Given the hard limits of academic freedom in our universities, the chances that a scientist could teach a whole course fairly treating intelligent design are, approximately, slim to none. Even if you were tenured faculty, your colleagues and the administration would come down on you like a hammer.

That’s one reason I’m excited about the new 41-episode video series by Professor Michael Behe, the Lehigh University biochemist who helped pioneer the intelligent design movement.

It’s here now! And you can get free, early-bird access when you pre-order Behe’s new book, out in February, Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution. If you were to imagine taking a class on ID and evolution from a top scientist in the field, uncensored, at your favorite university, this would be it.

A Seminal Thinker on ID

Dr. Behe offered the biochemical case for intelligent design in his groundbreaking 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box. Time Magazine called it the “seminal work” on intelligent design. In Darwin Devolves, he argues that evolution’s primary mechanisms, by their very nature, lack the power to create. They can only impart advantages by “devolution” — the opposite of what most people think of when they picture, well, evolution. From the book:

With surpassing irony it turns out that…Darwinian evolution proceeds mainly by damaging or breaking genes, which, counter-intuitively, sometimes helps survival. In other words, the mechanism is powerfully de-volutionary. It promotes the rapid loss of genetic information. Laboratory experiments, field research, and theoretical studies all forcefully indicate that, as a result, random mutation and natural selection make evolution self-limiting. That is, the very same factors that promote diversity at the simplest levels of biology actively prevent it at more complex ones. Darwin’s mechanism works chiefly by squandering genetic information for short-term gain.

In these videos, Behe discusses the history of thought on evolution and intelligent design, and then delves into the science behind natural selection, random mutation, and irreducible complexity. He covers criticisms of ID as well as relevant new discoveries.

The lectures are accompanied by quizzes to help track your progress, perfect for everyone from high school students up through college professors! Don’t miss it.

The course is a $50 value. But you can get it free by pre-ordering Darwin Devolves.