Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution Paperback – Illustrated, 13 Mar. 2006

Before I throw my hat in the ring with this review, I must state that evolution makes complete sense to me at species level, but I do find it difficult at the molecular level. I was recommended the book by someone who is religious. I am not, nor am I an anti-theist and I regard that religious persuasion about the same as I regard all proselytizers and arrogant zealots. I am not actually a scientist either, but I have a good basic grasp of the underlying principles of experimental design and fundamental laws. I was very interested in biochemistry in my teens and would have loved to study it seriously, but my difficulties with the early Nuffield Modern Maths A level, led my teachers to change my courses to Modern Languages, Music, and English. This was a great shame, because Biology was my passion in school and future revisions of the Maths syllabus would probably have been fine for me. So, now I have nailed my tattered colours to the mast, here goes.This book is an excellent read that poses more questions than answers. It is not, as has been suggested, either anti-science or anti-evolution but challenges scientists to find a mechanism for evolution at the molecular level. How did natural selection operate before life even existed? This is a question that nobody has yet answered satisfactorily. The probabilities of it being purely accidental have such high odds that I find it hard to believe. It comes down to the way that complex organic compounds are inter-related. The author demonstrates that through several complex examples of life at the fundamental chemical level. He challenges scientists to provide experimental evidence. These challenges have largely gone unanswered, or at best only partially answered. Instead, the common response is simply to pedal out the old orthodoxy as though scientific method had never been thought of and to attack the author’s credentials - which proves nothing other than rudeness.The Theory of Evolution is just that, theory. It is not a Natural Law, and as astrophysicists and quantum physicists point out, even Natural Laws can have exceptions. So, where do we stand on the basis of this text. Firstly, there is no doubt that Natural Selection works on a species level. Its effects can be seen in operation. It is a great idea and contributes so much to the beauty and diversity of the world. Some people doubt that it works on the higher levels of taxonomy, though I am not one of them. I can grasp how a fish might evolve through challenging conditions, or new opportunity, into an amphibian, a reptile, a bird, a mammal, a primate, or eventually a human being. What is more, this all makes sense in the timescales that apply. On the cellular level, it makes sense that a single cell organism might incorporate another into its genetic structure to develop multi-cellular organisms and some might branch out to become plants, others to become animals. Bacteria make sense. Viruses are an enigma. What doesn’t make sense is life itself. What comes first, the protein or the instruction to make it. In chemistry so complex, how can these things be achieved by sheer chance in a primordial soup when optimal laboratory conditions, very clever men and powerful computers cannot yet achieve the same.So, in short, I refuse to go down either fork in the road that other readers may have chosen, namely, Route A (belief in God, not Science) or Route B (belief in Science, not God). Read the book for yourself and see what you think. The questions may not be answered during my lifetime, but they are certainly worth asking and pursuing with rigorous scientific method and an open mind. Go for it! I know I found it both challenging and fascinating.

This book is very good, and so I give it full rating in whatever system being used. There is no superstition here nor invoking of religion, just looking hard at the evidence with a scientific eye.I appreciated the introduction to the complexities of systems at the molecular level that this biochemist knows and so he then explained clearly and made accessible to the layman. He made great use of metaphors to explain concepts in terms of real life examples. He also has a sense of humor too - not a dry book at all!His elucidation of the theory of intelligent design is very well thought out. His arguments and presentation of the data is so good that it is no wonder everyone who hates his book because it challenges their dogma has not really tried to refute anything in it, but instead resort to mainly hit pieces that attack made up straw man arguments of things Behe never said, instead of directly and clearly arguing against things he actually wrote about (and it has been 23 years now since the first version came out).Since science has advanced in these past years he has recently released a new book which should also be a good read: Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution. I think I will also get one of his previous books that I have heard is worthwhile follow up: The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism.I have to say I really enjoy such clearly written, rational, logical books as these that are really scientific in the sense they look at the facts as clearly as possible and use that to formulate a reasonable theory. I am not impressed with theories of our origin that do not answer most questions, and rely on mostly rhetoric and wishful thinking.There have been plenty of people who have very reasonably pointed out flaws, unanswered questions, and great improbabilities in the Darwinian theory of evolution that asserts life came into being in a gradual step by step process of random mutations over a very long period of time and so I have been skeptical about it before reading this book. Now this book gives me even more reasons to suspect neo-Darwinist theories are never going figure out the origin of life, despite promises and bluster. Science needs something better.

Brilliant book altho old now. Info is amazing. Bought all his other books after reading this

Although the terminology was a bit above my intelligence the book was as expected.