Michael J. Behe

Michael J. Behe (b. 1952) is an American biochemist and Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University. Trained at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD, 1978), Behe became one of the most prominent scientific voices of the intelligent design (ID) movement and is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. His 1996 book Darwin's Black Box introduced 'irreducible complexity'—the claim that certain biochemical systems (the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, the immune system) cannot have evolved through Darwinian gradualism and thus point to an intelligent designer. He extended these arguments in The Edge of Evolution (2007) and Darwin Devolves (2019). Behe's work has been heavily criticized by the mainstream scientific community: peer-reviewed studies on the evolution of the flagellum and immune system, evidence presented against him at the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial (where the judge ruled ID is not science), and Lehigh's own biology department public disavowal of his views all stand against him. Critics including Kenneth Miller, Robert Pennock, Jerry Coyne, and Nick Matzke have argued that irreducible complexity rests on argument from ignorance and misrepresents evolutionary mechanisms. Behe remains a Catholic and frames ID as scientifically rather than theologically motivated, though opponents contest this characterization.