The Statis of Rhetoric: Countering Orr's Scathing Review of Behe's Darwin's Black Box - Boston Review

Unlike peppered moths and streptococci, the rhetoric of evolutionists is not evolving. After reading a review by H. Allen Orr on Behe's infamous Darwin's Black Box, I am convinced that these champions of Darwinism are so arrogant that I am probably supposed to consider myself privileged just to share a common ancestor 20 mya. Orr opens up with the typical ranting and veiled anger that laces the text of any anti-creation piece. If the book is so easy to refute, Orr, why don't you just refute it instead of dragging in your own bigoted agenda? Behe's book is completely unrelated to biblical creationism, yet immediately he comments that creationism is "intellectual junk food" with a "transparent evangelical agenda." Irrelevant and unoriginal. Later he even throws in comments about the Christian Right, leading an uninformed reader to believe that the creation evangelism movement has political affiliations, which is a sad smear tactic.

Orr's introduction belittles critics intellectually because he has to convince the reader that he is the authority on irreducibly complexity. You see, Orr's scientific arguments are nearly worthless, so he hopes that just the fact that it is he who is mouthing off is respectable. Orr even labels Dawkins' and Gould's work as mere "pop literature," from which someone such as Behe is hard-pressed to grasp what evolution really is. In other words, Orr apparently believes he is one of the distinguished few with a grasp on evolutionary theory:

One of the most interesting questions about Behe's book is why he feels especially qualified to critique Darwinism.

This is absolutely the height of arrogance. Behe, a distinguished biochemist, is not allowed to exercise his capacity for critical thinking? Like Gould, Orr most likely believes that criticism is a wonderful thing---as long as its made by an evolutionist who would never actually challenge the "GUT" of biology. What baffles me is that Orr, amidst his certainty that he alone has the ability to comprehend true Darwinian logic, writes:

Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required.

Ah, so now the logic is so simple! One wonders why Orr tries to explain the process to the general public if even a biochemist like Behe can't grasp it.

In the actual body of the review, Orr uses little more than his own logic to fend off a well-researched attack against his sacred cow. His refutation contains a whole four references. Heavy on rhetoric, light on anything that reveals he has worked in this field of microbiology. In a few cases, Orr points out some areas where Behe struggled, but as for actually proposing an alternate solution for the step-by-step evolution of, for instance, a flagellar motor, he is mum. The best he does is claim---so typical that I want to cry---that "the gradual evolution of irreducibly complex systems is not only possible, it's expected." Of course, of course. (Just as Darwin predicted the discovery of billions of transitional fossils, but none showed up, so Gould was forced to develop "punctuated equilibria." Too bad he's not alive to develop some "explain all" theory, written using approximately nine million analogies, for this problem.) Next Orr gives an example based completely on the assumption that evolution increases genetic information:

Molecular evolutionists have shown that some genes are duplications of others. In other words, at some point in time an extra copy of a gene got made. The copy wasn't essential-the organism obviously got along fine without it. But through time this copy changed, picking up a new, and often related, function. After further evolution, this duplicate gene will have become essential.

First a copy of a gene, through genetic error, was made, then it evolved a new function, then it evolved some more. Is he allowed to get away with this kind of vague speculating? Yes, this is all the experts, the superstars, of evolution can dig up to protect their precious excuse for denying God's absolutes.

Woodmorappe points out candid admissions by evolutionists concerning irreducible complexity: here.

Creation and Evolution