Science Quote by Michael Behe

There is a quiet rhetorical sleight-of-hand in calling proteins "quite simple" and then immediately zooming in on the almost childlike image of "hooking together" a chain. Behe is doing more than describing biochemistry; he is staging a contrast that’s central to his larger cultural project: make the entry point feel intuitive, even toy-like, so the audience is primed to experience awe (or suspicion) when the complexity arrives.

The diction is deliberately non-technical. "Basic structure", "simple", "hooking together", "discrete subunits" reads like a guided tour for non-specialists. That accessibility isn’t neutral. It implicitly frames proteins as modular objects built from recognizable parts, inviting a mental model closer to Lego than to messy chemistry. The subtext: if the parts and the assembly rule are straightforward, then the real mystery is how you get anything as elaborate and coordinated as living systems. That sets up a familiar argumentative runway in debates over evolution and intelligent design: concede the simplicity of components, spotlight the improbability (or apparent insufficiency) of unguided processes to generate higher-order function.

Context matters because Behe is not just any scientist describing amino acids; he’s a prominent critic of mainstream evolutionary explanations. In that light, the sentence reads as strategic pacing: reassure the reader that the foundations are easy to grasp, then leave a dangling question about how "simple" chains yield the staggering specificity of enzymes, molecular machines, and regulatory networks. It’s persuasion by pedagogical tone: teach a true fact, then let the implication do the work.