Recent response to Michael J. Behe's book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism serves as a compelling example of scientific squabbles and intersecting egos in the field of Darwinian Evolution. Richard Dawkins' biting review of Behe's book does more than dramatize the evolution debate—it draws attention to the perimeters of power that circumscribe contemporary science.

In his first book Darwin's Black Box, Behe, professor of biology at Lehigh University, helped shape the controversial intelligent design movement with his notion of "irreducible complexity." In his latest work, he attempts to extend his analysis and define the illusive limits of the Darwinian evolution.

For Behe, as for many biologists, Darwinism is a series of propositions that include common descent of life, natural selection and random mutation at the cellular level. The difference between Behe, an advocate of intelligent design, and many other leading biologists, is the degree to which each thinks these propositions are applicable in describing life. According to Behe, there is a clear border beyond which evolution is a poor means for understanding life on the planet. Behe does believe that the earth is billions of years old and considers the concept of common descent correct. However, beginning with an examination of malaria and the sickle cell response in humans, Behe contends that genetic mutation results in merely awkward solutions to selective pressures. He concludes that the statistical probability of certain evolutionary changes taking place is virtually zero. And for Behe, intelligent design is a convincing answer to what lies beyond this incomprehensible edge.

Ultimately, Behe's book moves from what he claims can be inferred from actual observations of evolution (random mutation is insufficient to explain common descent) to philosophical theorizing that questions the nature of the potential "designer" and the problem of evil. Such speculations arguably make up the most fascinating part of the book, but also expose Behe to vehement criticism.

Over the last century, theorists such as Thomas Kuhn have pointed to the cultural and political motives underlying scientific theories. According to Kuhn and others, scientific facts are not simply out there waiting to be discovered, but come into being partly as a result of some already existing consensus among the scientific community. The fate of a theory depends on its acceptance or rejection by the community, and the facts against which these theories are subsequently tested are not independent, direct observations, but are themselves imbued with underlying theoretical assumptions.

In his scathing review of Behe's book, seminal evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins hardly masks his underlying motives and assumptions, and treats Behe as a freakish outcast whose speculations invalidate his presence within the ranks of the scientific "club." Righteously recoiling from Behe's "religiously" driven theories with all the spite and fervor of a fundamentalist, Dawkins writes in a tone as petty as it is resentful. "I had expected to be as irritated by Michael Behe's second book as by his first. I had not expected to feel sorry for him" begins his New York Times review.

Dawkins' searing assessment takes issue both with Behe's scientific estimates and his religious inclinations, but one can't help but wonder how much of the scientific criticism is motivated by Dawkin's personal agenda to defend science from religion—or in his words, defend science from "the deliberate attack of organized ignorance." After all, this is the man who considers religion a "mind virus," who has said that to fill the world with "religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns" and who believes our universe ultimately has "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."

According to Dawkins, religion is how we create meaning from our lack of knowledge; and Behe, the "poster boy of creationists" has thereby effectively severed himself "from the world of real science."

Any scientist who considers metaphysical or religious speculation synonymous with ignorance and antithetical to "real" science ought to reflect on the thousands of years preceding Descartes and Newton, during which science thrived alongside theology. That the earth was rendered spiritless and decidedly un-sacred as a result of a mechanical, Newtonian understanding has allowed for increased technological and semantic manipulation—but hasn't necessarily offered a more productive or satisfying understanding.

Dawkins also vehemently attacks Behe for the eccentricity of his propositions. "If correct," he writes, "Behe's calculations would at a stroke confound generations of mathematical geneticists" and "hundreds of their talented co-workers and intellectual descendants." Certainly an established lineage of scientists serves an important function in the field, but historically, many of the most revolutionary scientific thinkers were both believers (Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein,) and willing to take intellectual risks—instead of perpetuating established values to secure their place within the scientific community.