Unbelievable? 23 Oct 2010 - Darwin's Black Box - Michael Behe & Keith Fox debate Intelligent Design

Michael Behe is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania and the founder of the modern Intelligent Design movement. His book "Darwin's Black Box" ignited the controversy 14 years ago when it claimed that certain molecular machines and biological processes are "irreducibly complex" and cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution.

His new book "The Edge of Evolution" takes his conclusions further, arguing that the Darwinian processes of random mutation and natural selection are incapable of producing the variation and complexity we see in most of life.

So can we conclude that life was intelligently designed by a creator?

Keith Fox is Professor of biochemistry at the University of Southampton and chairman of Christians in Science. As a theistic evolutionist he believes that Evolution is the best explanation going for the complexity we see and that ID is a blind scientific alley and theologically unappealing to boot.

They debate whether micromachines in the cell such as the "bacterial flagellum" could have evolved by a Darwinian process of evolution. When inference to design is and isn't acceptable in science. Whether random mutation can mathematically stack up to complex life, and whether God is reduced to a divine "tinkerer" by ID.

For Michael Behe see http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/faculty/behe.html or http://www.darwinordesign.org.uk/

For Keith Fox see http://www.cis.org.uk/resources/interviews/keith-fox and for the CIS conference 2010 http://www.cis.org.uk/

For more debate visit http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable or get the podcast http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx or via Itunes

If you enjoyed this programme you may also enjoy

Unbelievable? 20 Mar 2010 - Expelled" live audience debate at Imperial College London - Susan Blackmore, Steve Fuller, Keith Fox & Alastair Noble

Unbelievable? 16 Jan 2010 - "Expelled" the Movie - Intelligent Design theorist Stephen Meyer vs. Atheist scientist Peter Atkins debate Intelligent Design

Unbelievable? 2 Jan 2010 - Is there design in biology? Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski vs. Biology Professor Lewis Wolpert

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