I was going through some of my old posts on another messageboard when I found something that I had written about Behe. I believe I got the information from the SDMB (as most of my information comes from here), but it was a little on the incomplete side. I couldn’t find the actual thread where I might have gleamed this information from, so I’m posting it here-hoping for an expanding of the claim (or a refuting if it’s totally inaccurate).
IIRC Behe has made the claim that certain creatures could be seen as being irriducibly complex and one of those creatures was the _____ (I think it was the Flaggeum…or something like it). The problem with this assertion by Behe is that it wasn’t true. He claimed to have seen things that looked like ‘swords’ projecting from the organism which fit neatly into other organisms, in an effort to mate.
Anyone know any more about this? I’m wondering if the layperson can pick up a microscope and ‘check’ Behe’s work.
While I’m at it, is there anything else that Behe blantantly lied about (as in made up data, or fudged stuff)?
IIRC talk origins has a section on the Bombadier beetle…
I remember this… IIRC he was talking about the composition of the bacterial flagellum (the organ of propulsion) - a search on Behe and flagellum ought to find it.
Search Great Debates, keyword Behe, poster Ben for the last three months (six monts at the most). He had a bit on Behe claiming to have found a structure that required a projecting piece to be able to be inserted into an opening and claimed that Behe had misstated the data.
I am not so resolutely anti-Behe (the person, I think his science is shoddy) as to refer to his errors as lies. However, a fairly clear example of Behe making an untrue statement in his popular works concerns his claims for a lack of research into the area of molecular evolution. He had claimed on two points that no one was doing research on specific topics. When the long departed phaedrus repeated that charge in one of his threads, I was able to find a half-dozen papers with a single Google sweep–all of which had been published before Behe had published his book. (I have since seen references to people who are actually in the field recounting that there were more than thirty such studies that Behe conveniently “missed” while composing his criticism.)
Was Behe a liar or simply shoddy? I don’t know and won’t specualte. He is, however, clearly not very trustworthy/accurate in his presentation on certain points.
That’s a good point Tomndebb, I suppose the reason I think Behe’s deceptive is because he skirted around the academic arena and chose to publish his work as opposed to submit it for scientific peer review.
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