Michael Behe and that "argument from authority" thing.

The next time someone tries to legitimize Intelligent Design by pointing out that one of it leading lights, Michael Behe, is a tenured professor at a respectable American university, one should respond by mentioning that his own department thinks his stuff is crap:

Marginalized by his university colleagues, ridiculed as a quack by the scientific establishment, Michael Behe is thankful for the one thing that allows him to continue his work in relative peace: tenure...

But Behe's own biology department recently distanced itself from him. In August, the department posted a statement on its Web site that says intelligent design "has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific." The faculty, the statement adds, "are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory."

Neal Simon, the department's chairman, said the intelligent design issue had become sufficiently public that the faculty felt the need to "actively and forcefully" condemn Behe's work.

"For us, Dr. Behe's position is simply not science. It is not grounded in science and should not be treated as science," Simon said.

But here's the funniest part:

While life on the academic fringes can be lonely, Behe finds community in an e-mail discussion group that he said has 500 members and includes like-minded faculty from universities around the nation. Most keep their views to themselves, Behe said, because "it's dangerous to your career to be identified as an ID proponent."

Well, yeah, you should kind of expect that trying to participate in the scientific community while publicly embracing ridiculous, fundamentalist, anti-science crap might put a crimp in your long-term career plans. Go figure, eh?