Darwin's Black Box The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution - Book Report/Review Example

"Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" The book Darwin's black box is penned by an American author and biochemist Michael Behe. After the publication, this book has been the center of all attention and became part of hot debates and discussions across the country because some of the topics and statements made by Behe raise the eye brows of many scientists and famous personalities of related fields. The book is about the comparison of work of Darwin in which the author strives to show that all Darwin's theories are not right and need to be reconsidered and reseached.

The conversation starts with a simple cell. As it was said by Darwin in his book “the origin of species", that cell is a black box, we don’t know how it works. Now, with the advancement in molecular and cellular biology in last 40 years, cell functioning is very well understood, stated Behe. Contrary to the step by step natural selection cell machine of Darwin’s, Behe gives the idea of irreducible complexity. He says that many machines in the cell are that much complex that their needs can’t be subsided or replaced.

He explained his idea with an example of mousetrap. In the mousetrap there are some basic parts that the essential and important to catch a mouse. These basic elements including a bait handle, a hammer, spring and the base should be present to attract the mouse and then to capture the mouse inside when it eat the bait that holds a hammer and give hammer a power to close when bait is taken by a mouse. The holding bar keeps a mouse in and make its escape impossible and base holds all these parts together.

He said if one of the pieces in a mousetrap is missing the mousetrap won’t work properly. Same is the case with cell machinery.In order to further explain the idea of irreducible complexity, he gives an example of working cilia. Large number of cilia can be present in a single cell. There are three primary proteins help in this microscopic hair-like structure to do all the work by using 200 other proteins. Cilia are centrally made up of 9 pairs of microtubules and cilia movement depends upon it.

Nexin caused the bending of microtubules. Between the tubules, nexin works as a rubber band connector. The rubber band is stretched when the microtubules shift if they bend. Dynein are the motor protein that slides the microtubules. Without these proteins the whole cilia function cannot be achieved. This system work like mousetrap and don’t have any natural selectivity as Darwin’s state. Rube Goldberg is an old cartoonist and he is famous in making complex machinery like a one explain in the “mosquito bite scratcher ".

Behe picked his one machine called “mosquito bite scratcher “. With a complex structure of this machine he again explains the idea of complex irreducibility. The mosquito bite scratcher has many parts to achieve its working. If any element is removed the whole machine won’t work. . Blood-clotting is one of the procedures that can also be same as this machinery. Complex mechanism starts when blood clots.As a whole this book gives different summaries about many irreducible complexes of the body.

The author disagrees with the Darwin step by step natural theory and everything is the same for Behe since the beginning of the world. Work CitedMichael J. Behe. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. NY: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996. Print.