Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

THE COURT: All right. What's your pleasure with respect to the last qualification?

MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, we'll withdraw the objection and save the questions for cross.

THE COURT: All right. He's admitted then for the purposes as stated by Mr. Muise, and you may proceed.

MR. MUISE: Thank you, Your Honor.

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY MR. MUISE:

Q. Dr. Behe, I first want to review with you the opinions you tend to offer in this case before we get to the basis of those opinions, okay?

A. Yes.

Q. Sir, do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is science?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. And what is that opinion?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design makes testable scientific claims?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. Yes, it does.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design posits a positive argument for design?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. Yes, it does.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design requires the action of a supernatural creator?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. And what is that opinion?

A. No, it doesn't.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is young-earth creationism?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. No, it isn't.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is old-earth creationism?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. And, sir, what is that opinion?

A. No, it isn't.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is special creationism?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. And what is that opinion?

A. No, it isn't.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether intelligent design is a religious belief?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. No, it isn't.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether Darwin's theory of evolution is a fact?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. No, it isn't.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether there are gaps and problems with Darwin's theory of evolution?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. Yes, there are.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether making students aware that Darwin's theory is not a fact promotes good science education?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. Yes, it does.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether making students aware of gaps and problems with Darwin's theory of evolution promotes good science education?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. Yes, it does.

Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether making students aware of intelligent design promotes good science education?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. And what is that opinion?

A. Yes, it does.

Q. And, sir, do you have an opinion as to whether providing students with the opportunity to review the book Of Pandas and People promotes good science education?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. What is that opinion?

A. Yes, it does.

Q. Sir, what is intelligent design?

A. Intelligent design is a scientific theory that proposes that some aspects of life are best explained as the result of design, and that the strong appearance of design in life is real and not just apparent.

Q. Now Dr. Miller defined intelligent design as follows: Quote, Intelligent design is the proposition that some aspects of living things are too complex to have been evolved and, therefore, must have been produced by an outside creative force acting outside the laws of nature, end quote. Is that an accurate definition?

A. No, it's a mischaracterization.

Q. Why is that?

A. For two reasons. One is, understandable, that Professor Miller is viewing intelligent design from the perspective of his own views and sees it simply as an attack on Darwinian theory. And it is not that. It is a positive explanation.

And the second mischaracterization is that, intelligent design is a scientific theory. Creationism is a religious, theological idea. And that intelligent design is -- relies rather on empirical and physical and observable evidence plus logical inferences for its entire argument.

Q. Is intelligent design based on any religious beliefs or convictions?

A. No, it isn't.

Q. What is it based on?

A. It is based entirely on observable, empirical, physical evidence from nature plus logical inferences.

Q. Dr. Padian testified that paleontologists makes reasoned inferences based on comparative evidence. For example, paleontologists know what the functions of the feathers of different shapes are in birds today. They look at those same structures in fossil animals and infer that they were used for a similar purpose in the fossil animal. Does intelligent design employ similar scientific reasoning?

A. Yes, that's a form of inductive reasoning, and intelligent design uses similar inductive reasoning.

Q. Now I want to review with you the intelligent design argument. Have you prepared a slide for this?

A. Yes, I have. On the next slide is a short summary of the intelligent design argument. The first point is that, we infer design when we see that parts appear to be arranged for a purpose. The second point is that the strength of the inference, how confident we are in it, is quantitative. The more parts that are arranged, and the more intricately they interact, the stronger is our confidence in design. The third point is that the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming.

The fourth point then is that, since nothing other than an intelligent cause has been demonstrated to be able to yield such a strong appearance of design, Darwinian claims notwithstanding, the conclusion that the design seen in life is real design is rationally justified.

Q. Now when you use the term design, what do you mean?

A. Well, I discussed this in my book, Darwin's Black Box, and a short description of design is shown in this quotation from Chapter 9. Quote, What is design? Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts. When we perceive that parts have been arranged to fulfill a purpose, that's when we infer design.

Q. Can you give us a biochemical example of design?

A. Yes, that's on the next slide. I think the best, most visually striking example of design is something called the bacterial flagellum. This is a figure of the bacterial flagellum taken from a textbook by authors named Voet and Voet, which is widely used in colleges and universities around the country. The bacterial flagellum is quite literally an outboard motor that bacteria use to swim. And in order to accomplish that function, it has a number of parts ordered to that effect.

This part here, which is labeled the filament, is actually the propeller of the bacterial flagellum. The motor is actually a rotary motor. It spins around and around and around. And as it spins, it spins the propeller, which pushes against the liquid in which the bacterium finds itself and, therefore, pushes the bacterium forward through the liquid.

The propeller is attached to something called the drive shaft by another part which is called the hook region which acts as a universal joint. The purpose of a universal joint is to transmit the rotary motion of the drive shaft up from the drive shaft itself through the propeller. And the hook adapts the one to the other.

The drive shaft is attached to the motor itself which uses a flow of acid from the outside of the cell to the inside of the cell to power the turning of the motor, much like, say, water flowing over a dam can turn a turbine. The whole apparatus, the flagellum has to be kept stationary in the plane of the bacterial membrane, which is represented by these dark curved regions.

As the propeller is turning, much as an outboard motor has to be clamped onto a boat to stabilize it while the propeller is turning. And there are regions, parts, protein parts which act as what is called a stator to hold the apparatus steady in the cell.

The drive shaft has to traverse the membrane of the cell. And there are parts, protein parts, which are, which act as what are called bushing materials to allow the drive shaft to proceed through. And I should add that, although this looks complicated, the actual -- this is really only a little illustration, a kind of cartoon drawing of the flagellum. And it's really much more complex than this.

But I think this illustration gets across the point of the purposeful arrangement of parts. Most people who see this and have the function explained to them quickly realized that these parts are ordered for a purpose and, therefore, bespeak design.

Q. If I could just direct your attention again to the exhibit book. In tab 5, there's a Defense Exhibit marked 203-B, as in bravo?

A. Yes.

Q. And is that a depiction of the bacterial flagellum from the same textbook as we see up here in the demonstrative?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. That's a fair an accurate depiction of the bacterial flagellum?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. Now does the conclusion that something was designed, does that require knowledge of a designer?

A. No, it doesn't. And if you can advance to the next slide. I discussed that in Darwin's Black Box in Chapter 9, the chapter entitled Intelligent Design. Let me quote from it.

Quote, The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer.

Q. So is it accurate for people to claim or to represent that intelligent design holds that the designer was God?

A. No, that is completely inaccurate.

Q. Well, people have asked you your opinion as to who you believe the designer is, is that correct?

A. That is right.

Q. Has science answered that question?

A. No, science has not done so.

Q. And I believe you have answered on occasion that you believe the designer is God, is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. Are you making a scientific claim with that answer?

A. No, I conclude that based on theological and philosophical and historical factors.

Q. Do you consider your response to that question any different than Dr. Miller's response that he believes God is the author of the laws of nature that make evolution work?

A. No, in my view, they're quite similar, yes.

Q. Have other scientists acknowledged these design features of the flagellum?

A. Yes, they have. And if you advance to the next slide. In 1998, a man named David DeRosier wrote an article in the journal Cell, which is a very prestegious scientific journal entitled The Turn of the Screw, The Bacterial Flagellar Motor. David DeRosier is a professor of biology at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and has worked on the bacterial flagellar motor for most of his career.

In that article, he makes the statement, quote, More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human, close quote. So David DeRosier also recognizes that the structure of the flagellum appears designed.

Q. Again, sir, if I could direct your attention to the exhibit book, under Tab 18, there is an exhibit marked Defendants' Exhibit 274. Is that the article from Dr. DeRosier that you've been referring to?

A. Yes, that's it.

Q. And I believe we have additional quotes from that article, is that correct?

A. Yes, that's right. On the next slide, I quote a paragraph from the article to show that Professor DeRosier not only says it looks like a machine, he treats it as a real machine, as a real machine, not as a metaphorical machine. Let me just read the quotation from the article.

Quote, In E. Coli and S. typhimurium, flagella turning at speeds of 18,000 rpm push cells at 30 microns per second, but the speed records are set by motors in other bacteria that turn at rates exceeding 100,000 rpm and push cells at hundreds of micrometers per second. What is all the more remarkable is that flagellar motors can run in both directions, that is clockwise and counterclockwise. These motors also deliver a constant torque of 4500 piconewton nanometers at speeds over 6000 rpm.

And if you continue onto the next slide, he has a table in the article listing mechanical properties of this structure. Table 1 is entitled Statistics for Flagellar Motors of S. typhimurium/E. coli versus Myosin, Kinesin, and -- I can't read the rest. And he writes, he lists values for the rotational speed, the linear speed, the torque of the motor, the force it generates, and the efficiency of the motor.

And if you look under the efficiency of the motor, he says that it's unknown, but the efficiency could be upwards of -- it could be approaching 100 percent, which would make it the most efficient motor in the universe.

Q. So these are machine like properties?

A. Yes, they are, and he treats them as such.

Q. Now you indicated that he used the term machine. I believe Dr. Miller had testified that it's just a metaphor. Do you agree?

A. No, I completely disagree. Biologists routinely talk about machines in the cell, and they use the term literally not metaphorically.

Q. Is the bacterial flagellum the only machine in the cell?

A. No. The flagellum, while a good visual example, is just one example of molecular machines in the cell. The cell is chockful of molecular machines.

Q. Have you prepared some slides to demonstrate that point?

A. Yes, I have. The next slide is showing the cover of an issue of the journal Cell from the year 1998. Then they issued a special review issue on the topic of macromolecular machines, molecular machines. And can I draw your attention down to the lower left-hand corner of the figure where the artist who prepared the drawing illustrates something that resembles a watch or some sort of mechanical object, apparently to convey the topic of machinery.

Q. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

A. Let me continue. If you advance to the next slide, I have a photocopy of the table of contents of the journal Cell. And on the next slide, the first seven articles in this special issue on molecular machines are listed. I'd like to read the titles of some of those articles.

The first is entitled The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines, Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists. The next article is Polymerases and the Replisome, Machines within Machines. Eukaryotic Transcription, An Interlaced Network of Transcription Factors and Chromatin-Modifying Machines. Mechanical Devices of the Spliceosome, Motors, Clocks, Springs, and Things. And several other articles along the same vein.

So the point is that, the cell is full of machines and that they are treated as such by scientists.

Q. Now this journal that you're referring to, Cell, that's a fairly prominent scientific journal?

A. Yes, it is a prestegious journal.

Q. I believe we have another slide to demonstrate this point?

A. Yes. On the next slide, it shows the bottom of the second page of the table of contents. That, I just inserted a little picture of the cover there. It didn't actually occur in the original page. But down at the bottom of that page, they have a little blurb describing this special issue of the journal Cell.

If you look at the next slide, that blurb is blown up for easier reading. And let me quote from it. It says, quote, Like the machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. Reviewed in this issue of Cell are the protein machines that control replication, transcription, splicing, nucleocytoplasmic transport, protein synthesis, protein assembly, protein degradation, and protein translocation. The machines that underlie the workings of all living things. So again, this special issue recognizes that these are machines and that the cell is run by machines.

Q. So again, if I direct your attention to the exhibit book, Tab 6 in particular, Defendants' Exhibit 203-C, as in Charlie, is that the cover of the Cell, the table of contents and that section that you just referred to in your testimony?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. Did any scientist explain why these are indeed machines?

A. Yes. In the initial article in this special review issue, which is shown on the next slide, the initial article was written by a man named Bruce Alberts, who was, until a couple months ago, the president of the National Academy of Sciences. He wrote the initial article called The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines, Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists.

And in his article, he wrote, quote, Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like the machines invented by humans, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.

So he was emphasizing that this is why we call them machines. They act like machines. They contain highly coordinated moving parts. They transduce energy just like the machines of our experience.

Q. So they're machines and not metaphors?

A. That's exactly right.

Q. Up top here in that title of that article, it says, preparing the next generation of molecular biologists. Does Dr. Alberts make any suggestions in this article?

A. Yes, in the article, he makes the suggestion that upcoming generations of molecular biologists should be trained in engineering principles so that they can better understand the operation of the cell.

Q. Do sciences recognize evidence of design in nature?

A. Yes, they do.

Q. And do you have some examples to demonstrate that point?

A. Yes, I do. On the next slide is the cover of a book written by a man named Richard Dawkins, who is a professor of biology at Oxford University and a very strong proponent of Darwinian evolution. In 1986, he wrote a book entitled The Blind Watchmaker, why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. Nonetheless, even though he is, in fact, a strong Darwinist, on the first page of the first chapter of his book, he writes the following.

Quote, Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose, close quote. So let me just emphasize that here's Richard Dawkins saying, this is the very definition of biology, the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

Q. Does he explain why they appear design, how it is that we can detect design?

A. Yes, he does. And that is shown on the next slide. It is not because of some emotional reaction. It is not due to some fuzzy thinking. It's due to the application of an engineering point of view. He writes on page 21 of the first chapter, quote, We may say that a living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes that an intelligent and knowledgeable engineer might have built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, seeing. Any engineer can recognize an object that has been designed, even poorly designed, for a purpose, and he can usually work out what that purpose is just by looking at the structure of the object, close quote.

So let me just emphasize that he, in other words, is stating that we recognize design by the purposeful arrangement of parts. When we see parts arranged to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, and seeing, we perceive design.

Q. Now is it fair to say that he's looking at, and intelligent design proponents look at physical structures similar to like the paleontologist does and then drawing reasonable inferences from those physical structures?

A. That's exactly right. What intelligent design does is look at the physical, observable features and use logic to infer deductions from that.

Q. Now you, as well as Dawkins in the slides that we've just been looking at, refer to purpose. Now when you use -- when you were using purpose, are you making a philosophical claim by using that term?

A. No. The word purpose, like many other words, can have different meanings. And the purpose here used by Professor Dawkins and in intelligent design does not refer to some fuzzy purpose of life or some such thing as that. It's purpose in the sense of function.

And I think on the next slide, I emphasize that Dawkins is using some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, seeing. An engineer can work out the purpose of an object by looking at its structure. He's talking about purpose in the sense of function.

Q. Now this appearance of design, is this a faint appearance?

A. No, indeed. This is not just some marginal vague impression. Richard Dawkins, a strong proponent of Darwinian evolution, insists, he says, quote, Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design, as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning, close quote.

Let me make two points with this. He thinks that this is an illusion because he thinks he has an alternative explanation for what he sees. Nonetheless, what he sees directly gives him the overwhelming impression of design.

Q. Have other scientists made similar claims regarding the evidence of design in nature?

A. Yes. On the next slide is a quotation from a book written by a man named Francis Crick. Francis Crick, of course, is the Nobel laureate with James Watson who won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the double helicle structure of DNA.

In a book published in 1998, he wrote, quote, Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. So apparently, in the view of Francis Crick, biologists have to make a constant effort to think that things that they studied evolved and were not designed.

Q. I want to return to Richard Dawkins here for a moment and The Blind Watchmaker. Did he borrow his title from somewhere?

A. Yes, the watchmaker of his title has an illusion which he explained on page 4 of his book. He says, quote, The watchmaker of my title is borrowed from a famous treatise by the 18th century theologian William Paley. And he starts to quote William Paley. So he is using his book as an answer to, or an argument to, William Paley's discussions of these issues. And he treats William Paley with the utmost respect.

Q. I believe we have a slide to highlight that.

A. Yes, here's a quotation from William Paley. Paley is best known for what is called his watchmaker argument. And that is briefly this. He says that, when we walk -- if we were walking across a field, and we hit our foot against a stone, well, we wouldn't think much of it. We would think that the stone might have been there forever.

But if we stumble across a watch and we pick it up, then Paley goes on to say, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose; for example, that they so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day. Let me close quote here, and say that, he is talking about the purposeful arrangement of parts.

Let me continue with a quotation from William Paley. Quote, he says, The inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker, close quote. So he is inferring from the physical structure of the watch to an intelligent designer.

Q. Is that a theological argument?

A. No, this is a scientific argument based on physical facts and logic. He's saying nothing here about any religious precept, any theological notion. This is a scientific argument.

Q. Does Richard Dawkins himself recognize it as an argument based on logic?

A. Yes, he does, and he goes to great lengths to address it in his book, The Blind Watchmaker.

Q. What sort of reasoning or argument is this that we're talking about, this scientific argument that you're referring to?

A. This is an instance of what is called inductive reasoning when we --

Q. I'm sorry. We have a slide here to demonstrate this point?

A. Yes, thank you. Just to help illustrate this point, I just grabbed an article from the Encyclopedia Britannica online entitled Inductive Reasoning. And the Encyclopedia Britannica says, quote, When a person uses a number of established facts to draw a general conclusion, he uses inductive reasoning. This is the kind of logic normally used in the sciences.

Let me skip the middle of the quotation and say, It is by this process of induction and falsification that progress is made in the sciences. So this William Paley's argument, the kind of argument that, say, Professor Padian made about bird feathers and so on are all examples of inductive reasoning, and they are all examples of scientific reasoning.

Q. This is the sort of reasoning that is employed in science quite readily?

A. Yes. As the article makes clear, this is the normal mode of thinking in science.

Q. Is that the sort of reasoning you employ to conclude design, for example, in your book Darwin's Black Box?

A. Yes, this is exactly the kind of reasoning that I used in Darwin's Black Box. On this slide here, which includes an excerpt from Chapter 9 entitled Intelligent Design, I say the following.

Quote, Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles as our ability to be confident of the design of anything, the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components, close quote. In other words, the purposeful arrangement of parts.

Q. Did you provide specific examples of that in your book?

A. Yes, I did. In that Chapter 9, if you continue, I applied that same reasoning to the biochemical examples that I had discussed in earlier chapters. Let me quote a couple of passages here. Quote, The function of the cilium is to be a motorized paddle. In order to achieve the function microtubules, nexin linkers, and motor proteins all have to be ordered in a precise fashion, close quote.

Next quote. The function of the blood clotting system is as a strong-but-transient barrier. The components of the system are ordered to that end. They act to form an elegant structure that accomplishes a specific task, close quote.

Next quotation. Quote, The functions of the other biochemical systems we have discussed are readily identifiable and their interacting parts can be enumerated. Because the functions depend critically on the intricate interactions of the parts, we must conclude that they were designed, close quote. So again, the reasoning is exactly the same. It is the purposeful arrangement of parts.

Q. Again, I would ask you to, if we could return to the summary of the argument for intelligent design.

A. Yes. Thank you. Here again is the slide that we looked at earlier summarizing the argument for intelligent design, and perhaps, in retrospect, more of it will be understandable.

The first part is that we infer design when we see that parts appear to be arranged for a purpose. Not only I do that, not only did William Paley do that, but Richard Dawkins and David DeRosier do the same thing. The strength of the inference is quantitative. The more parts that are arranged, and the more intricately they interact, the stronger is our confidence in design.

The third part is, the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming, as everybody, including Richard Dawkins, admits. And the final point is that, since nothing other than an intelligent cause has been demonstrated to be able to yield such a strong appearance of design, Darwinian claims, notwithstanding, the conclusion that the design seen in life is real design is rationally justified.

If I could just take a moment to point out something. This argument for design is an entirely positive argument. This is how we recognize design by the purposeful arrangement of parts.

Q. Now Plaintiffs' experts, including Dr. Miller, testified that they have yet to see a positive argument for design advanced by intelligent design proponents. I believe we have a slide from his actual testimony here.

A. Yes, that's a photocopy of his testimony. And on the next is a transcription of a portion of that testimony. And he was asked about the argument, and he said that the design argument is in every respect a completely negative argument. If one combs the pages Of Pandas and People, or for that matter, if one looks at Dr. Behe's book, or if one looks at the writings of other people who -- that one can't find such an argument.

And he goes on to say, quote, I have yet to see any explanation advanced by any adherent of design that basically says, we have found positive evidence for design. The evidence is always negative, and it basically says, if evolution is incorrect, the answer must be design, close quote.

Q. How do you respond to that criticism?

A. Well, in two ways. First of all, let me just say that, of course, I think it's a mischaracterization. But on the second, it's kind of understandable, because Professor Miller is looking at the evidence through his own theoretical perspective and can only see things that seem to fit with his own theoretical perspective.

So this, I think, shows the importance of being able to look at data from different points of view so that one can see, can see it from different perspectives. But additionally on the next slide, in order to help him see, I would direct him to read more closely Chapter 9 of Darwin's Black Box, the chapter entitled Intelligent Design, where I explain exactly how one perceives design and explains why the biochemical systems that I discussed earlier in the book are good examples of design.

I would further direct him to go and look at the structures of the machinery found in the cell without Darwinian spectacles on and see the very, very strong appearance of design, which everybody admits to, David DeRosier, Richard Dawkins, and so on, which is easily perceived even by a lay people in the figure of the flagellum, and also to read such material in the professional scientific literature, as I refer to in the journal Cell, the special issue on molecular machines.

Q. Dr. Behe, is intelligent design science?

A. Yes, it certainly is.

Q. And why is that?

A. Because it relies completely on the physical, observable, empirical facts about nature plus logical inferences.

Q. And that again is a scientific method?

A. That is the way science proceeds.

Q. I want to ask you if you agree with this testimony provided by Dr. Miller. He testified that it is a standard scientific practice for scientists to point to the scientific literature, to point to observations and experiments that have been done by other people in other laboratories, have been peer reviewed, have been published, and to cite to that evidence, cite to those data, and to cite to those experiments in their arguments. Do you agree with that?

A. Yes, I agree completely.

Q. Is that what you have done, and intelligent design has done in presenting its arguments?

A. That's what I have done. That's what the scientists that wrote those books I showed earlier have done. That's have a very common practice in science.

Q. Did Crick and Watson employ the same procedure?

A. Yes, that's correct. Francis Crick and James Watson, whose names I have mentioned earlier, who won the Nobel Prize for determining the double helicle structure of DNA, actually did not do the experimental work upon which their conclusions were based.

The experimental work, which consisted of doing x-ray fiber defraction studies on DNA, was actually done by a woman named Rosalyn Franklin, and they used her data to reach their conclusions.

Q. I want to ask you if you also agree with Dr. Miller that the question is not whether you or any other scientist has done experiments in your own laboratories that have produced evidence for a particular claim, the question is whether or not the inferences that you and the scientists draw on your analysis from that data are supported?

A. Yes, I agree completely. Again, those books that I showed in the beginning, that is exactly what those scientists did. They looked very widely for all relevant scientific information that would bear on the argument that they were making.

Q. Again, is that what Crick and Watson employed?

A. Yes, that's what Crick and Watson did, too. Scientists do it all the time.

Q. Is that what you're doing in support of your claim for intelligent design?

A. Yes, that's exactly right.

Q. And have you argued that intelligent design is science in your writings?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. Is intelligent design falsifyable?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. And I want to get to that in a little bit more detail later. Now just to summarize. When you say you are relying on logical inferences, you're referring to inductive reasoning, correct?

A. Yes, inductive reasoning.

Q. And other than intelligent design, as you discussed, and you discussed a little bit about paleontology, do you have an example of this sort of reasoning, inductive reasoning that's used in sciences?

A. Well, I think an excellent example of inductive reasoning is the Big Bang theory. Most people forget that in the early part of the 20th century that physicists thought the universe was timeless, eternal, and unchanging.

Then in the late 1920's, observations were made which led astronomers to think that galaxies that they could observe were rushing away from each other and rushing away from the Earth as if in the aftermath of some giant explosion.

So they were using inductive reasoning of their experience of explosions to, and applying that to their astronomical observations. And let me emphasize that they were -- the inductive method, as philosophers will tell you, always extrapolates from what a we know to instances of what we don't know.

So those scientists studying the Big Bang were extrapolating from their knowledge of explosions as seen in, say, fire crackers, cannon balls, and so on, and extrapolating that to the explosion of the entire universe, which is quite a distance from the basis set from which they drew their induction.

But nonetheless, they were confident that this pattern suggested an explosion based on their experience with more familiar objects.

Q. And basically, we don't have any experience with universes exploding, correct?

A. I do not, no.

Q. And scientists do not?

A. No, scientists don't either.

Q. Again, is this similar to the reasoning used in paleontology? For example we haven't seen any live pre-historic birds, for example, but they have features that resemble feathers, as we know them from our common experience today, and we infer that they were used for flying or similar functions, again based on our common experience?

A. Yes, that's right. That's another example of induction from what we know to things we don't know.

Q. Again, that's scientific reasoning?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. Can science presently tell us what caused the Bang?

A. No. I'm not a physicist, but I understand the cause of the Big Bang is still unknown.

Q. Is that similar to intelligent design's claim that science presently cannot tell us the source of design in nature?

A. Yes, that's very similar. All theories, when they're proposed, have outstanding questions, and intelligent design is no exception. And I'd like to make a further point that I just thought of and was going to make earlier, but that, that induction from explosions of our experience to explosions of the universe is analogous to, similar to the induction that intelligent design makes from our knowledge of objects, the purposeful arrangements of parts in our familiar world and extrapolating that to the cell as well. So that, too, is an example of an induction from what we know to what we have newly discovered.

Q. Now was the Big Bang theory controversial when it was first proposed?

A. Yes, it turns out that the Big Bang theory was, in fact, controversial because -- not because of the scientific data so much, but because many people, including many scientists, thought that it had philosophical and even theological implications that they did not like.

And on the next slide, I have a quotation of a man named Arthur Eddington, which is quoted in a book by a philosopher of science, Susan Stebbing. Arthur Eddington wrote, quote, Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of nature is repugnant to me, as I think it must be to most. And even those who would welcome a proof of the intervention of a creator will probably consider that a single winding up at some remote epoch is not really the kind of relation between God and his world that brings satisfaction to the mind, close quote.

Let me say a couple things. I don't think I mentioned that Arthur Eddington was a very prominent astronomer of that age. The second point is that, notice that the reason that he does not like this theory, this scientific proposal, is not because of scientific reasons, but because of philosophical and theological reasons.

But nonetheless, that does not affect the status of the Big Bang proposal, which was based completely on physical, observable evidence plus logical inferences. And because of that, it was strictly a scientific theory, even though Arthur Eddington saw other ramifications that he did not like.

Q. I believe you have another quote to demonstrate that point?

A. Yes. Here's a passage from a book by a man named Karl von Weizsacker. Karl von Weizsacker was again an astronomer in the middle part of the 20th century, and he wrote a book in 1964 entitled The Relevance of Science where he recalled his interactions with other scientists when the Big Bang theory was being proposed.

Let me quote from that passage. Quote, He, and he's referring to Walter Nernst, who was a very prominent chemist of that time, said, the view that there might be an age of the universe was not science. At first, I did not understand him. He explained that the infinite duration of time was a basic element of all scientific thought, and to deny this would mean to betray the very foundations of science.

I was quite surprised by this, and I ventured the objection that it was scientific to form hypothesis according to the hints given by experience, and that the idea of an age of the universe was such a hypothesis. He retorted that we could not form a scientific hypothesis which contradicted the very foundations of science.

He was just angry, and thus the discussion, which was continued in his private library, could not lead to any result. What impressed me about Nernst was not his arguments. What impressed me was his anger. Why was he angry? Close quote.

Let me make a couple comments on this passage. This is an example of when people are arguing about what science is. To Walter Nernst, the very idea that there could be a beginning to the universe was unscientific, and we could not entertain that.

On the other hand, von Weizsacker said that science has to take its hints from what evidence is available. We have to form hypotheses according to the hints given by experience. And to me, this is very similar to what I see going on in the debate over intelligent design today.

Many people object that this can't be science, this violates the very definition of science, whereas other people, myself including, say that we have to form hypotheses according to the hints given by experience.

Q. Does the Big Bang continue to be controversial in more modern times?

A. Yes. Surprisingly, it's still controversial and still mostly because of its extra scientific implications. For example, here is an image of an editorial which appeared in the journal Nature in the year 1989 with the surprising title Down with the Big Bang. And if you advance to the next slide, we can see it more easily.

The subtitle of the article, where it is written, quote, Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big Bang is an over-simple view of how the universe began. So let me point out that this was written by a man named John Maddox. John Maddox was the editor of Nature, the most prestegious science journal in the world.

For 20 years, he was the editor, and he wrote an editorial entitled Down with the Big Bang, at least partly because he viewed the idea of the Big Bang as philosophically unacceptable.

Q. Do you have another quote from this?

A. Yes, I do. Actually in the test of the Maddox article, he goes on to explain in further detail some of his objections to the Big Bang. And he says the following. Quote, Creationists and those of similar persuasion seeking support for their opinions have ample justification in the doctrine of the Big Bang. That, they might say, is when and how the universe was created, close quote.

Let me make a couple of points here. Again, he does not like this theory apparently because of its extra scientific implications, because he sees theological implications in the theory. He says that creationists have ample justification, and he objects to that justification.

Let me make another point. He's using the word creationist here in a very broad sense to mean anybody who thinks that the very beginning of the universe might have been a -- an extra -- a supernatural act, that the laws of the universe might have been made, have been set from somewhere beyond nature.

And he uses the word creationist in a very pejorative sense to incite the disapprobation of the readers against people who would hold this view.

Q. Do the implications that Maddox refers to here, does this make the Big Bang theory creationism?

A. No, it certainty does not. One has to be very careful in looking at scientific ideas, because many scientific ideas do have interesting philosophical or other ramifications, and the Big Bang is one of those. Nonetheless, the Big Bang is an entirely scientific proposal, because again, it is based simply on the observable, empirical, physical evidence that we find in nature plus logical inferences.

Q. Do you see similarity between the Big Bang theory and intelligent design?

A. Yes, I do. I see a number of similarities. First, some people have seen controversial philosophical and perhaps even theological implications of those two proposals. But in both cases, they are based entirely on the physical, empirical evidence of nature plus logical inferences.

Q. Is it true that the Big Bang bracket can be a question of cause?

A. Yes, that's a good point to consider. The Big Bang hypothesis struck many people, such as John Maddox and Arthur Eddington and so on, as perhaps having pretty strong, even theological implications. Maybe this was a creation event.

But nonetheless, physicists were able to work within the Big Bang model that the question of what caused the Big Bang was just left as an open question and work proceeded on other issues within the Big Bang.

Q. Do you see any similarity in that regard with intelligent design?

A. Yes, I do. The design in life can be readily apprehended by the purposeful -- by the purposeful arrangement of parts. However, identifying a designer or identifying how the design was accomplished, they are different questions which might be much more difficult and much harder to address. Questions such as that can be left aside and other sorts of questions could be asked.

Q. Does this make intelligent design a, quote, unquote, science stopper, as we heard in this case?

A. No more than it makes the Big Bang a science stopper. The Big Bang posits a beginning to nature which some people thought was the very antithesis of science. It presented a question, the cause of the Big Bang, which could not be answered, and which has not been answered to this very day, and nonetheless, I think most people would agree that a large amount of science has been done within the Big Bang model.

Q. So after the Big Bang theory was proposed, we didn't shut down all our science departments and close up all the laboratories and just stop scientific exploration?

A. Not to my knowledge.

Q. I believe you have a quote from one of your articles making the point regarding the scientific nature of intelligent design, is that correct?

A. Yes, that's right. I think it's on the next slide in the article Reply to my Critics, which I published in the journal Biology and Philosophy, I pointed this out explicitly. Let me just go to the underlined part, the bold part. Quote, I wrote, The conclusion of intelligent design in biochemistry rests exclusively on empirical evidence, the structures and functions of the biochemical systems, plus principles of logic. Therefore, I consider design to be a scientific explanation, close quote.

Q. Now another complaint that we've heard in the course of this trial is that intelligent design is not falsifyable. Do you agree with that claim?

A. No, I disagree. And I think I further in slides from my article in Biology and Philosophy in which I wrote on that. If you get to the next slide -- oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. You got that. In this, I address it. I'm actually going to read this long quotation, so let me begin.

Quote, In fact, intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin's Black Box, I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can't be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process.

To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure, for mobility, say, grow it for 10,000 generations, and see if a flagellum, or any equally complex system, was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven. Close quote.

So let me summarize that slide. It says that if, in fact, by experiment, by growing something or seeing that in some organism such as a bacterium grown under laboratory conditions, grown for and examined before and afterwards, if it were seen that random mutation and natural selection could indeed produce the purposeful arrangement of parts of sufficient complexity to mimic things that we find in the cell, then, in fact, my claim that intelligent design was necessary to explain such things would be neatly falsified.

Q. I got a couple questions about the proposal that you make. First of all, when you say you place something under selective pressure, what does that mean?

A. Well, that means you grow it under conditions where, if a mutation -- a mutant bacterium came along which could more easily grow under those conditions, then it would likely propagate faster than other cells that did not have that mutation.

So, for example, if you grew a flask of bacteria and let them sit in a beaker that was motionless, and the bacteria did not have a flagellum to help it swim around and find food, they could only eat then the materials that were in their immediate vicinity.

But if some bacterium, some mutant bacterium were produced that could move somewhat, then it could gather more food, reproduce more, and be favored by selection.

Q. Is that a standard technique that's used in laboratories across the country?

A. Yes, such experiments are done frequently.

Q. And I just want to ask you a question about this grow it for 10,000 generations. Does that mean we have to wait 10,000 years of some sort to prove this or disprove this?

A. No, not in the case of bacteria. It turns out that the generation time for bacteria is very short. A bacterium can reproduce in 20 minutes. So 10,000 generations is actually, I think, just a couple years. So it's quite doable.

Q. Have scientists, in fact, grown bacteria out to 10,000 generations?

A. Yes, there are experiments going on where bacteria have been grown for 40,000 generations. So again, this is something that can be done.

Q. So this is a readily doable experiment?

A. That's correct.

Q. Sir, do you believe that natural selection is similarly falsifyable?

A. No. Actually, I think that, in fact, natural selection and Darwinian claims are actually very, very difficult to falsify. And let me go back to my article, Reply to my Critics from the journal Biology and Philosophy.

And I don't think I'm actually going to read this whole thing, because it refers to things that would take a while to explain. But let me just try to give you the gist of it. Let me read the first sentence. Quote, Let's turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify a claim that a particular biochemical system was produced by Darwinian processes? Close quote.

Now let me just kind of try to explain that in my own -- well, verbally here. Suppose that we did that same experiment as I talked about earlier. Suppose a scientist went into a laboratory, grew a bacterium that was missing a flagellum under selective pressure for motion, waited 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 generations, and at the end of that time, examined it and saw that, well, nothing much had been changed, nothing much had changed.

Would that result cause Darwinian biologists to think that their theory could not explain the flagellum? I don't think so. I think they would say, number 1, that we didn't wait long enough; number two, perhaps we started with the wrong bacterial species; number 3, maybe we applied the wrong selective pressure, or some other problem.

Now leaving aside the question of whether those are reasonable responses or not, and some of them might be reasonable, nonetheless, the point is that, it's very difficult to falsify Darwinian claims. What experiment could be done which would show that Darwinian processes could not produce the flagellum?

And I can think of no such experiment. And as a matter of fact, on the next slide, I have a quotation, kind of putting a point on that argument. In that same article, Reply to my Critics, I wrote that I think Professor Coyne and the National Academy of Sciences have it exactly backwards. And Professor Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist who said that intelligent design is unfalsifyable, and in a publication of the National Academy, they asserted the same thing.

I wrote that, A strong point of intelligent design is its vulnerability to falsification. A weak point of Darwinian theory is its resistance to falsification. What experimental evidence could possibly be found that would falsify the contention that complex molecular machines evolved by a Darwinian mechanism? I can think of none, close quote.

So again, the point is that, I think the situation is exactly opposite of what much -- of what many arguments assume, that ironically intelligent design is open to falsification, but Darwinian claims are much more resistant to falsification.

MR. MUISE: Your Honor, if I may say, I know we took kind of a later break, but I'm about to enter into another area. The noon hour is almost --

THE COURT: How about we go to about 12:15? Does that work for you?

MR. MUISE: That may end up causing me to stop in the middle of a line of questioning, that's why I'm just raising it now.

THE COURT: You would be better off now?

MR. MUISE: I would prefer it now.

THE COURT: Let's do that then. We'll take our lunch break at this point. Why don't we return at about 1:20. After our lunch break, we'll pick up with our next topic by Mr. Muise at that time. We'll be in recess until 1:20.

(Whereupon a lunch recess was taken at 12:00 noon.)