceive as sound, waves need a medium to travel in. But if light is a wave, what does it travel in in space? Ether. Ether was the medium through which light traveled.
Q. Who was it that was the proponent of this theory?
A. Well, it's a good thing we use this article from the Encyclopedia Britannica, because on the next slide we see that a man named James Clerk Maxwell, who was arguably the greatest physicist of the 19th century, wrote an article for the Ninth Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica in the 1870's, the title of which was Ether. And you should keep in mind when he wrote this for this publication, this was not going to be read not only by the general public at large, but by all physicists as well.
So he was writing of the idea as it was commonly held at that time in the highest levels of physics, and he wrote the following: "Whatever difficulties we may have in forming a consistent idea of the constitution of the ether, there can be no doubt that the interplanetary and interstellar spaces are not empty, but are occupied by a material substance or body which is certainly the largest and probably the most uniform body of which we have any knowledge."
Now, later on Einstein's work caused physics to abandon the ether theory. Physicists no longer believed that the ether does in fact fill space, but let's look further on the next slide. This is a copy of James Clerk Maxwell's article taken from a collection of his papers, his article on the ether, and I want to concentrate on the lower portion down here and I think on the next slide that's blown up a little bit.
I'm not going to read this, I'm just going to point out that you can observe that he's using a lot of precise numbers about the energy of light by the sun, and it turns out he's using that to do calculations, and in the calculations he is deducing the properties of the ether. For example, these large red arrows are pointing to the coefficient of rigidity of ether, which is given by the formula Ro V squared, which is 842.8.
The next red arrow points to a line labeled density of ether, which is equal to Ro, which is equal to 9.36 times 10 to the minus 19th power. Now, the point I want to make using this slide is that James Clerk Maxwell, the greatest physicist of his time, whose equations for electricity and magnetism are still ought to physics students today, was using his well accepted theory to do precise calculations and deduce precise physical properties of a substance that did not exist. And so the point is that even a well accepted theory, even a feature which seems to be required by something else such as the wave nature of light, can nonetheless be inaccurate and turned out to be not only wrong, but utterly imaginary.
Q. Again I guess that would demonstrate the nature that scientific theories are tentative, is that correct?
A. Yes, I think that it helps to make that claim that scientific theories are tentative more than just a hypothetical claim. The history of science is replete with examples of what seemed to be correct explanations which turned out to be incorrect.
Q. Now, is Darwin's theory of evolution a theory in the sense of the National Academy of Sciences' definition?
A. Well, it partly is and partly isn't.
Q. Did you prepare a slide to demonstrate that point?
A. Yes.
A slide here is an excerpt from a book written by a man named Ernst Mayr, who, Ernst Mayr was a very prominent evolutionary biologist, who died just I think last year at the age of 100, and was privy to a lot of the development of what's called neo-Darwinian theory in the middle of the 20th century, and he wrote a book entitled One Long Argument, and in it he makes the case that Darwin's theory is not some single entity, and let me just quote from that.
He says, "In both scholarly and popular literature one frequently finds references to Darwin's theory of evolution as though it were a unitary entity. In reality, Darwin's theory of evolution was a whole bundle of theories, and it is impossible to discuss Darwin's evolutionary thought constructively if one does not distinguish its various components. The current literature can easily lead one perplexed over the disagreements and outright contradictions among Darwin specialists, until one realizes that to a large extent these differs of opinion are due to a failure of some of these students of Darwin to appreciate the complexity of his paradigm." So you have to realize that Darwin's theory is not a single claim. There are multiple claims within what's called Darwin's theory, and they can be, they can have different levels of evidence behind them.
Q. Did he break out these five claims in this One Long Argument that you're referring to?
A. Yes, he did. He went on to say, well what are those ideas that are grouped together under Darwin's theory? He called them, he identified five different components, the first of which is "evolution as such." He says this is the theory that the world is not constant or recently create nor perpetually cycling, but rather is steadily changing. So what we might call change over time.
Q. Is that a theory or is it an empirical observation of facts? How would you describe that?
A. Well, yeah, I myself would call that more an observation rather than a theory. We see that the earth seems to have changed over time. The second --
Q. Go ahead.
A. The second aspect of Darwin's theory that Mayr discerned was common descent. This is the theory that, "Every group of organisms descended from a common ancestor and that all groups of organisms, including animals, plants, and microorganisms, go back to a single origin of life on earth." The third point is something called multiplication of species. This theory explains the origin of enormous organic diversity.
I won't read the rest of the quote there, but it's just a question why are there so many species, the multiplication of species. The fourth component of Darwin's theory according to Mayr is something called gradualism. According to this theory, "Evolutionary change takes place through the gradual change of populations and not by the sudden saltational production of new individuals that represent a new type." So gradualism, things thing gradually over time.
And the last component according to Mayr is natural selection. According to this theory, "Evolutionary change comes through the abundant production of genetic variation, the relatively few individuals who survive, owing to particularly well adapted combinations of inheritable characters, give rise to the next generation." So this is what's commonly called survival of the fittest.
Q. Is this strength of the scientific evidence equal for each of these five separate claims?
A. No, they vary greatly in the strength of evidence that's behind each of those.
Q. Has it been your experience that supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution and opponents of intelligent design have conflated the evidence for the occurrence of evolution, the change over time, with the evidence for the mechanism of evolution, natural selection?
A. Yes. In my experience many people confuse the various parts of Darwin's theory. They don't make the distinction that Ernst Mayr makes, and people see that there has been change in the world and a lot of people then assume that because there has been change in the world, then it must have been change driven by natural selection. And that's a mistaken conclusion.
Q. Are there other senses in which the word theory is used by scientists?
A. Yes. You have to realize that scientists themselves use the word theory in a very broad, with a very broad range of senses. Not only in the sense that the National Academy gave to it, but scientists themselves use it to indicate many other things.
Q. Now, you did a search of Pub Med searching for the term theory, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right. In order to illustrate how scientists themselves use the word theory, I did a search in a database called Pub Med, which is maintained by the National Library of Medicine, which is a division of the National Institutes of Health of the federal government, and this is a database of abstracts and titles of almost all biological articles that are published. It contains millions and millions of articles.
Q. And have you prepared several slides to demonstrate this point?
A. Yes, I have. In this first one, which might be a little bit hard for me to read, but nonetheless the red arrow down here, I certainly won't read the whole abstract, but if you can see the little red arrow down here, let me just read a phrase from this. This says that, "This study does not support the previous theory." And so they are using the word theory here to mean a previous idea that has now been shown to be wrong or have evidence against it.
Q. If I may, Dr. Behe, just interrupt you here briefly that might help you in your testimony as well, if you go to the exhibit book that you've been provided, and if you look under Tab 8 I believe, there's an exhibit marked Defendant's Exhibit 203-A, as in Alpha.
A. Oh, okay. Yes.
Q. Is that the search that you conducted on Pub Med in which the slides are derived from?
A. Yes, that's correct. Yes, uh-huh.
Q. And if it will help you to perhaps look at those as opposed to trying to review it on the screen, work between the two.
A. Okay. Thank you. And the next slide up on the screen here is if you follow the red arrows, and those points to other occasions of the word theory, it says in this article, "The membrane pacemaker theory of aging is an extension of the oxidative stress theory of aging." So in here the scientists are using the word theory to explain, or to refer to ideas that are very limited in scope, which may or may not have much evidence to support them.
So in a much different sense than the National Academy used in its booklet. You could go to -- oh, thank you for the next slide. Let me just see if I can find that one article. Here it is. Okay. If you look at this other article from Pub Med, it's pointing to a sentence that begins, "In theory, change in climate would be expected to cause changes elsewhere."
So again a scientist here is using the world theory to refer to, you know, we would expect this to happen, a kind of expectation. Now, I put up here a publication of my own that I published with my dissertation advisor Walter Englander, and if you could read the top it reads, "mixed gelation theory," and it refers to mixtures of sickle cell hemoglobin with other types of hemoglobin. So again we were using the word theory to describe ideas and results that have a very limited providence.
And finally on the next slide this is an article taken from an issue of Science Magazine seven years ago, a special issue which focused on the question of why is there sexual reproduction. And the article was entitled "Why Sex? Putting Theory to the Test," and the author said the following. "Biologists have come up with a profusion of theories since first posing these questions a century ago." These questions meaning why is there sexual reproduction, and again the author here is using the word theory in terms of competing hypotheses, competing ideas, none of which have much evidence behind it, none of which have wide acceptance in the scientific community.
Q. I want to return to Ernst Mayr and ask you are the parts of Darwin's theory as he's listed here well tested?
A. No, they are not. If you look at the top ones, evolution as such, common descent, multiplication of species, those are all well tested. The claim of gradualism is in my opinion rather mixed. There's evidence for, and some people argue against it. But the component of Darwin's theory natural selection which is sometimes viewed as the mechanism that Darwin proposed for evolution is very poorly tested and has very little evidence to back it up.
Q. I want to go through in a little bit more detail on some of these claims. Going back to that first claim, and I believe you testified probably akin to an empirical observation, is that correct?
A. Yes, evolution as such that the world is changed over time, and life as well.
Q. Does intelligent design refute the occurrence of evolution?
A. No, it certainly has no argument with this component of Darwin's theory. As a matter of fact I think there is a, on the next slide there's an excerpt from Of Pandas and People where the authors write, "When the word is used in this sense, that is the sense of change over time, it is hard to disagree that evolution is a fact. The authors of this volume certainly have no dispute with that notion. Pandas clearly teaches that life has a history, and that the kinds of organisms present on earth have changed over time." And let me make the point that Ernst Mayr calls this component evolution as such. That is the basic idea of evolution.
Q. So when you hear a claim that intelligent design is anti-evolution, are those accurate?
A. No, they are completely inaccurate.
Q. Returning back to the slide with Ernst Mayr, the second claim, does intelligent design speak to that second claim of common descent?
A. No. Intelligent design looks to see if aspects of life exhibit a purposeful arrangement of parts as evidenced by their physical structure. It does not say how such a thing might have happened.
Q. Is common descent nevertheless addressed in Pandas?
A. Yes. I've read sections that do address common descent.
Q. How does it fit then within intelligent design?
A. Well, some people point to empirical difficulties that they see for common descent, but common descent itself is not a claim, either for or against is not a claim of intelligent design theory.
Q. Would it be accurate then to say it's viewed more as a difficulty with Darwinism rather than a claim for intelligent design?
A. Yes, that's correct. Common descent applies more to Darwinian claims, which claim descent with modification, than it does to intelligent design, because intelligent design is focused exclusively on the question of whether we can discern the effects of intelligence in life.
Q. In which of these claims is intelligent design focused principally upon?
A. Intelligent design focuses exclusively on the fifth claim of Ernst Mayr, or the fifth component that Ernst Mayr identified in Darwin's theory, that of natural selection, or in other words what is the mechanism of evolution, how could such things happen.
Q. Is it your view that that is where the scientific evidence for these five claims is perhaps the weakest?
A. Yes, that is in fact the most poorly supported aspect of Darwin's theory. As a matter of fact, that's where the evidence in my view points away from Darwin's theory.
Q. Again so does intelligent design question all parts of Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. No. It focuses exclusively on the question of the mechanism of evolution, and I tried to make that clear as this picture shows. This is an issue of something called the reports of the National Center for Science Education, which is a group which strongly advocates for the teaching of Darwinian evolution in school, and I wrote a letter to the editor of The Reports, which was published in an issue approximately four years ago.
And here's an excerpt from that letter where I explain, "The core claim of intelligent design theory is quite limited. It says nothing directly about how biological design was produced, who the designer was, whether there has been common descent, or other such questions. Those can be addressed separately." It says, "Only that design can be empirically detected in observable features of physical systems."
And I go on to say, "As an important corollary it also predicts that mindless processes such as natural selection or the self-organization scenarios favored by Shanks and Joplin will not be demonstrated to be able to produce irreducible systems of the complexity found in cells." So I tried to clearly explain that the only focus of intelligent design is on the mechanism of evolution, or the question of whether or not aspects of life show the marks of intelligent design.
Q. And you said this was published in The Reports by the National Center for Science Education?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. And that's an organization where Dr. Kevin Padian is the president?
A. Yes, I understand he's the president of that.
Q. And Dr. Alters and Forrest are also associated with this organization?
A. I think Dr. Forrest is and Dr. Miller is. I'm not sure about Dr. Alters, and also Professor Pennock has a reply in that same issue of The Reports.
Q. Now, Dr. Miller in his expert report that he's provided in this case said that Darwin's theory actually has many mechanisms. Do you agree with that?
A. No, I disagree, and here is a little copy of Professor Miller's expert report, and he lists a number of things, including genetic recombination, transposition, horizontal gene transfer, gene duplication, sexual selection, developmental mutation and so on, and he says that, "The relative importance of these and other mechanisms of evolution, these conflicts continue to motivate."
So he seems to be calling these mechanisms. He's making a mistake here. Except for sexual selection, all the other components listed in his report, gene transfer, transposition, recombination, are simply ways that diversity is generated in nature. But diversity has to be acted upon in Darwin's understanding by natural selection. So natural selection is the only mechanism of Darwinian evolution. The sexual selection that he lists, that is a mechanism, but it's a subset of natural selection where features have selected value due to the consideration of their ability to allow an organism to attract mates or otherwise reproduce.
Q. Do other scientists agree with your position on this?
A. Yes, they do. Here's an excerpt from an article by a man named Jerry Coyne, who was writing in a magazine called The New Republic. Now, Jerry Coyne is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago and a vocal opponent of intelligent design, as the title of the article shows. He writes an article entitled The Case Against Intelligent Design.
Nonetheless, he disputes what Professor Miller has said, the idea that he had talked about, Jerry Coyne says the following, "Since Darwin's theories have been expanded, and we now know that some evolutionary change can be caused by forces other than natural selection. For example, random and nonadaptive changes in the frequencies of different genetic variance, the genetic equivalent of coin tossing, have produced evolutionary changes in DN A sequences," and here is an important point.
"Yet, selection is still the only known evolutionary force that can produce the fit between organism and environment, or between organism and organism, that makes nature seem designed." So Professor Coyne was saying that well, there can be random genetic changes in organisms, but the only mechanism pertinent to the discussion of whether there is design in nature or not is Darwin's idea of natural selection.
Q. Do any other scientist besides intelligent design proponents question the ability of natural selection to explain various aspects of life?
A. Yes, a number of scientists who are not design proponents also question the ability of natural selection to account for features of life, and one example is shown on this slide, a man named Stewart Kauffman, who is a professor of biology at the University of Toronto now, in wrote a book called The Origins of Order: Self organization and Selection in Evolution, and that was published by Oxford University Press, and in the introduction to his book he wrote the following, "Darwin's answer to the sources of the order we see all around us is overwhelmingly an appeal to a single singular force: natural selection. It is this single force view which I believe to be inadequate, for it fails to notice, fails to stress, fails to incorporate the possibility that simple and complex systems exhibit order spontaneously." So in this quotation Professor Kauffman is summarizing his view that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection is inadequate to explain some features of biology.
Q. Does Dr. Kauffman still maintain that view?
A. Yes, he does. He also contributed an article to the book Debating Design, to which I and others also contributed, which was published by Cambridge University Press last year in which he reiterates his views about self-organization and complexity. He wrote in the underlying bold portion, "Much of the order in organisms I believe is self organized and spontaneous. Self-organization mingles with natural selection in barely understood ways to yield the magnificence of our teeming biosphere. We must therefore expand evolutionary theory." In other words natural selection is not sufficient. We have to expand evolutionary theory to include something else other than natural selection if we want to explain what we see in biology.
Q. Sir, you've already shown that the theory of evolution does not consist of a single claim, and you testified that proponents of the theory of evolution tend to conflate evidence for one claim to support another claim, and also you testified that opponents of ID, intelligent design, claim that it's anti-evolution, and you showed a slide of Pandas which refutes that particular claim. Now, when we say, when we use the term Darwin's theory of evolution, what is the common understanding for that?
A. Well, the common understanding is that natural selection has driven all of the change in the world, we see in the biological world.
Q. Now, the evolution as such, understanding that life is changed over time, that was understood before Darwin's time, is that correct?
A. Yes. People have been proposing such things for I think a couple of hundred years before Darwin's day. Darwin's distinctive contribution to this discussion was the proposal of natural selection. It was he who had proposed what people considered to be a completely unintelligent mechanism for the production of the complexity of life.
Q. With that understanding, sir, is Darwin's theory of evolution a fact?
A. No. No theory is a fact.
Q. Are there gaps and problems with Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes, there are.
Q. Is there one principal contention you have with the explanatory power of the theory of evolution that's is particularly relevant for intelligent design?
A. Yes, I think the major overwhelming problem with Darwin's theory is what I summarized in my expert report. I stated the following, "It is my scientific opinion that the primary problem with Darwin's theory of evolution is the lack of detailed, testable, rigorous explanations for the origin of new complex biological features."
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, objection, just to the extent I just want to make sure that the expert report is not coming into evidence. I don't object to the slide as long as that's clear.
MR. MUISE: The report is not coming, Your Honor. It's just for demonstrative purposes to demonstrate his opinion.
THE COURT: I'll consider that just to be a clarification objection.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Thank you, judge.
THE COURT: There's no need for a ruling. You can proceed.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, do scientists who do not adhere to intelligent design share your opinion of this?
A. Yes, they do.
A couple of examples are shown next. Here is an excerpt from a book by a man named Franklin Harold, who's an emeritus professor of chemistry at Colorado State University, and four years ago he published a book entitled The Way of the Cell with Oxford University Press, and he quote, "We must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations." So he also seems to share that view.
Q. Has Dr. Miller acknowledged such problems?
A. Yes. Dr. Miller himself wrote in his expert statement, "Living cells are filled of course with complex structures," and let's skip down to the underlying bold statement, he continues, "One might pick nearly any cellular structure, the ribosome for example, and claim correctly that its origin has not been explained in detail by evolution." So again everybody agrees that Darwinian theory has not given an explanation of many, many features of life.
Q. With that in mind, sir, I have some specifics I want to ask you. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the existence of the genetic code?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the transcription of DNA?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained translation of "M" RNA?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the structure and function of the ribosome?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the structure of the cytoskeleton?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained nucleosome structure?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the development of new protein interactions?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the existence of the proteosoma?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the existence of the endoplasmic reticulum?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the existence of motility organelle such as the bacterial flagellum in the eucaryotic syllium?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the development of the pathways for the construction of the syllium and flagella?
A. No.
Q. Has the theory of evolution, in particular natural selection, explained the existence of defensive apparatus such as the immune system and blood clotting system?
A. No.
Q. Sir, is it fair to say that under this broad category of difficulties that we just reviewed lies much of the structure and development of life?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Does this cause you to question whether a Darwinian framework is the right way to approach such questions?
A. Yes, it does, because if Darwinian theory is so fruitless at explaining the very foundation of life, the cell, then that makes a person reasonably doubt whether it's, whether some other explanation might be more fruitful.
Q. Sir, in your expert opinion is there a problem with falsification of Darwin's theory?
A. Yes, there's a big problem with that. Falsification is roughly the idea that there is some evidence which would make somebody change his mind that a theory was right or not right. In many instances Darwinian theory is extremely difficult to falsify, and let me give one example. On the next slide is shown a figure of vertebrate embryos taken from a biochemistry textbook by Voet and Voet, and this is the biochemistry textbook that is used widely in colleges and universities across the United States.
The figure here is drawn after a figure that was first drawn in the 19th century by a man named Ernst Haekel, who was an embryologist and supporter of Darwin's theory. As you see in the figure, the vertebrate embryos all begin by looking virtually identical, very extremely similar, and yet in the course of their development they develop into completely different organisms.
A fish, reptile, bird, amphibian, human, and so on. And Ernst Haeckel thought it was exactly in accord with what Darwin expected.
And the reasoning is illustrated by a quotation on the next slide from a book entitled Molecular Biology of the Cell, which was written by Bruce Alberts, who I mentioned earlier was president of the National Academy of Sciences. One of his co-authors is James Watson, the Nobel laureate who with Francis Crick won the prize for discovering the double helical shape of DNA, and other illustrious authors. And in the textbook they explain those embryological facts by saying the following, "Early developmental stages of animals whose adult forms appear radically different are often surprisingly similar.
"Such observations are not difficult to understand. The early cells of an embryo are like cards at the bottom of a house of cards.
A great deal depends on them, and even small changes in their properties are likely to result in disaster." So if I can summarize their reasoning here, the authors were saying these extremely similar embryos are exactly what we expect, because in vertebrates the basic body plan is being laid down in the early generations. And if you upset the foundation of a structure, that's likely to essentially destroy it.
So what we expect is for later stages of development to be dissimilar, but the earlier stages to be very, very similar. Nonetheless, it turns out that those drawings were incorrect, and a number of years ago in the late 1990's the journal Science ran a story about a study that had been done to try to reproduce Haeckel's, results, and it turns out they could not be reproduced. And the story was entitled Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered, and if you look at the illustration in the news story, on the bottom row one sees the drawings of embryos as Haeckel produced them, and on the top row you see photographs of embryos which were taken by a modern team of embryologists, looking very, very much different.
And on the next slide are excerpts from the news story. It was written, it says, "Generations of biology students may have been misled by a famous set of drawings of embryos published 123 years ago by Ernst Haeckel. 'The impression they give that the embryos are exactly alike is wrong,' says Michael Richardson, an embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London," and he was the lead author of the study which showed the incorrectness of Haeckel's results.
"Not only did Haeckel add or omit features, but he also fudges the scale to exaggerate similarities." Now, here is the point with respect to the topic of falsification. Since these studies have appeared, no Darwinian biologist that I'm aware of has decided that Darwinian biology is incorrect. But if a theory, Darwin's theory, can live with one result, and its utter opposite with virtually identical embryos and with significant variation in the embryos, then it says nothing about that topic.
It doesn't predict anything. It will live with whatever result experimental science comes up with, which means that Darwin's theory has nothing significant to say about a major feature of life, embryology, because if you think about it, if one kind of organism is to give rise to another kind of organism over time, then the embryological plan for building that first organism has to change into the embryological plan to build the second kind of organism, and yet how that could happen is a topic that Darwin's theory of evolution does not address in the least.
Q. Sir, if I could direct your attention to the exhibit book, under Tab 16, Defendant's Exhibit 271?
A. Number 16 did you say?
Q. Tab 16, that's right. Is that a copy of that article, it's an on-line version of Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered?
A. Yes, it's a copy of the article that does not have the illustrations in it.
Q. Was the article written by Elizabeth --
A. Pennisi.
Q. Pennisi, the one you've been referring to?
A. Yes.
Q. Does the bacterial flagellum in the Type 3 secretory system, and we're going to be talking about these in a little bit greater detail later, but is there an analogy also with regard to the falsifiability that you could --
A. Yes. As I'll discuss later, again Darwinian theory can't decide whether the Type 3 secretory system might have arisen from the flagellum, the flagellum from the secretory system, whether both developed independently, or other pertinent questions. So again the question of falsifiability, if it doesn't, can't predict any of those, then it has nothing to say about those features.
Q. Now, does Darwin's theory have difficulty explaining what we see in nature regarding sexual reproduction?
A. Yes, turns out that it does. It was realized not long after Darwin published his theory, it was realized by a man named August Weisman that Darwinian theory actually predicts that most organisms should reproduce asexually because, one reason is because Darwinian theory, one goal of an organism, goal in the terms of a better evolutionary result, is to get more of the organism's genes into the next generation. If an organism reproduced asexually by clonal reproduction, the offspring would contain all of the genes of the organism. But during sexual reproduction, for each offspring reproduced the parent gets only half of its genes into the next generation.
And this has been a conundrum that has been unsolved in Darwinian theory for over a century, and during that time scientists have not just been sitting around. They've been trying very hard to come up with explanations for that, and as a matter of fact they've come up with so many suggestions, so many theories, that in 1999 a man named Kondrashov published an article in the journal Heredity entitled Classification of Hypotheses on the Advantage of Amphimixis, and for amphimixis read sexual reproduction. There were so many competing ideas that he had to classify them into groups to try to keep better track of them, and he --
Q. This was written in 1993?
A. Yes, in 1993, about ten years ago. Let me just read the first sentence here, "After more than a century of debate, the major factors of the evolution of reproduction are still obscure."
Q. If I could direct your attention again to your exhibit book, Tab Number 9, and it's listed as Defendant's 270, is that the article you're referring to?
A. Yes, that's the one. And if I could continue the quote after the bolded text, he continues, "During the past 25 years, hypotheses have become so numerous and diverse that their classification is a necessity. The time is probably right for this. No fundamentally new hypothesis has appeared in the last five years, and I would be surprised and delighted if some important idea remain unpublished." So he was expressing his view that an exhaustive look had been done and that we have not yet come up with an answer.
Q. Do you have additional slides and articles to demonstrate this point?
A. Yes, that's right. This was in 1993. In the year 1998 Science, the journal Science issued a special issue which focused on the evolution of sex, and in that the leadoff article of a number of articles in that issue was the one entitled Why Sex? Putting Theory to the Test. Now, notice the word theory is not being used in the sense that the National Academy gives to it.
And if you look at this little abstract which is, or this little blurb up on the left-hand corner I think on the next slide that's enlarged, it stated that, "After decades of theorizing about the evolutionary advantages of sex, biologists are at last beginning to test their ideas in the real world." So let notice a couple of things about that.
Again they're using theory, theorizing, in a sense like brainstorming. Furthermore, they say that this brainstorming, this theorizing goes on ahead of the activity of testing it. And furthermore that the testing can be put off decades from when the theorizing takes place.
Q. If I could direct your attention again to the exhibit book under Tab 10 and there's an exhibit listed, Defendant's Exhibit Number 269, is that a copy, it looks like an on-line version copy of the article that you're referring to?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. I believe you have another slide you'd like to cite?
A. Yes. There's an excerpt from this article which is on the next I think -- oh, yes, I'm sorry. Yes, this is kind of a repeat of one that I've done already, "Biologists have come up with a profusion of theories since first posing these questions a century ago." So clearly this is an idea that has stumped science for a very long time. Another excerpt from the article is shown on the next slide. The author writes, "How sex began and why it thrived remains a mystery. Why did sex overtake asexual reproduction?" I'm going to skip down here, and the author continues, "Sex is a paradox in part because if nature puts a premium on genetic fidelity, asexual reproduction should come out ahead. All this shuffling is more likely to break up combinations of good genes than to create them. Yet nature keeps reshuffling the deck."
Q. And if I could just so the record is clear, those last two quotes that you read from were from which articles?
A. They were from the article Why Sex? Putting Theory to the Test by Bernice Wuethrich.
Q. Again do you have another slide to make this point?
A. Yes, I do. This is a quotation of a man named George Williams. George Williams is a prominent evolutionary biology at the State university of New York at Stonybrook, and he wrote a book in the mid 1970's entitled Sex and Evolution, and a part of that book was quoted in a book recently by Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, and the quotation is this. "This book," that is George Williams' book, "this book is written from a conviction that the prevalence of sexual reproduction in higher plants and animals is inconsistent with current evolutionary theory. There is a kind of crisis at hand in evolutionary biology," and Dawkins comments on this quotation on the next slide.
Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, Dawkins says, this is Dawkins speaking, "Maynard Smith and Hamilton," which refers to two prominent evolutionary biologists, "said similar things. It is to resolve this crisis that all three Darwinian heroes along with others of the rising generation, labored. I shall not attempt an account of their efforts, and certainly I have no rival solution to offer myself."
So the point is that this problem is still unresolved, and yet this goes to the very heart of evolutionary theory, or a theory of evolution that expects that most species would reproduce asexually can be likened to a theory of gravity that expects that most objects will fall up. And in either case a reasonable person might wonder if the theory is missing some large piece of the puzzle, and certainly I think as an educator students should be apprised of facts like these.
Q. Sir, does Darwin's theory account for the origins of life?
A. No, Darwin's theory does not even address the origin of life.
Q. Is this an unsolved scientific problem?
A. Yes, it certainly is. And it also poses, it poses a large problem for Darwin's theory as well, and --
Q. What is that problem?
A. I think I have a little excerpt from my expert report in which I dealt with that question, and I said the following, "The problem that the Origin of Life poses for Darwin's theory is the following. If the beginning of life required something extra, something in addition to the unintelligent operation of natural processes that Darwin's theory invokes, then it would be fair for a curious inquirer to wonder if those other processes ended with the beginning of life, or if they continued to operate throughout the history of life," and I'll stop there, close quote. So the point is this. If we cannot explain the origin of life by unintelligent processes, and if intelligent processes were in fact involved with that, then we might wonder did they continue throughout the history of life, or did they stop at that point.
Q. Sir, do you have an additional slide to make this point regarding the questions of the origins of life is left unresolved?
A. Yes, I do. Just a couple. It's easy to find scientists involved in a study of the origin of life who are very willing to say that we have not a clue as to how life started, and here's a convenient source, this was an interview by PBS with a man named Andrew Knoll, who is an eminent professor of biology at Harvard who studies the early development of life, and one of the topics they wanted to speak with him over was, "Why it's so devilishly difficult to figure out how life got started."
And on the next slide they put the question to Andrew Knoll, they say, "How does life form?" And Professor Knoll says, "The short answer is we don't really know how life originated on this planet." And skip a bit, "We remain in substantial ignorance." Next slide, they asked another question, the interviewer asked, "Will we ever solve the problem of the origin of life?"
And Knoll says, "I don't know. I imagine my grandchildren will still be sitting around saying that it's a great mystery." So that here's a person involved in studying the origin of life who says quite frankly that we don't know what's going on and he doesn't have any particular expectation that our grandchildren will understand the origin of life.
Q. Sir, if I could direct your attention to the exhibit book under Tab 12, Defendant's Exhibit Number 267, is that the interview that you've just been testifying to?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. I'd like to direct your attention to what I have put up on the screen here is an excerpt from a booklet entitled Science and Creationism which was put out by the National Academy of Sciences in 1999, and if you could please read that quote?
A. Yes. The National Academy wrote, "For those who are studying the origin of life, the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components. The question instead has become which of many pathways might have been followed to produce the first cell," and I'll stop there, close quote.
Q. Do you have any problems with this statement?
A. Yes. I find it very disturbing, because in that statement you don't see any reference to the results of workers in the field. You don't see any reference to the data of what people have come up with. Instead, in this publication they focus on the attitudes of the scientists involved, and while the attitudes might be an interesting sociological phenomenon, they do not go to the question of whether we can explain the origin of life.
And furthermore, this booklet is written for teachers and indirectly then for their students, and by advising teachers or letting teachers or by saying this to teachers, it seems to me the National Academy is encouraging them to have their students think of this problem in the same way that workers have been doing for the past fifty years in the same way that has proved fruitless for over half a century.
Q. Sir, is there a scientific controversy regarding intelligent design in evolution?
A. Yes, there is.
Q. And what leads you to that conclusion?
A. Well, in addition to, you know, the articles and counterarticles and things that have been mentioned earlier in the day, and besides the conferences and symposia that I have attended, there have also been a number of published books and articles debating design, and a good example of that is shown on the screen here, this is the cover of the book entitled, excuse me, Debating Design: From Darwin to DN A ,and it was edited by two people, William Dembski, who's a philosopher and mathematician and intelligent design proponent, and Michael Ruse, who's a professor of the philosophy of science and a student of Darwinian thought, and in this number of academics contributed chapters arguing not only about intelligent design and Darwinism, but also complexity theory, self-organization, and other views as well.
Q. And I believe you testified previously that some of the experts that are testifying on behalf of plaintiffs in this case have also contributed chapters to this particular book?
A. That's correct. Kenneth Miller has a chapter in there. I think Robert Pennock has a chapter in there as well.
Q. And I believe you also testified during the qualifications portions that you contributed a chapter to a book that was written by Robert Pennock, scientists debating the question of intelligent design?
A. That's correct, published by MIT Press.
Q. And there was also a similar book --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, Your Honor. I think it's mischaracterizing the title.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I didn't say what the title was. It's what the --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I think he did say it, Your Honor.
MR. MUISE: The nature of the book. I don't believe I stated the title. If I stated the title --
THE COURT: How did he mischaracterize it?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: He called it scientists debating intelligent design, or something to that effect. He used the word scientists. It's actually Intelligent Design and Its Critics, if it's the Pennock edited book.
MR. MUISE: Okay. I don't see much a distinction with that, Your Honor, but --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: It think it's a loaded question.
THE COURT: Well, for the record you don't doubt, Mr. Muise, that's the correct title, or do you? Let's just be clear.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Sorry, Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Its Critics, I am corrected.
MR. MUISE: I believe that's the correct title, Your Honor. I'm just verifying.
(Brief pause.)
MR. MUISE: Let's go back to your --
THE COURT: Just so we're --
MR. MUISE: I do have it here, Your Honor, and I just want to make it clear what the title is, and I believe Mr. Rothschild is accurate.
THE COURT: All right. Then there's no need for a ruling on it. You can just clarify it for the record.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. The book by Robert T. Pennock was entitled Intelligent Design, Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological and Scientific Perspectives, is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. And that book was published by the MIT Press?
A. That's correct, yes.
Q. You contributed an article making scientific arguments for intelligent design in that book?
A. That's correct, I did.
Q. I should clarify, you submitted a chapter, is that correct?
A. Yes that's, right.
Q. Were there other scientists who submitted chapters in that particular book?
A. Yes. There were several arguing against my ideas and several others arguing on other points.
Q. Were these scientists making scientific arguments in that book?
A. Yes.
Q. Again similarly I believe there was a book that was edited by John Campbell and Steve Meyer entitle Darwinism: Design in Public Education, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Published by Michigan State University Press?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. And several scientists and others contributed articles for that particular book, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. If I could direct your attention to the exhibit, Tab 13, marked as Defendant's Exhibit 266.
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know what that, what is Defendant's Exhibit 266?
A. It is a publication in the journal Theoretical Biology by two authors, Richard Thornhill and David Ussery entitled A Classification of Possible Roots of Darwinian Evolution.
Q. And who are Thornhill and Ussery?
A. They are two scientists, David Ussery is at the Institute of Biotechnology and Technical University of Denmark and, Technical University of Denmark, and Thornhill I'm not quite sure of.
Q. Is that an article that was published in a scientific journal?
A. Yes, the Journal of Theoretical Biology is indeed a scientific journal.
Q. What was that article about?
A. As its title implies, it was trying to group, put into groups possible pathways that a Darwinian evolutionary pathway might take, and it was particularly concerned with the problem of irreducible complexity.
Q. Did it particularly refer to irreducible complexity?
A. Yes, it did. It refers to irreducible complexity by name I'm certain, virtually certain, and it makes reference to my book as well to illustrate the problem.
Q. So would it be fair to say based on these articles and books and symposia that you've been attending that scientists are debating this issue in scientific and academic circles?
A. Yes, that's what I would say.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I'm about to start into another area. I know we've only been going for an hour, but I'm not sure how that'll work out.
THE COURT: No, keep going.
MR. MUISE: Okay.
THE COURT: Because we've not been at it long enough to take a break.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, I'd like to return to the concept irreducible complexity, which you testified was a term that you coined in Darwin's Black Box, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Now, you testified that the design arguments speaks of the purposeful arrangement of parts. Are there any other aspects of the design argument?
A. Yes, and that's correct. There are other aspects, and they're shown on the next slide. Just like Ernst Mayr showed that there were several aspects to Darwinian theory, there are aspects to the intelligent design argument. The intelligent design argument itself, the positive argument for it is the purposeful arrangement of parts, as I have described.
However, in an inductive argument, if somebody else offers a counterexample to the induction, then one has to address that to make the inductive argument stand. So there's also a negative argument which says that despite Darwinian claims that the inductive positive argument is unrefuted, that is that Darwinism cannot account for the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Q. So that's your argument against the plausibility of a Darwinian explanation for design, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Do you have several slides that further make this point?
A. Yes. Now, what would make Darwinian explanations seem implausible? Well, Charles Darwin himself wrote how his argument could be refuted. In his writings in his book On the Origin of Species he wrote that, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down," adding, "but I can find out no such case."
In this passage Darwin was emphasizing that his was a gradual theory. Natural selection had to improve things slowly, in tiny steps over long periods of time. If it seemed that things were improving rapidly, in big leaps, then it would start to look suspiciously as if random mutation and natural selection were not the cause.
Q. Have other scientists acknowledged that this is an argument against Darwin's theory of evolution?
A. Yes. In his book Finding Darwin's God Kenneth Miller has written that, "If Darwinism cannot explain the interlocking complexity of biochemistry, then it is doomed."
Q. I believe we have a quote from another prominent scientist?
A. Yes. Richard Dawkins in his recent book The Ancestor's Tail, from which I quoted recently, wrote "That it is perfectly legitimate to propose the argument from irreducible complexity, which is a phrase I use, as a possible explanation for the lack of something that doesn't exist, as I did, for the absence of wheeled mammals." Let me take a second to explain Dawkins' reference.
He's saying that this problem is a problem for biology, but nonetheless he thinks that everything in biology has a Darwinian explanation. So that whatever we do see in biology necessarily is not irreducibly complex, and I think in my opinion that's an example of begging the question. But he does recognize the concept of irreducible complexity.
Q. Sir, I'd like at this point for you to define irreducible complexity, and we have a slide here.
A. Yes, in my article from the journal Biology and Philosophy, I defined it this way. "By irreducibly complex, I mean a single system which is necessarily composed of several well matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."
Q. Now, you have up there "necessarily" in italics. Is there a reason for that?
A. Yes, the definition that I gave in Darwin's Black Box did not have those italicized words necessarily, but after the books came out and an evolutionary biologists at the University of Rochester named Allen Orr pointed out that it may be the case that if you had a system that was already functioning, already doing some function, it's possible for a part to come along and just assist the system in performing its function, but after several changes perhaps it might change in such a way that the extra part has now become necessary to the function of the system but that could have been approached gradually.
And I, in thinking about it I saw that he was thinking of examples that I did not have in mind when I wrote the book. So I kind of tweaked the definition here in this article to try to make it clear and try to exclude those examples that I didn't have in mind.
Q. Is it a common practice within the science community for a scientist to adjust, modify, or tweak their theories based on criticisms that they get from other scientists?
A. Oh, sure. That's done all the time. Nobody is perfect, nobody can think of everything at once, and a person is always grateful for criticism and feedback that helps to improve an idea.
Q. Does criticism undermine the idea that you were trying to convey by irreducible complexity?
A. No, it didn't. It clarified it, and after his, after reading his SI I saw that he was thinking of things that I did not have in mind. So I tried to clarify that.
Q. You have this system in underlying capitalized and in red. What's the purpose for that?
A. Well, that to me has turned into a point of confusion because some people, including Professor Miller, have been focusing the discussion on the parts of the system and saying if one removes a part and then can use the part for some other purpose, then they say that means that it's not irreducibly complex, but that is not the definition I gave to irreducible complexity, that is not the concept of irreducible complexity that I described in Darwin's Black Box. I said that if you take away one of the parts from the system, the system, the function of the system itself ceases to work, and whether one can use the part for anything else is beside the point.
Q. So then it is fair to say Dr. Miller's uses the wrong definition of your concept and then argues against that different definition to claim that your concept is incorrect?
A. Yes. It's a mischaracterization, yes.
Q. Now, Dr. Padian testified on Friday that the concept of irreducible complexity applies above the molecular level, is that correct?
A. No, that is incorrect. In Darwin's Black Box I was at pains to say that the concept of irreducible complexity applies only to systems where we can enumerate the parts, where we can see all the parts and how they work, and I said that in biology therefore that necessarily means systems smaller than a cell, systems whose active molecular components we can elucidate.
When you go beyond a cell, then you're necessarily talking about a system, an organ or animal or any such thing, that is so complex we don't really know what we're dealing with, and so it remains a black box, and so the term irreducible complexity is confined to molecular examples.
Q. Well, I want to read to you several sections, passages from Pandas that Dr. Padian referred to as claiming that this is the concept of irreducible complexity, and I'd like your comment on each one of those as I go through. The first one, "Multifunctional adaptations where a single structure or trait achieves two or more functions at once is taken as evidence by the proponents of intelligent design of their theory," and the reference is page 72 of Pandas.
A. Well, if -- I'm sorry, what is the question then?
Q. The question is, is that a definition or is that within your concept of irreducible complexity?
A. No, that's not the way I define the term, and I'm not quite sure what he has in mind.
Q. And the second example is, "Proponents of intelligent design maintain that only a consummate engineer could anticipate so effectively the total engineering requirements of an organism like the giraffe." That's a citation from page 71. Is that a reference to the concept of irreducible complexity?
A. No, it isn't. Again, irreducible complexity focuses on the cell and systems smaller, because we have to elucidate all the parts, and you have to keep in mind that the parts of a biological system are molecular parts, even though most people commonly think of large organisms. Let me just say that, you know, that you should keep in mind that Darwinism has other problems beyond irreducible complexity. So Pandas might have been pointing to those.
Q. Two more such examples. The third one, two more of out of four, this is the third out of four, "But it has not been demonstrated that mutations are able to produce the highly coordinated parts of novel structures needed again and again by macroevolution." And again, is that referring to the concept of irreducible complexity?
A. Well, again unless he's referring to the molecular level, then no, that is not correct. It turned out that molecular changes, small changes in DN A can actually cause large changes in an organ. You might lose the finger or get a duplicate of a finger or some such thing, so you have to apply the concept of irreducible complexity to the molecular revel.
Q. And the last example, "Design theory suggest that various forms of life began with their distinctive features already intact, fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings," that's a reference to page 25 of Pandas. Is that a reference to the concept of irreducible complexity?
A. No, it is not. Again one more time, the concept of irreducible complexity applies to the molecular level simply because in biology the molecular level is where changes are taking place. There are active components. That's where the rubber meets the road in biology. So one has to restrict one's self to that level.
Q. Is that the level where we can identify the components of the systems?
A. Yes, that's the critical thing. We have to see how things are working so we can realize what's going on and decide whether or not an explanation is plausible.
Q. So it would be fair to say those four examples I read to you may illustrate or highlight other difficulties with Darwin's theory, but they're not specifically addressed in the concept of irreducible complexity?
A. Yes, that's right. Just because irreducible complexity is a problem, that doesn't mean that it's the only problem.
Q. Now, again can you give us an example of an irreducibly complex biochemical system?
A. Yes, an excellent example is again the bacterial flagellum, which uses a large number of parts in order to function, and again if you remove the components, if you remove the propeller, if you remove the hook region, if you remove the drive shaft or any multiple parts of the flagellum, it does not work. It's ceases to function as a propulsive device.
Q. Now, Professor Miller has testified that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex. Do you agree with him?
A. No, I don't.
Q. I'd like for you to go through and explain your objections to his claim.
A. Okay. This is a slide from Professor Miller's presentation on the flagellum. Let me just first read through the slide completely and then I want to point to several mischaracterizations that are contained on the slide. He writes, "The observation that there are as yet no detailed evolutionary explanations for certain structures in the cell, while correct, is not a strong argument for special creation, 'design.' As Michael Behe has made clear, the biochemical argument from design depends upon a much bolder claim, namely that the evolution of complex biochemical structures cannot be explained even in principle."
This has three mischaracterizations I'd like to point out in turn. The first one is what many people considered to be an informal logical fallacy, and that is called poisoning the well. It is given the reader a, leading the reader to suspect the other person's argument. It's kind of a version of an ad hominem argument. When he uses the term special creation and quotation in design, that looks to me like he's indicating to the reader that the people who make these arguments are trying to mislead you into thinking that this is design, but it's really special creation.
What's more, again the word creation has very negative overtones and is used as a pejorative in many academic and scientific circles. Furthermore, the phrase special creation occurs nowhere in Darwin's Black Box. I never used the phrase special creation in any of my writings except perhaps to say that intelligent design does not require this. And so again I think it is a mischaracterization and it appears to me an attempt to kind of prejudice the reader against this, against my argument.
The second point is this. The second mischaracterization is this. He says, "The observation that there are as yet no detailed evolutionary explanations for certain structures in the cell, while correct, is not a strong argument for special creation that is 'design.'" Here Professor Miller is doing something more understandable. He's essentially is viewing my theory through the lens of his own theory. So all he sees is essentially how it conflicts with his own theory and thinks that that's all there is to it.
But as I have explained throughout the day today, if we could go to the next slide, that an inability to explain something is not the argument for design. The argument for design is when we perceive the purposeful arrangement of parts, the purposeful arrangement of parts such as we see in the flagellum, such as we see the molecular machinery such as described in that special issue of Cell and so on.
We can go to the next slide, this is a copy of the first slide of Professor Miller's, the third mischaracterization is this. He says, "As Michael Behe has made clear, the biochemical argument from design depends upon a much bolder claim, namely that the evolution of complex biochemical structures cannot be explained even in principle." This is a mischaracterization. It's essentially absolutizing my argument. It's making overstating my argument in order to make it seem brittle, to make it more easily argued against.
Q. Have you addressed such a claim in Darwin'S Black Box?
A. Yes, if you read Darwin's Black Box you see that I say the following, "Even if a system is irreducibly complex and could not have been produced directly, however one cannot definitely rule out the possibility of an indirect circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously."
So here I was arguing well, there's a big problem for Darwinian theory. These things can't be produced directly, but nonetheless you can't rule out an indirect route, but nonetheless building a structure by changing its mechanism and changing its components multiple times is very implausible and the likelihood of such a thing, the more complex it gets, the less likely it appears. So the point is that I was careful in my book to qualify my argument at numerous points, and Professor Miller ignores those qualifications.
Q. Do these qualification also demonstrate the tentative nature in which you hold your theories?
A. Yes, that's right. I always -- well, I try to state it in what I thought was a reasonable way and in a tentative way as well.
Q. I believe we have a couple of more slides from Dr. Miller that you --
A. Yes, this is essentially a continuation. These will be slides number 2 and 3 from his slides on the flagellum. This is just a continuation of his overstated arguments. He says, "The reason that Darwinian evolution can't do this is because the flagellum is irreducibly complex," and he quotes my definition of irreducible complexity from Darwin's Black Box, and continue on the next slide.
And he states that, "That claim is the basis of the biochemical argument for design." But again that is not the basis for the biochemical argument for design. The basis for the biochemical argument for design is the purposeful arrangement of parts. Irreducible complexity shows the difficulties for Darwinian processes in trying to explain these things.
Q. Now, Dr. Miller claims that natural selection can explain the flagellum. Do you agree with that claim?
A. I'm sorry, can you restate that?
Q. Dr. Miller claims that natural selection can explain the bacterial flagellum. Do you agree with that claim?
A. No, I disagree, and we go on to the next slide, which is another one of Professor Miller's slides from his presentation on the bacterial flagellum, and he tried to explain molecular machines using kind of simple concepts to try and make it more understandable to a broad audience. So for example on the right-hand side which he labels "Evolution," he has little colored hexagons, which are exist, which are separated, and then he has the hexagons forming little groups and arrows pointing between the hexagons and the groups of hexagons, and finally there is kind of a large aggregation of hexagons.
On this, which he labels "Design," he has the colored hexagons separate and arrows pointing to a larger aggregation of hexagons. Now, I'm sure Professor Miller was trying to get across a concept which is difficult, but in my viewing and my understanding and presenting it this way, this overlooks enormous problems that actual molecules would encounter in the cell.
Q. Have you addressed these claims in other writings that you have done?
A. Yes. Professor Miller has presented exactly the same argument in several other settings, and I have addressed it several times, most recently in my chapter in Debating Design, and if you go to the next slide --
Q. Is this a figure from that book, Debating Design?
A. Yes, this is Figure 2 from that chapter. And the slide is entitled "An irreducibly complex molecular machine, can it arise from individual functional precursors." I used little colored squares instead of hexagons, but nonetheless the concept is kind of the same. The colored squares are supposed to represent individual proteins which perhaps existed in the cell already, there is six different ones, and the complex molecular machine now is supposed to be an aggregate of all six proteins with a new function that the system has that the individual parts did not have. Unfortunately while this illustrates, you know, something, it leaves out many concepts which are critical to evaluating the likelihood of such a thing. May I continue?
Q. Yes, go ahead.
A. For example, proteins, the components of molecular machines are not little colored squares. They are not little colored hexagons. They are very complex entities which we will see in a second. Additionally, notice this red square. The red square with the little arrow places it against the green square and the yellow and the blue. Why is it there? Why didn't it go down there? Why is it sticking to B and C and D? Why doesn't it float away?
None of those questions are answered, this is an oversimplified way to look at a very complex problem. For example, let me just make one more comment. Notice that in machines in our common experience, if you put a part in a place different from where it usually is, that often times breaks the machine. If in an outboard motor you took the propeller and you put it on top instead of down by the rotor, then the machine would not function. And it's the exact same way for molecular machines.
Q. Have you prepared some slides to demonstrate some of the more complexity of these parts?
A. Yes, I'm afraid we're going to have to go a little bit into the complexity of these molecular systems.
THE COURT: Do you want to break here, Mr. Muise?
MR. MUISE: That would be wonderful, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Why don't we do that, let's take a 20-minute break here, and we'll return and we'll pick up with those slides at the end of the recess. We'll be in recess.
(Recess taken at 2:48 p.m. Proceedings resumed at 3:13 p.m.)


Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 10 (October 17), PM Session, Part 2


THE COURT: Be seated, please. You can pick it up where you left off, Mr. Muise.
CONTINUED DIRECT BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Behe, before we broke we were talking about how proteins aren't simply colored squares or hexagons, that they are far more complex than that, including what makes them stick together in any particular order, and I want to return back to that. We put up a slide which has some indication I believe of proteins, and I'd like you to explain what you meant, that they're more complex than just these colored hexagons.
A. Yes, sure. Let me preface my explanation by saying this, that in talking about these matters there's kind of, an intelligent design proponent and a Darwinian theorist who have different goals.
A Darwinian wants to persuade his audience that evolution isn't all that difficult, it's doable, and so will not always attend to all the complexity of a system, whereas in order to show the difficulties for undirected unintelligent processes, an intelligent design proponent has to show all of the very severe complexity of systems, and that's often times hard to do because people often times don't have the patience to attend to it, but I apologize in advance but I have to attend to some of the complexities here.
So on this slide there are three figures taken from a biochemistry textbook by Voet and Voet of the protein, of the same protein, a protein named hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein that binds oxygen and carries it from your lungs and dumps it off in peripheral tissues such as your fingers and so on. Now, this is a rendering of the structure of hemoglobin, and actually this rendering itself does not show the full complexity of hemoglobin. Let's focus --
Q. You're referring to Figure 8-63 on this slide?
A. Yes, that's correct. Let's focus on this yellow glob here. You'll notice a number of circles. They represent atoms in one of what are called the protein chains of hemoglobin, but the amino acids in that protein chain are actually different. So if it was actually rendered in more detail you would see a lot of different colors of atoms, indicating different groups and so on, and the identity of all these amino acids is also frequently very critical to the function of a protein.
Hemoglobin itself consists an aggregate of four proteins designated here by the blue and the green and the light blue colors, and it is the aggregate of the four protein chains, that is the active molecular machine in this cell that carries oxygen from your lungs to your tissues. Nonetheless, a drawing like this of such a complex system is often times bewildering to students, and so artists with the proper purpose of getting across some conceptual points to students will draw simplified renditions of the same figure.
For example, in the lower left here this is also supposed to be a rendition of the same protein hemoglobin. But in here the only atoms that are represented are things called the alpha carbons of each amino acid, and the artist has kind of shaded it to show the different directions in which the protein chain is heading. One can also to make a legitimate point to students simplify the drawing even further, and here's another rendering of hemoglobin in Voet and Voet.
Here each very, very complex protein chain is rendered as a simple square, and the O sub 2 represents the oxygen that each protein is supposed to be carrying. Now, all of these are legitimate renderings of the protein hemoglobin, but when we discuss these matters and we discuss difficulties with evolution and we discuss arguments for intelligent design, we have to keep in mind that this is the actual protein, this is the actual machine in the cell, and so these are the things that we have to deal with.
Q. Again that last figure you're referring to is 8-63?
A. That's right, uh-huh.
Q. And the two previous, the one just previous to that was Figure 10-37 and the one prior to that 10-13?
A. That's correct. Now, let's consider a further point. We have this yellow conglomeration of circles representing the atoms of the protein chain, with this blue one and this green one and this light blue one. Why do they stick together? Why don't they just float away? How come they are in the arrangement they are? Why don't we have the yellow one over here? The green one down here?
Well, it turns out that proteins arrange themselves. Molecular machines are actually much more sophisticated than the machines of our common experience, because in our common experience with things like say outboard motors, an intelligent agent assembles the parts of those machines. But in the cell the molecular machines have to assemble themselves. How do they do that? They do it by having surfaces which are both geometrically and chemically complementary to the proteins to which they're supposed to bind, and I think --
Q. Do you have a slide to demonstrate that for us?
A. Yes, I do. I think it's the next one. Okay, remember here's another little cartoon version which gets rid of some complexity of the system in order to make an important point to students. This is also a figure taken from the biochemistry textbook Voet and Voet. This is meant to convey why two molecules, why two proteins bind to each other specifically in the cell. This one up here is supposed to represent one protein. The second one is supposed to be this greenish area, and it's supposed to have a depression in it in which the yellowish protein binds to and sticks.
Now, let me point out a couple of things. You'll notice that the shapes of the proteins are matched to each other. They're geometrically complementary, kind of like a hand in a glove. But not only are they geometrically complementary, they're also chemically complementary. You see these little circles and NH and this thing here? Well, these are chemical groups on the surface of the two binding proteins, and they attract each other. Certain groups attach other groups.
I think the easiest to understand is the one right here, there's a red circle marked with a minus sign in it. That indicates an amino side chain of a protein that has a negative charge. When it binds to the larger one, notice that on the surface of the larger protein there's this blue circle with a plus sign in it. That is taken, that is meant to indicate an amino acid side chain with a positive charge. Negative and positive charges attract. So therefore these guys stick together.
If this were a negative charge these two proteins would not stick together. They would float away from each other. It's not sufficient to have just one group in the protein be complementary to another group in a protein. Usually proteins have multiple amino acids that stick together and cause them to bind to each other. For example, look up here, this little circle labeled H. H is supposed to stand for something called hydrophobic, which essentially means oily. It doesn't like to be in contact with water.
It lines up with another H on the green protein so that the two oily groups can stick together and avoid water. So it's kind of like oil, you know, oil and water, they don't mix. If they're in this configuration the two oily groups can stick together and be away from water, and there are other groups, too, which I won't go into which exhibit things call hydrogen bonding which also help the proteins stick together.
So in molecular machines, in aggregates of proteins, all of the proteins which are sticking together have to have all these complementary surfaces in order for them to bind their correct partners. If they do not have the complementary surface, they don't bind and the molecular machine does not form. Now, interestingly, remember Darwin's theory says that evolution has to proceed in small steps, tiny steps.
Well, one way something like this might form is by, you have to have mutations that might produce each of these interactions at a time. For example, I think there's a quotation from an article in Nature which kind of make this point, and I'll explain it after I quote it, it's from an article by a man named John Maynard Smith, who is a very prominent evolutionary biologist who died about a year ago I believe, and he wrote in a paper called Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, which was published in Nature in 1970, "It follows that if evolution by natural selection is to occur, functional proteins must form a continuous network which can be traversed by unit mutational steps without passing through nonfunctional intermediates," and by unit mutational steps, we mean each of those pluses, each of those H's, each of those OH's and so on that I showed you in that little cartoon drawing on the previous slide.
If for example a mutation came along that changed a positive into a negative charge and disallowed an interaction that needed to occur, that would be a detrimental one. John Maynard Smith is saying that we need to proceed, you know, one step at a time. So the point is that those little colored squares are enormously complex in themselves, and further the ability to get them to bind specifically to their correct partners also requires much more additional information. It is not a single step phenomenon. You have to have the surfaces of two proteins to match.
Q.
A difficulty of getting two changes at once?
A. Yes, that's exactly right. If you can do this one tiny, tiny step at a time, then Darwinian evolution can work. If you need to make several changes at once, two, three, four, there were multiple interactions that were required for those two proteins to bind. If you need multiple interactions, the plausibility of Darwinian evolution rapidly, rapidly diminishes.
Q. And have other scientists made similar observations?
A. Yes. On the next slide an evolutionary biologist by the name of Allen Orr, who's at the University of Rochester, published an article in a journal called Biology entitled A Minimum on the Number of Steps Taken in Adaptive Walks in which he makes this similar point. He says, "Given realistically low mutation rates, double mutants will be so rare that adaptation is essentially constrained to surveying and substituting one mutational step neighbors. Thus, if a double mutant sequence is favorable, but all single amino acid mutants are deleterious, adaptation will generally not proceed," and translating that into more colloquial English it means that you have to change again those groups one at a time, and if you need to change two at a time in order to get a favorable interaction, then you are running into a big roadblock for Darwinian processes.
Q. Now, have you done any writing or research that emphasizes this particular point?
A. Yes. On the next slide I believe is a copy of an article that I published with David Smoke which was published last year in the journal Protein Science, which is entitled Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features that Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues, and in this paper we were addressing exactly that problem. What happens if you need to change a couple of amino acids before you get a selective effect?
And the gist of the conclusion is if you need to change two at once or three at once, then again the expectation that that will happen at a probability becomes much smaller, the length of time one would have to wait for such a mutation to show up is much longer, the population size of a species would have to be much, much longer to have an expectation of such a mutation occurring.
Q. And this particular article, the one you wrote with David Smoke, you testified to previously?
A. Yes, that's the same one.
Q. I believe we have a diagram to further make this point?
A. Yes. Here again is a little simplified cartoon version of how proteins might interact, simply to point out the problem that is not apparent in the earlier drawings. Now I've made the shapes of those colored proteins, I've altered the shapes. Now the A is a circle and what's that, a C, the C is a rectangle, and the other proteins have other shapes. How do we get those to bind into a conglomerate molecular machine?
In order to get them to bind to each other we have to alter their surfaces to be geometrically and chemically complementary, and that is a large and long, tall evolutionary order. As a matter of fact, it's so tall that one can reasonably conclude that something like this would not be expected to occur. So the point I want to make here is that even if one was to have parts in the cell which if they could develop binding sites to bind to each other, and if that binding together would produce a new selectable property, that still does not help in Darwinian processes, because you still have the problem of adjusting many, many different things before you get the final result.
Q. And this diagram is a figure from the chapter that you wrote in Debating Design, is that correct?
A. Yes. That's Figure 2.
Q. And that's the chapter that you've already testified to previously?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. And I believe we have a slide with the figure legend?
A. Yes, that's right. I make this point exactly in my article in that book Debating Design. Let's just look at the bold and underlined text. It's says, "Thus, the problem of irreducibility remains even if the separate parts originally had individual functions." So even if the parts can do something on their own, that does not explain how one can get a multipart molecular machine in a cell.
Q. I just want to point out that that figure legend in the figure is from pages 352 to 370 in your chapter?
A. No, that's the whole chapter. The figure legend is on one of those pages.
Q. As well as that previous diagram?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Dr. Behe, if I understand you correctly, so even if there are similar separate parts are in the cell, that doesn't explain irreducible complexity?
A. That's correct.
Q. Dr. Miller testified about something called the Type 3 secretory system, the TTSS, and he said that that showed that the flagellum was not irreducibly complex, do you agree with that assessment?
A. No, I disagree. That's a mischaracterization.
Q. Why do you disagree?
A. Well, I think we have some slides from Professor Miller's presentation, and he said that, let us start with the bacteria flagellum, and he has a drawing of the flagellum from a recent paper. Let me just make another similar point. You see these little three, four-letter abbreviations all over here? Each one of those is of the complexity of a hemoglobin molecule that I showed on an earlier slide. Each one of those has all the sophistication, all the needs to have very complex features to bind together that hemoglobin had.
Can you press the slide again to advance the figure on this same thing of Professor Miller's? Professor Miller says that well, okay, you start with the bacterial flagellum, and if you remove the pieces, then he says, press again, please, he says, "That leaves just ten," and he says, his characterization, his mischaracterization of my argument is that what's left behind should be non-functional.
And if we go to the next slide of Professor Miller's, he says, "But it's not. Those ten parts are fully functional as a protein secretion system," but again I tried to be very careful in my book to say that we are focusing on the function of the system, of the bacterial flagellum, and while a subset of the flagellum might be able to be used as something else, if you take away those parts it does not act as a rotary motor. So it is irreducibly complex as I tried to carefully explain. I'm sorry.
Q. So is it fair to say that Dr. Miller makes a misrepresentation of what your claim is by his representation?
A. This is a mischaracterization, yes, that's correct, and I think I pointed that out on the next slide. I pointed this out, as I said earlier we've debated this back and forth for a while. I pointed it out recently in my book chapter. I write, "Miller asserted that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex because some proteins of the flagellum could be missing, and the remainder could still transport proteins perhaps independently.
"Again he was equivocating, switching the focus from the function of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine to the ability of a subset of the system to transport proteins across a membrane. However, taking away the parts of flagellum certainly destroys the ability of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine as I have argued. "Thus, contra Miller, the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex."
Q. Dr. Behe, even if that is true, doesn't the Type 3 secretory system help us to explain the flagellum, the development of the flagellum?
A. No, it does not help in the least. And that may be surprising to some people, so let me take a second to explain. Most people when they see an argument such as Professor Miller presents will naturally assume that well, perhaps this part, this system that had fewer parts, the Type 3 secretory system, maybe that was a stepping stone, maybe that was an intermediate on the way to the more complex bacterial flagellum.
But in fact a number of scientists have said that's not true, and perhaps we could see the next slide. Yes, thank you. For example, in a paper published by Nguyen, et al. five years ago they investigated the Type 3 protein secretion system, and they said the following, "We suggest that the flagellar apparatus was the evolutionary precursor of Type 3 protein secretion systems."
In other words, they're saying that from their investigation it looked like the more complex type or more complex flagellum came first, and then the system with fewer parts, the Type 3 secretory system came second and perhaps was derived from that. Exactly what the opposite of what one might first expect.
Q. Have scientists reached different conclusions?
A. Yes, and it turns out that other groups have reached different conclusions from those of Nguyen at all. For example, in a paper published by Gophna, et al. recently in 2003 in the journal Gene they write, "The fact that several of the Type 3 secretory system proteins are closely related to flagellar export protein has led to the suggestion that the TTSS has evolved from flagella. Here we reconstruct the evolutionary history of four conserved Type 3 secretion proteins and their phylogenetic relationships with flagellar paralog." And then they say, "The suggestion that Type 3 secretory system genes have evolved from genes and coding flagellar proteins is effectively refuted." In other words. They say that the conclusion of the first group was incorrect. Instead they suggest that the Type 3 secretory system and the flagellum developed independently of each other, perhaps from the same precursor gene. And I think on the --
Q. We have another study on this issue, correct?
A. Yes. I think that's right. In the year a man named Milton Sayer, who was the one of the authors, the senior author actually on the study by Nguyen, et al. that I referred to a couple of slides ago, wrote an article in a journal called Transient Microbiology called Evolution of Bacterial Type 3 Protein Secretion Systems, he says the following, "It is often not possible to prove directionality of an evolutionary process. At present, too little information is available to distinguish between these possibilities with certainty. As is often true in evaluating evolutionary arguments, the investigator must rely on logical deduction and intuition.
"According to my own intuition and the arguments discussed above, I prefer pathway for the Type 3 system deriving from the flagellum. What's your opinion?" So I think you can see from this the very tentative nature of the results regarding the Type 3 secretory system and the flagellum that in fact what is going on is very much up in the air.
Q. And again I believe we have another result from --
A. Yes. Let me apologize that again this is a complex subject, and so you really have to delve into it to come to a firm conclusion. This is a quotation from a review article by a man named Robert Macnab who was a professor of biology at Yale University who died in the year 2003, and this article was actually published posthumously. It's entitled Type 3 Flagellar Protein Export and Flagellar Assembly. It was published in journal Biochemica Biophysica Acta, and I underlined words that emphasized the tentativeness and the speculative nature of discussions on this topic.
Robert Macnab wrote, "It has been suggested that the Type 3 virulence factor secretion system evolved from the Type 3 flagellar protein export system since flagella are far more ancient, existing in very diverse genre than the organisms which are targets for Type 3 virulence systems. However, it is possible that the original targets were other bacteria. Also, the possibility of lateral gene transfer cannot be ruled out.
"Finally, one could argue that evolution from a less complex structure, the needle complex, to a more complex one, the flagellum, is more probable than the other way around," and he continues I think on the next slide, and I think I'll pass over much of this quotation and just go to the last line of his article, and he says, "As the above discussion indicates, there is much about the evolution of Type 3 systems that remains mysterious."
So let me point out that in the past couple of years we've had investigators suggest that in fact the flagellum came first and the Type 3 secretory system came after it. We've had other investigators suggest that the Type 3 secretory system came first and the flagellum came after it. We've had other investigators suggest that the Type 3 secretory system and the flagellum arose independently, perhaps from similar genes, so --
Q. Dr. Behe, so what do these widely different opinions mean?
A. Well, maybe we could go to the next slide. To me it means this. We see the little cartoon drawing of the flagellum here, and this is a cartoon drawing of the Type 3 secretory system.
Q. I'm sorry, this is one of Dr. Miller's slides?
A. I'm sorry, yes. This is Dr. Miller's slide. Science knows a lot of information about the structure of the Type 3 secretory system, a lot of information about the structure and function of the flagellum. It knows the sequences of proteins of the flagellum. It knows the sequences of the proteins of the Type secretory system. It sees many similarities between them, both in the amino acid sequence and function, and it still can't tell how one arose or whether one arose first, the other second, or whether they arose independently.
So this to me drives home the point that such information simply does not come out of Darwinian theory. Much like our discussion of Haeckel's embryos earlier in the day, Darwinian theory can live with any result that experimental science comes up with on this question and then goes back and tries to rationalize the results afterwards post hoc, and so to a person like myself this exemplifies the fact in fact these results have nothing to do with Darwinian theory. They are no support at all for the claim that natural selection could have produced them. Quite the contrary.
Q. I just need to backtrack for one moment. If I may approach the witness, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
Q. Dr. Behe, I handed you what's been marked as Defendant's Exhibit, 238 correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that the study from Nguyen that you referenced in your testimony on the section of the Type 3 secretory systems?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. It was inadvertently left out of your book, but I just wanted to make sure you identified it as an exhibit. You can just keep that with you and I'll retrieve it later.
A. Thank you.
Q. I want to see if I can get you correct, Dr. Behe. It's your opinion that this also shows that even knowledge of the structure and sequences of two systems doesn't necessarily give a clue as to how these systems might have arisen, is that true?
A. That's exactly right.
Q. And could you explain that further? And I believe we have some additional slides for that.
A. Yes, I think some text with actually Professor Padian wrote as part of his expert report illustrates this problem, and I'd like to quote you several sections from that report. On the next slide Professor Padian said the following. He said that, "Darwin's main concern, however, was with the mechanism of natural selection, which cannot be observed directly in the fossil record."
So to me this means you cannot see natural selection. You see fossils, and how you classify those fossils and what explanations you come up with them is not based directly on the evidence. Rather, it's provided by your theory. And I think we have a further quote from Professor Padian. He said the following, and this is a long quote, so --
Q. If you could read it a little bit slower for our court reporter when you are reading these quotes, please? Thank you.
A. Okay. "Molecular biology has produced tremendously powerful tools to compare the DNA sequence of all manner of living organisms, and a few extinct ones, and so help to derive their evolutionary relationships. However, molecular systematics can say nothing about the relationship or role of fossil organisms to each other or to living lineages," and he gives an example.
"For example, several recent molecular analyses agree that whales and hippos are each other's closest relatives. From this conclusion some authors have suggested that because both kinds of animals spend time in the water, their common ancestors would have been aquatic. Only the fossil record could show that this inference is incorrect. Therefore, hippos and whales, even if they are each other's closest relatives among living animals, did not have a common ancestor that lived in the water, but that was terrestrial. Only paleontological research and materials could demonstrate this."
And let me make a point about this. Professor Padian is saying that molecular studies of DN A sequence of whales and hippos suggested or led to the suggestion that both animals had aquatic ancestors. But they didn't. They had terrestrial ancestors. That means that the molecular information is compatible with either result, with the ancestors being aquatic or the ancestors being terrestrial.
That means that the molecular information can't decide what the ancestors were and therefore it can't tell what the selective pressure was or other factors of what might have caused an ancestor of those organisms to produce what we see in the modern world. So that means that does not speak to Darwin's claim that natural selection drove evolution, okay? Well, molecular data can't decide the question.
But nonetheless, Professor Padian told us that paleontology did. Paleontology discovered what seemed to be ancestor of both hippos and whales, and saw that they are terrestrial organisms. So can paleontology tell us whether it was natural selection that drove the evolution of these organisms? Well, no. On the previous slide he said explicitly natural selection is not shown directly in the fossil record.
That means that there is nothing that can show from the fossil record or from molecular data that current organisms derive by a process of natural selection from organisms in the past or how such a thing might have happened. That means that in fact the inference that such a thing did is simply a theoretical construct in which we try to fit that data into our current theory. The current theory either predicts it, does not predict it, and may be consistent with such evidence, but a lot of theories might be consistent with the same evidence.
And I think that, bring it back to the flagellum, I think that's illustrated in the flagellum and Type 3 secretory system 2. We know all the molecular data, we know lots of structural and functional studies, and yet we still can't tell how natural selection could have produced them.
Q. So are you saying then at best the evidence, and you were talking about sequence comparisons and in particular the fossil record, at best they may be consistent with natural selection but they also may be consistent with any number of mechanisms that might be derived?
A. That's exactly right. Perhaps intelligent design, perhaps complexity theory, perhaps something else. But consistent does not, is not the same thing as evidence for a theory.
Q. And the next slide we have is another quote from Dr. Padian that I'd like you to comment about.
A. I think this also throws light on this topic. Professor Padian said in his expert statement, he said, "Darwin was not talking about how major new adaptive change took place. He was talking about how minor variations could be selected. He was really talking about the baby steps of evolution. He made only the most passing references to how new major adaptive types might emerge," and I could comment that no one disputes or certainly no one I'm aware of disputes that Darwinian processes, Darwinian mechanism, can explain some things in life. And certainly nobody disputes that baby steps could be explained by random mutation and natural selection. It is exactly the new major adaptive types and new molecular systems for myself as a biochemist that is the focus of dispute.
Q. So again though when you say nobody refutes, is that saying that intelligent design does not refute this notion of baby steps that Dr. Padian is referring to?
A. That's right. It is very happy to say that Darwinian processes are consistent with those.
Q. Here I believe is a continuation of that particular statement from his report.
A. Yes, this is Professor Padian continued, referring to Darwin, he said, "Though he was convinced that would happen in the course of time," and let me just comment on that. Well, that's interesting that he was convinced that would happen, but another way of saying that is that Darwin assumed that these small changes would add up to larger changes, or to major new adaptive features, but that is exactly the point of contention. And for a point of contention an assumption is not evidence, let alone proof. So I see this as very pertinent to the question of things like the flagellum Type 3 secretory system and other things as well.
Q. So is it clear, I guess in summarizing you think that the flagellum is in fact irreducibly complex, correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Does that affect necessarily the positive argument for intelligent design?
A. Well, yes. Let's perhaps we can look at another slide here that I just wrote out some text to make this point clear. It's this. For the past number of, past hour or so we've been talking about the argument against Darwinian processes, but I want to re-emphasize to say that it is important to keep in mind that the positive inductive argument for design is in the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Irreducible complexity, on the other hand, is an argument to show that Darwinism, the presumptive alternative to design, is an unlikely explanation. However, one also has to be careful to remember that Darwinism isn't positively demonstrated by attacks on the concept of irreducible complexity. Darwinism can only be positively supported by convincing demonstrations that it is capable of building the machinery of the degree of complexity found in life. In the absence of such convincing demonstration it is rationally justified to think that design is correct.
Q. So an argument against irreducible complexity is not necessarily an argument against design?
A. An argument against irreducibly complexity is not an argument against design, and more importantly it's not an argument in favor of Darwinian evolution.
Q. Have other scientists agreed that Darwinian theory has not yet explained complex biochemical systems?
A. Yes. I recall there on that slide that I say Darwinism can only be positively supported by convincing demonstrations, and almost everybody agrees that such demonstrations have not yet been forthcoming. For example, on the next slide these are quotations taken from a number of reviews of my book Darwin's Black Box, most of these are by scientists. The first one James Shreeve, a science writer, but all of them making the point that we do not yet have Darwinian explanations for such complex structures.
For example, James Shreeve, the science writer, writing the New York Times said, "Mr. Behe may be right that given our current state of knowledge, good old Darwinian evolution cannot explain the origin of blood clotting or cellular transport," and James Shapiro, who is a professor of microbiology at the University of Chicago, wrote in a review that, "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
Jerry Coyne, who's a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago wrote in a review of the book in the journal Nature, "There is no doubt that the pathways described by Behe are dauntingly complex, and their evolution will be hard to unravel. We may forever be unable to envisage the first protopathways."
And Andrew Pomiankowski, who is an evolutionary biologist I believe at the University College London, wrote in a review in New Scientist, "Pick up any biochemistry textbook and you will find perhaps two or three references to evolution. Turn to one of these and you will be lucky to find anything better than 'evolution selects the fittest molecules for their biological function.'"
So this is a sampling of writings by scientists agreeing with the point that no, we do not have these demonstrations yet that Darwinian processes can produce complex biological systems.
Q. And these were scientists, and in one case a science writer, who are commenting on your particular book, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And have scientists in other contexts made similar claims?
A. Yes, another good comment on this was by Franklin Harold, who I mentioned before, he's an emeritus professor of biochemistry at Colorado State University, and in his book The Way of the Cell published by Oxford University Press in 2001 he kind of echos James Shapiro. He says, "We must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations," and perhaps I might add that besides these people one can add also complexity theorists, who also like Stuart Kauffman who also deny that such things have been explained in Darwinian theory.
Q. Sir, have some scientists argued that there is experimental evidence that complex biochemical systems can arise by Darwinian processes?
A. Yes, there have been a total of two such arguments which I regard to be very important, because these were claims that there had been experimental demonstrations, not just speculations, not just stories, but experimental demonstrations that either irreducible complexity was incorrect or that complex systems could be built by Darwinian processes.
Q. And one of those claims was raised by Dr. Miller, is that correct?
A. That's correct. I think on the next slide we see that he wrote in his book Finding Darwin's God ,which was published in 1998, he said, " A true acid test used the tools of molecular genetics to wipe out an existing multipart system and then see if evolution can come to the rescue with a system to replace it."
So here he was making the point well, here one test of this claim of irreducible complexity and the ability of Darwinian processes to make complex systems, well, is to find a complex system in a cell, destroy it, and then see if random mutation and natural selection can come back and replace it. And I have to say I agree that's an excellent test of that claim. However, I disagree with Professor Miller's further comments and conclusions.
Q. What was the particular system that he was looking at?
A. Well, he was referring to what is shown in a little cartoon version on the next slide. This is a figure again taken from that biochemistry textbook by Voet and Voet discussing a system called the lac operon. Now, an operon is a little segment of DN A in a bacteria which codes for a couple of genes, and genes code for proteins, and the proteins usually have related functions or function as a group, and one of them is called the lac operon which is used to, the proteins of which are necessary for the bacterium Escherichia coli to metabolize a sugar called lactose, which is a milk sugar.
And it consists of a number of parts. No, let's go back one slide, please, I'm sorry. All these little squares here, this little green thing represents a very complex protein called a repressor, which will bind to the DNA, and when it binds there it stops another protein called an RN A prelimerase from binding to the same spot, and therefore the information carried by these genes is not expressed, and that's important because the sugar lactose is usually not present in the bacteria's environment, and making proteins that metabolize lactose in the absence of that sugar would be wasting energy.
So the bacterium wants to keep that turned off until lactose is around. So the repressor turns off the operon, and that means that the genes for these three proteins here are not turned on, not expressed. This first one, which is labeled Z, codes, is the gene for a protein called a beta galactosidase, okay? That's actually the enzyme which chops up lactose. We don't have to go into the detail of how that happens.
This little thing marked Y codes for something called a permease. Now, a permease it turns out is a protein who is job it is to allow the lactose to enter the bacterial cell. The bacterial cell is surrounded by a membrane which generally acts as a barrier to largish molecules, and there's this specialized protein, this specialized machine called a permease which, when lactose is around, grabs the lactose from outside the cell, turns it around, and allows it to enter to the inside of the cell.
In the absence of that permease the lactose might be present in abundance in the bacteria's environment, but it can't get inside the cell. And so the bacterium can't use it. One other detail of this before I go on is that this repressor kind of sticks to the beginning of the gene and turns it off, but when lactose is present in the environment a small molecule which is a derivative of lactose can bind to the repressor, and that, and again start thinking in terms of the complex shape and structure of hemoglobin, when that happens it interacts in specific ways in order and causes the shape of the repressor to change, and that changed shape makes it now no longer geometrically and chemically complementary to the site that it bound on the lac operon, and it falls off. So in the presence of the inducer the repressor falls off, this prelimerase can come along and those proteins get made in the cell.
Q. Would you like the next slide?
A. Yes, thank you. Now I'm going to simplify, after that discussion I'm going to try to simplify nonetheless. So let me just list some parts of the lac operon. There's the galactosidase, the repressor, the permease, all three of which are proteins, and something that I've written IPTG/allolactose. That is the small molecule which can bind to the repressor and cause to it fall off of the operon, allolactose is something, is a metabolite of lactose itself, and that's the substance which usually binds to the repressor in the cell, but there's also an artificial chemical called IPTG, which stands for isopropyl thiogalactoside, which is sold by chemical supply companies, which mimics the action of the allolactose, and when a scientist comes and dumps some IPTG into the beaker, that binds to the repressor and causes those genes to be expressed, to be turned on.
Okay, those are the parts of the lac operon. Now, for purposes of further illustration let me just mention that in E. coli there are thousands of genes, and many of them are grouped into operons. Unbeknownst to the experimenter, whose name is Barry Hall, there also existed in the E. coli another operon called the EBG operon, which he called it that because it stands for evolved beta galactosidase. He thought this protein evolved in response to the selective pressure that he put on it, and it turns out that that operon also codes for a galactosidase, another galactosidase and another repressor as well.
Q. So this was the system that Dr. Miller was talking about in --
A. Yes, I'm afraid this is the background for the system that he started to discuss in his book.
Q. Which he sees it as experimental evidence to refute the irreducible complexity claim?
A. Yes, that's right, and if you look on the next slide you'll see the part of his book where he discusses that. He says of the system, he says, "Think for a moment. If we were to happen upon the interlocking biochemical complexity of the re-evolved lactose system, wouldn't we be impressed by the intelligence of its design. Lactose triggers a regulatory sequence that switches on the synthesis of an enzyme that then metabolizes lactose itself.
"The products of that successful lactose metabolism then activate the gene for the lac permease, which ensures a steady supply of lactose entering the cell. Irreducible complexity, what good would the permease be without the galactosidase? No good of course." And he continues that same discussion on the next slide, he continues, "By the very same logic applied by Michael Behe to other systems, therefore, we can conclude that this system had been designed, except we know that it was not designed. "We know it evolved, because we watched it happen right in the laboratory. No doubt about it, the evolution of biochemical systems, even complex multipart ones, is explicable in terms of evolution. Behe is wrong."
Q. Is Dr. Miller right?
A. No. Dr. Miller is wrong. Now, Professor Miller is always enthusiastic and he always writes and speaks with great excitement, but I say that when you examine his arguments closely, under close inspection they simply don't hold up and this is enormously exaggerated, and the results of researcher Barry Hall that he is describing here I would happily have included as an example of irreducible complexity in Darwin's Black Box.
So let me please try to explain why I say that. Reading Professor Miller's prose one would get, and I certainly did get when I first read it, the impression that this system was completely knocked out in that it completely came back under the experiments that Barry Hall conducted. But it turns out of this multipart system, only one part, the protein beta galactosidase, was knocked out by experimental method.
Everything else, the repressor, the permease, and we'll see later IPTG, and importantly as well other proteins which did very, very similar jobs in the cell, were left behind. And the worker Barry Hall himself was always very careful to say that he was only knocking out that one protein.
Q. The galactosidase?
A. Yes, that's correct. I think on the next slide he makes that point. This is a quotation from a paper by Professor Hall recalling his experiments that he did earlier on the lac operon. He says the following, "All of the other functions for lactose metabolism, including lactose permease and the pathways for metabolism of glucose and lactose, the products of lactose hydrolysis, remain intact. Thus, reacquisition of lactose utilization requires only the evolution of a new," and this should be a beta, "beta galactosidase function."
So let me point out that what he did in his laboratory was to take an E. coli bacterium and using molecular biological methods to knock out or destroy the gene for that one part of the loc operon, the beta galactosidase. He left the permease intact, he left the repressor intact, everything else was intact. He just had to get one more component of the system.
And what he saw was that he did get bacteria that were again able to use lactose. And when he did the experiments in the 1970's, that's all he saw. He saw he had bacteria that could grow when they were fed lactose. But years later after methods had developed and after he had the ability to do so, he asked himself what protein was it that took over the role of the beta galactosidase, and he named it EBG, evolved beta galactosidase.
But when he looked at it further he found it to be a very similar protein to the one that he had knocked out. Essentially it was almost a spare copy of the protein that had been destroyed. So this slide makes a couple of points. Let me just point to a couple. The EBG protein that took the place of the beta galactosidase is homologous to lac proteins. That's a technical term, that means they're very similar. Their protein structures, their sequences are pretty similar, and odds are good that they have the same sort of activity.
What's more, after further investigation Professor Hall showed that even the unmutated, even the EBG galactosidase before he did his experiment, the unmutated galactosidase could already hydrolyze, although it was inefficient. So again this was almost a spare copy of the protein, and I think on the next slide, I'll skip that last point on the next slide to drive home the point I want to show you what are the amino acid sequences of the area around what's called the active site of the protein, which is kind of the business end where the lactose binds and where the chemical groups reside which will cause it to be hydrolyzed into two component parts.
Notice this. Look at these sequence of letters. Now, I know that they don't mean much to most people in here, but notice the sequence of letters, these are the amino acid sequences, abbreviations for the amino acid sequence of various beta galactosidase enzymes found in E. coli and a related species. Notice here, let's start in here, there's an R here, HEHEMYEHW. Look up top, there's RHEHEMYEHW, the same thing on the lower one, too. They're active sites, their business ends are almost identical. Like I said, these are essentially spare copies of each other.
Q. So in fact it wasn't a new evolved element to this system. It was a spare part that was already existing?
A. Well, it was there and it did undergo small changes. But nobody, nobody denies that Darwinian evolution can make small changes in preexisting systems. Professor Miller was claiming that a whole new lactose utilizing system had been evolved in Barry Hall's laboratory, and that's, you know, that's very, very greatly exaggerated.
Q. Again do you have additional slides to emphasize the point?
A. Yes. This might be hard to explain, but Professor Hall says in one of his papers that, "The evidence indicates that either AS-92 and sys trip 977," these are the same of some amino acids, "are the only acceptable amino acids at those positions, or that all of the single based substitutions that might be on the pathway to other amino acid replacements at those sites, are so deleterious that they constitute a deep selective valley that have not been transversed in the two billion years since those proteins emerged from a common ancestor." Now, translated into --
Q. Yes, please into English.
A. -- more common language, that means that that very similar protein could only work if it became even more similar to the beta galactosidase that it replaced, and if you then also knock out that EBG galactosidase, no other protein in Professor hall's experience was able to substitute for the beta galactosidase. So the bottom line, the bottom line is that the only thing demonstrated was that you can get tiny changes in preexisting systems, tiny changes in preexisting systems, which of course everybody already had admitted.
Another interesting point, another interesting point is shown on that figure from Voet and Voet, the inducer, this little red dot, this little red dot actually stands for this chemical that binds to the repressor which changes its shape which causes it to fall off of the operon and allow the prelimerase to come in and transcribe that information. Well, it turns out that the EBG operon, this place in the DN A and E. coli that had that spare beta galactosidase, did not have a spare permease.
So the system was stuck, because it didn't have its own permease. When the repressor binds to this operon, the normal lac operon, if there weren't any lactose around then the repressor would be essentially stuck there indefinitely. And even if lactose were present outside the cell, it had no way to get inside the cell. So what Barry Hall did to allow his experiment to continue was that he added the inducer. He added that artificial chemical IPTG that he can buy from a chemical supply house, and he took some and sprinkled it in the beaker for the specific purpose of allowing the bacteria to survive so that it could take these small little steps to produce a new beta galactosidase.
Q. You have a slide to demonstrate that?
A. Yes. And Barry Hall was always very careful to explain exactly how these experiments were performed, and he brought it directly to the attention of readers when he described his system. For example he writes, "At this point it is important to discuss the use of IPTG in these studies. Unless otherwise indicated, IPTG is always included in media containing lactose," and that italics is Barry Hall's emphasis. He wanted to make sure his reader understood exactly what he was doing.
"The sole function of the IPTG is to induce synthesis of the lactose permease and thus to deliver lactose to the inside of the cell. Neither constitutive nor the inducible of all strains grew on lactose in the absence of IPTG." In other words, if this intelligent agent, Barry Hall, had not gone to the store and gotten some IPTG to help the bacteria survive, they would not have lived. This would not have occurred in the wild. This tells us virtually nothing about how Darwinian evolution could produce complex molecular systems.
Q. So again this system would not have worked in nature but for Barry Hall interjecting the IPTG to make this system work?
A. Yes. I should point out that Professor Miller does not mention this aspect of Barry Hall's experiments in his discussion, in his book Finding Darwin's God.
Q. Is that a significant oversight?
A. Well, I certainly would have included it.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, we're about to move into the blood clotting system, which is really complex.
THE COURT: Really? We've certainly absorbed a lot, haven't we?
MR. MUISE: We certainly have, Your Honor. This is Biology 2. It's a quarter past, and if we're going to go until 4:30, it's probably not worthwhile to start up on the blood clotting because it's fairly complex and heavy and a lot of it is going to be --
THE COURT: Well, we don't have an issue as to his availability through the day tomorrow I assume?
MR. MUISE: He's available, Your Honor, for as long as we need him.
THE COURT: Any objection if we --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: No. He started it.
THE COURT: I was just waiting to see what you'd say.
MR. MUISE: We've gone from Biology 101 to advanced biology. So this is where we get.
THE COURT: We will recess then for today, and we'll reconvene at 9:00 tomorrow and we will pick up with Mr. Muise's direct examination at that time. So have a pleasant good evening, and we'll see you tomorrow.
(Court was adjourned at 4:15 p.m.)


Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 11 (October 18), AM Session, Part 1

THE COURT: Good morning to all. Mr. Muise, if it's Tuesday, we must be on the blood clotting.
MR. MUISE: We will be getting to blood clotting, immunity systems, and many more complex systems, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. You may proceed.
MR. MUISE: Thank you.
(Whereupon, Michael Behe, Ph.D., resumed the stand and testimony continued.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION (CONTINUED)
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Good morning, Dr. Behe.
A. Good morning.
Q. Before we do get to the blood clotting, I need to circle back to sort of cover one housekeeping matter.
MR. MUISE: If I may approach the witness, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Sir, I've handed you what has been marked as Defendants' Exhibit No. 237, which is an article from Saier, correct?
A. That's right.
Q. Is that one of the articles that you referenced during your testimony and appeared on one of the slides regarding the type III secretory system?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Okay. Thank you, sir. Sir, yesterday, just to sort of recap and bring us to where we need to begin this morning, I had asked you if some scientists had argued that there is experimental evidence that complex biochemical systems can arise by Darwinian processes, and I believe you indicated there were two that are offered, correct?
A. That's right.
Q. And the first one was the lac operon?
A. Yes.
Q. And we discussed that yesterday?
A. Yes.
Q. And what is the second one?
A. The second one concerns what's called the blood clotting cascade, the system for clotting blood in animals. And I should say that, emphasize again that this is the second example of an experimentally -- an experimental result that was offered as evidence against some of the arguments that I made in Darwin's Black Box.
In this one, this is directed more to the question of irreducible complexity than to the question of whether Darwinian processes can put together a complex system.
Q. Now, sir, we've put up on the slide a figure, 6-5, that appears on page 142 in the Pandas text. Can you explain what we see here?
A. That's right. This is an electron micrograph of some red blood cells caught in a meshwork of a protein called fibrin, which forms a blood clot. And most people, when they think about blood clotting, if they think about it at all, it appears to be a simple process.
When somebody cuts themself, a minor cut slows down, stops, and heals over, and it doesn't seem like -- it doesn't seem like much at all. But thorough investigation over the past 40 to 50 years has shown that the blood clotting system is a very intricate biochemical system. And I believe there's an illustration of it on the next slide.
Q. Now you referred to, I believe, a blood clotting cascade, is that correct?
A. That's right.
Q. Can you explain a little bit to us as you're explaining what we see here on this particular diagram?
A. Okay, sure. Yeah, this is a figure of the blood clotting cascade taken from the biochemistry textbook by Voet and Voet, which is widely used in colleges and universities around the country. You see all these names of things and arrows. The names of things are very complex proteins of the complexity or sometimes more complex than the hemoglobin that I showed yesterday.
In blood clotting, the material that forms the clot cannot, of course, be in its solid clotted form during the normal -- during the normal life of an animal or all of the blood would be clotted, and that would be inconsistent with its life. So the material of the clot that actual eventually forms the clot exists as something called fibrinogen, which is actually a soluble pre-cursor to the clot material.
It floats around in your bloodstream during normal times. But when a cut occurs, fibrinogen is transformed into something called fibrin, and that happens when another protein comes along and cuts off a small piece of fibrinogen, a specific piece which exposes a sticky site on it, sticky in the sense of those two proteins yesterday that I saw that -- that I showed you that had complimentary surfaces.
It exposes a sticky site on the surface of the fibrinogen, which allows the many copies of fibrinogen, now turned into fibrin, to aggregate and stick to each other, forming the blood clot.
But what is the component that cuts fibrinogen and activates it? Well, the component is another protein called thrombin. But now we've got the same problem again. If thrombin were going around cutting fibrinogen and turning it into fibrin, all the blood would clot, and that would congeal the blood and kill the animal.
So thrombin itself is an inactive form called prothrombin, so it has to be activated when a cut occurs. And that's the responsibility of another protein. And that protein exists in an inactive form, and it's -- the activation of that is the responsibility of another protein.
So in the blood -- it's called a blood clotting cascade because one component acts on the next which acts on the next which acts on the next and so on. Now notice that the blood clotting cascade actually has what are called two branches. There is one in this box up here is labeled the intrinsic pathway. And this is labeled the extrinsic pathway. So there are actually two branches to this blood clotting cascade.
Q. I believe this section is addressed in the textbook Pandas, correct?
A. Yeah, that's correct. On the left is a figure from Of Pandas and People illustrating the blood clotting cascade. And that was drawn after the illustration from the textbook by Voet and Voet. On the right-hand side is the illustration for the blood clotting cascade that appears in Darwin's Black Box.
I discussed the blood clotting cascade in one chapter of that -- of my book, and the illustration is very similar to the one in Pandas.
Q. I believe the diagram in Pandas is found on page 143?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Now these two diagrams, the one that appears in Darwin's Black Box and one of the blood clotting cascade appear, to my eye, to be virtually similar or almost exactly similar?
A. Yeah, they are very similar, except for the color in Pandas and so on. And that's because I wrote the discussion in Pandas and, of course, also in my own book. So the figures are very similar between the two.
Q. Now you testified yesterday that you coined the term irreducible complexity in Darwin's Black Box, which was published in 1996, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. So that book was published actually three years after Pandas was written, is that accurate?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Is it accurate to say then that the concept of irreducible complexity was not fully developed when you had written that section in Pandas on blood clotting in 1993?
A. Yes, that's right. I was still contemplating the idea.
Q. Does Pandas, however, discuss the complexity of this system, the blood clotting system?
A. Yes, it does. It elucidates all the parts of the system.
Q. Is that discussion consistent with your discussion in Darwin's Black Box?
A. Yes, it introduces the concept of the purposeful arrangement of parts and says that's how we perceive design.
Q. That's introduced in the Pandas book?
A. Yes, uh-huh.
Q. When you talk about the purposeful arrangement of parts, that's similar to what you were discussing yesterday in your testimony, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. So is the scientific explanation of the blood clotting system similar to the -- the discussion in Pandas similar to the blood clotting cascade scientific explanation in Darwin's Black Box?
A. That's right, they're essentially the same. I think it's more detailed in Darwin's Black Box.
Q. In fact, you did use the similar diagrams?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. To explain the two?
A. Yes, uh-huh.
Q. I believe the next slide we have is, this is from your -- you discussed this and treated this as well in your book Debating Design, is that correct?
A. That's right. When I wrote Darwin's Black Box, and when Darwin's Black Box was subsequently reviewed by people, some of them looked at the argument about the blood clotting cascade and argued against what I had written in Darwin's Black Box.
And I thought that the counterarguments were themselves flawed, and so I answered some of those arguments in a variety of cites, but most recently in the chapter in that book, Debating Design, published by Cambridge University Press from the year 2004.
I wrote The Blood Clotting Cascade. Having dealt with some common misconceptions about intelligent design, I will examine two systems that were proposed as serious counterexamples of my claim of irreducible complexity. One of them discussed in that article is the blood clotting cascade.
Q. If you could then, explain to us how you refute the claims that are made that the blood clotting cascade is experimental evidence to refute irreducible complexity?
A. Okay. In the next slide, I believe that shows an excerpt from an article written by a man named Russell Doolittle entitled A Delicate Balance, which appeared in a publication called the Boston Review in 1997. Now Russell Doolittle is a very eminent scientist, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.
He's a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has worked on the blood clotting system for the past 45 years or so. And this article was a part of the symposium organized by Boston Review, which again is published by MIT, and contained contributions from a number of academics, scientists discussing my book and discussing a book that had been recently published by Richard Dawkins of Oxford University.
Participants included myself, Russell Doolittle, James Shapiro, who is a professor of microbiology at the University of Chicago, Alan Orr, who is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Rochester, Robert DiSilvestro, who is a professor of biochemistry at Ohio State, and a number of other people as well.
And in his essay, Professor Doolittle argued that, in fact, there was experimental evidence showing that the blood clotting system was not irreducibly complex. And he said the following. Let me read the quote. Quote, Recently the gene for plaminogen (sic) -- and that's actually a typo. There should be an S there. The gene for plaminogen (sic) was knocked out of mice -- which means that it was destroyed by molecular biological methods -- and predictable, those mice had thrombotic complications because fibrin clots could not be cleared away.
Let me stop a second and explain that plasminogen is a protein that acts as a chemical scissors which cuts up and removes blood clots once the clot has finished its job. Let me resume the quote from Russell Doolittle. Not long after that, the same workers knocked out the gene for fibrinogen in another line of mice. Again, predictably, these mice were ailing, although in this case, hemorrhage was the problem.
Let me stop again and explain that fibrinogen, remind you, is the pre-cursor of the clot material itself, the pre-cursor of those fibers. And what do you think happened when these two lines of mice were crossed? For all practical purposes, the mice lacking both genes were normal.
Contrary to claims about irreducible complexity, the entire ensemble of proteins is not needed. Music and harmony can arise from a smaller orchestra. So Professor Doolittle's point, if I just might briefly say, was that, if you knock out one component of the blood clotting cascade, yes, those mice have problems.
If you knock out a different component in a different line of mice, yes, those mice have problems, too. But if you make a string of mice in which both of those components were missing, then the mice are normal and the blood clotting cascade is okay. And so presumably then, that shows that the blood clotting cascade is not irreducibly complex.
Q. Was there a particular study that Professor Doolittle is referring to?
A. Yes, it's shown on the next slide. This is the article that he was referencing in his own essay. It's entitled Loss of Fibrinogen Rescues Mice from the Pleiotropic Effects of Plasminogen Deficiency. Now if we could go to the next slide.
Now because of the phrase, rescues mice, in the title, Professor Doolittle thought that the mice missing both components were normal. But it turns out, that was a misreading of the article.
In the abstract of the article itself, the authors write, quote, Mice deficient in plasminogen and fibrinogen are phenotypically indistinguishable from fibrinogen deficient mice. Now translated that into English on the next slide.
That means that mice missing both components have all the problems that mice missing fibrinogen only have. Their blood does not clot. They hemorrhage. Female mice die during pregnancy. They are not normal. They are not promising evolutionary intermediates. So if we look at this table of the symptoms of the various strings of mice, we can see what the authors meant by that phrase, rescues mice.
Lacking plasminogen, mice can't remove blood clots once their job is done and their blood circulation gets interfered with and they develop problems such as thrombosis, ulcers, and so on. Lacking fibrinogen, they can't clot blood in the first place, and they have a different suite of symptoms.
When they lack both, they have been rescued from the symptoms of plasminogen deficiency, but only to suffer the symptoms of fibrinogen deficiency. And if you think about it for just a minute, it's easy to understand what is going on. When an animal lacks plasminogen, it can't remove blood clots and its circulation becomes impeded and it suffers problems.
Lacking fibrinogen, it can't make clots in the first place, and so hemorrhage is a problem. Lacking both, it doesn't matter that it's lacking plasminogen, because the plasminogen's job is to remove blood clots after the job is finished. But the mouse missing both components can't form clots in the first place. So there are no clots to remove.
Q. Has subsequent work verified those results?
A. Yes, here's a table of not only the work that was cited in this discussion here on plasminogen fibrinogen, but also subsequent work by the same group of scientists who knocked out other components of the blood clotting cascade, including something called prothrombin and something else called tissue factor.
And if you look at the -- under the column labeled effect, in each case the blood clotting cascade is broken. They suffer hemorrhage. They cannot clot their blood. And that is exactly the result you would expect if, in fact, the blood clotting cascade were irreducibly complex, as I had written.
Q. So Professor Doolittle's refutation of your claims was based on a misreading of the study, is that correct?
A. That's right. He misread the original paper that he pointed to. And if I could make a couple of points based on this. As I said, this study, or this essay by Professor Doolittle and the one I discussed yesterday by Professor Miller were the two examples which offered experimental evidence that either irreducible complexity was not correct or that random mutation and natural selection could explain complex biochemical systems.
But if you look at the exact studies that were offered as support for Darwinian evolution, and you look at them closely, in reality, they highlight the difficulties for Darwinian evolution. So I think this is an illustration of how a scientist's preconceptions about the truth of a theory or the validity of a theory can affect his reading of the evidence.
And one more point is that, Professor Doolittle, of course, is a very eminent scientist. Professor Miller is, too. And they're quite capable of surveying the entire scientific literature for studies that they think are problems for my argument for intelligent design.
And nonetheless, when they surveyed the whole literature, and they seemed to be motivated to look for counterexamples to intelligent design, when they do so, they offer studies such as this, which are, at best, very problematic and none of which, I would say, are arguments against intelligent design.
So in my mind, I conclude that since highly motivated capable scientists who could advance arguments or who could point to studies that have created problems for intelligent design, that they have failed to do so, makes me confident that intelligent design is a good explanation.
Q. Now these article findings, the actual findings in these articles, is that what you would expect to find for an irreducibly complex system?
A. Yes, that's right. This is completely consistent with my expectations.
Q. As far as you know, has Professor Doolittle ever acknowledged that he misread that paper?
A. Yes, he has.
Q. And if I could --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection. Hearsay, Your Honor. I would move to strike.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, he just -- he has an understanding that Professor Doolittle has indicated he has misread this paper.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: If he has a basis, I'd like to see it.
THE COURT: Well, it's his understanding, and I'm take it for that. I won't take it as a matter of fact. His understanding is, he didn't quote something that Professor Doolittle said. It's simply, I'll take it as his understanding, and you're free to cross-examine him and present rebuttal evidence, if you see fit. So it's overruled.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, I'd ask you to look at the exhibit binder that I had provided you yesterday. It's at your table in front of you. If you go to tab 17, please.
A. Yes.
Q. You'll see an exhibit marked Defendants' Exhibit 272. Is that the article by Russell Doolittle that you've been referring to here in your testimony?
A. Yes, that's correct. This is a web version.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, Your Honor. I want to make clear, I think that's not the acknowledgment of the mistake, it's just the article that's being referred to. I just want to clarify that.
MR. MUISE: I think the question was pretty clear.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. That's the article in the Boston Review that you're referring to?
A. Yes, this is Russell Doolittle's article in the Boston Review.
THE COURT: Does that resolve the objection?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes. I just want to clarify, this was not Dr. Doolittle's acknowledgment of a mistake.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, does anyone else know how the blood clotting cascade can be explained in Darwinian fashion and other proposed examples or explanations?
A. No, that's one of the very nice things about science is that, if there is no explanation in the science library in scientific literature, and if leaders in the field do not know how something could have come about, and presumably they know the literature very, very well, then one can be confident that not only do they not know how something could have been done, but nobody else in the world knows how that could have been done as well. And that's important to keep in mind because some people claim that nonetheless.
Q. And that's my next question. There have been individuals that nonetheless have made such claims, and do you have some slides to bring that up?
A. Yes, that's correct. On the next slide is an excerpt from an article by a man named Michael Ruse. Michael Ruse is a professor of philosophy of science currently at Florida State University. And in particular, he's a philosopher interested in Darwinian thought.
And he's written many books on Darwin, his ideas, the history around them, and so on. And several years after my book came out in 1998, Professor Ruse wrote an article entitled Answering the Creationists, Where They Go Wrong and What They're Afraid Of, and had it published in a magazine called Free Inquiry. And he said the following in the article.
Quote, For example, Behe is a real scientist, but this case for the impossibility of a small-step natural origin of biological complexity has been trampled upon contemptuously by the scientists working in the field. They think his grasp of the pertinent science is weak and his knowledge of the literature curiously, although ventsly, outdated.
For example, far from the evolution of clotting being a mystery, the past three decades of work by Russell Doolittle and others has thrown significant light on the ways in which clotting came into being. More than this, it can be shown that the clotting mechanism does not have to be a one-step phenomenon with everything already in place and functioning. One step in the cascade involves fibrinogen, required for clotting, and another, plaminogen -- there's that typo, missing the S -- required for clearing clots away.
And he goes on in his article to quote that passage from Russell Doolittle's Boston Review essay that I showed on the slide a couple slides ago. So this excerpt, in my view, shows that Professor Ruse relies completely on Professor Doolittle's explanation for the blood clotting cascade and has no independent knowledge of his own.
As a matter of fact, the fact that the same typo, the same misspelling of plasminogen occurs in Professor Ruse's essay makes me think that he relied on Professor Doolittle even for the spelling of the components of the cascade. So the point is that, even though Professor Ruse is a prominent academic concerned with Darwin and Darwinian thought, he has no knowledge that Professor Doolittle does not have concerning the blood clotting cascade.
Q. Do you have another example, sir?
A. Yes, another person has written on this, a man named Neil Greenspan, who is a professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve University, and he wrote an article in a magazine called The Scientist in the year 2002 entitled Not-so-intelligent Design. In the article, he writes the following. Quote, The Design advocates also ignore the accumulating examples of the reducibility of biological systems. As Russell Doolittle has noted in commenting on the writings of one ID advocate -- and perhaps I can be forgiven if I think he means me -- mice genetically altered so they lack either thrombin or fibrinogen have the expected abnormal hemostatic phenotypes. However, when the separate knockout mice are bred, the double knockouts apparently have normal hemostasis, reducible complexity after all, at least in the laboratory.
So the reasoning here exactly mimics the reasoning of Russell Doolittle in his Boston Review article. And let me just point out here that he talks about thrombin or fibrinogen, but the study was actually on plasminogen and fibrinogen. So again, I think this illustrates that even a scientist has -- even a scientist writing publicly on this topic, even a scientist writing publicly on this topic in order to argue against intelligent design has no more knowledge of this than Professor Doolittle has.
And once more, I think this speaks to the point of how firmly a theory can guide persons' thinking. I think the fact that Professor Ruse relied so heavily on Professor Doolittle, and Professor Greenspan did, too, and apparently they did not even go back and read the article on blood clotting that was being disputed, shows that they are so confident in Darwinian evolution that they don't think they have to, you know, check the facts.
They can rely on the authority of a person like Professor Doolittle. So I think that shows the grip of a theory on many people's thinking.
Q. Do you have an additional example?
A. Yes, one other excerpt here. In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences issued a booklet called Science and Creationism. And in it, they write the following, quote, The evolution of complex molecular systems can occur in several ways. Natural selection can bring together parts of a system for one function at one time, and then at a later time, recombine those parts with other systems of components to produce a system that has a different function.
Genes can be duplicated, altered, and then amplified through natural selection. The complex biochemical cascade resulting in blood clotting has been explained in this fashion.
Let me make a comment on this. Professor Doolittle is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. There is no other member of the National Academy who knows anything more about blood clotting than Professor Doolittle. But if Professor Doolittle does not know how Darwinian processes could have produced the blood clotting cascade, as I think is evident from his pointing to an inappropriate paper in his attempt to refute a challenge to Darwinian evolution, then nobody in the National Academy knows either. I should also -- well, I'll --
Q. Do they cite any papers or experiments to support this claim, the National Academy of Sciences, in this particular booklet?
A. No. That's a very interesting point. They simply assert this. They do not cite any paper in any journal to support this. And it's an interesting point, if I may say so. I've heard said earlier in this trial that not every utterance by a scientist is a scientific statement.
And that's something that I entirely agree with. And it's also true that not every utterance by a scientist even on science is a scientific statement. And it's also true that not even, not every proclamation, or not every declaration by a group of scientists about science is a scientific statement.
Scientific statements have to rely on physical evidence. They have to be backed up by studies. And simply saying that something is so does not make it so. In fact, this statement of the National Academy is simply an assertion. It is not a scientific statement.
Q. Does the National Academy of Sciences, in this document that you referenced, give any other examples of complex biochemical systems that have been explained?
A. This is the only example that they point to.
Q. In his testimony, Dr. Miller has pointed to the work of, I believe, you pronounce is Jiang, J-i-a-n-g --
A. Yes.
Q. -- and Doolittle and Davidson, et al, to argue against the irreducible complexity of the blood clotting system. Do you agree with his assessment of those studies?
A. No, I do not.
Q. And you have some diagrams to explain this further, sir?
A. Yes, I do. This is a slide from Professor Miller's presentation showing work from Jiang and Doolittle. And he also shows a diagram of the blood clotting cascade. And notice again, it's a branched pathway with the intrinsic pathway and the extrinsic pathway.
And Professor Miller makes the point that in DNA sequencing studies of something called a puffer fish, where the entire DNA of its genome was sequenced, and scientists looked for genes that might code for the first couple components of the intrinsic pathway, they were not found.
And so Professor Miller demonstrated that by -- if you could push to start the animation -- Professor Miller demonstrated that by having those three components blanked out in white. Nonetheless, puffer fish have a functioning clotting system. And so Professor Miller argued that this is evidence against irreducible complexity.
But I disagree. And the reason I disagree is that I made some careful distinctions in Darwin's Black Box. I was very careful to specify exactly what I was talking about, and Professor Miller was not as careful in interpreting it.
In Darwin's Black Box, in the chapter on blood clotting cascade, I write that, a different difference is that the control pathway for blood clotting splits in two. Potentially then, there are two possible ways to trigger clotting. The relative importance of the two pathways in living organisms is still rather murky. Many experiments on blood clotting are hard to do. And I go on to explain why they must be murky.
And then I continue on the next slide. Because of that uncertainty, I said, let's, leaving aside the system before the fork in the pathway, where some details are less well-known, the blood clotting system fits the definition of irreducible complexity.
And I noted that the components of the system beyond the fork in the pathway are fibrinogen, prothrombin, Stuart factor, and proaccelerin. So I was focusing on a particular part of the pathway, as I tried to make clear in Darwin's Black Box.
If we could go to the next slide. Those components that I was focusing on are down here at the lower parts of the pathway. And I also circled here, for illustration, the extrinsic pathway. It turns out that the pathway can be activated by either one of two directions. And so I concentrated on the parts that were close to the common point after the fork.
So if you could, I think, advance one slide. If you concentrate on those components, a number of those components are ones which have been experimentally knocked out such as fibrinogen, prothrombin, and tissue factor.
And if we go to the next slide, I have red arrows pointing to those components. And you see that they all fall in the area of the blood clotting cascade that I was specifically restricting my arguments to. And if you knock out those components, in fact, the blood clotting cascade is broken. So my discussion of irreducible complexity was, I tried to be precise, and my argument, my argument is experimentally supported.
Q. Now just by way of analogy to maybe help explain further. Would this be similar to, for example, a light having two switches, and the blood clotting system that you focus on would be the light, and these extrinsic and intrinsic pathways would be two separate switches to turn on the system?
A. That's right. You might have two switches. If one switch was broke, you could still use the other one. So, yes, that's a good analogy.
Q. So Dr. Miller is focusing on the light switch, and you were focusing on the light?
A. Pretty much, yes.
Q. I believe we have another slide that Dr. Miller used, I guess, to support his claim, which you have some difficulties with, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right. Professor Miller showed these two figures from Davidson, et al, and from Jiang, et al, Jiang and Doolittle, and said that the suggestions can be tested by detailed analysis of the clotting pathway components.
But what I want to point out is that whenever you see branching diagrams like this, especially that have little names that you can't recognize on them, one is talking about sequence comparisons, protein sequence comparisons, or DNA nucleotide sequence comparisons. As I indicated in my testimony yesterday, such sequence comparisons simply don't speak to the question of whether random mutation and natural selection can build a system.
For example, as I said yesterday, the sequences of the proteins in the type III secretory system and the bacterial flagellum are all well-known, but people still can't figure out how such a thing could have been put together. The sequences of many components of the blood clotting cascade have been available for a while and were available to Russell Doolittle when he wrote his essay in the Boston Review.
And they were still unhelpful in trying to figure out how Darwinian pathways could put together a complex system. And as we cited yesterday, in Professor Padian's expert statement, he indicates that molecular sequence data simply can't tell what an ancestral state was. He thinks fossil evidence is required.
So my general point is that, while such data is interesting, and while such data to a non-expert in the field might look like it may explain something, if it's asserted to explain something, nonetheless, such data is irrelevant to the question of whether the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection can explain complex systems.
Q. So is it your opinion then, the blood clotting cascade is irreducibly complex?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Now Professor Pennock had testified that he was co-author on a study pertaining to the evolution of complex features. Does this study refute the claim of irreducible complexity?
A. No, it does not.
Q. And I believe we put up a slide indicating the paper that was apparently by Lenski and Pennock, correct?
A. That's right. Richard Lenski, and Professor Pennock was co-author, and several other co-authors as well. This is the first page of that article. Let me reemphasize that the last two systems that I talked about, the lac operon and the blood clotting cascade were ones in which experiments were done on real biological organisms to try to argue against intelligent design and irreducible complexity.
This study of Lenski is a computer study, a theoretical study not using live organisms, one which is conducted by writing a computer program and looking at the results of the computer program.
If I could have the next slide. This is an excerpt from the abstract of that paper. Let me read parts of it. It says, quote, A long-standing challenge to evolutionary theory has been whether it can explain the origin of complex organismal features, close quote. Let me just stop there to emphasize that these workers admit that this has been a long-standing problem of evolutionary theory.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection. This mischaracterizes the document.
THE COURT: Elaborate on that objection.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: Elaborate on the objection. You say he's mischaracterizing --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: This is a long-standing challenge not a long-standing problem.
THE COURT: Well, I think he's characterizing something and not necessarily reading from it. What are you objecting to?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I think he's mischaracterizing it. That's my objection.
THE COURT: Again, you'll have him on cross. This is direct examination. I'll overrule the objection. You may proceed.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, just for reference, the article you are referring to is published in 2003, is that correct?
A. That's correct, yes.
Q. Continue, please.
A. So apparently, this had not been explained up until at least the publication of this paper. The authors continue, quote, We examined this issue using digital organisms, computer programs that self-replicate, mutate, compete and evolve. Let me close quotes there.
You have to remember that the labeling of these things as organisms is just a word. These things are not flesh and blood. These things are little computer programs. There are strings of instructions. And a comparison of these to real organisms is kind of like comparing an animated character in some movie to a real organism.
So the authors go on. And the next slide, please. And this is the first figure on the first page of their article. And I just want to emphasize, this is just an illustration emphasizing that these -- there are computer instructions. Each one of these are little computer instructions; swap, nand, nand, shift R. They have no similarity to biological features, biological processes. You see over here little strings of ones and zeroes.
These are characters in a computer memory. These are not anything biological. Let me say that, theoretical studies of biology can oftentimes be very useful. And I'm certainly not denigrating the use of computer in studying biology. But one has to be careful, very careful that one's model, computer model mimics as closely as possible a real biological situation. Otherwise, the results one obtains really don't tell you anything about real biology.
And I think that the Lenski paper, it does not mimic biology in the necessary way. And that's shown on the next slide.
Q. Let me just, to clarify. So a crucial question is whether or not it's a good model for biological process, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. And you don't believe this is one?
A. No, I think it misses the point and it assumes what should be proven instead. And let me try to explain that with an excerpt from the article itself. The authors write in their discussion, quote, Some readers might suggest that we stacked the deck by studying the evolution of a complex feature that could be built on simpler functions that were also useful, close quote.
Let me stop there to comment that, yes, that is exactly what I would suggest, that they stacked the deck. They built a model in which there was a continuous pathway of functional Features very close together in probability, which is exactly the question that's under dispute in real biological organisms. Is there such a pathway in real biological organisms?
So to assume that in your computer model is stacking the deck. Let me go back to the abstract. They continue, quote, However, that is precisely what evolutionary theory requires. Now I'll close quote there, and let me comment on that.
Just because your theory requires something does not mean it exists in nature. James Clerk Maxwell's theory required ether. Ether does not exist. So just because a theory requires it is no justification for saying that building a model shows something about biology.
Q. Dr. Behe, if you could, just so we're clear on the record, because I'm not sure if we have it that clear, can you identify the title and the specifics of this article, so we're clear on what specific article you're referring to?
A. Yes, this is an article by Lenski, Ofria, Pennock, and Adami published in the year 2003. The title is The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features published in the journal Nature, volume 423, pages 139 to 144.
Q. Thank you. And the authors go on to say in their discussion, indeed, our experiments showed that the complex feature never evolved when simpler functions were not rewarded. This is not surprising to me. This shows the difficulty of irreducible complexity. If you do not have those closely stacked functional states, if you have to change a couple things at once before you get a selectable property, then I have been at pains to explain, that's when Darwinian theory starts to fail, not when you have things close together.
And to build them into your model is, again, begging the question. The fact that when they do not build that into their model, they run into problems that complex features then don't evolve. That is exactly what I would expect. I would cite this as evidence supporting my own views.
Q. Have other scientists made similar criticisms?
A. Yes. A couple years ago, there was an article published by two scientists named Barton and Zuidema published in a journal called Current Biology. The title of the article is Evolution, The Erratic Path Towards Complexity.
And much of the article is a commentary on the work by Lenski and co-workers. And if I could just read a couple excerpts from that article. They make a couple interesting points. The authors say, complex systems, systems whose function requires many interdependent parts, that is irreducible complexity systems in my view, are vanishingly unlikely to arise purely by chance.
Darwin's explanation of their origin is that natural selection establishes a series of variants, each of which increases fitness. This is an efficient way of sifting through an enormous number of possibilities, provided there is a sequence of ever-increasing fitness that leads to the desired feature, close quote.
So that's the exact -- that's the big question. Is there such a pathway, or is it, as it certainly appears, that one has to make large numbers of changes before one goes from a functional selectable state to a second functional selectable state? And Barton and Zuidema continue in their discussion.
They say, in Lenski's artificial organisms, the mutation rate per site is quite high. So, in other words, if I might make my own comment, they are using -- they are using factors which are not common for biological organisms.
Now picking up with the paper again. So that favorable pairs can be picked up by selection at an appreciable rate. This would be unlikely in most real organisms because, in these, mutation rates at each locus are low. In other words, again, they are building into the model exactly the features they need to get the result they want.
But building it into your model does not show that that's what exists in nature. And Barton and Zuidema comment further, quote, Artificial life models such as Lenski, et al's, are perhaps interesting in themselves, but as biologists, we are concerned here with the question of what artificial life can tell us about real organisms.
It's -- it can be productive and it can be interesting to do such studies as Lenski, et al, did. But the big question is, do they tell us anything about real organisms? And I am very skeptical that this study does so.
Q. Now have you done some work yourself that's somewhat similar?
A. Yes, indeed. A year ago, as I mentioned earlier in my testimony, David Snoke and myself published a paper in the journal Protein Science entitled Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features that Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues.
In this, we also -- it was essentially a theoretical study using computer programs to try to mimic what we thought would occur in biology. But we tried, as closely as possible, to mimic features of real proteins and real mutation rates that the professional literature led us to believe were the proper reasonable values.
And when we used those values, the short, the gist of the matter is that, once -- if there is not a continuous pathway, if one has to make two or three or four amino acid changes, those little changes from that figure of two interacting proteins that I talked about yesterday, if one has to make several changes at once, then the likelihood of that occurring goes -- drops sharply in the length of time, and the number of organisms in a population that one would need to have that goes up sharply.
Q. Would it be fair to say that your model is closer to biological reality?
A. Well, I certainly think so.
Q. Now Dr. Miller testified that the immune system is being explained by Darwinian theory. Do you agree with that?
A. No, I do not.
Q. And so I'd ask you if you could explain why not?
A. Yes. On the next slide is a -- is the first slide of Professor Miller's discussion of this topic and his presentation simply showing a model of an immunoglobulin protein. And here is kind of a little cartoon version of the same thing, the immunoglobulin protein.
He goes on the next slide to take an excerpt from my book where in a chapter where I discussed the immune system and argue that, in fact, it is not well-explained by Darwinian processes but, in fact, is better explained by design.
Q. Can you explain that Sisyphus reference?
A. Yeah, okay. Sisyphus. I said, Sisyphus himself would pity us. That was just a literary flourish there. Sisyphus is a figure from mythology who was doomed for eternity to have to roll a bolder up a hill, and whenever he got to the top of the hill, the bolder would roll back, and he would have to start all over again.
This was meant to indicate frustration. And I argued that Darwinian attempts at explanations would be similarly frustrating.
Q. I just want to make a point clear. You said there were two examples where those who claim that irreducible complexity does not work or is not a valid explanation, they use experimental evidence, and that was the blood clotting system and the lac operon. How does the immunity system, is that experimental evidence or is that a theoretical claim?
A. No, this is mostly a theoretical claim. There is no experimental evidence to show that natural selection could have produced the immune system. And I think that's a good example of the different views that people with different theoretical frameworks bring to the table.
If we could show the next slide. Professor Miller shows this slide from a reference that he cited by Kapitonov and Jurka, and he has titled Summary, Between 1996 and 2005, each element of the transposon hypothesis has been confirmed. He has this over this diagram.
But again, as I mentioned previously, whenever you see diagrams like this, we're talking about sequence data, comparison of protein, sequences, or gene sequences between organisms. And such data simply can't speak to the question of whether random mutation and natural selection produced the complex systems that we're talking about.
So Professor Miller -- so, in my view, this data does not even touch on the question. And yet Professor Miller offers as compelling evidence. And one more time, I view this as the difference between two people with two different expectations, two different theoretical frameworks, how they view the same data.
And I'd like to take a little bit of time to explain why such studies do not impress me. And I'll do so by looking at one of the papers that Professor Doolittle -- I'm sorry, Professor Miller, that's his name, cited in his presentation, Kapitonov and Jurka, that was published this year.
I just want to go through, and just kind of as a quick way to show why I am not persuaded by these types of studies. I want to excerpt some sentences from this study to show what I consider to be the speculative nature of such studies.
For example, in this excerpt, the authors say, something indicates that they may be important. This may indicate. It may be encoded. It might have been added. If so, it might have been derived. Alternatively, it might have been derived from a separate unknown transposon. It was probably lost. And we have a lot more of those, one more slide at least.
It says, we cannot exclude the possibility. In any case, the origin appears to be a culmination of earlier evolutionary processes. If so, this might have been altered. Again, without going into the detail of the article, I just wanted to emphasize those phrases to point out what I consider to be the very speculative nature of such papers.
Here's what I view to be the problem. The sequence of the proteins are there. The sequence of the genes are experimentally determined. And the question is, what do we make of that information? People like Professor Miller and the authors of this paper working from a Darwinian framework simply fit that data into their framework.
But to me, that data does not support their framework. It does not offer experimental evidence for that framework. They're simply assuming a background of Darwinian random mutation and natural selection and explaining it -- or fitting it into that framework, but they're not offering support for it.
Q. Dr. Behe, is there another paper that scientists point to for the support that the immune system can be explained by this Darwinian process?
A. Yes, there is. There is one more that I have to discuss. Here is a recent paper, again the year 2005, by Klein and Nikolaidis entitled The Descent of the Antibody-Based Immune System by Gradual Evolution. And on the next slide is an excerpt from the initial part of their discussion where they say, quote, According to a currently popular view, the Big Bang hypothesis, the adaptive immune system arose suddenly, within a relatively short time interval, in association with the postulated two rounds of genome-wide duplications.
So these people, Klein and Nikolaidis, are going to argue against what is the currently popular view among immunologists and people who study the immune system on how that system arose.
Q. And what is the Big Bang hypothesis that's referred to here?
A. Well, that's kind of a label that they put on to kind of indicate the fact that the immune system appears in one branch of animals, the vertebrates, and any obvious pre-cursors or functional parts of such a system do not appear to be obvious in other branches of animals.
So it seems like the immune system arose almost complete in conjunction with the branching of vertebrates from invertebrate.
Q. Do scientists acknowledge that or treat that as a problem for Darwin's theory?
A. Well, in my experience, no, nobody treats such a thing as a problem for Darwin's theory.
Q. Do you consider it a problem?
A. I certainly consider it a problem. But other scientists who think that Darwinian evolution simply is true don't consider much of anything to be a problem for their theory.
Q. Why do you consider it a problem?
A. Because the -- as Darwin insisted, he insisted that adaptations had to arise by numerous successive slight modifications in a very gradual fashion. And this seems to go against the very gradual nature of his view.
Q. Now has this paper been held up by scientists as refuting claims against intelligent design?
A. Yes, it has. As a matter of fact, Professor Miller cited it in his expert report, although he didn't refer to it in his testimony. Additionally, I attended a meeting on evolution at Penn State in the summer of 2004 where one of the authors, Juan Kline, spoke on his work, and he interpreted it in those terms.
Q. Now we have some quotes, I believe, from this paper that you want to highlight?
A. Yes. Again, I want to pull out some excerpts from that paper just to show you why I regard this as speculative and unpersuasive. For example, they start with, by saying, quote, Here, we sketch out some of the changes and speculate how they may have come about. We argue that the origin only appears to be sudden. They talk about something as probably genuine.
It probably evolved. Probably would require a few substitutions. It might have the potential of signaling. It seems to possess. The motifs presumably needed. One can imagine that a limited number. It might have been relatively minor. Quote, The kind of experimental molecular evolution should nevertheless shed light on events that would otherwise remain hopelessly in the realm of mere speculation. They're talking about experiments that have yet to be done.
Next slide, I have even more such quotations. These factors are probably genuine. Nonetheless. They might have postdated. Nevertheless. Albeit. It seems. This might have been. These might represent. They might have been needed. This might have functioned. This might have. And this might have contributed.
So again, this is just a shorthand way of trying to convey that, when I read papers like this, I do not see any support for Darwin's theory. I read them as speculative and -- but nonetheless, people who already do believe in Darwin's theory fit them into their own framework.
Q. Now Dr. Miller cited numerous papers in his testimony to support his claims on irreducible complexity, the type III secretory system, and so forth. Have you done a review of those papers and have some comments on them that you prepared slides for?
A. Yes, I did. I went through many of the papers that Professor Miller cited, as many as I could, and simply, as a shorthand way of trying to indicate or trying to convey why I don't regard any of them as persuasive, I simply did a search for the phrases, random mutation, which is abbreviated here in this column, RM, and the phrase, natural selection.
Random mutation, of course, and natural selection are the two elements of the Darwinian mechanism. That is what is at issue here. And so this is, you know, this is, of course, a crude and perhaps shorthand way, but nonetheless, I think this illustrates why I do not find any of these papers persuasive.
When I go through the papers that Professor Miller cited on the blood clotting cascade, Semba, et al, Robinson, et al, Jiang and Doolittle, there are no references to those phrases, random mutation and natural selection.
Q. Some of your indications on this slide, you have 0 with asterisks and some without. Is there a reason for that?
A. Yes. The papers that have asterisks, I scanned by eye. I read through them visually. Ones that do not have an asterisk, I was able to do a computer search for those phrases because they are on the web or in computer readable form. I have a number of other such tables.
On the next one are references that Professor Miller cited on the immune system. And again, none of these references contain either those phrases, random mutation and natural selection. There were a couple more references on the immune system that Professor Miller cited, and they didn't contain those phrases either.
In references for the bacterial flagellum and the type III secretory system, there was one paper by Hauch, a review in 1998 that did use the phrase natural selection. However, that phrase did not occur in the body of the paper. It was in the title of one of the references that Hauck listed.
And on the next slide, I think there are papers cited by Professor Miller on common descent of hemoglobin. And again, those phrases are not there. I think there's another slide or two, if I'm not mistaken. This is the one on what he described as molecular trees, Fitch and Margoliash, from 1967. And I didn't find the phrase there either. So again, this is a shorthand way of showing why I actually considered these off-the-point and unpersuasive.
Q. So all these papers that are being used to provide evidence for Darwin's theory of evolution, in particular, the mechanism evolution of natural selection, yet they don't mention random mutation or natural selection in the body of the works?
A. That's correct.
Q. Could you summarize the point then, Dr. Behe, that you are making with, referring to these studies and the comments you made about the speculative nature of some of these studies?
A. Yes. Again, much of these studies, in my view, are speculative. They assume a Darwinian framework. They do not demonstrate it. And certainly, you know, certainly scientists should be free to speculate whatever they want. You know, science usually starts with speculation, but it can't end with speculation.
And a person or, and especially a student, should be able to recognize and differentiate between speculation and actual data that actually supports a theory.
Q. So it would be beneficial to point this sort of feature that you just described, point that out to students?
A. I very much think so.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, we're going to be moving again into another subject, and it appears to be close to the time for a break.
THE COURT: Yeah, why don't we take a break at this point. I think that makes good sense. We'll break for 20 minutes at this juncture, and we'll return and pick up direct examination at that point.
(Whereupon, a recess was taken at 10:11 a.m. and proceedings reconvened at 10:36 a.m.)


Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 11 (October 18), AM Session, Part 2

THE COURT: All right. Mr. Muise, you may continue.
MR. MUISE: Thank you, Your Honor.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, Dr. Miller severely criticized Pandas for its treatment of the topic of protein sequence similarity. Do you agree with his assessment?
A. No, I don't.
Q. And I would ask you to explain why not?
A. On the next slide, we see one of Professor Miller's slides, the first, I think, in his sequence where he very severely criticized the book Of Pandas and People for its treatment of the question of why similar proteins in separate organisms have the differences in their sequence that they do.
And on the next slide, this is again a slide from Professor Miller. He reproduces a figure from Pandas which shows -- it's hard to read on here -- that the difference in the number of amino acids of a protein called cytochrome c, which is a small protein which is involved in energy metabolism and which has about 100 amino acids in it, the difference between that protein which occurs in fish is about 13 percent.
About 13 amino acids differ between the fish cytochrome C and frog cytochrome C; and about 13 or so between bird and fish cytochrome C; and about 13 between mammalian cytochrome C and fish cytochrome C. So that remarkably, the proteins in these different organisms all seem to have roughly the same number of differences, although the differences are not the same differences, but they have the same number of differences from fish cytochrome C.
And Pandas discusses this in their text. And Professor Miller -- Professor Miller takes Pandas to task because he says that, in fact, this is a well-studied and a problem that has been solved by evolutionary theory. For example, he says, in fact, these sequence differences confirm that each of these organisms is equi-distant from a common ancestor, which is the actual prediction of evolutionary theory.
He has a little tree diagram there, too. But one has to realize that, in fact, Professor Miller is mistaken. Evolutionary theory does not predict that. Or one could say, evolutionary theory predicts that in the same sense that evolutionary theory predicted that the vertebrate embryos, as drawn by Haeckle, should be very, very similar to it; or the prediction of evolutionary theory after newer results came out, that vertebrate embryos could vary by quite a bit; or the prediction of evolutionary theory that the type III secretory system would be a good pre-cursor for the flagellum; or the prediction of evolutionary theory that the flagellum -- or that the type III secretory system might be derived easily from a flagellum.
So, in fact, what we have, I will try to make clear, is an instance where experimental science comes up with data, and the data is attempted to be fit into a framework. But this data was not predicted by any evolutionary theory.
Q. How was Pandas' treatment of this compared with what Dr. Miller found?
A. In my view, Pandas' treatment of this topic is actually much more accurate than Professor Miller's discussion of the same topic in his testimony here. Professor Miller, in his discussion, where he says that, evolutionary theory predicts this remarkable amount of difference, is referring to something, although he does not call it such, something called the molecular clock hypothesis.
And notice that, in fact, in Pandas, on the page opposite to the figure that Professor Miller used in his presentation, there is a section entitled A Molecular Clock where they go through and discuss some issues with it, which I will talk about later on.
Q. Just to be clear for the record, the diagram, figure 9 that you've been referring to that Dr. Miller cited in his testimony, appears on page 38 of Pandas, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And the discussion of the molecular clock appearing on the subsequent page appears on page 39 of Pandas, as indicated in this slide, is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Do you have some slides and discussion as to how this molecular clock problem is treated in the science community?
A. Yes, I do, and it will probably take about 10 minutes or so to go through it. So please be patient. But here is a cover of the Biochemistry textbook that I referred to frequently here by Voet and Voet, which is used in many universities and colleges across the country.
And they have a section on the molecular clock hypothesis and on cytochrome C in which they discuss these issues. Let's imagine -- I'm going to try to explain a molecular clock. Let's imagine that these lengths of time -- these lines represent time. And down at the bottom of the screen is a time -- a distant time ago, and up at the top is modern time.
And the branches here represent events in the course of life where a population of organisms split into two -- split into two, and one branch went off to form one group of organisms and another group went off to form a different type of organisms.
Q. If I might just interrupt briefly. You're referring to a phylogenetic tree that has vertical lines that branch off to each other, and that's what you're referring to the vertical lines running, two at the top of the diagram, and then they branch off into different sections?
A. That's correct. That's exactly right.
Q. Could you continue, please?
A. Yes. So, for example, at this branch, a population of organisms split off that went on to become plants, and at this branch, a population split off which went on to become animals.
Now I suppose that before any split in the population, the pre-cursor population organisms had a cytochrome c with a certain sequence. We'll say there was a hundred letters. Just think of a string of a hundred letters; Z, Q, A, L, W.
Now, however, when we get to this branch point, we have a group of organisms going off to form the animals, another going off to form the plants. They no longer interbreed, and so that string of a hundred letters representing cytochrome c can't accumulate mutations in it separately.
So, for example, suppose once every year or so, the cytochrome c in the branch that is forming the plants suffered a mutation, so that one of those letters changed from what it had been. And similarly, in the branch going off to form the animals, once every hundred years or so, one of those letters changed into something.
Not necessarily the same. Maybe a different one. So that after a while, those two sequences would be different. And suppose every hundred years, that happened, one change, one change, one change, and so on. After a while, you'd start to accumulate a number of changes.
Now further suppose that along the line to animals, the population of animals split into two, one line leading to, say, insects, and another line leading to mammals. Now you could have the same thing with the cytochrome c sequence that had been mutating all along, but now they split into two populations, and now these two populations also begin to accumulate mutations independently.
But notice here, they start right at the branch point with the same sequence. But after, say, a hundred years, this will have one difference with what it had at the beginning. This one will have one difference, too. And they don't necessarily have to be the same difference.
So they'll start to accumulate differences with each other between, say, the branch leading to the insects and the branch leading to the mammals. Now here's the point. Any sequence along this branch should have accumulated the same number of sequences between any sequence on this branch.
So that the number of differences between insects and plants should be roughly the same between, as that between mammals and plants. Any animal and any plants should have roughly the same number of differences. Whereas between subgroups of animals that have split off from each other earlier than animals did from plants, they will have had less time to accumulate differences in their amino acid sequences. And so they will have -- so they will have fewer differences.
Q. You mean, if they split off later. You said, earlier. They were split off later, correct?
A. Thank you. Yes, later. So Professor Miller has, I believe, this sort of model in mind, which is commonly -- which is a common way of thinking of these things in science.
So the idea is that, since fish branched off from those other groups of vertebrates, mammals, birds, and so on, the fish, under this model, would be expected to have the same number of differences in their amino acid sequences between themselves and all those other vertebrate groups.
Q. So here you have plants splitting off at the same time as the insects or you have the same -- you have the same connection between insects and plants as plants and mammals?
A. That's right. So the critical point is that, the difference between animals, any animal group like mammals and plants and insects and plants, they should have the same difference between animals and plants, no matter what the subgroup of animals.
But between animals which branch off -- groups of animals which branched off at an earlier -- or from each other earlier to the current time, they would have less time to accumulate differences. And I believe this is what Professor Miller had in mind.
However, this model has some difficulties with it which are well recognized and have been discussed in the literature for over 40 years. For example, I said, suppose every hundred years or so, a mutation occurred. Okay. Well, suppose that in this branch, every hundred years or so, a mutation occurred. But in this branch, suppose a mutation occurred every 50 years.
And suppose when these split, the mutation rate again changed somewhat. Now you would not expect this nice, neat pattern to occur. Now you would expect a jumble. It's not quite clear what one might expect. And it turns out, that's a real problem because it's thought that most mutations accumulate in a lineage when an organism reproduces.
When an organism reproduces, the DNA in it has to be replicated, and that gives a chance for mutations to come into the DNA. But different organisms can reproduce at greatly differing rates. For example, a fruit fly might have a generation time of two weeks, and an elephant might have a generation time of 20 years.
So if the number of mutations that a protein or gene underwent was proportional to the number of generations, you might expect a lineage with quickly reproducing organisms to accumulate mutations much more quickly, and the one with slowly reproducing organisms to accumulate more slowly.
And I believe this is -- on the next slide, there shows discussion from the Biochemistry textbook explaining exactly that point. Let me quote from it. Quote, Amino acid substitutions in a protein mostly result from single base changes in the gene specifying the protein. If such point mutations mainly occur as a consequence of errors in the DNA duplication process, then the rate at which a given protein accumulates mutations would be constant with respect to numbers of cell generations.
Not with time. With numbers of cell generations. If, however, the mutations process results from a random chemical degradation of DNA, then the mutation rate would be constant with absolute time. So here's this complication. If most mutations occur during replication, you wouldn't expect this difference that we see in cytochrome c.
If, for some reason, mutations occurred constant with time, well, then you might expect that. But the problem is, we know of no reason why that necessarily -- that has to be so, why a mutations have to -- would have to occur constant in time.
Q. Is there a problem in addition to this generational rate change?
A. Yes, that's one complication, but there's another one as well. And that's that, this so-called molecular clock seems to tick at different rates in different proteins. And this is an illustration again from the Biochemistry textbook that applies to this point.
On the bottom, the X axis, this is time. This is 200 million, 400 million, a billion years, and so on. This is number of -- or percent amino acid sequence difference. And the idea is that, here's the line for cytochrome c.
Organisms which diverge about 200 million years ago have these many sequence differences; about 400 million years ago, have these many, and so on. Look at how nice and neat that is. However, for another protein, hemoglobin, the molecular clock seems to tick faster. For the same amount of time, hemoglobin has maybe twice as many mutations.
Another region of a protein called a fibrinopeptide seems to accumulate mutations extremely rapidly. And a fourth protein, if you can look at the bottom of the figure, it's hard to see, for something called histone H4, barely accumulates any mutations at all. Organisms in very widely separated categories have virtually identical histone H4's.
Now to resolve this problem, it was postulated that perhaps this has to do with the number of amino acid residues in a protein that are critical for its function. Perhaps in some proteins, you know, most of the amino acid residues cannot be changed or it destroys the function and would destroy the organism.
And in others, maybe some can be changed, but not others. And so you can change those. And perhaps in another group, almost all of them can be changed without really affecting the function. And so that's an interesting idea. But there are also difficulties with that because, under that model, you would predict that if you changed the amino acid sequence of histone H4, then that should cause problems for an organism, because all of its, or most of its, or practically all of its amino acids are critical for function. But experimentally, that is not supported, as shown on the next slide.
Q. Is this -- so you've done work in this area with the histone H4 and the molecular clock?
A. Yes, uh-huh. I've written this commentary in 1990 in a journal called Trends in Biochemical Sciences, commenting on the work of somebody else who experimentally took an organism called yeast into the lab and altered its histone H4 and actually chopped off a couple amino acids at the beginning portion of that protein.
And when he looked, it seems that it didn't make any difference to the organism. The organism grew just as well without those mutations, which is surprising, which is not what you would expect if all of those residues were critical for the function of that protein, histone H4.
Later on, in the year 1996, I and a student of mine, Sema Agarwal, we were interested in this problem of histone H4 and molecular clock, and so we experimentally altered some amino acid residues into protein and changed them into different amino acids, with the expectation that these might destroy the function of the protein. But it turned out not to.
These positions, these amino acids could be substituted just fine, which is unexpected, and which kind of complicates our interpretation of the molecular clock hypothesis. So there are two complications; complications upon complications.
One, we would expect the number of mutations to accumulate with generation time, but it seems to accumulate, for some unknown reason, with absolute time. And the second is that, proteins accumulate mutations at different rates. We would expect that it would have to do with how vulnerable they are to mutations, and mutations might destroy the function of one protein that evolved slowly, but that is not experimentally supported.
Q. Now has this problem been discussed in the scientific literature?
A. Yes, this has been continuously discussed ever since the idea of the molecular clock hypothesis was first proposed in the early 1960's by two men named Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling. And here are a couple of papers which deal with the difficulties of the molecular clock hypothesis.
Here's a recent one, Gillooly, et al, published in the Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences, entitled The Rate of DNA Evolution, Effects of Body Size and Temperature on the Molecular Clock. In this publication, they say that, in fact, the size of an organism and temperature can affect how fast or how slow this clock might tick.
Francisco Ayala has written on this frequently. Here's one from 1997. And I should say, Francisco Ayala is a very prominent evolutionary biologist. He wrote an article in 1997 entitled Vagaries of the Molecular Clock. And I think the title gets across the idea that there are questions with this hypothesis.
And in 1993, a researcher named Tomoka Ohta published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled An Examination of the Generation-time Effect on Molecular Evolution in which she considers exactly that complication that the textbook Voet and Voet pointed out, this generation-time effect.
You know, why shouldn't organisms that reproduce more quickly accumulate more mutations. I have another slide just from one more recent paper. This paper by Drummond, et al, is entitled Why Highly Expressed Proteins Evolve Slowly. And it's referring to the sequence evolution that I've been discussing.
It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and this was from an online version. This is so recent that I don't think it has yet appeared in print. The point I want to make with this is that, these people treat this question as a currently live question.
They start off by saying, a central problem in molecular evolution is why proteins evolve at different rates. So that question I was trying to illustrate with histone H4, why does one protein tick faster and another one tick more slowly, that's still -- that is still unknown.
And I think I will skip the rest of this slide and go to the next slide and just point out a couple words here. Drummond, et al, say, Surprisingly, the best indicator of a protein's relative evolutionary rate is the expression level of the encoding gene.
The only point I want to make with this is that, they are reporting what is a surprise, what was not expected, which was not known, you know, 40 years ago, which has only been seen relatively recently. And they say, quote, We introduce a previously unexplored hypothesis, close quote.
And the point I want to emphasize is that, here in this paper published, you know, weeks ago, that they are exploring new hypotheses to try to understand why proteins have the sequences that they do.
Q. So in summary, this protein sequence, the fact that the equi-distant from a common ancestor is not what evolutionary theory would actually predict?
A. That's right. Evolutionary theory makes no firm prediction about this anymore than it makes a firm prediction about the structure of vertebrate embryos.
Q. It's a common understood problem that biologists are trying to resolve at this point?
A. Yes, within the community of scientists who work on this. People have been working on it for decades.
Q. Is this a problem that an American Biology teacher should be aware of?
A. Yes, an American Biology teacher should be aware of it, because an article on this very topic was published in the magazine, American Biology Teacher, a couple years ago, which is put out by the National Association of Biology Teachers.
And the article is entitled Current Status of the Molecular Clock Hypothesis. And one of the first -- this is a red arrow that I added to the figure. One of the first subsections of the article is entitled How Valid is the Molecular Clock Hypothesis? And if you'll advance to the next slide, let me just read the last line from the paper.
The author says, The validity of a molecular clock, except in closely related species, still remains controversial. So the point is that, extrapolating across wide biological distances, such as from fish to other vertebrates, that is controversial.
Maybe similar species, species of mice or some such thing, okay. But when you try to extrapolate further, the model is quite controversial.
Q. How does Pandas then address this issue?
A. Well, I have here the section from Pandas entitled The Molecular Clock where they discuss exactly all these things. They discuss the molecular clock, the standard molecular clock model, the naive molecular clock model, and then they discuss complications with it.
Let me just read this section from Pandas on the molecular clock. They write, quote, Some scientists have suggested that the idea of a molecular clock solves the mystery. The explanation they advance is that there is a uniform rate of mutation over time, so quite naturally, species that branched off from a common ancestor at the same time in the past will now have the same degree of divergence in their molecular sequences.
There are some serious shortcomings, however, with this explanation. First, mutation rates are thought to relate to generation times, with the mutation rates for various molecules being the same for each generation.
The problem comes when one compares two species of the same taxon, say two mammals, with very different generation times. Mice, for instance, go through four to five reproductive cycles a year. The number of mutations, therefore, would be dramatically higher than, say, those of an elephant.
Thus, they should not reflect similar percent sequence divergences for comparable proteins. Besides that, the rates of mutations are different for different proteins even of the same species. That means that, for the molecular clock idea to be correct, there must be not one molecular clock, but thousands.
So let me point out here that, in this section, Pandas describes the simple molecular clock idea that was proposed 40 years ago by Zuckerkandl and Pauling, and then talks about the two complications for the model, which are common knowledge and are taught in basic science texts that deal with this issue, the generation time problem and the fact that different proteins accumulate mutations at different rates.
And as I have shown from the literature I just cited, that continue to be live issues in the scientific community.
Q. In that section you read from on the molecular clock from Pandas are found on page 39, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Again, returning to that slide that Dr. Miller presented in his testimony?
A. Yes. I just wanted to go back to that slide where Dr. Miller says -- again, I should say that, in his testimony, which I attended, he, you know, excoriated Pandas on this point. And he says -- on his slide, he says, in fact, the information we have confirms that each of these organisms is equidistant from a common ancestor, which is the actual prediction of evolutionary theory.
And that's simply is incorrect. And in my view, Pandas is treating problems that Professor Miller, treating real live problems that Professor Miller shows no signs of being aware of. So I think a student reading this section would actually get a better appreciation for this subject than otherwise.
Q. Dr. Behe, in Dr. Miller's testimony, he also criticized another example found in Pandas that had a message such as, quote, John loves Mary, written on the beach, would be a sure sign of intelligence.
He claimed that any philosopher, any logician would spot the mistake in logic, because we know a human made that message, and probably made it with a stick, because we have seen such things happen in our own experience. Do you agree with this reasoning?
A. No, I disagree with Professor Miller's reasoning.
Q. And if I can just say, the example that John loves Mary, and we have a slide up, that's on page 7 of Pandas, correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Again, could you explain why you disagree with this reasoning?
A. Yes. The inference from the -- the inference from the existence of designed objects in the -- in our world of experience to the conclusion of design in life is an example of an inductive inference. And I think I explained earlier that, in an inductive inference, one always infers from examples of what we know to examples of what we don't know.
And the strength of the inference depends on similarities between the, between the inference in relevant properties. For example, in the Big Bang hypothesis, scientists extrapolated, or used inductive reasoning of their knowledge of explosions from our everyday world from things like fireworks and canon balls and so on.
They extrapolated from their experience that the motion of objects away from each other bespeaks an explosion. They extrapolated from our common everyday experience to something that nobody had ever seen before, an entirely new idea, that the universe itself began in something like a giant explosion.
Nonetheless, they were confident that this was a good idea because they thought the relevant property, the parts moving rapidly away from each other, was what we understand from an explosion. And that's how science often reasons.
In the same way, the purposeful arrangement of parts in our everyday experience bespeaks design. Pandas is exactly right, that if we saw such a message on the beach, we could conclude that it had been designed. And William Paley is exactly right, that if we stumbled across a watch in a field, that we would conclude that it was designed, because in each case there is this strong appearance of design from the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Now we have found purposeful arrangement of parts in an area where we didn't expect to, in the very cellular and molecular foundation of life, in the cell. The cell again was not understood in Darwin's day. And it is much better understood now. And from the new information we have, again, we see this purposeful arrangement of parts, and it's -- by inductive reasoning, we can apply our knowledge of what we see in our everyday world to a different, completely different realm.
And so that sort of inference has been done in science throughout the history of science, and it's a completely valid inference for Pandas to make.
Q. Now we've heard some testimony throughout the course of this trial of a program called SETI, S-E-T-I, a project, I believe, that stands for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you familiar with that project?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. Whose project is that?
A. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a project that was, for a while, was sponsored by the federal government. It involved scientists scanning the skies with detectors to see if they could detect some electromagnetic signal that might point to intelligence.
Q. Is there a comparison with that project to the discussion you had in here with the John loves Mary on the beach?
A. Yes. Again, if they detected something that seemed to have a purposeful arrangement of parts, if they saw something that bespoke a message, then even though we have had no experience with other entities from off the Earth trying to send us a message, nonetheless, we could still be confident that an intelligent agent had designed such a message.
And again, whenever we see John -- things like John loves Mary, we can be confident of that. And when we see the purposeful arrangement of parts in the cell, the argument is that, we can be confident of that, that that bespeaks design as well.
Q. I want to bring this discussion somewhat down to the molecular level, and ask you whether or not new genetic information can be generated by Darwinian processes. And I want to be more specific and ask whether new genetic information can be generated by known processes such as gene duplication and exon shuffling?
A. Well, that's a topic about which you have to be very careful and make distinctions.
Q. Okay. Let's start with the gene duplication. If you could explain what that is in the context of generating new genetic information?
A. Well, gene duplication is a process whereby a segment of DNA gets copied twice or gets duplicated and replicated so that where one gene was present before, a second copy of the exact same gene is now present in the genome of an organism. Or sometimes larger segments can be duplicated, so you can have multiple copies of multiple genes.
Q. Are you saying, duplication, like photocopying, is just making another copy of the gene that was originally existing?
A. Yeah, that's a good point. It's important to be aware that gene duplication means that you simply have a copy of the old gene. You have not done anything new. You've just taken the same gene and copied it twice. So it would be like, like photocopying a page. And now you have two pages, but it's just a copy of the first one, it's not something fundamentally new.
It would be like saying, the example of Pandas here with John loves Mary. If you walked down the sand another five yards or something, and you came across another message that says, John loves Mary, well, that's interesting, but you don't have anything fundamentally new.
Q. Can there be variations though in the duplication of those genes?
A. Well, once a gene has duplicated, then the idea goes that, perhaps one of those two copies can continue to perform the function that the single copy gene performed before the duplication, and the other one is sort of a spare copy.
Now it's available to perhaps undergo mutation, and mutation accumulate changes, and perhaps Darwinian theory postulates. Perhaps it can go on to develop brand new properties.
Q. Does this generate new information? And if you use that John loves Mary example to help explain perhaps?
A. Well, again, you have to be careful. Nobody disputes that random mutation and natural selection can do some things, can make some small changes in pre-existing systems. The dispute is over whether that explains large complex functional systems.
And to leave the world of proteins for a second, to look at John loves Mary, suppose we're looking at the spare copy, and the first copy was continuing to fulfill the function of conveying that information. Well, you know, suppose you changed a letter. Suppose you changed the final n in the word John to some other, some other letter, like r. That would not spell a name in the English language.
So that's kind of an analogy to saying that, you might lose the function of the message in the terms. In the terms of protein, the protein might no longer be functional. But you might get to closeby. You might get to closeby messages. For example, if you deleted the r and the y from the end of Mary, you might get to John loves Ma, or some such thing. But you're not going to get anything radically different from that.
Q. So you are operating with the copy. The copy is operating with those same letters, the John loves Mary, or some variation or deletions of that subset?
A. That's right. A copy is a copy. It's essentially the same thing. And now the big problem that Darwinian processes face is, now what do you do? How do you generate a new complex function?
Q. And that's with gene duplication that we just talked about. Could you explain a little bit about exon shuffling in the context of generating new complex information?
A. Yes, exon shuffling is a little bit more involved. It turns out that the gene for a protein can contain regions of DNA that actually code for regions of a protein interrupted by regions of DNA that don't code for regions of a protein. And the regions that code for the part of the protein are called exons.
Now it turns out that, in cellular processes, similar to gene duplication and other processes, too, one can duplicate separate exons and sometimes transfer them to different places in the genome and other such processes. But to make it more understandable, we can go back to the analogy of John loves Mary.
And in this sense, exon shuffling might be expected to generate something like, instead of John loves Mary, perhaps Mary loves John, or John Mary loves, or something like that. But again, it's kind of a mixture of pre-existing properties, and we're not generatesing something fundamentally new.
Q. So, for example, you couldn't generate Brad loves Jen from exon shuffling using your beach example?
A. No, I hope not.
Q. Do these concepts, particularly gene duplication, exon shuffling, do they have any impact on the concept of irreducible complexity that you've been discussing quite a bit throughout your testimony?
A. Yes. In fact, there is an important point to recognize here. Russell Doolittle knew all about the processes of gene duplication and exon shuffling. And as a matter of fact, in the blood clotting cascade, many proteins look similar to each other, and they're often times pointed to as examples of exon shuffling.
But nonetheless, that knowledge did not allow him to explain how the blood clotting system might have arisen. Again, these are sequence comparisons. And such information simply does not speak to the question of random mutation and natural selection being able to build complex new biochemical structures.
In the same way, the people who are investigating the type III secretory system and the bacterial flagellum know all about gene duplication and exon shuffling. And nonetheless, that information has not allowed them to explain the origin of either of those structures.
So those are interesting processes. And people who are convinced of Darwinian theory include those processes in their theory, but they do not explain -- they do not explain where new complex systems come from. And it's an example of somebody accommodating this information to an existing theory rather than getting information that actually experimentally supports the theory.
Q. So can random mutation and natural selection generate new information?
A. Well, again, that's -- you have to be careful. You can make small changes in pre-existing systems. And that's clearly the case. One can clearly do that. But there has been no demonstration to show that such processes can give rise to new complex systems such as we've been suggesting. And there are many reasons to think that it would be extremely difficult to do so.
Q. Have you prepared some slides with a couple -- several quotes that make this point?
A. Yes, I do. This first one is an excerpt from a paper from John Maynard Smith, which I spoke about earlier, from 1970 entitled Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space. Let me read the first excerpt.
Quote, It follows that if evolution by natural selection is to occur, functional proteins must form a continuous network which can be traversed by unit mutational steps without passing through nonfunctional intermediates, close quote. Again, let me explain.
If you can remember the figure of two proteins binding to each other that I showed in -- I showed yesterday, he is speaking of unit mutational steps in terms of one of those interactions, maybe a plus charge and a minus charge or a hydrophobic group and another hydrophobic group.
And so to get two proteins to -- or proteins to start change into something new and different with different properties, each one of those changes would have to be a beneficial one, or at least not cause any difficulties for the problem. And actually, seeing how that could happen is extremely difficult.
And continuing on this slide. I'm sorry. Could you back up one slide? Thank you. The bottom part of the quotation, he says, quote, An increase in the number of different genes in a single organism presumably occurs by the duplication of an already existing gene followed by divergency. So here, he's kind of describing the standard scenario which -- scenario, which is standard in Darwinian thinking, that one has gene duplication and then divergence of the sequence of a gene, and that gives a brand new interesting and complex protein.
But notice that I, of course, underlined and bolded the word presumably. Well, presumably, you know, is a presumption. And it may be true, and it may not. But presumptions are not evidence. And so in order to support this idea, one needs more than the presumption that it occurs.
Q. Do you have another citation to a science text?
A. Yes, I do. Here's an excerpt from an article by a man named Alan Orr, who is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Rochester. And again, this speaks to the same consideration, that you have to be able to have a pathway that step by tiny step could lead from one functional protein to another.
He says, quote, Given realistically low mutation rates, double mutants will be so rare that adaptation is essentially constrained to surveying, and substituting, one mutational step neighbors. Thus, if a double mutant sequence is favorable, but all single amino acid mutants are deleterious, adaptation will generally not proceed.
Again, this makes the point that, if you only need to change one little step, Darwinian evolution works fine. But if you need to change two things before you get to an improved function, the probability of Darwinian processes drops off dramatically.
If you need three things, it drops off, you know, even more dramatically. And nonetheless, as I showed in that figure of interacting proteins, even to get two proteins to stick together, multiple groups are involved.
Q. Did you write about something similar in a paper?
A. Yes. The paper that I published with David Snoke last year speaks exactly to this topic. It's entitled Simulating Evidence by Gene Duplication of Protein Features that Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues.
And in this theoretical study, we showed that, again, if you need one change, that's certainly doable. If you need two amino acid changes before you get a selectable function, the likelihood of that drops considerably. Three or more, now you're really in the very, very improbably range. So again, gene duplication is not the answer that it's often touted to be.
Q. Can you make an analogy here at all to -- you talked about Maxwell and the ether theory?
A. Yes. When Darwinian -- adherence to Darwinian theory, when they view that there are similar genes in different -- in the same organism, and they infer a process of gene duplication, it is simply their theoretical framework, which is saying, such a process must be important in generating new and complex structures.
That has not been demonstrated. Just like James Clerk Maxwell knew that light was a wave and inferred from his theory that there must be an ether, modern Darwinists infer from something we know, the existence of gene copies to an unproved role of such a process in generating complex biochemical systems.
Q. Now Dr. Miller says that Pandas necessarily rejects common descent, and points to a figure -- I believe it was 4.4 on page 99 -- showing separate lines representing categories of animals rather than a branching tree. Do you regard that as ruling out common descent?
A. No, I don't. And here's a figure that I made up in the upper right-hand corner. It's figure 4.4 from Pandas, which is the figure that Professor Miller showed, which shows straight lines instead of a branching tree, which is the traditional representation of how -- of the fossil record.
Nonetheless, here I regard this as simply trying to describe the data without a theoretical framework, without the branched lines in between. One has to realize that these lines do not occur in the fossil record. These are theoretical constructs.
And how one groups things together is theory building rather than data itself. I viewed this as Pandas trying to describe the data without the framework of the existing theory. And I might add that, this was figure 4.4. And earlier, a couple pages earlier, Pandas describes the traditional interpretation of the fossil record in terms of a branching tree.
And in this section, section 96 through 100, the meaning of gaps in the fossil record, Pandas describes the traditional tree diagram for the fossil record, and then points to statements by biologists, saying that there seem to be difficulties in this sort of representation, and then goes on to discuss what interpretations, what ideas have been offered to try to account for the form of the fossil record.
Pandas writes, Several interpretations have been offered to resolve this problem. That is, that the tree of life doesn't seem to be as continuous as one might expect. Number 1, they say, imperfect record. That is, maybe not all organisms left representative of fossilized specimens. Number 2, incomplete search. And that is, maybe we simply haven't looked in the right places or looked in all the places on the Earth, and maybe when we do, then we will find what we expect to be there.
Number 3, what they call jerky process, or which has been called punctuated equilibrium, which was an idea advanced by Steven J. Gould and Niles Eldredge in the 1970's, whereby it said that the mode or the tempo of evolution is one in which a species or a branch of life stays pretty much constant for a long period of time, and then within a relatively short period of time, large changes occur.
And then fourth, they say, well, perhaps -- they suggest something called the sudden appearance or face value interpretation, saying that, well, maybe if we see the sudden appearance of some feature or organism in the fossil record, then that, in fact, might be what happened.
Nonetheless, as I say, they discuss all of these possibilities, including the standard interpretation. And at the end of the section, they write that, scientists should not accept the face value interpretation of the fossil record without also exploring the other possibilities, and even then, only if the evidence continues to support it.
So as I read this, Pandas is telling students that they should follow the data where the data lead. And if the data lead from this model to another model, or from that model to a second model, then a scientific attitude toward the problem is to follow the data, where the data go.
Q. Dr. Behe, does intelligent design necessarily rule out common descent?
A. No, it certainly does not.
Q. Now we've heard testimony from several witnesses claiming that the theory of evolution is no different than, say, the germ theory of disease, so there's no reason to pay any special attention to it. Do you agree with that?
A. No, I disagree.
Q. And why?
A. Well, in a number of ways, evolutionary theory is unique. It's been my experience that students have a number of misconceptions about the theory. They confuse facts with theoretical interpretations. They do not make distinctions between the components of evolutionary theory.
And perhaps, most strikingly, a number of people have made very strong extra-scientific claims for the implications of evolutionary theory.
Q. Now I just want to return to something you had said about your experience with students. You testified that you teach a course called popular arguments on evolution, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. And you've been teaching that for 12 years?
A. Roughly, yes.
Q. Now are there some standard misconceptions that you can point to about the theory of evolution that you find your students bringing to the class?
A. Yes. In my experience, a number of students come in thinking that, in fact, evolution is completely true; that is, they don't make a distinction between fact and theory, they don't think it will be falsified, or they don't think there's a possibility of it being falsified.
They also confuse various components of evolutionary theory. For example, you can ask a student, you know, why they think Darwinian evolution is correct? And they'll say, you know, because, you know, because of the dinosaurs. And they're mistaking change over time with the question of natural selection. And they will assume that the existence of animals in the past necessarily means that animals in the present were derived from them by random mutation and natural selection.
Oftentimes also, students think that utterly unsolved problems, such as the origin of life, have, in fact, been solved by science. I had students tell me that, gee, it's true, right, that science has shown genes being produced in origin of life experiments. So in my experience, students bring a number of misconceptions to this issue.
Q. One of the first ones you indicated is that they believe that Darwin's theory of evolution is a fact as opposed to a scientific theory?
A. That's right.
Q. Does intelligent design seek to address some of these misconceptions?
A. Yes. Yes, it does. One way is -- one way to address the problem of students not understanding that the distinction between fact and theory is to at least have at least one more theoretical framework in which to treat facts.
If a student has only one theory and a group of facts to think of, it's extremely difficult to distinguish what is theory and what is fact. The little lines connecting various points on, say, a protein sequence comparison are theory, but students can often confuse them, confuse them to be facts.
Q. Do you believe these students will be better prepared if they had learned that Darwin's theory of evolution was not a fact and that gaps and problems existed within this theory?
A. Yes, I certainly do. They would see that, in fact, if you can look at the data in a couple ways, then they'll more easily distinguish data from interpretation or from theory. And if they are aware that there are problems in a theory, then perhaps they won't expect -- they won't, again, confuse it with a fact, they'll understand that there are some problems that are unresolved.
Q. Now you made some indication previously in your answer to my question that there are claims made about the theory that go beyond biology, is that true?
A. Yes, that's certainly true.
Q. And do you have some slides to demonstrate some of those examples?
A. Yes, I have a couple of slides, four slides over -- that point to this. For example, in the high school textbook Biology, which was written by Professor Kenneth Miller and his co-author, Joseph Levine, this is the 1995 version, I think, the third edition, in a section entitled The Significance of Evolutionary Theory, the authors write, quote, The influence of evolutionary thought extends far beyond biology. Philosopher J. Collins has written that, quote, there are no living sciences, human attitudes, or institutional powers that remain unaffected by the ideas released by Darwin's work, close quote.
In another example of the implications, the profound implications beyond biology that some people see for Darwin's theory, there's a section in his book, Finding Darwin's God, A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, where Dr. Miller writes that, quote, God made the world today contingent upon the events of the past. He made our choices matter, our actions genuine, our lives important. In the final analysis, He used evolution as the tool to set us free.
So here is a scientific theory which is being used to support the idea that we are free, we are free, in apparently some metaphysical sense, because of the work of Darwin. In another example -- it's just that -- for example, the expert, Professor John Hauck, the theologian from Georgetown University, has written a number of books, including God After Darwin, a Theology of Evolution.
Further example, in -- the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, writes, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually-fulfilled atheist.
If I could have the next slide. Thank you. The Darwinian philosopher, Daniel Dennett, who's at Tufts University, has described Darwinism as a universal acid that destroys our most cherished beliefs. And he says, quote, Darwin's idea had been born as an answer to questions in biology, but it threatened to leak out, offering answers, welcome or not, to questions in cosmology, going in one direction, and psychology, going in the other direction.
If the cause of design in biology could be a mindless, algorithmic process of evolution, why couldn't that whole process itself be the whole product of evolution, and so forth, all the way down? And if mindless evolution could account for the breathtakingly clever artifacts of the biosphere, how could the products of our own real, quote, unquote, minds be exempt from an evolutionary explanation? Darwin's idea thus also threatened to spread all the way up, dissolving the illusion of our own authorship, our own divine spark of creativity and understanding.
So again, Professor Dennett sees implications for Darwin's theory that are profound and that extend well beyond biology. Another philosopher by the name of Alex Rosenberg, who's at Duke University, published an article a few years ago in the journal Biology and Philosophy that, quote, No one has expressed the destructive power of Darwinian theory more effectively than Daniel Dennett. Others have recognized that the theory of evolution offers us a universal acid, but Dennett, bless his heart, coined the term.
In short, it, that is Darwin's idea, has made Darwinians into metaphysical Nihilists denying that there is any meaning or purpose to the universe, close quote. So again, a number of philosophers, a number of scientists, and so on, see very, very profound implications in Darwin's theory.
Two more quotations on this last slide on this topic. Larry Arnhart is a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University. He wrote a book entitled Darwinian Natural Right, The Biological Ethics of Human Nature. And in it, he writes -- and in it, he writes the following, that, quote, Darwinian biology sustains conservative social thought by showing how the human capacity for spontaneous order arises from social instincts and a moral sense shaped by natural selection in human evolutionary history.
So let me emphasize that he sees implications for politics from Darwin's theory. And the same -- and a Princeton University philosopher by the name of Peter Singer has written a book entitled A Darwinian Left, Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation. And in it, he writes that we should try to incorporate a Darwinian ethic of cooperation into our political thought.
So the gist of Professor Singer's book is that, Darwinian ideas support a liberal political outlook. And he argues for that. So, again, these -- all of these people see profound implications for Darwin's theory well far beyond biology.
Q. These are non-scientific claims, correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Have you come across any similar claims made about, say, the germ theory of disease?
A. I have never seen the germ theory of disease argued to say how we should conduct our political life.
Q. How about atomic theory?
A. I have never seen atomic theory used in such profound senses either. So my point then is that, it is perfectly rationale to treat a scientific theory, which so many people have claimed such profound implications for, to treat it differently from other scientific theories for which such far-reaching implications have not been claimed.
It might be very important, and I think a school district would be very justified to say that, since this particular theory seems to reach far beyond its providence, then we should take particular care in explaining to our students exactly what the data is for this theory, exactly what is the difference between theory and fact, exactly what is the difference between theory and interpretation. And so I think such an action would be justified.
Q. Sir, I want to ask you some questions about creationism as it relates to intelligent design. First of all, let me ask you, does creationism have a popular meaning or is there a popular understanding of that term?
A. Well, again, you have to be careful, because many words in these discussions can have multiple meanings. And if you're not very careful about your definitions, you'll easily become confused.
Creationism -- creationist has sometimes been used, as John Maddox, the editor of Nature, used it, simply to mean somebody who thinks that nature was begun by a supernatural act, by God, and the laws of nature perhaps were made of God, and unfolded from there nonetheless.
Q. That would be similar to Dr. Miller's view towards evolution that he had written in his book Finding Darwin's God?
A. Yes, that seems to be consistent with what he wrote. But nonetheless, in the popular useage, creationism means -- creationist means somebody who adheres to the literal interpretation of the first several books -- or first several chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, somebody who thinks that the Earth is relatively young, on the order of, say, 10,000 years, that the major groups of plants and animals and organisms were created ex-nihilo in a supernatural acts by a supernatural being, God, that there was a large worldwide flood which is responsible for major features of geology, and so on.
Q. Now we've heard different terms; young-earth creationism, old-earth creationism, and special creationism. And you have familiarity with those terms, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Is intelligent design creationism, whether you call it young-earth creationism, old-earth creationism, or special creationism?
A. No, it is not.
Q. And why not?
A. Creation -- creationism is a theological concept, but intelligent design is a scientific theory which relies exclusively on the observable, physical, empirical evidence of nature plus logical inferences. It is a scientific idea.
Q. Is it special creationism?
A. No, it is not special creationism.
Q. Again, why not?
A. Again, for the same reason. Creation is a theological religious concept. And intelligent design is a scientific idea, which is based exclusively on the physical, observable evidence plus logical processes.
Q. Dr. Miller has made a claim that if the bacterial flagellum, for example, was designed, then it had to be created, and is, therefore, special creationism. Is that accurate?
A. No, that is inaccurate. The reason it's -- again, creation is a theological concept. It is a religious concept. But intelligent design is a completely scientific concept which supports itself by pointing to observable, physical, empirical facts about the world, about life, and makes logical inferences from them.
Q. Does intelligent design require that the bacterial flagellum, for example, instantaneously appear from nothing?
A. No, it does not.
Q. Why not?
A. Because intelligent design focuses exclusively on the deduction of design from the purposeful arrangement of parts. And it says nothing directly about how the design was effected, whether it was done quickly, or slowly, or whatever. So it has nothing to say about that.
Q. Could the bacterial flagellum have been designed over time?
A. Yes, it could.
Q. Does intelligent design require ex-nihilo creation?
A. No, it does not.
Q. Why not?
A. Because again, the term ex-nihilo creation is a theological concept, a religious concept. And intelligent design is a scientific idea that relies on observable facts about nature plus logical inferences.
Q. Is there, again, an analogy you can make here to the Big Bang theory?
A. Yes. Yes, there is. Again, many people, including many scientists, saw in the Big Bang theory something that had theological implications, maybe this, this Big Bang was ex-nihilo creation by a supernatural being. And many people who saw that didn't like that. Nonetheless, the Big Bang theory itself is an utterly scientific theory because it relies on observations, physical observations, empirical observations about nature, and reasons from those observations using logical processes.
Q. Is intelligent design a religious belief?
A. No, it isn't.
Q. Why not?
A. Intelligent design requires no tenet of any particular religion, no tenet of any general religion. It does not rely on religious texts. It does not rely on messages from religious leaders or any such thing. The exclusive concern of intelligent design is to examine the empirical and observable data of nature and reason from that using logical processes.
Q. Now some claim that intelligent design advances a religious belief, that it is inherently religious and not science. Do you agree?
A. No. Again, no more than the Big Bang theory is inherently religious. Although the Big Bang theory and intelligent design might be taken by some people to have theological or philosophical implications, both of them rely on observed evidence, empirical evidence, and logical reasoning.
Neither the Big Bang nor intelligent design relies on any religious tenet, points to any religious books, or any such thing.
Q. Do creationists in the sense that Plaintiffs and, I believe, their experts use in this case require physical evidence to draw their conclusions?
A. No. Actually, it's interesting that one could be a creationist without any physical evidence. One could rely -- a creationist could rely for his belief in creation on, say, some religious text or in some private religious revelation or some other non-scientific source.
So a creationist does not need any physical evidence of the kind that, for example, Richard Dawkins sees in life that leads him to think that life has the strong appearance of design or the kind that David DeRosier sees in the bacterial flagellum. A creationist can believe in creation without any such physical evidence.
Q. Is that different than from a proponent of intelligent design?
A. Yes, that's vastly 180 degrees different from intelligent design. Intelligent design focuses exclusively on the physical evidence. It relies totally on empirical observations about nature. It does not rely on any religious text. It does not rely on any other such religious information. It relies exclusively on physical evidence about nature and logical inferences.
Q. Are intelligent design's conclusions or explanations based on any religious, theological, or philosophical commitment?
A. No, they are not.
Q. Again, can you draw any comparisons between intelligent design and the Big Bang theory in this regard?
A. Yes. Again, the -- both the Big Bang theory and intelligent design may have philosophical or theological implications in the view of some people, but again, both are scientific theories. Both rely on observations about nature. Both make reasoned conclusions from those observations about nature.
Q. Does intelligent design require adherence to the literal reading of the Book of Genesis?
A. No, it does not.
Q. Does intelligent design require adherence to the belief that the Earth is no more than 6 to 10,000 years old?
A. No, it doesn't.
Q. Does intelligent design require adherence to the flood geology point of view which is advanced by creationists?
A. No, it doesn't.
Q. Does intelligent design require the action of a supernatural creator acting outside of the laws of nature?
A. No, it doesn't.
Q. Could you explain?
A. Yes. Making an analogy again to the Big Bang theory, the Big Bang theory is a theory which is advanced simply to explain the observations that we have of nature, and it does so by making observations and making inferences. It does not posit any supernatural act to explain the Big Bang. It leaves that event unexplained.
Perhaps in the future, science will find an explanation for that event. Perhaps it won't. But nonetheless, the Big Bang is a completely scientific theory. Again, intelligent design is a scientific theory that starts from the data -- the physical, observable data of nature, and makes reasoned conclusions from that and concludes intelligent design.
Scientific information does not say what is the cause of design. It may never say what is the cause of design. But nonetheless, it remains the best scientific explanation for the data that we have.
Q. Can science then identify the source of design at this point?
A. No, not at this point.
Q. Does intelligent design rule out a natural explanation for the design found in nature?
A. No, it does not rule it out.
Q. Could you explain?
A. Yes. Again, harkening back to the Big Bang theory, the Big Bang theory was proposed, and the cause of the Big Bang was utterly unknown. It's still utterly unknown. But nonetheless, the Big Bang theory is a scientific theory.
The Big Bang theory does not postulate that the Big Bang was a supernatural act. Although, you know, it simply posits no explanation whatsoever. In the same sense, intelligent design is a scientific theory advanced to offer -- advanced to explain the physical, observable facts about nature.
It cannot explain the source of the design and just leaves it as an open question.
Q. We've heard testimony about methodological naturalism. Are you familiar with that term?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. I believe you indicated in your deposition that you thought it hobbles or even constrains intelligent design, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. How does it do so?
A. Well, any constraint on what conclusion science can come to hobbles all of science. Science should be an open, no-holds-barred struggle to obtain the truth about nature. When you start putting constraints on science, science suffers.
Yesterday, I discussed a man named Walter Nernst who said that the timelessness of nature, the infinity of time was a necessary constraint on a scientific theory. Science had to operate within that framework. If he had prevailed, progress, real progress in science would have been severely constrained.
Another reason why methodological naturalism can be a constraint on science is because oftentimes people don't think -- don't separate neatly categories in their own minds. For example, I showed the -- I showed the quotation from John Maddox, the editor of Nature, who found the Big Bang theory philosophically unacceptable and was reluctant to embrace it because of that.
There are other scientists in the past, one named Fred Hoyle, who rejected the Big Bang theory because he did not like its non-scientific, extra-scientific implications. So to the extent that people confuse a scientific theory with extra-scientific implications that some people might draw from it, then that might -- that might be a constraint upon the theory.
Q. Despite these constraints, does intelligent design still fit within the framework of methodological naturalism?
A. Yes. Despite the constraints, it certainly does, just as the Big Bang theory does.
Q. Now we've heard some testimony about space aliens and time traveling biologists. And I believe you made some similar reference to that in your book, Darwin's Black Box, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And why was that?
A. Well, this was, you know, a tongue-in-cheek effort to show people that, you know, intelligent design does not exclude natural explanations, although some, you know, explanations we might wave our hands to think up right now might strike many people as implausible, they are not, you know, utterly illogical.
And it was kind of a placemaker to say that maybe some explanation will occur to us or be found in the future which will, in fact, be a completely natural one.
Q. Now the space alien claim in particular seems to fall hard on the ear of a lay person. But has that been a claim that has been advanced by a notable scientist to explain the natural phenomena?
A. Yes, that's right. Surprisingly, in the year 1973, a man named Francis Crick, the eminent Nobel laureate who discovered the double helicle shape of DNA with James Watson, he published, with a co-author named Leslie Orgle, he published a paper entitled Directed Panspermia, which appeared in the science journal Icarus.
And the gist of the paper was that the problems trying to think of an unintelligent origin of life on Earth were so severe that perhaps we should consider the possibility that space aliens in the distant past sent a rocket ship to the Earth filled with spores to seed life on the early Earth.
Q. This was a claim advanced by a Nobel laureate?
A. Yes, Francis Crick.
Q. And the article in which his arguments appear, was this a peer reviewed science journal?
A. Yes, the journal Icarus.
Q. Was this just a tongue-in-cheek, so to speak, explanation on behalf of Francis Crick?
A. No, it wasn't. He mentioned it first in that 1973 article, and he repeated the same claim in a book he published in '88 and interviews he gave later on. And from what I understand, he still thought it was a reasonable idea up until his death recently.
Q. Sir, I'd ask you to direct your attention to the exhibit binder that I have provided for you, and if you could go to tab 14. There is an exhibit marked as Defendants' Exhibit 203-E as echo. Is that the article from Francis Crick that you've been testifying about?
A. Yes, this is Francis Crick's article on Directed Panspermia.
Q. Is the search for intelligence causes a scientific exploration?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Again, do you have any examples that we could point to?
A. Well, one good example is one that I mentioned earlier, which is this project called the SETI project, S-E-T-I, which stands for search for extraterrestrial intelligence, where scientists use instruments to scan space in the hope of finding transmissions or some signals that may have been sent by extraterrestrial sources.
And they are confident that they could be able to distinguish those signals from the background noise, background radiation, electromagnetic phenomena of space.
Q. Again, that's a scientific exploration?
A. Yes, a number of scientists are involved in that.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I'm just -- do you intend to go to 12:30?
THE COURT: I was thinking more 12:15, unless you think that this is an appropriate break point. Your call.
MR. MUISE: I certainly have more than 15 minutes. This next section might be divided in that 15, so my preference would be to take the lunch break and come back and then complete the direct during the first session after lunch.
THE COURT: All right. We'll return then at, let's say, 1:25, this afternoon, after a suitable lunch break, and we'll pick up with your next topic on direct at that time. We'll be in recess.
(Whereupon, a lunch recess was taken at 12:04 p.m.)


Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 11 (October 18), PM Session, Part 1


(1:25 p.m., convene.)
(Direct examination of Dr. Michael J. Behe continued.)
THE COURT: Be seated, please.
All right, back to you, Mr. Muise.
MR. MUISE: Thank you, Your Honor. May I approach the witness?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, I've handed you what's been marked as defendant's exhibit 220, which is a copy Of Pandas and People, the second edition. Do you see that?
A Yes, I do.
Q. I would like to direct your attention to page 99, please. I would like to read to you and oft-quoted passage in this case thus far. If you'll look at the bottom on page 99, it's going to continue onto 100 as well. It says, quote, Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera. Some scientists have arrived at this view since fossil forms first appeared in the record with their distinctive features intact and apparently fully functional rather than gradual development.
And I would like to get your reaction to that section?
A Well, it says -- it says that some scientists have arrived at this view. I think that's a way of saying that this is a matter of disagreement and dispute.
I certainly do not think that intelligent design means that a feature has to appear abruptly. And I -- I certainly would have written this differently if I had done so.
Q. Now, you say you would have written it differently. Is there another reference or another section in Pandas that you could direct us to to emphasize that point?
A Yes. I wrote the section at the end of Pandas which is discussing blood clotting. And on page 144 of the text there's a section entitled "A Characteristic of Intelligent Design." And it begins, "Why is the blood clotting system an example of intelligent design? The ordering of independent pieces into a coherent whole to accomplish a purpose which is beyond any single component of the system is characteristic of intelligence."
Q. And why did you direct us to that particular section?
A Because I think it more clearly conveys the central idea of intelligent design, which is the purposeful arrangement of parts.
Q. Do you see that then as a, perhaps a better characterization, or more accurate characterization of intelligent design?
A Yes, I like this a lot better.
Q. Now I want to read you a couple of quotes regarding this notion of abrupt, or abrupt appearance. This one is from Ernst Mayr, from One Long Argument, which is one of the documents you had referenced in your testimony. It says, quote, Paleontologists have long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's partial of gradualism and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seem to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seem to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record, end quote.
I want to read you one more quote, and this is from a writing by a gentleman whose last name is Valentine. Quote, It is this relatively abrupt appearance of living phyla that have been dubbed the Cambrian Explosion, end quote.
Do you see those -- those references to abrupt that I just read to you comparable to the reference in Pandas?
A Yes, they seem to be talking about the same things.
Q. Well, Dr. Padian, if my recollection is correct, testified that the two were speaking of different things, the quotes that I read to you were speaking of abrupt in the sense of geological time whereas Pandas is not speaking so much to that effect.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection, it's mischaracterizing Dr. Padian's testimony.
THE COURT: In what sense?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Dr. Padian is referring to the appearance of fossils in the record, not to the abrupt appearances of creatures for the first time. He's not talking about, in the sense of geological, he's talking about the fossils -- when we find fossils.
THE COURT: Well, the precursor to your question assumed that you weren't sure if you had it right. If you're going to cite to Dr. Padian's testimony, you ought to be sure.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, I can ask a question, I think, which I think I have a pretty decent recollection of what it was. But I can ask the question where I don't have to refer to Dr. Padian but I think it will achieve the objective.
THE COURT: That might resolve the problem. If you're going to try to paraphrase Dr. Padian without referring to a transcript I think you're going to get potentially some difficulty. So I'll sustain the objection on that basis. You can rephrase.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Dr. Behe, do you see -- well, those quotes that I -- that I read to you, and the quote out of Pandas which you read, you already testified that you see them similar in a sense. Do you see that they're similar in a sense that abrupt is speaking to this -- a concept in geological time?
A Yes. Pandas is speaking of the fossil record, from what I read. So how else can we tell about the appearance except the appearance in the fossil record? So I think it's -- it's exactly the same. It's the appearance, the abrupt appearance, as Mayr and James Valentine said, of these things in the fossil record.
Q. You indicated that intelligent design doesn't require abrupt appearance, is that correct?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. Does it say anything directly about the pace of change?
A No. Again, intelligent design simply is the theory that designed features can be detected from the physical -- physical evidence of nature, it's seen in the purposeful arrangement of parts, but it does not say anything directly about how fast such a thing might go, how slow such a thing might go, or other interesting questions.
Q. And if there's an abrupt appearance of fossils in the record, would that be consistent or inconsistent with intelligent design?
A It's completely consistent with intelligent design. An abrupt appearance, a slow appearance; intelligent design does not speak to the pace of such things.
Q. And I believe you testified previously you would have perhaps written that section differently.
A Yes. The way I would have put it is the way I did put it in the section on blood clotting.
Q. I d like to ask you to turn to page 100 of Pandas. I want to continue down on that same section.
And it says, quote, This alternative suggests that a reasonable, natural cause explanation for origins may never be found, and then intelligent design best fits the data, end quote.
And I d like to get your reaction to that sentence.
A Well, it seems perfectly sensible to me. It seems quite correct. We currently don't have a natural cause explanation. We might never have one. But a natural cause explanation is not being ruled out. And the development of a natural cause explanation in the future is not being ruled out. And you know it s, again, it's likened to the Big Bang theory.
The Big Bang theory did not postulate a natural cause explanation for the Big Bang. We don't currently have a natural cause explanation for the Big Bang. We may never have a natural cause explanation for the Big Bang. But nonetheless, the Big Bang theory is thought by physicists to best fit the data that we currently have. And right now I think intelligent design also best fits data that we currently have.
Q. So Dr. Behe, do you think Pandas would be a good book, a good reference book for students to have access to?
A Yes, I do.
Q. And why is that?
A Well, because in order to best discern the difference between facts and theories, it's extremely useful to be able to view facts from a couple of different theoretical perspectives. It would help a student separate theory from facts. It would help show a student that the strength of facts, the strength of support that facts lend to a theory can oftentimes depend on a theory -- excuse me, a theoretical perspective somebody committed to a theory might see the facts as more strongly fitting the theory than somebody else. It also might help the student see that difficulties with the theory -- the strengths of the difficulties are also relative to the viewpoints that people bring to the table, that somebody who views a theory as very strongly supported already like, for example, the ether theory of light, will view difficulties with the theory a lot differently and perhaps a lot more permissively than somebody who does not share the same theoretical perspective. So I think it would be very good for that purpose.
Q. So you're aware that a statement is read to students at Dover High School?
A Yes.
Q. And I would like to read to you the statement, and I'll represent to you this is the statement that was prepared to be read in January of 2005: "The Pennsylvania academic standards requires students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution, and eventually take a standardized test of which evolution is a part. Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book Of Pandas and People is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves. With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standard-based assessments."
Is it your understanding that's the statement that is read to the students?
A Yes.
Q. Did I say anything in that short statement that in your expert opinion would cause any harm to a student's science education?
A No, I can't see anything.
Q. Now, the first paragraph says, "The Pennsylvania academic standards requires students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually take a standardized test of which evolution is a part."
What does that say to you?
A If I were a student it would say that I was going to be tested on evolution, so if I wanted to do well that I should study hard.
Q. The second paragraph, "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations."
Is that accurate?
A Yes, all those sentences sound exactly accurate, and the students should understand those.
Q. "Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book Of Pandas and People is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves."
Do you have any problem with that paragraph?
A That sounds like -- sounds fine as well.
Q. And finally, "With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standard-based assessments."
What does that say to you?
A That sounds reasonable as well.
Q. And do you think it's good advice to inform students that with respect to any theory they ought to be encouraged to keep an open mind?
A I think it's very good advice to pass on.
Q. Now, Dr. Alters, who testified in this case, reviewing that same one-minute statement that I read to you, said this: Quote, Now, what this policy is doing is saying there is this other scientific view that belongs, it belongs in the game of science, and it's the one that most students will perceive as God friendly. It has as intelligent designer; evolution doesn t. Now, students are going to be in there discussing out in the playground, discussing in their class, among themselves, or whatever, that the unit that they're now about to hear about, the evolution unit that's now coming up, is the one that's not God friendly, the one scientific theory that doesn't mention God; but this other so-called scientific theory, intelligent design, is God friendly, because there's a possibility that God has this other theory. What a terrible thing to do to kids. I mean, to make them have to think about defending their religion before learning a scientific concept. How ridiculous. This is probably the worst thing I ever heard of in science education."
What is your reaction to that opinion?
A It's strikes me as, what shall I say, histrionic even. It seems utterly unconnected to the text of the statement that you just read a minute ago.
I can't see any connection between what Dr. Alters said and the statement that you read. You know, it makes me suspect that the reaction has more to do with Dr. Alters conceptions and misunderstandings and other things than it has to do with the statement itself.
Q. Dr. Padian offered his opinion that this one-minute statement would cause confusion for students and have them wondering such things as what good is prayer and why is there suffering.
What is your reaction to those claims?
A It's hard to -- it's hard to know what to say to something like that. A couple things is -- again, you know, it strikes me as utterly unconnected to the text of the statement that was read, and I can't imagine where Professor Padian is getting this from.
I doubt that it's from his paleontological expertise. And, again, it makes me think that -- that it says more about where he's coming from, more about where -- what he's thinking, his frame of mind, than it says about the statement itself.
Q. Sir, you're aware that a newsletter was sent out by the district that discussed some of the biology curriculum?
A Yes.
Q. I want to ask you some section -- ask you some questions about some sections of this. Here is the first one. "Students are told of the theory of intelligent design, ID. Isn't ID simply religion in disguise? No, the theory of intelligent design involves science versus science, where scientists, looking at the same data, come to different conclusions. The theory does not mention or discuss God, Christianity, or the Bible in any way."
Is that accurate?
A That's exactly right. It's completely accurate.
Q. And another one, "What is the theory of evolution? The word evolution has several meanings, and those supporting Darwin's theory of evolution use the confusion in definition to their advantage. Evolution can mean something as simple as change over time, which is not controversial, and is supported by most people. However, evolution in its biological sense means a process whereby life arose from non-living matter and subsequently developed by natural means, namely, natural selection acting on random variations."
Is that accurate?
A Yeah, and that sounds clear. I might have phrased things differently but, you know, it's been my experience that people confuse the different meanings of evolution and think that because there's such a thing as change over time, that Darwin's theory might not necessarily be correct. So yes, that seems perfectly fine.
Q. Here's another one. Quote, What is the theory of intelligent design? The theory of intelligent design, ID, is a scientific theory that differs from Darwin's view, and is endorsed by a growing number of credible scientists. ID attempts to explain the complexity of the world by interpreting the scientific data now available to modern biologists. Its principal argument is that certain features of the universe are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than undirected causes such as Darwin's theory of natural selection.
That's the first paragraph in the answer. Do you have any problem with that section?
A That sounds reasonable.
Q. And then the second paragraph. "In simple terms, on a molecular level, scientists have discovered a purposeful arrangement of parts which cannot be explained by Darwin's theory. In fact, since the 1950s, advances in molecular biology and chemistry have shown us that living cells, the fundamental units of life processes, cannot be explained by chance."
What's your reaction to that section?
A Well, I think I would have phrased things somewhat differently, but I think for a newsletter, it's fine. It speaks about the purposeful arrangement of parts, which is exactly right, that's the heart of detecting design. So I think it does a good job at getting across the idea.
Q. Now, if something is in a newsletter, would that necessarily be something that you would endorse to be part of a science class or in a science text?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Objection. He has no basis to testify about that. He's making a -- he's asking for a statement about whether this is or is not part of the Dover science curriculum.
MR. MUISE: I don't believe that had anything to do with what my question was, Your Honor. I was asking him about the phrasing of these, whether they would be phrased similarly if he was going to provide similar explanations in a science class or in a science context, would he perhaps do it differently than he would in a newsletter.
THE COURT: Well, he objected to the question as it was framed, because he wouldn't have any basis as an expert -- anybody, I suppose, could give an opinion the way you phrased your question. So I'll sustain the objection, but you might be able to get at it through a different question. You'll have to rephrase.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: If the question is, you know, take that same language, is this what you d tell the student -- is this what you d tell the students, I have no objection to the question.
MR. MUISE: That's not my question.
THE COURT: Well, he tried.
MR. MUISE: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: He tried.
MR. MUISE: He can ask that one on cross, Your Honor; this is my witness.
THE COURT: Mr. Muise has the floor, he'll figure it out.
BY MR. MUISE:
Q. Again, Dr. Behe, that last section that I read to you, I believe you testified that you thought that would be fine for a newsletter, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q. Well, as a teacher of science, if you were going to express something similar to that in a science book or in a science text, would you perhaps word it differently?
A Yeah, I would rewrite it more carefully, sure.
Q. In terms for a newsletter you believe it's sufficient for the lay person?
A It, as I said, it gets across that core idea of the purposeful arrangement of parts, which I argued about extensively here. So I -- I think that's the most important point, yes, I think that's good.
Q. And one more, Dr. Behe. Quote, Are there religious implications to the theory of ID? And here's the answer. Quote, Not any more so than the religious implications of Darwinism. Some have said that before Darwin, quote, we thought the benevolent God had created us. Biology took away our status as made in the image of God, end quote, or, quote, Man is the result of a purposeless process that did not have him in mind, he was not planned, end quote, or, Darwinism made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, end quote.
Is that question and answer accurate?
A Yeah, I probably would rewrite that one too. But it certainly is true that scientific theories oftentimes have what people think of as philosophical and theological implications. Philosophers, theologians all the time draw on scientific theories. I think that a number of the experts in this case have written books that impinge on the philosophical and theological aspects of Darwinism. So that's a perfectly -- perfectly correct statement.
Q. Dr. Behe, should school districts such as the Dover Area School District make students aware of intelligent design as a scientific theory during their class instruction of Darwin's theory of evolution?
A I'm sorry, I missed the question.
Q. I'm sorry. Should school districts such as the Dover Area School District make students aware of intelligent design as a scientific theory during their class instruction of Darwin's theory of evolution?
A Yes, I think that's a good idea.
Q. And why?
A Because in order for a student to properly appreciate the difference between fact and theory, one needs at least a couple of different theoretical perspectives to view facts from. If a student is only given one theoretical framework in which to view a theory, then the danger is that the theory will blend into the facts and students will not be able to distinguish the two. Indeed, grown up scientists and philosophers oftentimes have the difficulty.
Additionally, the ability to view a set of facts from a different framework allows a student to judge whether some difficulties for one theory are either greater or lesser. It's been my experience that somebody who is convinced that a theory is true will view difficulties as minor annoyances, or maybe ignore them altogether. But somebody who is not convinced of that theoretical framework might see those difficulties as much more telling and weighty than the first person.
And the third reason is that the strength of evidence supporting a theory, or even whether facts brought to bear have anything to do with a theory, oftentimes depends on a person's theoretical perspective that a person brings to the table in the first place.
Sometimes a person who has a theoretical perspective will view data that is newly obtained as support for the theory, whereas somebody outside of that will think of it as either irrelevant or not -- or not supporting the theory as strongly as the first person.
So I think it's very useful for a student to view data from a number of different perspectives. And so I think it would be good for that purpose.
Q. Does Dover's policy at issue in this case support good science pedagogy?
A Yes, I think so.
MR. MUISE: Turn over the witness for cross, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, Mr. Muise. And Mr. Rothchild, you may commence cross examination.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: If I could have one moment to get organized, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Certainly.
(Pause.)
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Good afternoon.
A Good afternoon, Mr. Rothschild.
Q. How are you?
A Fine, thanks.
Q. Professor Behe, do you have a copy of your deposition and expert report up there with you?
A No, I don t.
Q. And I'm also going to give you a copy of what we ve marked as exhibit 718, which is your reply to critics which we'll be referring to throughout the afternoon.
A Okay.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: May I approach, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And I saw that you had a copy of Pandas, but do you have a copy of Darwin's Black Box with you?
A No, I don t.
Q. I am surprised you're ever without one.
A Hard copy.
Q. I have the dog-eared paperback.
Professor Behe, there are many many peer-reviewed articles regarding the Big Bang theory, correct?
A Yes.
Q. You commented on the newsletter, and I'm going to ask Matt to pull that up on our screen, it's exhibit 127. And if you would turn to the second page, which is where I would like you to be. And if you could highlight the first full paragraph under, What is the Theory of Intelligent Design. And it says in the last sentence, "Its principal argument is that certain features of the universe are best explained by intelligent cause rather than undirected causes, such as Darwin's theory of natural selection." Is that right?
A Yes.
Q. But you told us earlier today that intelligent design has nothing to do with cause, correct?
A No, that's not -- that's not correct. In this sense I mean that it began in -- at some point intelligence was involved in the production of the designed feature.
Q. Intelligence was the cause?
A Intelligence is not the -- well, in order to produce something, one needs a number of different -- of different events. One needs not only intelligence, but then one needs a way to carry it out. For example, similarly, say with the Big Bang, we can see that the universe began in a large explosion, but we do not have a cause for it other than that.
Q. But here Dover is telling its community, intelligent design is about intelligent causes, correct?
A Yes.
Q. Professor Behe, could you turn back to page 99 of Pandas.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And Matt, if you could highlight the text on 99 to 100 that we're all so familiar with.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And that's the text that says, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency." Correct?
A Yes.
Q. It talks about the life beginning abruptly, not just appearing abruptly, correct?
A Well, that's certainly the word it used, but we can ask, how do we know it began abruptly? The only way that we know it began abruptly is through the fossil record.
Q. But beginning is different than appearances in the fossil record, correct, Professor Behe?
A I don't take it to mean that way, no.
Q. Now, you said you wouldn't have described intelligent design this way, correct?
A Yes.
Q. But that's how it's being described to the students at Dover who go to look at the Pandas textbook.
A Well, that's one of the places, yes.
Q. And would you agree with me that if one substituted the word "creation" for "intelligent design" there, Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, the statement would be equally apt?
A Apt?
Q. Would make just as much sense as the sentence that's up there?
A Well, I think the sentence as it is drafted is somewhat problematic, as I said in my direct testimony, so I would not say that either one was apt.
Q. That's not a good definition of creation or creationism?
A I don't think so, no.
Q. Would it be a good definition of special creation, Professor Behe?
A I don't think so either.
Q. You don't have a degree in education, do you?
A No, I don t. I have a degree in biochemistry.
Q. And you have not taught at the primary or secondary level?
A No, I haven t.
Q. And other than Pandas, you have not prepared a textbook for high school students other than Pandas?
A That's correct.
Q. Before we leave Pandas, you said this was not a statement you would have signed off on, correct?
A Yes.
Q. But you actually were a critical reviewer of Pandas, correct; that's what it says in the acknowledgments page of the book?
A That's what it lists there, but that does not mean that I critically reviewed the whole book and commented on it in detail, yes.
Q. What did you review and comment on, Professor Behe?
A I reviewed the literature concerning blood clotting, and worked with the editor on the section that became the blood clotting system. So I was principally responsible for that section.
Q. So you were reviewing your own work?
A I was helping review or helping edit or helping write the section on blood clotting.
Q. Which was your own contribution?
A That's -- yes, that's correct.
Q. That's not typically how the term "critical review" is used; would you agree with that?
A Yeah, that's correct.
Q. So when the publishers of Pandas indicate that you were a critical reviewer of Pandas, that's somewhat misleading, isn't it?
MR. MUISE: Objection. Assumes that he understands what their purpose for listing him as a critical reviewer.
THE COURT: He just answered the question that that's not a critical review, so the objection is overruled. You can ask that question.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Advertising you as a critical reviewer of this book is misleading to the students, isn't it?
MR. MUISE: Objection, that's argumentative.
THE COURT: It's cross examination. It's appropriate cross. Overruled.
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Telling the readers of Pandas that you were a critical reviewer of that book is misleading, isn't it?
A I disagree. As I said, that's not the typical way that the term "critical reviewer" is used, but nonetheless, in my opinion I don't think it is misleading.
Q. Professor Behe, are you aware that a new edition of Pandas is being developed called, The Design of Life?
A Yes.
Q. Are you an author of that book?
A I am not an author of that book.
Q. Are you aware that William Dembski is one of the authors of that book?
A Yes, I ve heard such, yes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, could you pull up exhibit 621. And that's the expert report of William Dembski that was submitted in this case before he withdrew as an expert. Could you go to page ten, and highlight the first paragraph Of Pandas and People.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And you see there he's discussing the new version Of Pandas and People, The Design of Life?
A I'm sorry?
Q. Do you understand him to be describing his work on a new book called, The Design of Life?
A Give me a chance to read this please.
Q. Absolutely.
(Pause.)
A Yes.
Q. And Mr. Dembski, who is the author of Design of Life, described you as a co-author of the book, correct?
A That's what he does, yes.
Q. That's false, isn't it?
A Again, I am not an author of the book, but William Dembski, several years ago, asked if I would contribute. And I explained to him that I did not have the time to do so. And he says well, perhaps, you know, in the future he could solicit material from me and then I would be one of the authors of the book. So, that's correct.
Q. So that makes you a co-author right now, Professor Behe?
A I certainly would not have listed myself now as a co-author, however, I think that he was anticipating my future participation in the project.
Q. So that's a true statement, Professor Behe, that you're a co-author?
A It is not now a true statement but it might be in the future.
Q. Okay.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, could you pull up the deposition of Jon Buell.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Professor Behe, you know who Jon Buell is, correct?
A Yes, I do.
Q. He's the president of Foundation for Thought and Ethics?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. And they were the publisher of Pandas when you participated?
A That's correct.
Q. And you're familiar with who the Foundation for Thought and Ethics is?
A Yes.
Q. And you're familiar with their mission?
A I can't say that I'm familiar with the mission. I know Jon Buell, I ve spoken with him a number of times and met with him and participated in activities with him, yes.
Q. And this is a deposition that was taken in this case of Mr. Buell on July 8, 2005.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, could you go to page 129, and highlight lines 11 to 13.
Make it easy on you, may I approach the witness?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. If you could turn to pages 129 -- to page 129 of the deposition.
A Yes.
Q. And look at line 11. And Mr. Buell is asked, "Who are the authors of Design of Life as you understand it?"
And can you read his answer?
A He says, "Kenyon, Davis, Dembski, Behe and Wells, Jonathan Wells."
Q. So Mr. Buell thinks you're an author too?
A That's correct. I think he's working under the same impression as Bill, that he wanted to get together people who were most involved with the intelligent design movement to have a book which would be authored by them. And again, I told them that right now I was too busy. I told them that a couple years ago. But I said that perhaps in the future I could be involved.
Q. Mr. Behe, this statement is false, isn't it?
A I'm sorry?
Q. The statement is false, isn't it?
A What statement is that?
Q. The statement that you're an author, and Mr. Dembski's statement is false too, isn't it?
A That's not what it says on the screen, sir. It says, "Who are the authors of Design of Life as you understand it?" And the way I read that is that he's seeing into the future and seeing when this actually will be published and anticipating that I will participate in the publication of the book at that point.
Q. Seeing into the future is one of the powers of the intelligent design movement?
A I think --
MR. MUISE: Objection, argumentative.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I'll withdraw it, Your Honor.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Towards the end of your testimony today you said that it's good to teach students about intelligent design so that they can look at the facts from several theoretical perspectives, correct?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. Now, in the case of germ theory, you're not aware that students are taught some other theoretical perspective so that they can understand the facts and not confuse germ theory with germ fact, correct?
A That's correct.
Q. And not -- the same would be true for atomic theory, correct?
A That's correct.
Q. The theory of plate tectonics?
A But evolutionary theory is in many ways very much more involved than some of the other ones that you mentioned. In particular, as I tried to make clear in my testimony, it has a number of parts which are -- which are together, under an aggregate, considered Darwin's theory of evolution. But again, as I tried to make clear in my testimony, not all of them are as well supported as other parts of the theory.
So I think in this particular case, yes, it would make a great deal of sense for students to view the data from a number of theoretical perspectives.
Q. You're not an expert in germ theory, are you?
A No.
Q. Or atomic theory?
A I studied it but I wouldn't call myself an expert.
Q. Take germ theory, you don't really know the nature of the controversies around germ theory, do you?
A I think the nature of the controversies around germ theory are pretty much past. I think it was controversial in the 19 Century, but I don't think there is a controversy in it in the present time.
Q. Okay. And you don't really know if a germ theory or atomic theory, where there are gaps or unexplained phenomena?
A I don t, but I do know evolutionary theory, and I know there are gaps and unexplained problems in that.
Q. Probably true of all scientific theories, right, Professor Behe?
A It might be true of -- yes, it's certainly true of many scientific theories.
Q. Now, you claim that intelligent design is a scientific theory.
A Yes.
Q. But when you call it a scientific theory, you're not defining that term the same way that the National Academy of Sciences does.
A Yes, that's correct.
Q. You don't always see eye to eye with the National Academy?
A Sometimes not.
Q. And the definition by the National Academy, as I think you testified is, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences and tested hypotheses, correct?
A Yes.
Q. Using that definition, you agree intelligent design is not a scientific theory, correct?
A Well, as I think I made clear in my deposition, I'm a little bit of two minds of that. I, in fact, do think that intelligent design is well substantiated for some of the reasons that I made clear during my testimony. But again, when you say well substantiated, sometimes a person would think that there must be a large number of people then who would agree with that. And so, frankly, I, like I said, I am of two minds of that.
Q. And actually you said at your deposition, I don't think intelligent design falls under this definition. Correct?
A Yeah, and that's after I said -- if I may see where in my deposition that is? I'm sorry.
Q. It's on pages 134 and 135.
A And where are you -- where are you reading from?
Q. I'll be happy to read the question and answer to you. I asked you whether intelligent design -- I asked actually on the top of 133, I asked you whether intelligent design qualifies as a scientific theory using the National Academy of Sciences definition.
A What line is that, I'm sorry?
Q. That's 133, line 18.
A Is that going -- question beginning, "Going back to the National Academy of Science?"
Q. Yes. And you first said, "I m going to say that I would argue that in fact it is." And that's 134, line ten.
A Yes.
Q. Okay. And I said, "Intelligent design does meet that?" And you said, "It's well substantiated, yes." And I said, "Let's be clear here, I'm asking -- looking at the definition of a scientific theory in its entirety, is it your position that intelligent design is a scientific theory?" And you said, going down to line 23, "I think one can argue these a variety of ways. For purposes of an answer to the -- relatively brief answer to the question, I will say that I don't think it falls under this." And I asked you, "What about this definition; what is it in this definition that ID can't satisfy to be called a scientific theory under these terms?" And you answer, "Well, implicit in this definition it seems to me that there would be an agreed upon way to decide something was well substantiated. And although I do think that intelligent design is well substantiated, I think there's not -- I can't point to external -- an external community that would agree that it was well substantiated."
A Yes.
Q. So for those reasons you said it's not -- doesn't meet the National Academy of Sciences definition.
A I think this text makes clear what I just said a minute or two ago, that I'm of several minds on this question. I started off saying one thing and changing my mind and then I explicitly said, "I think one can argue these things a variety of ways. For purposes of a relatively brief answer to the question, I'll say this." But I think if I were going to give a more complete answer, I would go into a lot more issues about this.
So I disagree that that's what I said -- or that's what I intended to say.
Q. In any event, in your expert report, and in your testimony over the last two days, you used a looser definition of "theory," correct?
A I think I used a broader definition, which is more reflective of how the word is actually used in the scientific community.
Q. But the way you define scientific theory, you said it's just based on your own experience; it's not a dictionary definition, it's not one issued by a scientific organization.
A It is based on my experience of how the word is used in the scientific community.
Q. And as you said, your definition is a lot broader than the NAS definition?
A That's right, intentionally broader to encompass the way that the word is used in the scientific community.
Q. Sweeps in a lot more propositions.
A It recognizes that the word is used a lot more broadly than the National Academy of Sciences defined it.
Q. In fact, your definition of scientific theory is synonymous with hypothesis, correct?
A Partly -- it can be synonymous with hypothesis, it can also include the National Academy's definition. But in fact, the scientific community uses the word "theory" in many times as synonymous with the word "hypothesis," other times it uses the word as a synonym for the definition reached by the National Academy, and at other times it uses it in other ways.
Q. But the way you are using it is synonymous with the definition of hypothesis?
A No, I would disagree. It can be used to cover hypotheses, but it can also include ideas that are in fact well substantiated and so on. So while it does include ideas that are synonymous or in fact are hypotheses, it also includes stronger senses of that term.
Q. And using your definition, intelligent design is a scientific theory, correct?
A Yes.
Q. Under that same definition astrology is a scientific theory under your definition, correct?
A Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that -- which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and many other -- many other theories as well.
Q. The ether theory of light has been discarded, correct?
A That is correct.
Q. But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?
A Yes, that's correct. And let me explain under my definition of the word "theory," it is -- a sense of the word "theory" does not include the theory being true, it means a proposition based on physical evidence to explain some facts by logical inferences. There have been many theories throughout the history of science which looked good at the time which further progress has shown to be incorrect. Nonetheless, we can't go back and say that because they were incorrect they were not theories. So many many things that we now realized to be incorrect, incorrect theories, are nonetheless theories.
Q. Has there ever been a time when astrology has been accepted as a correct or valid scientific theory, Professor Behe?
A Well, I am not a historian of science. And certainly nobody -- well, not nobody, but certainly the educated community has not accepted astrology as a science for a long long time. But if you go back, you know, Middle Ages and before that, when people were struggling to describe the natural world, some people might indeed think that it is not a priori -- a priori ruled out that what we -- that motions in the earth could affect things on the earth, or motions in the sky could affect things on the earth.
Q. And just to be clear, why don't we pull up the definition of astrology from Merriam-Webster.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: If you would highlight that.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And archaically it was astronomy; right, that's what it says there?
A Yes.
Q. And now the term is used, "The divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects."
That's the scientific theory of astrology?
A That's what it says right there, but let me direct your attention to the archaic definition, because the archaic definition is the one which was in effect when astrology was actually thought to perhaps describe real events, at least by the educated community.
Astrology -- I think astronomy began in, and things like astrology, and the history of science is replete with ideas that we now think to be wrong headed, nonetheless giving way to better ways or more accurate ways of describing the world.
And simply because an idea is old, and simply because in our time we see it to be foolish, does not mean when it was being discussed as a live possibility, that it was not actually a real scientific theory.
Q. I didn't take your deposition in the 1500s, correct?
A I'm sorry?
Q. I did not take your deposition in the 1500s, correct?
A It seems like that.
Q. Okay. It seems like that since we started yesterday. But could you turn to page 132 of your deposition?
A Yes.
Q. And if you could turn to the bottom of the page 132, to line 23.
A I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
Q. Page 132, line 23.
A Yes.
Q. And I asked you, "Is astrology a theory under that definition?" And you answered, "Is astrology? It could be, yes." Right?
A That's correct.
Q. Not, it used to be, right?
A Well, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking of astrology when it was first proposed. I'm not thinking of tarot cards and little mind readers and so on that you might see along the highway. I was thinking of it in its historical sense.
Q. I couldn't be a mind reader either.
A I'm sorry?
Q. I couldn't be a mind reader either, correct?
A Yes, yes, but I'm sure it would be useful.
Q. It would make this exchange go much more quickly.
THE COURT: You d have to include me, though.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Now, you gave examples of some theories that were discarded?
A Yes.
Q. One was the ether theory?
A Yes.
Q. And the other was the theory of geocentrism, right?
A That's correct.
Q. And what you said yesterday was that there was some pretty compelling evidence for observers of that time that that was good theory, right?
A Yes, sure.
Q. Look up in the sky, and it looked like the sun was going around us, correct?
A That's right.
Q. And we know now that those appearances were deceiving, right?
A That's correct.
Q. So what we thought we knew from just looking at the sky, that's not in fact what was happening, right?
A That's right.
Q. So the theory was discarded?
A That's correct.
Q. And intelligent design, also based on appearance, isn't it, Professor Behe?
A All sciences is based on appearances. That's -- what else can one go with except on appearances? Appearances can be interpreted from a number of different frameworks, and you have to worry that the one that you're interpreting it from is going to turn out to be correct. But in fact since science is based on observation, now that's just another word for appearance. So intelligent design is science, and so intelligent design is based on observation; that is appearance.
Big Bang theory is based on observation, based on appearance, so yes, it is.
Q. The whole positive argument for intelligent design as you ve described it, Professor Behe, is look at this system, look at these parts, they appear designed, correct?
A Well, I think I filled that out a little bit more. I said that intelligent design is perceived as the purposeful arrangement of parts, yes. So when we not only see different parts, but we also see that they are ordered to perform some function, yes, that is how we perceived design.
Q. Now, getting back to Pandas. You ve said this is a good book for students, correct?
A Yes.
Q. And we know you wrote part of it, correct?
A Yes.
Q. And you certainly vouch for that part of it?
A I do.
Q. And we ve seen other parts of it that you're not as happy with, correct?
A Right.
Q. Now, one thing you can't vouch for, however, is whether Pandas represents the fossil record correctly, can you?
A No, I can t, I'm not a paleontologist.
Q. So, for example, when Dr. Padian testified on Friday that Pandas grossly misrepresents scientific knowledge on many issues including the evolution of birds, amphibians and various mammals in the fossil record about those animals, you have no way of responding to that, correct?
A That's outside my expertise.
Q. Now, during the course of your testimony you referred to the writings of a number of scientists to make your case for intelligent design, correct?
A Yes.
Q. You referred to Kirshner and Gearhart's article -- or book, I'm sorry?
A That was not to make the case for intelligent design, that was to explain how scientific books fit into the scientific community.
Q. Very well. Dr. DeRosier's article, correct?
A Yes.
Q. Bruce Albert's article?
A That's correct.
Q. Richard Dawkins book, The Blind Watchmaker?
A That's correct.
Q. Francis Crick, we heard a lot about him?
A Yes.
Q. Jerry Coyne?
A I'm not sure. Did I refer to him as support for intelligent design?
Q. You cited to his New Republic article on the issue of natural selection.
A Yes. That wasn't quite the same thing. I was just trying to make the point that there is only one mechanism that is proposed to be able to mimic design.
Q. Franklin Harold, you cited him for support?
A I cited him to show that in fact Darwinian explanations have not yet been advanced for the complex molecular systems that have been discovered by science.
Q. That's part of the argument for intelligent design, isn't it?
A That's a part of the argument to show that there is no other plausible explanation for what we perceive to be as design.
Q. Which is part of the argument for intelligent design, correct?
A Yes.
Q. And there actually was an article by Jerry Coyne in Nature you relied on?
A Yes, it was a review of my book; is that what you're thinking of?
Q. That's right.
A Okay, yes.
Q. And Andrew Pomiankowski?
A Yes.
Q. Now, none of these scientists that you referred to advocate for intelligent design in those articles or books, do they?
A No, they don t.
Q. Or in any other forum, correct?
A That's correct.
Q. In fact, many of them are vocal opponents of intelligent design?
A Yes, indeed, just like, say, John Maddox is an opponent of the Big Bang theory and, for example, Walter Nernst was an opponent of the Big Bang theory and a vocal proponent of the infinity of the universe; yes, that's correct.
Q. Professor Behe, I can't control your answers, but we're in biology class here, not physics, so let's talk about intelligent design.
A Okay, I think these are relevant to an understanding of what I'm trying to do.
Q. So in any event, all of the scientists that I named that you referred to during the course of your testimony over the past two days are certainly not supporters of intelligent design, most of them are pretty active opponents of it, correct?
A That's correct.
Q. And it's not just Ken Miller?
A No, there are many scientists, yes.
Q. There certainly are, in fact, almost all the major scientific organizations that have taken a position on intelligent design have opposed it, isn't that right?
A Yes, a lot of scientific organizations have issued statements opposing intelligent design.
Q. And, you know, you discussed yesterday that you ve attended many seminars, made presentations to various scientific departments and the like, correct?
A That's correct.
Q. So over the past nine, ten years since Darwin's Black Box, you ve certainly gotten a hearing in the scientific community, correct?
A I -- I'm sorry, what do you mean by "hearing?"
Q. Scientists have heard you out, heard your arguments, correct?
A A number of scientists have, certainly. I ve presented perhaps maybe 20, 30 seminars. I would present seminars pretty much to whoever would invite me. But even 20 or 30 seminars times 100 people per seminar or so on average, that's still a fairly small fraction of the scientific community.
Q. Not nearly as big as, for example, the scientific societies you belong to.
A That's correct.
Q. And you actually have also made numerous presentations on intelligent design in your book to churches and religious groups, correct?
A Yes, I try to speak to whoever invites me.
Q. You mentioned that there have been many scientific organizations who have taken a position, one of those is the National Academy of Sciences, correct?
A Yes, that's correct.
Q. And you testified yesterday that's the most prestigious scientific organization in the United States?
A That's correct.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, could you pull up exhibit 192.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Go to page 20. That's the publication, Science and Creationism, A View from the National Academy of Sciences.
A That's correct.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And if you could go to page 25, please, and highlight the third paragraph, first sentence.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And it says, "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." That's the National Academy's position?
A That's correct, that's exactly the position that I argued against in my article in Biology and Philosophy. I disagree with it, as a matter of fact I think it's the inverse of what is true. I think that in fact Darwinian theory is very difficult to falsify, but that intelligent design is easily falsify -- or easy to falsify.
Q. And I do have some more questions to ask you about that, but before we do that let's go to page 21 of this exhibit. And if you could go to the bottom paragraph, first sentence. It says, "Molecular evolutionary data counter a recent proposition called intelligent design theory. Proponents of this idea argue that structural complexity is proof of the direct hand of God in specially creating organisms as they are today."
More rebuttal to intelligent design, correct?
A I -- I think that particular sentence is just a wonderful illustration of the massive misunderstanding and mischaracterization of intelligent design. They -- they have this sentence, "Proponents of this idea argue that structural complexity is proof of the direct hand of God in specially creating organisms as they are today." I advocate none of those ideas. None of those ideas are found in my books. None of those ideas are found in my writings. I take this to be a political statement unsupported by any references.
If you look in that publication, you do not find any references to anybody in the intelligent design movement. In a number of sections here they certainly seem to have my ideas in mind, and they do not reference my book, they do not quote my book. In their list of readings for teachers, for teachers to understand this controversy, they do not even list a single book by an intelligent design proponent. How is a teacher supposed to understand this if they can't even read, you know, proponents of a theory making their own case in their own way, and they have to rely on mischaracterizations?
Q. So you don't think that accurately characterizes your work?
A No.
Q. You're not -- you're not all of intelligent design, are you?
A That's correct, yes.
Q. Characterize some other intelligent design proponents writings?
A I disagree, no.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And, Matt, if you could go to page 28 of the report, and highlight the paragraph, "Don't many famous scientists reject evolution."
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. It says there, "The scientific consensus around evolution is overwhelming." And then it says, "Those opposed to the teaching of evolution sometimes use quotations from prominent scientists out of context to claim that scientists do not support evolution."
Do you agree that that's a problem, Professor Behe?
A Well, I have a couple things to say about that, those sentences that you just read. First of all, this is another wonderful illustration of the confusion of the different senses of the word "evolution."
"The scientific consensus around evolution is overwhelming." What is evolution? Is it Darwin's mechanism of random mutation and natural selection? Do they cite any writings by, say, Stuart Kauffman or the complexity theorists who object to that? I don't see anything there.
This is really -- well, let me just go on to the next statement.
And it's clear, I think, that many people have written on the question of evolution for it and against it. And if you look at those broad writings, I'm sure you'll find things that might take quotes out of context. But reading this here right now, the phrase that comes to mind to me is the pot calling the kettle black. We just looked at a quotation from that same book in which the National Academy characterized intelligent design in a way that I would consider utterly misleading.
Q. Mischaracterizes you?
A It mischaracterizes intelligent design and certainly me and, like I said -- I hope I'm not being, you know, self centered here, but I think they had me in mind in a couple of these sections.
And they don't even list a reference. You know, talk about scholarly malfeasance or some such thing, they don't even reference -- and even these quotations, where are the quotations? Suppose a teacher wanted to show her students an example of these quotations. Where would she find them? The National Academy doesn't say; it just asserts. This is one long assertion.
Q. Why don't we go onto the next long assertion from the American Academy of Scientists -- American Association of Scientists. And you're familiar with this resolution?
A Yes, I ve seen it.
Q. Okay. And this is from the largest scientific organization in the United States, correct?
A That is correct, yes.
Q. And there goes the whole outline, we can stop now.
And that statement also condemns the teaching of intelligent design, doesn't it?
A I can't read it. Could you blow up the section?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Could you highlight the whereas clauses?
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, could you blow up the next paragraph or the next two paragraphs? Thank you.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And in the second whereas clause it says, "The ID movement has failed to offer credible scientific evidence to support their claim that ID undermines the current scientifically accepted theory of evolution." And "The ID movement has not proposed a scientific means of testing its claims. Therefore be it resolved, that the lack of scientific warrant for so-called intelligent design theory makes it improper to include as a part of science education."
That's the association's position, correct?
A That's what it says. And if I might comment, this is a political document. What scientific paper do you know of that says whereas, whereas, whereas, therefore be it resolved? This is a political document. There are no citations here. There's no marshaling of evidence. As I ve tried to show in my testimony yesterday and today, if you actually look at these things, we have marshaled evidence, we have proposed means by way our claims can be tested.
Like I said in my testimony earlier, not every statement by a scientist is a scientific statement. And that goes also for scientific organizations, not every statement issued by a scientific organization, even on science, is a scientific statement.
This is not supported by evidence. This is not worth one paper in the literature. This is a political document.
Q. In any event, in the ten or 15 or 20 years, or if we go to Paley more than 200 years, intelligent design has failed to make its case to the scientific community, correct?
A I disagree. You're going into very, very big problems in the history of science, and one can't settle those in one-sentence answers or one-sentence questions. In the time of Paley, which you referred back to, a lot of people thought there was evidence for intelligent design, one of them was the young Charles Darwin, who remarked a number of times about his enjoyment of Paley's book. Since Darwin's theory was proposed as an explanation for apparent design, many people in the scientific community changed their minds and said, well, perhaps we have an explanation for this strong appearance of design. But science marches on and we have new data these days. And it's -- and observing the new data, we can ask again, is Darwin's explanation, does it continue to be a good explanation for this. And I think we can -- we can again reopen this question and ask -- ask whether -- ask whether it's a good explanation.
Q. Ask the question, but you haven't convinced the contemporary science community that your idea has any merit, correct?
A If you look at these political statements issued by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, if you look at such statements in booklets issued by the National Academy, they are certainly very hostile to the idea of intelligent design. But it's been my experience that a number of people are interested in the idea. Nonetheless, it's the nature of bureaucracy, I think, to issue statements like this. So I do not consider these representative of the scientific community.
Q. You're not aware of any major scientific organization that has endorsed the science of intelligent design or the teaching of intelligent design, are you?
A I'm unaware of any major scientific organization that goes into the business of endorsing scientific theories. When they get stirred up apparently they will oppose something. But, you know, no other scientific theory, you know, after a while is put on a list of the approved -- of approved sciences by any scientific organization that I'm aware of.
Q. In fact, this isn't just a big scientific organization's bureaucracy that's taken this position, your own university department has taken a position about intelligent design, hasn't it?
A Yes, they certainly have.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: If you could pull up exhibit 742, Matt, and if you could highlight it.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. This is a statement that was issued by the Lehigh Department of Biological Sciences?
A Yes, it is.
Q. And what it says is, "The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and the recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.
"The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, that has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position" -- and I think they're just referring to your department at this point -- "Professor Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of intelligent design. While we respect Professor Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."
So you ve not even been able to convince your colleagues, any of them, Professor Behe?
A They all endorse this statement, but I would like to point out, if you would, the entire first paragraph is something that I would completely agree with: Committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function; unwavering support for academic freedom; the utmost respect for the scientific method; integrity in the conduct of research, and so on.
That's a wonderful statement. I agree with it completely. What does it have to do with the arguments that I make?
The department faculty is unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory. What does that mean? To commit one's self to a theory, to swear allegiance to a theory. That's not scientific.
If they could point to a paper in the literature, something that, say, Russell Doolittle overlooked which explains how complex molecular systems could be put together by gradual means, by unintelligent means, then I would be happy to agree that Darwinian evolution could explain this. But one can't issue statements and say that a theory is correct if one does not have the papers to back it up.
And you'll notice that even in this statement, you see no citations, no citations to explanations for these complex molecular systems. And in the absence of that, while that's fine for them to express their views, it doesn't mean -- it doesn't carry the weight of a single journal paper.
Q. Journal papers are valuable.
A They sure are.
Q. And they're just referring to the findings accumulated over 140 years, correct?
A Well, as I tried to make clear in my testimony, findings accumulated over 140 years that support the contention that Darwinian processes could explain complex molecular systems total a number of zero.
And so they -- this is another example of confusing the various aspects of evolutionary theory. It's a very difficult problem, which is why I think students should have it clearly explained to them that evolution is a complex idea, and support for change over time, or support for common descent does not run into supporting natural selection and random mutation.
Q. Zero papers, Professor Behe?
A That's correct.
Q. Let's turn to your understanding of intelligent design.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And, Matt, if you could return to -- or actually pull up Professor Behe's expert report please.
And that's --
THE COURT: Mr. Rothchild, we'll go about five more minutes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: This would actually be a great time for a break.
THE COURT: Why don't we do that. Let's recess here for about 20 minutes, and we'll return and we'll pick up the new line of cross examination after that. We'll be in recess.
THE DEPUTY CLERK: All rise.
(Whereupon, a recess was taken from 2:40 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.)


Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 11 (October 18), PM Session, Part 2

THE COURT: Back to Mr. Rothschild on cross examination.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Professor Behe, right before the break you said that the findings accumulated over 140 years that support the contention that Darwinian processes could explain complex molecular systems total a number of zero, correct?
A I'll -- I think I did, yes.
Q. Okay. And that's a proposition you stand by.
A Well, again, you have to look at the papers. And what I meant by that is ones which fully explain how random mutation and natural selection could build a complex system; yes, there are no such explanations.
Q. Zero papers.
A I don't think I said zero papers, perhaps I did, but there are zero explanations.
Q. And zero is the same number of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals that argue for the intelligent design of complex molecular systems?
A The number of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals which show that life is composed of molecular machinery that exhibits the purposeful arrangement of parts in detail on term, you know, many many many thousands. There are -- I think there are just one or two that mention intelligent design by name.
Q. That argue for the intelligent design of complex molecular systems in peer-reviewed scientific journals?
A No, I don't think -- now that you mention it, I think that I was thinking of something else.
Q. And there are zero articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals arguing for the irreducible complexity of complex molecular systems?
A There are none that use that phrase, but as I indicated in my direct testimony, that I regard my paper with Professor David Snoke as to be arguing for the irreducible complexity of things such as complex protein binding sites.
Q. So one, according to your count?
A Could you repeat the question, I am afraid --
Q. I asked you, is it correct that there are zero articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals arguing for the irreducible complexity of complex molecular systems?
A I would count some other papers as, as impinging on that, on that topic, but I don't -- they certainly don't use the term irreducible complexity.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, could you pull up Professor Behe's expert report, exhibit 602, and go to pages nine and ten and highlight the five claims identified by Ernst Mayr.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. This is something you discussed in your direct testimony?
A Yes, it looks like.
Q. These are the five claims for evolution identified by Ernst Mayr?
A That's right, evolution as such, common descent, multiplication of species, gradualism and natural selection.
Q. If we could go to page 11 of your report and highlight the underscored text.
You say, "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose." Correct?
A That is correct, yes.
Q. That's consistent with your testimony today.
A Yes, it is.
Q. Now, the claim that -- if we could go back to Ernst Mayr's list and highlight -- just focus on the common descent. You claim that intelligent design does not take a position on common descent, which is defined here as, "The theory that every group of organisms descended from a common ancestor and that all groups of organisms, including animals, plants, and microorganisms, ultimately go back to a single origin of life on earth." Correct?
A I'm sorry, I lost track of the question. What was the question?
Q. That's how common descent is described here, correct?
A Yes, this is Ernst Mayr's definition of common descent, may I add.
Q. And you're saying intelligent design doesn't make a claim about that proposition.
A That's correct.
Q. Now, if one were to argue for special creation of humans, that would be inconsistent with that proposition, correct?
A I'm afraid I don't have a real good understanding of what you mean by the term "special creation."
Q. Do you have an understanding -- you used the term "special creation" in response to Mr. Muise's question. When you answered those questions, what did you understand "special creation" to mean?
A Well, from that I meant the -- I understood the ex nihilo, that is creation appearance from absolutely nothing of some organism.
Q. So if that kind of creation occurred -- if one was arguing for special creation of humans, that would be inconsistent with the proposition of common descent described up there?
A If one were arguing for the ex nihilo creation of humans, that would be inconsistent with common descent.
Q. And when you say ex nihilo, you're using that synonymously with special creation?
A That's the way I understand the term.
Q. Okay. And then Dr. Mayr also has the claim of gradualism, which says, "According to this theory, evolutionary change takes place through the gradual change of populations and not by the sudden, saltational, production of new individuals that represent a new type."
And it's your testimony that intelligent design does not properly make a claim about that proposition in the theory of evolution?
A That's correct. It could either -- it could be consistent with a gradualistic or a nongradualistic fossil -- or nongradualistic history of life. It is not a claim that impinges on intelligent design, although it may in fact impinge on theories that purport to explain life without intelligence.
Q. Let's go back to Pandas. If you could open up the book and go to page 98. This is just to prove we're not completely wed to pages 99 to 100, though we may return to them.
If you could go down to the first column on page 98, under the heading "Sudden Appearance or Face Value Interpretation," it states: "The fossil record shows that most organisms remain essentially unchanged. The conclusion to be drawn is that major groups of plants and animals have co-existed on the earth independent of each other in their origins, which must be explained in some way other than Darwinian evolution."
Independent of each other in their origins, that is the opposite of going back to a single origin of life on earth, isn't it?
A That is -- in my view, that's an attempt to simply explain what we see in the fossil record, which I understand from the quotations that were read to me by Mr. Muise, that some well-known paleontologists have essentially agreed with, to my thinking. Also --
Q. Sorry.
A I'm sorry. But so it -- so it seems to me that the text here is trying to draw a conclusion that is more consistent with the actual fossil record that -- well, the record that they perceive to be the fossil record, without imposing a theoretical construct on top of it.
Q. It's drawing a conclusion from the fossil record, isn't it, Professor Behe, it's not just describing the fossil record?
A That's right, it says conclusion to be drawn, yes.
Q. And the conclusion is, separate origins of plants and animals, various types -- groups of plants and animals, correct?
A Yes. But if I might point out, this is in a section of the book entitled "Meaning of Gaps in the Fossil Record," which actually begins on page 96, which I discussed in my direct testimony. And this is one of a number of different interpretations which attempt to explain what is described as a noncontinuous or apparently noncontinuous record. The first one is that there is an imperfect record, that is, we haven't got all the fossils, or all the fossils didn't fossilize -- or all organisms didn't fossilize. The second that Pandas mentions is incomplete search. The thirds that it mentions is jerky process, which is an inartful way of saying punctuated equillibrium. And the fourth one is the -- is the -- is what they're concluding that in fact the fossil record may indicate that these organisms did appear as they are.
Q. And that last interpretation is inconsistent with the description of common descent in Ernst Mayr's description, correct?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. And it's called the Face Value Interpretation, correct?
A That's correct. And let me just repeat just for context, that Pandas says -- if I could find the data that -- or the description, and I can't find it right here -- they say that scientists should not accept the face value interpretation of the fossil record, without also exploring the other possibilities, and even then only if the evidence continues to support it.
So the way I read the textbook is that they're trying to tell students that this seems to be what the record shows, and we should look for other explanations, and we might draw this conclusion tentatively, but our tentative conclusion is always subject to revision if new data comes out.
Q. Okay. Let's go on in the page that I pointed you to, page 98. Go to the second column, and the second full paragraph. And it says, "The intelligent design hypothesis is in agreement with the face value interpretation and accepts the gaps as a generally true reflection of biology and natural history."
Nothing tentative about that, is there, Professor Behe?
A No, I think it's quite tentative in the context of what I just read. It says the intelligent design hypothesis is in agreement with. The way I'm reading it is that it is not in conflict with the face value interpretation because intelligent design doesn't speak to common descent. It only says that we can detect design in some physical features of life. So it does not conflict with intelligent design -- to the intelligent design hypothesis, as it might with one of the tenants of Darwin s theory as written by Ernst Mayr, gradualism, and perhaps common descent as well.
So the way I see that is in fact they're saying, well, there is no conflict between intelligent design and the face value -- or the face value interpretation.
Q. It doesn't say no conflict, does it, Professor Behe, it says in agreement?
A That's correct. But in agreement can mean that -- can mean no conflict. It means that there is no reason to rule out intelligent design because of this aspect of the fossil record, although other theories might have difficulty with it.
Q. It doesn't say intelligent design is also in agreement with the jerky process or punctuated equilibrium as you describe it, does it?
A I would have to read those sections again more closely.
Q. Take a minute.
A Well, from scanning them it does not look like it says that. But I do not draw any grand conclusions from that. I would just say that, you know, this is a correct statement that the intelligent design hypothesis is in agreement with the face value interpretation.
I would also add that it's in agreement with all of the other -- all of the other topics listed under this section as well.
Q. That's your interpretation.
A Yes, it is.
Q. Okay. Now having critically reviewed the book?
A No, that was my understanding from, from the beginning.
Q. Let's go back a little further. Let's go down a little further in that paragraph. It says, "A growing number of scientists who study the fossil record are concluding that the structural differences between the major types of organisms reflect life as it was for that era.
"This view proposes that only the long-held expectations of Darwinian theory cause us to refer to the inbetween areas as gaps. If this is so, the major different groups of living organisms do not have a common ancestry. Such a conclusion is more consistent with currently known fossil data than any of the evolutionary models."
It's taking a side, isn't it, Professor Behe? It's taking a side for the face value interpretation.
A It certainly is not. I mean, it's certainly proposing something that a student normally doesn't read about in their biology textbook. But it says that this is what the data is consistent with, and it's -- in their opinion it's more consistent with this data than with other -- I'm sorry, with this model than with other models.
And earlier, or perhaps later, I've lost the page, it advises students that we should hold our views tentatively, and if new data turn up which cause -- should cause us to revise our estimation of our views, then we should do so. So I see no inconsistency between this -- I do not see this as advocating, I see it as a description.
Q. Professor Behe, you described earlier you have nine children?
A I do, yes.
Q. Some of them have been through the ninth grade?
A Five boys, four girls.
Q. Congratulations.
A Thank you.
Q. Some of them have been through the ninth grade, I'm assuming?
A Yes, they have.
Q. Okay. Honestly, any ninth grader reading this is going to understand this book to be taking the position that common ancestry, common descent is wrong, isn't that right?
A I -- well, I disagree. I do not think so.
I think they are careful to present the ordinary interpretation, or the common interpretation. They're careful to say that is the common interpretation. They're careful to say that there are multiple -- multiple explanations for the data within the common interpretation. Then they say that, well, there's this other interpretation that may be consistent with the data too; we should only hold this interpretation if it continues to be consistent with the data.
I think a ninth grader reading this would say to themselves, wow, you know, look at the different ways we can look at the data. Huh, let's decide what the data is and what our interpretation is.
I do not view this as, as something that would cause a ninth grader to jump up and say ah-hah, there must not have been common descent. I view it as something that would cause a ninth grader to sit down and say, let's think about this data, let's see if we can really -- if our views are as strongly supported as we thought.
Q. Well, let's go back to page 99 and 100. Okay?
"Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings."
That's the definitional statement in this section of the book. That's not consistent with common ancestry, it's directly opposed to it, isn't it, Professor Behe?
A Well, as I tried to make clear in my direct testimony, I don't think this was well written. I think it's tentatively phrased. It says "some scientists," and certainly I do not think that that is a definition of intelligent design.
And what I see this paragraph trying to say is that we see these things in the fossil record as some eminent paleontologists apparently agreed, and that if we hold this view, this face value view, then we do not have to necessarily come up with some strained explanation, or some explanation which seems ad hoc, perhaps that's the way it happened, because intelligent design can accommodate a fossil record like this.
Q. And the way it happened is inconsistent with common ancestry, birds, fish, separate, right?
A Give me a second to read this, please.
No, I disagree. It just means abruptly as seen in the fossil record. Even if one thinks it were through intelligent agency, that -- that event might have been through common descent, through some ancestors in the past giving rise to these things, but that it happened so rapidly that it did not leave traces in the fossil record.
And might I add that that is oftentimes an interpretation given to the fossil record by paleontologists, such as, say, Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge. They said that apparently, and if you look at the fossil record -- from my nonexpert understanding -- that the theory of -- punctuated equillibrium says that things change and then suddenly -- or things stay the same and then suddenly change. And so that in the fossil record you just see rather large changes. But they certainly do not disagree with common ancestry, and I don't think this is arguing for it either.
Q. Professor Behe, it's one thing to say fossils appeared abruptly, it's another to say life began abruptly, isn't it?
A I disagree. In the context of this book, when it's talking about fossils, when it's talking about the fossil record, when it's talking about all the problems that one has in getting fossils, that fossils -- if I can find the correct page -- that there might be an imperfect record due to the fact that fossils form imperfectly, that there might be incomplete search and so on, that this conveys to me, and I think to any -- any ninth grader reading it, that this is the data we have from the fossil records. So that when we say these things began in the fossil -- abruptly, that means that we perceive them to begin in the fossil record.
Q. That's a pretty charitable interpretation, Professor Behe, but let me ask you this question. Abrupt appearance, you would agree with me that's inconsistent with gradual? Gradual and abrupt, you're not going to tell me those are the same?
A That's correct. But I d like to say that a number of scientists, in my understanding, challenge the gradual evolution and the gradual tenant of Darwin's theory. One person is a lady named Lynn Margulis, who is a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and a member in the National Academy of Sciences. Let me just briefly explain to make this point. I don't intend to take much time.
She proposed that things that we call mitochondria, which occur in eukaryotic cells, which are cells with nucleus, which include us and everything except bacteria, they occurred when a pre-eukaryotic cell essentially enveloped a smaller bacterium, and the two essentially developed a symbiotic relationship.
And her view of this, and other people's view of it, is that this is in fact a saltational event; nongradual development of an entirely new life form. So gradualism is not the -- or abruptness is not the opposite of common descent, and -- well, it's not the opposite of common descent.
Q. Lynn Margulis is not being taught at Dover, but intelligent design is, and it's your assertion that intelligent design makes no claim about gradualism, but this passage we ve read here, it's completely inconsistent with the concept of gradualism. Abrupt appearance or -- life beginning abruptly.
A Can I see where -- could you read the --
MR. MUISE: Objection, the question mischaracterized the evidence. He says intelligent design is being taught in the class. And I don't believe there's any evidence that that is the case.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I think that's an issue of dispute.
THE COURT: Restate your objection.
MR. MUISE: I believe he prefaced his question that intelligent design is being taught at the Dover -- in the Dover schools, and I don't believe there's evidence that intelligent design is being taught.
THE COURT: Well, I understand. This is a bench trial. You say it's taught; you say it's not taught. I'll take that for what it's worth. The objection is overruled. You can answer the question.
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, could you restate the question?
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. It says there, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly." That's the opposite -- that is directly contrasting the claim of gradualism made by Ernst Mayr, correct?
A The -- how shall I phrase this? The sentence there I read as saying that intelligent design can be consistent with; that the fact that the fossil records seems to have forms of life appearing abruptly, while it might cause problems for Darwinism, it does not cause problems for intelligent design, because intelligent design does not speak to how fast or how slow such things happen.
And so I see that as saying essentially an intelligent design proponent can take this data at face value and does not necessarily have to have secondary hypotheses to try to explain it.
Q. That's how you read the -- something that starts, "intelligent design means."
A Well, again, as I said in my direct testimony, I don't think this was written very well, but I think the sense of that sentence is not hard to discern.
Q. All right. Why don't we continue on the subject of common descent. Could you go to page Roman numeral, small Roman numeral ten. This is in the introduction.
A I'm sorry, I don't have a small Roman numeral ten in my book.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: May I approach the witness, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. In the last full paragraph of the page it says, "Of Pandas and People is not intended to be a balanced treatment by itself. We have given a favorable case for intelligent design and raised reasonable doubt about natural descent." Correct?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. And if you d go to page 33.
MR. MUISE: Your Honor, may I just for purposes of the record, that was actually page nine and not page ten.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Did I say Roman numeral ten? I apologize. Roman numeral nine thank you.
THE COURT: The record is corrected.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Thank you.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And on page 33 under the heading, "A Living Mosaic," it says, "The theories of intelligent design and natural descent both have an explanation for why living things share common structures."
A Yes, I see that.
Q. So there it's actually saying intelligent design is a separate theory from natural descent, correct?
A Well, the way I read that phrase is that they're contrasting intelligent design with unintelligent processes, which I think they, again, just use the phrase natural descent as trying to indicate that. But I do not read it as opposing the theory of common descent.
Q. If you d go to page 127.
A Yes.
Q. And if you could go to the middle of the second column, the paragraph headed, "Among Organisms."
A I'm sorry, where is that?
Q. The second full paragraph.
A Oh thank you, yes.
Q. Starts "Among Organisms," and going to the second sentence it says, "Design proponents have a realistic and more cautious approach to the use of homologies. They regard organisms which show great structural differences, such as starfish and chimpanzees, as having no common ancestry." Correct.
A Yes, that's what it says, but again, I read that as the fact that while other theories such as Darwinisms might make a commitment to common ancestry, a theory of intelligent design can live with what the data shows on that respect, because a theory of intelligent design does not speak to that; it just speaks to the effects of intelligence. So I see this as an accommodating sentence rather than as something that is required.
Q. And if you could go to page 156.
A Yes.
Q. And if you could look at the first column, the -- under the second indented paragraph where it says, "This is precisely."
A Yes.
Q. "This is precisely why a book that questions the Darwinian notion of common descent is so necessary."
A Yes, I see that. But --
Q. Okay, so --
A Again, if I can just comment that, again, I see this as telling students or presenting to students that it seems that much of the data in the fossil record, as the writers of Pandas perceive it, is being fit into a theoretical framework which is dictated by Darwinian theory. And that if you do not invoke that theory and you look at the data in a different way, then intelligent design can live with whatever the results of that different look shows.
Q. In your view intelligent design doesn't have to take any position on common descent?
A Yes.
Q. Okay. But here you say, Behe says, intelligent design is making no claim about common descent; and this book says, intelligent design questions the Darwinian notion of common descent. Those are the same thing to you?
A I'm sorry, could you just repeat that, please?
Q. Behe says, intelligent design makes no claim about common descent.
A Yes.
Q. Pandas says, intelligent design questions the Darwinian notion of common descent. Those are the same thing to you?
A I see this as part of an argument. The -- as I try to make clear in my testimony, intelligent design is seen in the purposeful arrangement of parts, and that is the positive argument for intelligent design. But also, a part of the task of somebody who holds that view is to try to answer other views which claim to -- which claim to explain what intelligent design purports to explain.
And one of those is to show where the other theory has problems. And I view this as part of that kind of negative argument that, that while -- that while -- that while intelligent design can live with what data we have, this seems to be a problem for the current theory, as a number of paleontologists have said. And they ve tried to -- they ve tried to fix it up, and they propose these explanations, and perhaps they're right, but maybe that's not correct. And if it's not correct, well then this other theory, this rival theory is -- is -- has some difficulties, but that intelligent design does not. So I see it as part of a negative argument against a rival to intelligent design.
Q. And it's a negative argument against the part of that argument called common descent, correct?
A That's correct, just as my argument was an argument against natural selection. And when people make claims for natural selection, I have to show why that is a poor explanation for what we see.
Q. So I think we're in agreement, in Pandas, intelligent design is making a claim about common descent in the same way you claim to be making a claim about natural selection?
A No, I think that's incorrect. I think the claim of natural selection goes more directly to the question of the purposeful arrangement of parts.
The idea of common descent does not go, in my view, so directly to the question of the purposeful arrangement of parts. But nonetheless, as a part of Darwinian theory, it's required much more for Darwinian theory. Nonetheless, that would make that idea less plausible, and therefore that's part of the negative argument.
Q. Okay. So Pandas is making an argument against common descent, but you say intelligent design is not?
A Pandas is making a negative argument against common descent to show the plausibility to greater -- more greatly enhance the plausibility of the alternative of intelligent design, that's correct?
Q. Thank you. Now, can we go back to page 11 of the report and highlight again the underscored text.
So this is back to the claim that you say intelligent design makes, "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose."
Please describe the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose.
A Well, the word "mechanism" can be used in many ways. In this I was -- and when I was referring to intelligent design, I meant that we can perceive that in the process by which a complex biological structure arose, we can infer that intelligence was involved in it's origin.
Much like if I might refer back to the Big Bang theory, the Big Bang theory proposes no mechanism for how the universe arose, but nonetheless it infers that, whatever the mechanism, it came by some sort of explosive process.
So there are many other questions that these theories leave unaddressed, but they do posit some aspect of the cause which is very useful to have and which is supported by the data.
Q. So intelligent design is about cause?
A I'm sorry, could you say that again?
Q. I just want to get it clear here, intelligent design is about cause?
A Well, cause is a broad word, and when you re trying to explain how something came about, you can say it came about for a variety of reasons. But intelligent design is one reason or one aspect or one cause to explain how the purposeful arrangement of parts that we see did come about.
Q. Back to my original question. What is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes?
A And I wonder, could -- am I permitted to know what I replied to your question the first time?
Q. I don't think I got a reply, so I'm asking you, you ve made this claim here, "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose." And I want to know what is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose?
A Again, it does not propose a mechanism in the sense of a step-by-step description of how those structures arose. But it can infer that in the mechanism, in the process by which these structures arose, an intelligent cause was involved.
Q. But it does not propose an actual mechanism?
A Again, the word "mechanism" -- the word "mechanism" can be used broadly, but no, I would not say that there was a mechanism. I would say we have an aspect of the history of the structure.
Q. So when you wrote in your report that "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism," you actually meant to say intelligent design says nothing about the mechanism of how complex biological structures arose.
A No, I certainly didn't mean to say that. I meant to say what I said in response to that last question, that while we don't know a step-by-step description of how something arose, nonetheless we can infer some very important facts about what was involved in the process, namely, that intelligence was involved in the process.
And let me go back one more time to the Big Bang theory. Again, we don't have a mechanism for the Big Bang, but we can infer some important events about what happened, and that was that it happened in some explosive manner, it happened a distinct time ago and so on.
So additionally, I might say, that it also focuses on other proposed mechanisms that purport to explain the purposeful arrangement of parts. And so I think it is quite accurate to say that that's exactly where intelligent design focuses.
Q. So it actually -- it focuses on other proposed mechanisms, by that you mean natural selection, don't you?
A No, just a natural selection, complexity theory and so on. But certainly the most widely accepted, and then the one that you would have to convince most people -- or explain to most people is not well supported is the one which is the currently accepted explanation of natural selection.
Q. Okay. And so in terms of mechanism, it's just a criticism of Darwinian evolution's mechanism and not a positive description of the mechanism?
A No, I disagree. I say that while, again, while it does not give you a step-by-step description of how such things occurred, it does tell you something very important about the cause or the way in which these structures arose, and that was through the actions of an intelligent cause.
Q. So, Professor Behe, why don't we go to your deposition and see how you answered the questions then, okay?
A Okay.
Q. Could you look at page 179 of your deposition.
A Yes.
Q. I asked you, "What is the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose according to intelligent design theory?"
A Yes.
Q. And you answered, "Intelligent design does not propose a mechanism, it simply tries to support the conclusion that intelligent activity was involved in producing the structures."
A Yes. And that language, I think, is completely consistent with what I was trying to say here today, that it does not tell you step by step how something was proposed -- or how something was produced, but nonetheless it says something very very important about the origin of the structure, and that is that intelligent activity was involved in producing it.
Q. And then further down the page at line 24 I asked you, "In terms of the mechanism, it's just a criticism of Darwinian evolution's mechanism and not a positive description of a mechanism." And what did you answer, Professor Behe?
A I said "that's correct." But again, I think this is completely consistent with what I just said. Again, it does not propose a step-by-step description, but it -- but it proposes or it accounts for some very important features of what was involved in it's origin, and that is intelligent activity.
Q. You have, throughout your testimony over the past two days, criticized the concept of natural selection quite a bit, correct, or the claims made about natural selection?
A Well, I think you have to be careful. I think natural selection is real, and certainly explains a lot of things. And what it's -- what it can explain, it explains well. And like I said, it does account for a number of features of life.
So I would not say I'm criticizing natural selection. I think that many people infer that natural selection has -- can explain things that I don't think it can, and so I've criticized those arguments and those extrapolations.
Q. But you obviously agree it is a valid phenomenon, it explains --
A Yes, of course. Yes, sure.
Q. Including -- it explains things at the biological level, at the organism level?
A Yes, it certainly does.
Q. And it also explains things at the biochemical level?
A That's correct too, yes.
Q. For example, antifreeze proteins, that's an example of natural selection operating at the biochemical level, correct?
A If by antifreeze protein you mean the particular antifreeze protein that was discovered in antarctic notothenioid fish a few years ago in which a gene for trypsinogen, the five prime region for that gene was found next to a coding region for a simpler one, yes, that's right, I do agree with that.
Q. You can read my mind.
And that -- that evolution through natural selection was demonstrated partly by experiment, partly by explanation, correct?
A That's correct, yes.
Q. And you gave us a nice illustration of hemoglobin yesterday.?
A Yes, I showed a slide of hemoglobin.
Q. Pretty complicated structure?
A It certainly is, yes.
Q. And that is another thing where -- another biochemical system that you acknowledge can be explained through natural processes?
A No, you have to be very very careful there. In my book I discuss the example of hemoglobin, and I said -- I discussed it as an example of something that may be amenable to Darwinian explanation. And I was careful to say that if you start at the starting point of a protein similar to what's called myoglobin, which is a single chain protein, and you probably recall yesterday that hemoglobin has four chains stuck together; if you have this single chain protein, myoglobin, which essentially has the very similar structure to hemoglobin, if you start with that, the question is, what does it take to form an aggregate of that structure with the properties of hemoglobin.
So I said, for that segment, starting with myoglobin, going to hemoglobin, that I did not see any impediment for natural selection to explain that. But I did not -- there certainly is no literature. There is no experiment. There is no detailed description of how that actually could happen. So I said that for purposes of argument I think that, you know, we can -- we can certainly say for now that perhaps Darwinian mechanisms can explain that.
Q. Now, before we go in detail into your argument from irreducible complexity, I want to confirm some other aspects of how you understand intelligent design.
It does not identify who the designer is, correct?
A That's correct. Let me just clarify that. I'm talking about the scientific argument for intelligent design based on physical data and logic, yes.
Q. You believe it's God, but it's not part of your scientific argument?
A That's correct.
Q. It does not describe how the design occurred.
A I'm sorry?
Q. Intelligent design does not describe how the design occurred.
A That's correct, just like the Big Bang theory does not describe what caused the Big Bang.
Q. Does not identify when the design occurred.
A That is correct.
Q. In fact, intelligent design takes no position on the age of the earth or when biological life began.
A That's correct.
Q. But think it was -- the earth as billions of years old or 10,000 years old.
A That's correct.
Q. It says nothing about what the designer s abilities are.
A Other than saying that the designer had the ability to make the design that is under consideration, that's correct.
Q. It sounds pretty tautological, Professor Behe.
A No, I don't think so at all. When you see a structure, even in our everyday world, just think about archaeological structures such as a Sphinx or Easter Island or some such thing, one thing you can say is that these -- two things you can say, is that these things were designed, and that the intelligent agent or intelligent agents who designed them had the ability to design them. So I don't think that's tautological at all.
Q. Archeology is a science that you find very similar to the design argument of biochemical systems?
A Well, archeology is a science, and design argument is an argument. But I think in archeology some of the reasoning they employ -- I'm not an archeologist, of course, but I understand that in some of the reasoning they employ is similar to their reasoning that intelligent design proponents such as myself might employ.
Q. But it is your position that we know the designer's abilities?
A I'm sorry, could you say that again?
Q. It is your position that we know the designer s abilities?
A Well, as I think I said in response to the question, we know the designer had the ability to make the design. So, but beyond that, we would be extrapolating beyond the evidence, so we can't say more than that.
Q. And we know nothing about the designer s limitations.
A Well, we have to infer what we have from the data, and the data tell us that a designer can make a certain object. It does not say what the designer might not do. In our everyday world somebody who makes some simple object might be able to make a more complex one or so on.
Q. Intelligent design says nothing about the intelligent designer's motivations?
A The only statement it makes about that is that the designer had the motivation to make the structure that is designed.
Q. How can intelligent design possibly make that statement, Professor Behe?
A I don't understand your question.
Q. How can it possibly say anything about the intelligent designer's motives without knowing anything about who the intelligent designer is?
A Well, I think it's -- that's pretty easy. For example, let's go back to the SETI project, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Suppose that astronomers in that project one day discerned a signal coming in from outer space that they discerned to be of intelligent origin, maybe even it carried a message or something like that exotic. How would they know the motives of whatever sent that? They might not know them, but nonetheless, they could -- as a matter of fact, the whole project is based on the assumption that they would be able to detect the message without knowing the motives of whatever sent it, without knowing it's abilities beyond the ability to send the message, and so on. So I don't think that's a problem whatsoever.
Q. Let me try and cut this short. It's fair to say that in the case of the intelligent designer and biological or biochemical life, we know nothing about it's ability or limitations except from what we conclude from the system that was designed?
A Yes. A scientific theory makes -- draws it's conclusions from the physical evidence. So the fact that intelligent design draws conclusions from the physical evidence is completely consistent with what any good scientific theory could do.
Q. Well, I mean, let's take your analogy of human design. I want a nice car, right?
A I believe that.
Q. And you could look at a car and say Eric made that because he wants a nice car, right?
A I'm sorry?
Q. Eric made the car because he wants a nice car, right? That would be an inference about my motives based just on seeing the car in my garage, or that I bought the car?
A No, I disagree. What you would say from looking at the car in your garage is that this car was designed, and if it was in your garage and it turned out that somebody was staying at your house that was not you and that was their car, well, then that's consistent with the conclusion of intelligent design. The extrapolation to who the designer was or who purchased the car or anything like that is unjustified by the data. If it was, you know -- well, I could make other examples, but I think the point is clear.
Q. And just to be -- just to wrap this point up, we know nothing about the intelligent designer's abilities or limitations except for what we can conclude from the specific system or object that we're observing?
A Since intelligent design is a scientific theory, it has to draw it's conclusions from physical data. So yes, that's how we determine whatever we know about the design and whatever inferences we make to the cause of the design.
Q. And similarly, we know nothing about the intelligent designer's motives or needs or desires except for what we can conclude from the specific system that we're observing?
A Yes. Let me just reiterate that, that in fact a scientific theory depends on physical data. It can't depend on anything else. And so of course it has to draw whatever inferences it can from the physical data that it has available.
Q. Okay, and in this case that's just the system we're look at, the bacterial flagellum?
A Well, if you're considering the bacterial flagellum, then yes, that would be it, you could consider other things as well.
Q. Now, you ve told this Court that intelligent design does not involve supernatural action, correct?
A That's correct. I -- no, I said that it -- it's -- intelligent design is a scientific theory that focuses exclusively on physical data and logical inferences. And so since any scientific theory does not infer from beyond the data, then we cannot say anything about whether some structure was produced by supernatural means.
Q. Could you open Darwin's Black Box, which is plaintiff's exhibit 647.
A What page?
Q. I'm sorry. Page 193.
A 193, thank you.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, could you highlight on page 193, the first paragraph.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Could you read that paragraph, Professor Behe?
A Can I read from the book here?
Q. Yes, please.
A Okay. "There is an elephant in the roomful of scientists who are trying to explain the development of life. The elephant is labeled intelligent design. To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity, rather, they were planned. The designer knew what the systems would look like when they were completed, then took steps to bring the systems about. Life on earth at it's most fundamental level, in it's most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity."
Q. They were designed not by the laws of nature, correct, Professor Behe?
A That is correct.
Q. Professor Behe, if you could turn to exhibit 718, which is Reply to My Critics.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And, Your Honor, we'll have it up on the screen, but if it's easier to look at paper, I have a copy.
THE COURT: No, if you're going to put it up, that's fine.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And Professor Behe, it's fair to say that this is one of your most significant published works on the subject of intelligent design since Darwin's Black Box?
A Well, this is where I, as the title implies, I try to address criticisms that have been raised against the intelligent design proposal.
Q. One of your more important pieces of work on this subject?
A I consider it to be, yes.
Q. Could you turn to page 696 of that article.
A Yes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And, Matt, if you could go to the, I guess the first full paragraph, which begins "In such a view," and highlight the passage that begins "By intelligent design" midway through the page.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And here you say, "By intelligent design I mean to imply design beyond the simple laws of nature. That is, taking the laws of nature as given, are there other reasons for concluding that life and it's component systems have been intentionally arranged."
And going further down the page you say, "In my book, and in this article, whenever I refer to intelligent design, I mean this stronger sense of design-beyond-laws."
And those are natural laws, correct, Professor Behe?
A Yes. And if you read that sentence that you skipped over there, it says, By intelligent design I mean -- I'm sorry, let me see -- I kind of got lost here. I mean to design -- "I mean to imply design beyond the simple laws of nature. That is, taking the laws of nature as given, are there other reasons for concluding that life and it's component systems have been intentionally arranged, just as there are reasons beyond the laws of nature for concluding a mousetrap was designed."
What I was intending by that passage was something much less grand than the design of the laws of nature, to which I was contrasting my position. I was likening it to the design that is involved in simple mechanical objects such as the mousetrap. And as I explained in my testimony, that is exactly the basis for how we detect design, when we perceive the purposeful arrangement of parts.
So that is the sense of design in which I meant. It's actually a more modest sense of design than design of the laws of nature.
Q. Mechanical design of a mousetrap is beyond the laws of nature, Professor Behe?
A It requires intelligent activity. It's beyond unintelligent -- the operation of unintelligent laws. There is no law of nature that explains a mousetrap.
Q. They are designed by natural actors, correct?
A That's correct, but how they act is not described by any law that I know of, and I have -- I have never read any law that describes how a mousetrap comes about.
Q. Well, why don't we go on to page 700. If you could highlight the question that Professor Behe is asking on this page. "Is it plausible that the designer is a natural entity?" in the first full paragraph.
That is the question you ask. "Is it plausible that the designer is a natural entity?"
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And then if, Matt, if you could actually go to the next two full paragraphs and highlight those.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. And you say, "The problem is the following. Currently we have knowledge of only one type of natural intelligent designer even remotely capable of conceiving such structures as are found in the cell, and that is a human. Our intelligence depends critically on physical structures in the brain which are irreducibly complex. Extrapolating from this sample of one. . . " -- that's humans, correct?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. ". . . it may be that all possible natural designers require irreducibly complex structures which themselves were designed. If so, then at some point a supernatural designer must get into the picture.
"I myself find this line of reasoning persuasive. In my estimation, although possible in a broadly permissive sense, it is not plausible that the original intelligent agent is a natural entity. The chemistry and physics that we do know weigh heavily against it. If natural intelligence depends on physical organization, then the organization seems likely to have to be enormously complex and stable over reasonable periods of time. While simpler systems may perform the tasks that irreducibly complex systems perform a terrestrial life, they would likely perform them more slowly and less efficiently, so that the complexity required for intelligence would not ultimately be achieved. Thus, in my judgment it is implausible that the designer is a natural entity."
You don't absolutely rule it out, but you're not taking it very seriously, are you?
A Well, I've said that quite a number of times. I think I said that at the beginning of my testimony yesterday, that I think in fact from -- from other perspectives, that the designer is in fact God. But if you turn back to page 699, there's a section entitled, "Is it possible that the designer is a natural entity?" And I won't quote from it, but I come to the conclusion there that sure it's possible that it is, but I do not -- I myself do not find it plausible.
Let me again liken this to the Big Bang theory. Is it possible that there was some event in nature that caused such a thing? Yes, it's possible. We know of no such event, we don't -- you know, we haven't known of such an event since the Big Bang theory was first proposed something like 75 years ago; but it's certainly possible. It's also possible that it wasn t.
And the distinction that I was trying to make throughout my testimony is that when we use scientific reasoning, and when we constrict ourselves to physical evidence and logical reasoning, we can only go so far. We can say we don't have a natural -- we don't have an explanation for this event right now. We cannot -- and the history of science shows this time and time again, we cannot say that because we don't have a natural or an explanation for a certain event now, that we won't have one in the future. Intelligent design I think is in the same category as the Big Bang on that point.
Q. And I know you're fond of the Big Bang, but let's be clear, you're not an expert in physics, correct?
A That is correct.
Q. And nor an expert in astrophysics?
A That's right.
Q. Okay. And you're making a pretty scientific argument here, physics, chemistry, they pretty much rule out a natural designer; that's what you're trying, right?
A No --
Q. Not absolutely, but makes it pretty implausible?
A That's what implausible means. Yes, but again, the conclusion from this evidence does not lead one to an explanation beyond nature.
With this I was also relying on my other -- on considerations other than scientific ones, from philosophical, theological and historical beliefs. So again, arguing from scientific data only takes you so far. It takes you to the point of the fact that we do not have an explanation for this event right now. But to go beyond that requires a reasoning beyond just scientific reasoning.
Q. So in Darwin's Black Box you said beyond nature, in this article you said beyond nature, but that's just your theological hat?
A Well, as my discussion of John Maddox s editorial from yesterday Down with the Big Bang which occurred in Nature, and my discussion of Arthur Eddington's writings, and my discussion of Walter Nernst's comments, many people saw in the Big Bang implications for theology and philosophy and things beyond nature.
So I think that -- that nonetheless we would all agree that the Big Bang is a scientific theory in the same way intelligent design, in my view, is a scientific theory, even if somebody like John Maddox sees for this theory that it has implications beyond science.
Q. Now, you ve said in your testimony today and yesterday you personally believe the designer is God.
A Yes.
Q. And in this article in fact you say for purposes of the discussion I'm going to assume the supernatural entity is God, right?
A Yes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: And, Matt, if you could turn to page 705 of the article. If you could highlight the top paragraph, until the sixth line.
And you write here, "What if the existence of God is in dispute or is denied? So far I have assumed the existence of God. But what if the existence of God is denied at the outset, or is in dispute? Is the plausibility of the argument to design affected? As a matter of my own experience the answer is clearly yes, the argument is less plausible to those for whom God s existence is in question, and is much less plausible for those who deny God's existence."
It's a God friendly theory, isn't it, Professor Behe?
A Let me respond in a couple of ways to that. First, let me clarify for context that this is a journal called Biology and Philosophy. So not only am I speaking about scientific matters here, but I'm also talking about nonscientific matters here in an academic forum. Academics embraces more than just science. This is an academic forum which also embraces philosophy, and so I addressed philosophical issues as well.
And again, my statement as written is certainly correct. And it's happened time -- many times in science, and, again, I'll just refer back to John Maddox's article Down With the Big Bang. He didn't like the Big Bang theory. And it wasn t because the data were inconsistent with it, it's because it was philosophically unacceptable. Walter Nernst hated the idea of a beginning to the universe. It was unscientific. So -- and other people have said similar things.
So it's clearly true that people make decisions even about a scientific theory, based not only on the science itself, but what they perceive as other ramifications of the theory.
But I argue, I've argued a number of places, that it's the proper role of a scientist to leave aside those other considerations as much as possible and focus simply on the scientific data.
Q. That's what you try to do as a scientist?
A Yes, I do.
Q. The year you wrote Darwin's Black Box was also the year that the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute was founded, correct, 1996?
A Is that -- I'm fuzzy on the date of the establishment of the Center for Renewal, yeah.
Q. You were one of the Center's fellows from the beginning, correct?
A Yes, that's correct. I was asked to join by Bruce Chapman, who was the president of the Discovery Institute.
Q. And you ve remained a fellow since that time, correct?
A Yes, I'm still a fellow.
Q. And even before the Discovery Institute was founded, you participated in the Pajaro Dunes conference?
A Yes, that was a private conference which was organized by a man named Phillip Johnson.
Q. And in addition to Mr. Johnson, yourself, Stephen Meyer was there?
A Yes, Steve Meyer was there too.
Q. William Dembski?
A He was there too.
Q. Paul Nelson?
A Yep.
Q. Dean Kenyon?
A Him too.
Q. Okay, and you all discussed your ideas?
A Yes, that was the purpose of the conference, to talk with each other and to bounce ideas off of each other and so on.
Q. And all of the individuals I've mentioned, including yourself, became fellows or officers of the Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, correct?
A I'm not sure. I'll take your word for it, though.
Q. Okay. And you have no reason to doubt that?
A I don t, no.
Q. And you accept funding from the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture?
A As -- over the past years, and there was a time about -- a period of three years, about eight years ago, up to about five years ago, where I was given a grant by the Discovery Institute -- well, actually I wasn't given a grant, the Discovery Institute gave a sum of approximately 8,000 to $10,000 per year to the university to release me from some teaching obligations so that I could write and think about intelligent design issues.
Q. And that happened for about five or six years, is that right?
A No, three years.
Q. Three years, okay.
And in fact the Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture heralded your work in a document it prepared called The Wedge Strategy, didn't it?
A I'll have to refresh my memory, but I think they did, yes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Matt, if you could put up 140.
May I approach the witness, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. This is a document that you ve been aware of for some time?
A I heard about it. I wasn't aware about it until I heard about it being discussed on the Internet. Apparently somebody purloined this document, or took the document from the Discovery Center and posted it on the web, and there was a discussion of it then. That's when I became aware of it.
Q. And you read it?
A Yes, I think I did after it came out.
Q. And if you could turn six pages in, and it actually has handwriting that says page four on it. And you see there's a section called the "Five Year Strategic Plan Summary."
A Yes.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: If you could highlight that first paragraph there, Matt.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. What it said here was, "The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at it's source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialist science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a wedge that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at it's weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the thin edge of the wedge was Phillip Johnson s critique of Darwinism begun in 1991, in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist world view, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
You were aware of this passage in the document when you read it?
A I assume I did read it, yes, roughly at that point.
Q. And you were aware that your work was described in this context?
A Yeah, I saw it mentioned there, yes.
Q. Okay. And you were a fellow at the time you became aware of this document?
A That's correct. I did not -- I did not -- I was not aware of it before it was placed on the Internet. I don't know the source of the document, who wrote it, whether it was some -- somebody's draft of something, whether it was a fundraising letter, whether it was, you know, something else, but I did not know.
Q. A strategy document? You don't know?
A I don't know, no. You know, again, if one doesn't see who wrote it, I don't know what to make of this.
If this was written by somebody who had no particular importance in the organization, or who had in mind something that would not, you know, be approved by people in charge or some such thing, then there was no particular reason to pay attention to it.
Q. But you continued on as a fellow after seeing this?
A You bet I did. I -- you know, I very much enjoy my association with the Discovery Institute. I think that people associated with it are very helpful in my -- developing my ideas. And yes, I'm -- I place much value on my contacts there.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, I d just like to discuss one more exhibit with Professor Behe, and that might be a good time to break, and it will be brief.
THE COURT: After that?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.
THE COURT: All right, I'll let it to your discretion.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Thank you.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. You testified that you had been invited to write articles about intelligent design several times for The New York Times?
A I'm sorry?
Q. You testified yesterday that you have been asked on several occasions to write articles for The New York Times.
A I was invited several times to contribute op-ed pieces on various news items -- or on various topics in the news at that time for The New York Times, yes.
Q. And let me show you exhibit 723.
A Thank you.
Q. This was an article you wrote in 1996?
A That's right. The occasion was that Pope John Paul II, had issued a letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences concerning evolution, and it was very much in the news at that point. And The New York Times had just reviewed my book earlier in the summer, and so they knew that I was a Catholic scientist and that I might be an appropriate person to write commentary on that event.
Q. And in the second full paragraph, beginning, "I grew up," you write, "I grew up in a Catholic family and have also believed in God. But beginning in parochial school I was taught that He could use natural processes to produce life. Contrary to conventional wisdom, religion has made room for science for a long time. But as biology uncovers startling complexity in life, the question becomes, can science make room for religion."
That's what you wrote, correct?
A Yes, that's right.
Q. And then you went on to discuss your proposition of intelligent design as set forth in Darwin's Black Box, correct?
A And if I could just say that by that phrase, "can science made room for religion," I had in mind reactions like that of John Maddox and that of Arthur Eddington and that of Walter Nernst, who were thinking that science necessarily had to rule out things whose philosophical or other implications did not disturb them.
Q. And those names are nowhere in this article.
A I had, I think, 900 words to talk about this. So there are many many other things that I could have included in writing on the topic like this, which I did not have the room to do.
Q. Big Bang was between the lines here.
A Actually, I mention the Big Bang as often as I can. I'm surprised I didn't have it in here.
Q. Maybe we could take this as a precedent.
And if you could go to the second page. And the second to the last paragraph, you write, "Intelligent design may mean that the ultimate explanation for life is beyond scientific explanation. That assessment is premature. But even if it is true, I would not be troubled. I don't want the best scientific explanation for the origins of life; I want the correct explanation."
That's what you wrote, correct?
A I certainly did write that, and I think it's a quite reasonable statement.
The Big Bang might ultimately be beyond scientific explanation. We have no explanation for the Big Bang right now. Many people, including people who don't like it, see theological and philosophical implications in the Big Bang theory. I put intelligent design in the same category, as I've mentioned before in my testimony.
We do not have any unintelligent explanation for life. We don't have any current explanation. We don't rule it out, but ultimately we might not have one. And ultimately it might not have -- might not receive a scientific explanation. And if that's the case, well then that's the case, we just have to follow the evidence where it leads.
Q. Just so we're clear, the Big Bang has been accepted by significant portions of the scientific community?
A That was about three decades or so after it was first discussed by George Lemaitre, a Belgium priest, who first proposed it based on observations of the red shift of the galaxies and apparent expansion of the universe. But for the first several decades it was extremely controversial and not well accepted.
Q. But the answer is yes, it has been well accepted?
A After three decades it became accepted.
Q. And intelligent design, now after several decades of it's modern era, has not been accepted, in fact, it's regularly rejected?
A Intelligent design certainly is not the dominant view of the scientific community, but I'm very pleased with the progress we're making. As I've tried to make clear in my testimony, although some -- many scientists do not like it, if you look at their statements, you do not see any scientific evidence which, when examined closely, is -- when examined closely, shows that intelligent design is incorrect.
Q. Okay. It's not been well accepted or indeed accepted by anything but more than a small minority of scientists.
A Well, again, I'm afraid I'm -- I think the situation is a whole lot more complex than perhaps you do.
Statements of large scientific organizations do not represent the views of their members, other than -- much like statements of other organizations might represent all the views of all their members. And I think that if you actually surveyed a large number of scientists and you ask them carefully what they thought about how one could explain life, I think that a significant fraction would indeed say that something like intelligent design was plausible.
Q. That's just speculation on your part?
A Well, it's based on some experience that I've had talking with scientists in many of these discussions that I have. Many scientists have misimpressions of intelligent design, and when they I speak with them, they oftentimes see that it's more -- has a more compelling argument than is oftentimes presented in publications, magazines, and so on. So it's based on some experience.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: This would be a good time to break, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Are you going to pick up more cross tomorrow?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.
THE COURT: All right. We'll recess then for the day at this point, the hour being almost at 4:30, and we will reconvene at 9 a.m. tomorrow and continue with Mr. Rothschild's cross examination of the witness.
We're in recess. Thank you.
THE DEPUTY CLERK: All rise.
(4:28 p.m., court adjourned.)


Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Trial transcript: Day 12 (October 19), AM Session, Part 1

(Whereupon, the following discussion was held in chambers:)
THE COURT: All right. What are -- we have an issue?
MR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, we wanted to alert the Court before we used it in cross examination of a document that we plan to use that Your Honor may regard as covered by the confidentiality order having to do with the draft of the successor to Pandas. It's a page out of that draft.
It's the page that's analogous to the old page 25 that dealt with sudden -- intelligent design as it holds the various forms of life began with distinctive features already intact.
THE COURT: Is this the latest version --
MR. SCHMIDT: This is the --
THE COURT: As yet unpublished --
MR. SCHMIDT: Correct.
THE COURT: -- of Pandas. And you'll have to refresh my recollection. I didn't have a chance, after Liz alerted me, to look in the file, but did we have a confidentiality order in the midst of determining FTE's motion. Is that what it was for? You'll have to help me out, because I don't recall.
MR. SCHMIDT: It originally came up because we subpoenaed it from William Dembski --
THE COURT: I recall that.
MR. SCHMIDT: -- who was the author. And FTE participated in that.
THE COURT: I recall that it was subpoenaed. I recall that FTE moved to block --
MR. SCHMIDT: For a protective order.
THE COURT: -- the subpoena. And, of course, I know that, we all know that Mr. Dembski is not testifying, and we all know that FTE was not permitted to intervene. What I don't remember is sequentially when the protective order came to being in exactly -- I understand why it came into play, but apparently it was not self-extinguishing as it related to the litigation. Is that a fair statement?
MR. SCHMIDT: Yes. In fact, it had a provision in it that said it would continue past the trial even until publication of the text.
THE COURT: So why do you think you're entitled to open it up?
MR. SCHMIDT: Because nothing in the protective order says that we couldn't use it. It said, if we did use it, it would be under seal, preserving the confidentiality of it.
So if there is reference to this, as there will be, I wanted the Court to know that we intended to do that, so that the courtroom could be cleared, and so that this part of the record could be under seal to the extent that it's quoting from it.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, I would just add that, I would actually interpret the protective order a little more liberally. It certainly doesn't allow us to publish this widely, and it required any filings with briefs to be under seal, and any depositions that they used it as an exhibit to be under seal.
I think this is why we're alerting to you, that it does not necessarily mean that once we're in public trial, that it would preclude its use in public, but we're also amenable to it being done with a closed courtroom, if that's --
THE COURT: Well, do we have -- was a protective order entered -- and again, you'll have to refresh my recollection -- pursuant to a stipulation?
MR. SCHMIDT: Yes, it was.
THE COURT: And the stipulation, who were the parties to the stipulation? Was FTE a party?
MR. SCHMIDT: The Plaintiffs and FTE.
MR. GILLEN: Well, actually, weren't we, Chuck, as well?
MR. SCHMIDT: You were as well.
MR. GILLEN: Yeah, we were as well.
MR. WALCZAK: Your Honor, I think Eric's interpretation that this may not apply if it's being used in open court was largely validated when we had that hearing on FTE's intervention motion.
THE COURT: Does somebody have the stipulation?
LAW CLERK: I can get it.
THE COURT: Why don't you pull it off.
MR. WALCZAK: And while I don't believe we used design of life there, the other documents had been produced under seal including, I believe, and Chuck will correct me if I'm wrong, the FTE, some of the FTE statements and writings that they had. And some of those were introduced in court, put into the record.
FTE was there, and they had no objection, and did not seem to differ from our understanding of the protective order as not extending to things that happened in open court.
THE COURT: Are you seeking to actually admit a document in -- you're shaking your head no. You're going to simply question from the text of the manuscript?
MR. SCHMIDT: And read it to them, yes.
THE COURT: What's your position?
MR. GILLEN: A couple things. Actually, I'm grateful to you guys for bringing it to my attention. My recollection is that, it did cover litigation, that there was some discussion of that. I think what they're suggesting though, a short passage, so it can be kept confidential, does what I thought you had in mind, Judge, which is to protect their property interests. And I can see that being a way to get rid of the problems, so to speak.
THE COURT: Well, my recollection is that, FTE's concern was that they obviously had an intellectual property interest, and they were concerned that a wholesale release of the manuscript would subject it to pre-publication criticism, if I recall, that Mr. Buell was particularly, and justifiably, I thought, alarmed about.
I really wonder, under the circumstances, if it's a short passage, how much that's going to interfere with the intellectual property rights. I suppose you could argue that, that would allow focus and criticism of that particular passage, but I'm not so sure that that's really what his concern was. I thought his concern was a wholesale release of the entire manuscript, which is really what was threatened when Mr. Dembski testified.
MR. GILLEN: And, Judge, I don't represent FTE.
THE COURT: I understand that.
MR. GILLEN: So I can't speak.
THE COURT: But as a signatory to the stipulation, I suppose you have Atillaed the hunt.
MR. GILLEN: We had an expert at that time who asked me to move to protect the intellectual property right because of his fiduciary duty. I made that motion, and I want -- I do want to preserve what I can by way of protection of their work product rights.
MR. SCHMIDT: As the draftsman of the stipulation, I must say that I had in mind the far broader text. The concern that was expressed was that this would give the NCSE's people, Scott and others, an opportunity to poison the well before publication.
THE COURT: Let me see the passages.
MR. SCHMIDT: It's the second paragraph.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: We would probably use one other page to just correlate some other charts.
MR. SCHMIDT: In my own mind, I see this as kind of analogous to the fair use exception and copyright law. You can take a snippet and use it without harming the copyright interests.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I do think there's one other consideration, Judge, for your --
THE COURT: Go ahead.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: That it may -- the FTE has counsel in this area, and it may make sense, before using it, to alert them. I mean, we do intend to use it today for purposes of impeachment with Professor Behe.
THE COURT: That's exactly what I was going to suggest. Who's counsel?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Leonard Brown, that group.
THE COURT: Yeah. Why don't you do this. Why don't you take time now to, before we get started, you know, we've been moving at a pretty good pace, and we haven't had these things happen, and they do happen in trials. So why don't you take some time and contact FTE's counsel. I think you want to do it for your own protection.
Obviously, once I rule, I suppose that you're protected, but you entered into a stipulation, and I would have some concern --
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I think it's just fair.
THE COURT: -- about that, and I think you want to at least give them notice. If we have to reconvene and get them on at least a conference call and let them be heard, and that might be better than having you, you know --
MR. GILLEN: Me speak for them.
THE COURT: Sure. That puts you in a difficult position. You're signatory as parties, but you really don't want to put yourself in the position to speaking for FTE. And then we can hear out FTE. I'm not sure, you know, given this brief passage, that it violates the sense of the stipulation to allow questioning, even in open court.
I'm somewhat reluctant to clear the courtroom for these brief passages because, again, I'll read the stipulation and the order because they're not -- I don't recall them instantly. But I thought the thrust, and you seem to agree with this, is that the manuscript, as a whole, would be protected. And I understand. I think we all understood the purpose for that at the time.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, should we suggest a time -- I mean, do you want to do that at a lunch break or find out --
THE COURT: How much more cross do you have?
MR. ROTHSCHILD: It will be inversely proportional to mentions of the Big Bang, I think.
THE COURT: So you're going to go all day.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: It could be quite a while.
THE COURT: All right. Well, why don't you get started. Take some time now. Why don't you contact them. Why don't you see what their availability is. I mean, I recognize we're catching them flatfooted. See if they've got somebody that they can get on the phone, you know, as soon as possible. I just as soon get started.
If you give me a time later this morning, we'll just recess. If they say, you know, we're available at 11, or whatever the case may be, then we can at least get started; 10:30, 11. I'm not suggesting a time. Just find a time or we can do it as we break for lunch, if that is more convenient for them. Hard to believe they wouldn't have somebody that they could get at some point involved in a phone conversation.
Then you can reserve your cross on this issue until we hear them out at that point. Now if they tell you they don't care, which I'd be surprised, but if they tell you that, then we'll take that up at that time. I suppose they're going to have to likely contact FTE and find out what.
MR. GILLEN: That's what I can foresee. By the time they get in touch with FTE which, I think, is in Texas. You guys know better than I do.
THE COURT: And there's a time delay.
MR. SCHMIDT: One hour.
MR. GILLEN: It's just one hour, but Mr. Buell is rather difficult to reach.
MR. SCHMIDT: When he chooses.
THE COURT: Well, you know, if they can't reach him, I'll rule, if I have to, in the absence of that. But I think at least fair notice to their counsel, if they can connect with the mothership, and we'll take it up at that time.
(Whereupon, the discussion held in chambers concluded at 9:05 a.m. and proceedings reconvened in open court at 9:18 a.m.)
THE COURT: All right. Good morning to all. I apologize for the somewhat late start. We had a slight issue that we had to handle in chambers with counsel. And that rapidly resolved, so that we can commence this morning's session. We will do so. We will continue cross examination of the witness by Mr. Rothschild.
(Whereupon, MICHAEL BEHE, Ph.D., resumed the stand, and testimony continued.)
CROSS EXAMINATION ( CONTINUED)
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Good morning, Professor Behe.
A. Good morning, Mr. Rothschild.
Q. How are you?
A. Fine, thanks.
Q. After the Court adjourned yesterday, did you talk to anybody about your testimony?
A. I did not.
Q. I'm going to see if we can reach an agreement on something here. You agree that this is a case about biology curriculum?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Not about physics, a physics curriculum?
A. It's not about a physics curriculum, but from my understanding, many issues that are being discussed here are particularly relevant to other issues that have come up in other disciplines of science.
Q. This is a case about what's being taught in biology class not physics class?
A. As I said, I agree that it is, but one more time, I think many things in the history of science are relevant to this, and they've happened in other disciplines as well.
Q. You've already testified you're not an expert in physics or astrophysics?
A. That's correct.
Q. And you might not know this about me, but I'm not either.
A. I'm surprised.
Q. So I'm going to propose an agreement. I won't ask you any questions about the Big Bang, and you won't answer any questions about the Big Bang. Can we agree to that, Professor Behe?
MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor. He's trying to limit the testimony of the witness by some sort of agreement. He's obviously testified and explained why the relationship of the Big Bang is so important. He just answered his questions to try to proffer some prior agreement to the witness that he can't reference factors of prior testimony in cross examination. That just seems inappropriate, Your Honor.
THE COURT: What's your answer?
THE WITNESS: No. , I think references to the Big Bang are extremely appropriate to making clear why I think these -- making clear my views on these issues.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Fair to say, Professor --
THE COURT: There you go, Mr. Muise.
BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Q. Fair to say, Professor Behe, that over the last two days of testimony, you've told us everything you know about the Big Ban