Monday, November 5, 2007

Michael Behe

Michael Behe is still bitter from losing the Dover trial. Listen to this from his Amazon blog:

"Like almost all reviews by Darwinists, this one begins with a genuflection to the Dover trial, where a former-head-of-the-Pennsylvania-Liquor-Control-Board-appointed-judge, showing no evidence he actually understood the academic arguments of either side, copied almost word for word the document handed to him at the end of the trial by the lawyers for the complainant. This was his 'decision.'"

Apparently the fact that the judge was head of the Liquor Board Control means that he cannot understand science or the constitution. Besides, Behe, it was you creationists who brought this case to court, trying to force ID in schools.

He goes on:

"
On occasion I receive astonished inquiries from Europeans asking how Americans can allow a judge to rule on what are essentially philosophical matters."

It isn't a philosophical matter. You have the right of free expression, and you can continue writing whatever pseudoscience you want. This case is about whether or not you get to shove your philosophy/religion into science class. Judge Jones went out of his way to state that his ruling was NOT over whether you're ideas were correct or not, just whether ID should be taught in Science Class. Click here, launch the interactive, and listen to the first statement.

"On another interesting note, read Behe's claims about mutations not "adding anything biochemically new". Abbie Smith has proven that to be false on her blog. Check out this:

"The major difference between the genomes of HIV-1 and HIV-2 is the fact that HIV-2 lacks the vpu gene and has a vpx gene not contained in HIV-1"

By the way, ID on Trial is set to air November 14 on PBS. Be sure to check it out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Besides, Behe, it was you creationists who brought this case to court, trying to force ID in schools."

I thought the plaintiffs in the Dover trial were several parents who were OPPOSED to the introduction of Intelligent Design (ID) in science classes, not Creationists wanting ID put in them.

AIGBusted said...

I mean that IDers brought into court by trying to force ID in school. They were begging for the court case by violating separation of church and state.

Anonymous said...

I've read both of Behe's books and his debates with Ian Musgrave and Abbie Smith. According to "The Causes and Consequences of HIV Evolution"[1]:

"HIV-1 is most closely related to SIVcpz, which is found in some sub-species of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes [central chimp] and Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii [eastern chimp]) that inhabit parts of equatorial Western and Central Africa,respectively. SIVcpz from P.t.troglodytes is of most interest because it shares the closest relationship with the abundant HIV-1 ... By contrast, HIV-2 is most closely related to SIVsm5, which is found at high prevalence in sooty mangabey monkeys [an old world monkey] ... Although the vagaries of sampling make it difficult to determine exactly how many cross-species transfers have occurred, for HIV-2 this number might be at least four, whereas three jumps from chimpanzees to humans are thought to explain the current diversity of HIV-1"

So if this information is still current, HIV-1 and HIV-2 have separate origins in humans and therefore we haven't observed the evolution of VPU and VPX. Can anyone else confirm I'm understand this correctly?

[1] http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v5/n1/full/nrg1246.html