We know the mutation rates. RNA replicases have extremely high ones. Did you ever bother to look that up?
It is not true.
I’d say that more study of what is already known is needed on your part before pontification.
Huh? What is the antecedent of “they”? Please try to write more clearly.
How do you explain at least 6 H1N1 outbreaks since 2009?
Your heroes, who are not virologists, are using both “virus” and “strain” incorrectly. H1N1 is a subtype and new genomic reassortments (the genome is segmented), like the “swine flu” or “bird flu,” are called strains.
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It is the strain (Spanish Flu) they are obviously talking about. I encourage anybody concerned to go read the paper for themselves and see if they can figure out whether Carter and Sanford are arguing that all strains of H1N1 disappeared in 2009 (as Mercer here is suggesting), or whether they were only talking about Spanish Flu.
They are new combinations caused by what is analogous to horizontal gene transfer. It’s all still influenza virus.
And influenza recombination is turbocharged because its genome is segmented.
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@Faizal_Ali it is clear he is repeating what he has heard from others. That isn’t lying. Science reporters do it all the time.
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Perhaps worse still, numerous of the creationistic articles Price have linked, contain some pretty strong claims and insinuations that it is biologists who are being deceptive and misleading.
I am willing to grant that Price really does believe that Sanford and Carter are being correct in their discussions of these issues.
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For what it’s worth, I’ve seen you make quite a few very honest and open statements here disagreeing with some of your colleagues on inaccurate claims they made. I appreciate when I see that, even though we don’t agree on a lot.
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Thanks but I have to say that when you say I’m being honest in correcting what I see as simplifications or misconceptions, that implies those simplifications or misconceptions are dishonest.
None of the things I have said are any sort of secret or not-spoken-about issue. One problem I have with some of your output is that it seems like you are actively working to paint such a picture. Let’s just take the case of the possibility of “degenerative” evolution coinciding with fitness gains.
When I say I have no problem with this being a real possibility, I am not somehow opening the lid to some sort of trade secret being whispered about in smoke-filled backrooms. I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would really disagree with that.
The problem is that this isn’t the kind of evidence you think, or are trying to make it appear, that it is.
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Once one understands the workings of flu viruses (and I suspect that Carter and Sanford do not), then it is crystal clear that the discussion of Spanish flu by C&S cannot rescue GE from the trash bin.
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What are you basing this rather lofty statement on, exactly? Do you understand where all the RNA viruses actually originate from that are circulating around in pigs and birds? If so, would you mind putting a stop to it? (Or, absent that, could you explain it to me?)
OK.
“We document multiple extinction events, including the previously known extinction of the human H1N1 lineage in the 1950s, and an apparent second extinction of the human H1N1 lineage in 2009.”
They are clearly talking about the H1N1 subtype (very badly), of which Spanish and swine are strains. You also seem to have missed their careful use of “apparent” with “second extinction.”
The H1N1 subtype is not extinct. They made it clear even in 2010:
Site last updated August 11, 2010 1:00 PM ET
Situation Update
Map of flu activity in the U.S.The U.S. Public Health Emergency for 2009 H1N1 Influenza expired on June 23, 2010. On August 10, 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO)External Web Site Icon International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee declared an end to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic globally. For information about CDC’s response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, visit The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic: Summary Highlights, April 2009-April 2010. Internationally, 2009 H1N1 viruses and seasonal influenza viruses are co-circulating in many parts of the world. It is likely that the 2009 H1N1 virus will continue to spread for years to come, like a regular seasonal influenza virus.
They were correct.
The word “Spanish” is not in the paper, nor is it in the creation.com article authored by Carter alone.
It only appears in the one you coauthored, and it is clearly, unequivocally false.
Why not learn before arguing?
Yes I think that it’s pretty clear that the continued existence of the influenza virus, despite the occasional disappearance of some strain, is pretty hard to explain from this idea that all populations are inescapably suffering some sort of mutational meltdown that isn’t due to reproductive fitness loss but something else “degenerative” that Sanford and Carter and others have yet to rigorously define and quantify but have decided to name “genetic entropy” and describe in the vocabulary of population genetics while referencing the work of people like Kimura, Fisher, etc.
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I know that is what they were talking about. If you’re saying they could have improved the language they used in places, then I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. I’m not sure why they didn’t include that term in their paper (probably because it’s an informal term).
H1N1 has had an interesting history. Derivatives of the original virus circulated in humans and swine until 1957, when the human strain went extinct. In 1977, a version identical to those circulating in NE Europe in the early 1950s reappeared in Anshan, China and subsequently spread across the world[5–7].
I can tell you because I work with Dr. Carter (and because, language nitpicks aside, it’s very clear in the paper what they mean); they are referring to the Spanish Flu strain, which is the one in red in the CDC picture I posted.
The more successful or virulant a virus is, the more its host population is likely to be dead or to have developed effective resistance, resulting in the disappearance of that strain. I am missing how this represents genetic entropy or degradation.
Did you read the paper?
Why did not C&S include in their study the genome segments of other flu virus subtypes? I think that, if they are going to talk about extinction of subtypes, this sort of experiment is pretty important.
Hopefully, you don’t. If not, you are being deliberately deceptive.
Same figure.
Carter’s legend:
Figure 1. Mutation accumulation in human H1N1. The published Brevig Mission strain from 1918 was used as the baseline (bold line) for comparison with all available human-infecting H1N1 genomes. There are two distinct trend lines in the data. The 2009–2010 outbreak samples and additional samples from 2011–2012 are circled. These and the scattered points are all derived from SWINE H1N1 versions…
Notice the fudging from “apparent extinction” in the peer-reviewed paper to plain ol’ “disappearance” in the creation.com article:
…The remaining points represent mutation accumulation in the ‘human’ version of H1N1: from 1918 to its initial extinction in 1957, a break of 19 years, its re-introduction in 1976 (of a strain from approximately 1955, after which the mutation count picks up where it left off), and asecond disappearance in 2009.
That legend is false, because it didn’t disappear.
Now, to yours:
Mutations in H1N1 ‘Spanish Flu’ over time
It’s doubly false, and you haven’t fixed it yet.
Why does Carter’s legend tell us that The 2009–2010 outbreak samples and additional samples from 2011–2012 are circled. These and the scattered points are all derived from SWINE H1N1 versions…, if it only shows Spanish “versions,” Paul?
They did. Paul is wrong.
I did, and your claim is false. It’s right there in the legend to the figure that is falsely labeled in your article [caps mine]:
The 2009–2010 outbreak samples and additional samples from 2011–2012 are circled. These and the scattered points are all derived from SWINE H1N1 versions…
Prove it! According to the CDC Spanish Flu did disappear. That’s why the red line stops in 2009.
Mutations in H1N1 ‘Spanish Flu’ over time
It’s doubly false, and you haven’t fixed it yet.
You’ve made the mistake of not refreshing your page / clearing your browser cache, because I fixed that last night.
Why does Carter’s legend tell us that The 2009–2010 outbreak samples and additional samples from 2011–2012 are circled. These and the scattered points are all derived from SWINE H1N1 versions… , if it only shows Spanish “versions,” Paul?
You really should stop trying to play this ‘gotcha game’ stuff and worry more about engaging with the actual content. When I said they are “talking about” Spanish Flu, I mean that is what they are arguing went extinct in 2009. I am not saying they didn’t look at or consider anything else.
Maybe we are thinking of different papers. In this one, the analysis was only of H1N1. Not H1N2, H3N2, etc.
I think the matter of extinction is irrelevant if the segments that code for replication and gene expression factors (and others) are shared with many strains. C&S imply that overall mutation accumulation is responsible for “extinction”, while I think it is more commonly accepted that the different diseases come and go due to re-assortments of genome segments. If C&S were correct, then all strains that have the replication segments for H1N1 should be extinct. Etc., etc.
NOTE ADDED IN EDIT - maybe I am talking about strains - sorry about the confusion. @Mercer might help me clarify this.