Behe bases his attack on identifying biological systems not fully accounted for in Darwin's theory. In its place, Behe infers there must have been an intelligent designer at work.
But Behe also neglects a number of examples of the existence of evolution at the microscopic level, as Brown University biology professor Kenneth Miller points out:
"In 1996, the Journal of Molecular Evolution published a paper on the evolution of a real, complex biochemical system called the Krebs Cycle. That paper has now been followed up by three or four refining and expanding on the model. But it's very clear that the Krebs Cycle, which is real and complex, has an evolutionary history, and we can explain that evolutionary history.
"Another one of Michael Behe's claims, the principal claim that he makes, is that the cell is filled with these complex biochemical machines with multiple parts, and we know, he says, that they could not have evolved, and the reason we know that is because those parts by themselves have absolutely no function. It's an interesting statement. It's also a testable statement. And it turns out to be false. Let's take his favorite example, everybody's favorite actually -- the bacterial flagella -- which is this wonderful little rotary engine that has about 40 different parts in it, 40 different proteins. He says that's irreducibly complex, the parts aren't good for anything. Well, it turns out that in 1999, scientists were investigating a group of about 10 proteins -- it's called the Type-III secretory system -- that pumps proteins out of a bacterium into one of the cells in our body. It's a nasty little thing. It's like a syringe. The bacterium that causes bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, has one of these guys.
"Well, the people investigating the structure, when they got the DNA sequences of the proteins, suddenly discovered, 'My God, these 10 proteins are almost exactly the same as 10 proteins in the bacterial flagellum of all things.' So, in other words, despite Behe's claims that the parts are useless by themselves, here's a little assembly of about 10 parts that is perfectly useful to the bacterium in terms of producing this secretory apparatus. So that means that the central claim, which is all the parts have to be together before you get function is wrong. And it turns out that there are other examples as well."
