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qontfnns's review against another edition
3.0
The Edge of Evolution is like the supplemental material to Darwin's Black Box. He still argued that evolution can't possibly give rise to irreducible complexity given that mostly 1. intermediate changes between productive mutations are mostly deleterious and 2. it's just statistically improbable, just with more data and examples. Granted, more context might make it more convincing. But I guess I still support Theistic Evolution more than Intelligent Design after all. I'd rather believe that God is omnipotent enough that evolution as a sunatullah can be productive without interference. Well, tbh, what do I know about the Great Great Plan? There's probably a design. But imo, what ID supporter, in this case Behe, has to offer is lots of premature conclusions. Like how intermediate change is an insurmountable step and is impossible to keep. But perhaps the gap is not that wide and in the meantime, they might be kept for other functions? Also, even just 1 aa mutation can be deleterious. There surely are such cases but an organism is a system and sometimes a lack of function in one part might be compensated by a change in another part? Francis Collins gathered that diversity is actually the rule instead of the exception, so most changes gotta be way more tolerable than what Behe suggested. Deviations don't always have to be immediately punished and perish. The survival of the fittest could just be more forgiving than we thought. This might give time for some drastic phenotypes to arise.
He kept asserting that there are so many ways in which a random mutation can go wrong, never reaching the correct route to achieve a particular function. I agree. But isn't that just selection? It did go wrong, but they die, bringing their part of doomed probability to their grave. Isn't the evolution route illustrated as something akin to an abstract bowl? Wherever you pour water, they will find their way to the bottom. Each mutation limits the next. Just as how proteins constantly change their conformation in not-so infinite ways to finally reach a stable state. What seems to be completely random is actually circumstantially directed.
To be fair, I'm just spewing maybes that I can't prove myself either. True, mutation IS essentially undirected and there are gaps in how Darwinian evolution works at a molecular level. Behe's cool for addressing that and it's a problem all biologists should keep in mind now. But this gap in our knowledge is human's shortcoming and I think at this point it's kinda unproductive to leap to ID. What Behe proposed to be impossible, imo is just incomprehensible. We're just human! We're slow but we're trying (well, maybe not me but for generations of hardworking scientists. Salute, sir and ma'am). Anw, science is falsifiable, and it's cool to see scientists still giving criticisms even for conventionally accepted theories. Also, from this kind of book, it's apparent that lots of scientists are religious and it doesn't affect how they science!
He kept asserting that there are so many ways in which a random mutation can go wrong, never reaching the correct route to achieve a particular function. I agree. But isn't that just selection? It did go wrong, but they die, bringing their part of doomed probability to their grave. Isn't the evolution route illustrated as something akin to an abstract bowl? Wherever you pour water, they will find their way to the bottom. Each mutation limits the next. Just as how proteins constantly change their conformation in not-so infinite ways to finally reach a stable state. What seems to be completely random is actually circumstantially directed.
To be fair, I'm just spewing maybes that I can't prove myself either. True, mutation IS essentially undirected and there are gaps in how Darwinian evolution works at a molecular level. Behe's cool for addressing that and it's a problem all biologists should keep in mind now. But this gap in our knowledge is human's shortcoming and I think at this point it's kinda unproductive to leap to ID. What Behe proposed to be impossible, imo is just incomprehensible. We're just human! We're slow but we're trying (well, maybe not me but for generations of hardworking scientists. Salute, sir and ma'am). Anw, science is falsifiable, and it's cool to see scientists still giving criticisms even for conventionally accepted theories. Also, from this kind of book, it's apparent that lots of scientists are religious and it doesn't affect how they science!
mdrfromga's review against another edition
5.0
Very informative and, in some places, technical. But it's quite the eye opener to the complexities of biology and the limitations of Darwin's theory.
jamiep's review
4.0
Just as in his other book, it’s very technical but good to explore the nitty gritty possibilities. Interesting read.
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