God v science? It's all a matter of philosophy

"'God v science? It's all a matter of philosophy', the debate about intelligent design has a place in our schools, even if that's not in the science classroom.

American biochemist Michael Behe who claims that, the flagellum could not have evolved through small modifications to its parts over time, as the Darwinian process of natural selection implies, because its parts have no biological use apart from the mechanism they compose. The flagellum is irreducibly complex.

How, then, was it formed? Behe recognises there could be some other natural process, such as the self-organisation various phenomena from crystals to flocking birds seem to display, that would account for systems such as the flagellum. But the self-organising phenomena we have observed do not combine complex form with function in the way the flagellum does. Thus the most reasonable explanation is that the flagellum was designed by some intelligent agent. This is what Behe calls "design beyond the laws of nature".

Behe himself does not say who this intelligent agent is — that, he thinks, goes beyond his competence as a scientist. But it is not surprising that Behe's readers have identified a being that has power over nature with the traditional Judeo-Christian God.

Peter Coghlan, a senior lecturer in philosophy at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, has written a very interesting article titled "God v science? It's all a matter of philosophy"