Contributes no new knowledge to our understanding of the world around us: check.

Disputes and rejects the knowledge we do have (on the spurious excuse that science can’t claim to know anything until it can prove it knows everything): check.

Attempts to discredit those who have added this knowledge to our scientific understanding of nature: check.

Behe’s approach to bacterial flagella is essentially a rejection of the kind of science that is based on the principle that truth is consistent with itself. But perhaps I should make that the subject of a full post, since it’s an interesting topic.

knowledge exists because he knows it cannot exist. Intelligent Design,

like creationism in general, produces no new insights into natural processes,

but consists solely of denying what we do know about such processes, and trying

to discredit those who have discovered them.

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Where are the detailed, specific accounts? In 2003 Nick Matzke wrote “Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum”, http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html. in which he surveyed the very limited and very general publications on the subject and goes on to propose a model himself. He directly states in that article, ” “…However, published attempts to explain flagellar origins suffer from vagueness and are inconsistent with recent discoveries and the constraints imposed by Brownian motion…” It should be noted that although published proposals about flagellar evolution are very limited, the topic is a popular one as the flagellum is the icon of the antievolutionary “Intelligent Design” movement. Therefore several of the ideas proposed here have been previously raised in informal debates about flagellar evolution. Miller (2003, 2004) and Musgrave (2004) review this aspect of the debate in detail, and Musgrave proposes a model that is similar in outline to that presented here, although his account is more general.”

In other words if there had already been detailed, specific accounts already published in the peer reviewed literature, Mr. Matzke would have felt no need to come up with a model himself. Which means that prior to 2003 the Neodarwinist facile, hand-waving assurances the that BF evolved were nothing but empty bluster.

If that was the state of the scientific knowledge of the origin of the BF in 2003, what has happened since then to justify your assertion that such natural processes have been discovered and the Behe is merely denying what we do know about such processes, and trying to discredit those who have discovered them. But where are the articles in the published literature? Why don’t you provide the cites? Or is it enough for you to simply assert, “It is so!?

Cordially,