Defining "The Edge of Evolution"
Behe defines what as the boundary line separating what random mutation can achieve and what requires purposeful design.
What is the Edge of Evolution?
Behe heavily relies on the evolutionary history of this deadly parasite to demonstrate the mathematical limits of Darwinian processes. (Extremly difficult question)
What is malaria (Plasmodium falciparum)?
To avoid the conclusion of a designer, materialist philosophers often invoke this hypothesis—the existence of an infinite number of other realities.
What is the multiverse? What is the Anthropic Principle?
This cinematic Jim Carrey character is used by Behe to illustrate how humans can live in an elaborately designed world while still retaining personal agency and free will.
Who is Truman? or What is the Truman Show?
Michael Behe has major issues with this man's theory that relies on random mutation and natural selection?
Who is Charles Darwin?
Borrowed from William Whewell, Behe uses this term to describe when independent lines of evidence from physics, chemistry, and biology all point together toward design.
What is consilience?
This insect is the primary carrier for malaria.
What is a mosquito?
Behe uses this argument that if we lived in a finite random multiverse, our world would be lacking unnecessary, complex biological systems and instead contain the bare minimum.
What is "lush life"?
Behe argues that the universe could have been entirely "front-loaded" for life without requiring ongoing supernatural meddling, initiated in this single creative act.
What is the Big Bang?
Critics heavily argue Intelligent Design relies on this logical fallacy, assuming that because science doesn't currently know how something evolved, a designer must have done it.
What is the "God of the Gaps"?
To illustrate how the universe was set up for life from the beginning, Behe uses the analogy of what? Think Chapter 10.
What is a pool trick shot?
Some people carry this genetic trait which provides resistance to malaria, explaining why it is common in area with malaria.
What is sickle cell anemia? Sickle cell trait? or C Harlem?
In an infinite multiverse, a spontaneous, random arrangement of matter might form a conscious entity with false memories of an entire universe, a paradox known as this.
What is a "freak observer" or "brain in a vat"?
Darwin famously lost faith after studying the vicious life cycle of this organism?
What is a parasitic wasp? Icheneumonidae?
Evolutionary biologists point out Behe's math on chloroquine resistance is flawed because he assumes mutations must happen simultaneously, ignoring this step-by-step evolutionary mechanism.
What is cumulative selection?
Behe points to the unique property of this liquid expanding when it freezes as a prime example of finely tuned chemistry necessary for life.
What is water?
Behe calculates that chloroquine resistance is so astronomically rare because it requires what type of mutation where the correct protein is changed in two different locations simultaneously?
What is a double point mutation?
Michael Behe relates the skepticism of the infinite multiverse to this philosophical train of thought which holds that nothing exists outside of your own mind.
What is solipsism?
Behe argues against this specific compromise view, which posits that God implanted laws into nature and then let evolution unfold entirely without further guidance.
What is Theistic Evolution?
Behe argues that this noted biologist and author of the book Consilience has things backward and confused for using the concept of consilience to support scientism, reductionism, and a random, unguided universe.
Who is E.O. Wilson
Behe argues that the formation of this celestial body via a precise Mars-sized collision is an example of a dynamic, fine-tuned historical event necessary to stabilize Earth's climate.
What is the Moon?
According to Behe, the malaria's development of resistance to this once-standard drug is an incredibly rare evolutionary event, calculated at odds of 1 in 10^20.
What is chloroquine?
Behe quotes this Oxford philosopher to summarize and explain the bizarre logical conclusion of the "freak observer" hypothesis.
Who is Nick Bostrom?
Acknowledging that lethal parasites are exquisitely designed machines brings up this classic philosophical dilemma about the nature of the creator.
What is the problem of evil or pain?
Behe critiques the 1999 booklet Science and Creationism published by this premier American scientific organization, accusing them of trying to placate religious people with "theistic evolution" just to steer them toward Darwinism.
What is the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)?