The Discovery Institute is on a campaign to persuade the world that they’ve accomplished a scientific revolution, and the genius responsible for this is Michael Behe, a Discoveroid Senior Fellow.
Behe is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University. He has tenure, so he’s never been Expelled. His colleagues at Lehigh are so impressed by his brilliance that they publicly disassociated themselves from him by issuing this statement: Department Position on Evolution and “Intelligent Design”. Also, as most of you know, Behe was the Discoveroids’ star witness in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. We wrote about his catastrophic appearance there in Michael Behe’s Testimony.
We thought the Discoveroids’ campaign to glorify Behe had climaxed recently when we wrote The Ultimate Discovery Institute Post, but we were wrong — it appears that they’ve only just begun. This ludicrous post appears at their creationist blog: Milestones of the Revolution. Of course it was written by David Klinghoffer, a Discoveroid “senior fellow” (i.e., flaming, full-blown creationist), who eagerly functions as their journalistic slasher and poo flinger. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:
John West was on the radio program The Universe Next Door with host Tom Woodward to talk about the making of Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines, which Dr. West wrote and directed. It’s a new podcast episode of ID the Future. [Link omitted.]
Wowie — Westie was on the radio! Then Klinghoffer says:
The hour-long documentary is now free online. [And worth every penny!] West alludes mysteriously to a sequence in the film, “Milestones of the Revolution,” which when you see it at the conclusion of this three-act drama — and it really is a scientific drama — may give you chills. See it all here: [Video at the Discoveroid post].
What could those “milestones” be? We haven’t seen the “documentary,” but perhaps it’s something like this: Step One: Behe is potty-trained. Step Two: Behe becomes a creationist. Step Three: Behe dazzles the world with his testimony in the Kitzmiller case. Step Four: ??? Anyway, Klinghoffer tells us:
Behe’s story is about much more than the bacterial flagellum. As John West points out, the film serves as an entry point for considering the argument for intelligent design in nature much more broadly, as that case is made by Stephen Meyer, Douglas Axe, Günter Bechly, and other ID proponents.
[*Begin Drool Mode*] Ooooooooooooh! [*End Drool Mode*] Behe is so important!
Here’s how Klinghoffer ends his post:
The accompanying website, [link omitted], is well stocked with additional essays and other information to start you on your way to learning about the full sweep of evidence for ID.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! “Full sweep” is an appropriate term.
There’s no way to conclude this post except by presenting you with a challenge. Your task, dear reader, is this: If Behe is a scientific revolutionary, what other notable figures can you name who have made comparable contributions to science? Yes, of course there’s the Time Cube guy, but who else can you name?
Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Bozo the clown.
Remember:”They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the clown.”
There must be something there.
The accompanying website, [link omitted], is well stocked with additional essays and other information to start you on your way to learning about the full sweep of evidence for ID.
swept into the dustbin of history….
More seriously, though, it’s tough to become famous as a failed scientist. Failed poets (McGonigall) and authors (Bulwer-Lytton) are often remembered, and their memory is preserved by dragging out their work at appropriate intervals to show the young what bad writing looks like. People are even encouraged to emulate it under the right circumstances (the Bulwer-Lytton writing contest, I don’t know of one for awful poetry).
But failed scientists, except perhaps those who associate themselves with a religion, tend to just fade into obscurity.
The other side of the coin is famous scientists who have become known for going off the deep end later in life, of whom there are quite a few.
Well, there was Trofim Lysenko…
Perhaps Behe is a revolutionary in the sense that he is going around in circles.
The only idea associated with Behe, what he calls “Irreducible Complexity”, is not original. It was well known for almost 300 years.
The only idea associated with ID is that evolution is either incomplete or wrong. No idea how or why.
I can add one.
Seralini. That’s the guy who has promised to take down GMOs. So he used Sprague- Dawley rats and get them alive for two years (some with mostly GMO diets). What he failed to realize (or he knew and is a liar), is that Sprague-Dawley rats are bred to have cancer. 81% of all Sprague-Dawley rats have cancer after two years, regardless of feed.
What was even more interesting is that the rats fed the most GMO corn had slightly higher (but probably not statistically significant) survival rates than rats on pure non-GMO diets.
https://www.skepticink.com/smilodonsretreat/2012/10/08/my-take-on-the-gmo-causes-cancer-study/
These guys have a problem. In Behe’s words (according to Wikipedia), he thinks that evolution is the correct explanation for most things, but some structures cannot be explained by it.
How do they put it together with the claim that evolution is false?
That’s another level of intellectual dishonesty.
@Neil Rickert
Perhaps Behe is a revolutionary in the sense that he is going around in circles chasing his own flagellum tail that keeps eluding him!
Step Four: ???
Step Five: PROFIT
Your task, dear reader, is this: If Behe is a scientific revolutionary, what other notable figures can you name who have made comparable contributions to science?
Andrew Wakefield on vaccines and autism?
Rupert Sheldrake on morphic resonance?
So ladies and gentlemen the answer is “Irreducible Complexity”, And he still spouting bull***t about the flagellum.
Samuel Rowbotham of course.
And let’s not forget Sigmund Freud.
My “favourite” though is Nobel Prize Winner Johannes Stark, a German physicist who was said to have done research after the difference between jewish and aryan electrons.
Linus Pauling and his mega-doses of Vitamin C?
Sexist, racist James D Watson?
Charles Murray and his Bell Curve?
Random, James D Watson may be a jerk, but he’s not a failed scientist unless you’ve got an alternative to the double helix.
Derek writes:
Me neither, but if a contest for awful poetry is to be found, it’s on the Planet Vogon.
Why do people seem to let the concept “irreducible complexity” be the invention of Michael Behe, when there have been many people wrote about it for hundreds of years? He didn’t add anything original, other than the name.
Paul Nelson – Ontogenetic depth (no, it makes no sense. Don’t even try.)
Stewart Pivar – Life Code (fond of suing people, including PZ Myers for defamation, but withdrew)
Let me help make a correction. Full sweep should have read bull sheet,
Klangledangle vomits out a Kast of Klowns:
What has any of these cowpoxes actually contributed to the phantom “theory” of “intelligent design” creationism? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Axe? Not a single concept. Bechly? More like Belchly – URRRRRRPP! Meyer? Well there is this from a review of his book by a real scientist, “Meyer has demonstrated a systematic failure of scholarship,” meaning Meyer is a big, fat liar – nanny nanny boo boo! But, no concepts.
The only guy who actually took a stab at “intelligent design” creationism was good old Dr. Dr. Billy the Dembski. He failed, of course. At least he gave it a good old uncollegiate try. I think the Tooters are still mad at Dr. Dr. for announcing to the world that the Nixplanatory Filter ™ didn’t work and never would work and that he was giving up on ID Not The Future in pursuit of other interests, like selling real estate or opening a vape shop.
So, really, when it comes right down to it, they gots nothing. Nuh-ZING! Twenty years down the road, living off of handouts and nothing to show.
Prosper-René Blondlot.
Discovered “N-rays” ca. 1903
@docbill1351
Noting is the essence of ID.
It was realized that creationism, especially Young Earth Creationism was in trouble because of its positive statements. In legal trouble because it is clearly a sect of Christianity. But also because it is put in the position of defending scientifically indefensible positions, like a young Earth, a recent world-wide flood, etc. But Old Earth Creationism doesn’t have the popular base of support. The obvious solution is to make sure that there is no position to defend, and only attack “evolution”.
The perfect political stance, pure negativism, supported by a negative advertising campaign.
Robert Bellarmine, the inquisition and well really the whole catholic church.
@Paul S: “James D Watson may be a jerk, but he’s not a failed scientist unless you’ve got an alternative to the double helix.”
Crick and Franklin came up with double helix model of DNA — the former from his previous work with horse hemoglobin and the latter from her X-ray crystallography. Crick did the math on the angles of DNA’s molecular bonds (not Watson), based on Franklin’s data.
Watson was in the right place at the right time with the right ego to make the most of his good fortune.
I suppose that’s why he pawned his Nobel Prize.
TomS – Exactly. The famous Wedgie Document explains their strategy in great detail. Something like a 10 or 20 year strategy of which they have executed about 6-month’s worth. They’ve written some op-eds, self-published a few books, built a lab out of a green screen and attempted to sway a few state legislatures and school boards to water down science.
Let’s not forget that Kitzmiller was going to be Evolution’s Waterloo, where Darwin would be put on trial and the Truth ™ would be squeezed out of them; Dembski’s famous “Vice (sic) Strategy!” Turns out Behe was a mole, of the hairless variety, who handed the case to the plaintiffs on a silver platter.
I learned a lot from both the Wedge Document and Behe’s defense of IDiozy in court – about the mindset of IDiots and other creacrappers.