When Darwin’s Black Box came out in August 1996, 30 years old this week, Phil Johnson sent out a group email to our proto-ID internet community. He pointied us to an amazing bombshell review in the New York Times Book Review, by James Shreeve. I think MIchael Behe himself chimed in rather enthusiastically, saying “On a scale of one to ten, it’s a seven!”…or something to that effect, recognizing that splashes of praise led into a semi-curmudgeonly wave of the hand: “Shouldn’t we leave something for our children and grandchildren to puzzle out besides which systems in the cell are intelligently designed and which are not?”
Swaying with the Music
We arranged a Behe visit to Tampa Bay in October, including a presentation at the college where I taught for 35 years, Trinity College. We even had a cake with a black box opening up on the top, duplicating the look of the book cover. That weekend after a jam-packed Sunday night presentation at a huge church complete with Christian rock music, Behe spoke the next day at the University of South Florida, where I was working on my doctorate. The bio profs and grad students were rather reserved in their responses. As Behe himself said in an emailed summary (I’m going by recollection), “The presentation at the church was enthusiastically received, but at the USF meeting, the attendees weren’t swaying with the music.”
Since I had written a cover story on the trio of Denton, Thaxton, and Meyer in September 1988 for Moody Monthly, entitled “Doubts about Darwin,” Christianity Today had allowed me to organize, and co-write, a triple-review of Phil Johnson’s Darwin on Trial in the fall of ’91. Building on that, I asked permission in the fall of ’96 to submit an extensive article on the massive Behe breakthrough. CT said, “Sure, go for it.” (Their attitude toward intelligent design would later undergo an evolution of its own.)
“Meeting Darwin’s Wager”
I worked hard on the piece, submitting it in October. They said, “Great! We’ll probably publish it soon!” Yet I kept waiting and waiting, not hearing a thing. Finally I called them (in December?) to ask what the status was. They said, “We’ll probably wait till early January, since Behe’s book is right now in competition for our ‘Book of the Year’ recognition.” After another month, in January of ’97, I got the call from a CT editor, who said, “Good news! Darwin’s Black Box has just been voted “Book of the Year,” and that means that your article, titled “Meeting Darwin’s Wager,” will now be the cover story.”
The editor explained that CT‘s cover artist was working on a bit of extra creativity, showing Behe playing poker with Charles Darwin, and holding the winning cards. Standing in a semi-circle are Phil Johnson with Richard Dawkins looking on, and two other unrecognized onlookers. I found out later that they were the artist herself and her father.
Answers in the Lab
That year (1997) of the CT article, we produced a video interview in Behe’s Lehigh lab where I asked him a series of 10 or 12 questions, and he stood in front of the lab equipment giving terrific answers. It was called “Opening Darwin’s Black Box.”
My high regard for Behe and Darwin’s Black Box are shared by everyone I know in the ID community. That he is also such a brilliant writer, and has taken so much mud thrown at him, and has a genuine brotherly spirit, with wit and integrity coming out of every pore, is an unimaginable bonus. Knowing him personally has been one of the greatest joys of my life.