All right, I refer to the number of lineages–you are getting pedantic.
But I read papers, as much as I can, and as much as I need to.
How is it that you get from one step to another, without a possibility of failure, though? That would seem to be a trial. And the steps involve mutations, since they involve change.
That’s not incoherent, because the probability of two independent events is the square of the probability of one such event.
Well, that’s my evidence, if you don’t agree, then why not?
He said in court “You only have to read recent research to get caught up on a subject”, or words to that effect. That would imply that he had done this.
Because I think he has some insights that are valid. His arguments hold up pretty well in internet discussions, as I have seen.
Well, the Vpu function in HIV came up after Behe wrote his book, and I expect that Behe does read papers, that is part of his job description. And I’m glad to read papers as best I can, if they’re not behind a paywall.
Why should it be halted? Lots of things can (and do) evolve in parallel.
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Yet more evidence that you haven’t read Nilsson & Pelger or most anything I’ve posted about it. Given that, why should anyone bother responding to you?
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You appear to be considering mutation within an individual, rather than a population. An individual may fail, but the population remains. Evolution happens to populations, not individuals.
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He also fails to consider standing variation and quantitative traits. Once again: Nilsson & Pelger do not rely or deal in mutations.
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Really? What did YOU read to make that determination, Lee? We’re talking about a straight-up fact here. Are you not replying because you know your claim is false?
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That’s objectively false:
6 What you say is, “We can look high or we can
7 look low in books or in journals, but the result
8 is the same. The scientific literature has no
9 answers to the question of the origin of the
10 immune system.” That’s what you wrote, correct?
Behe replied that what he meant was something far more restrictive, which was ludicrous. His claim in the book was as plain as day.
Q. I’m just going to quickly identify what these articles are. Exhibit P-256, “Transposition of HAT elements, links transposable elements, and VDJ recombination,” that’s an article in Nature by Zau, et al. P-279, an article in Science, “Similarities between initiation of VDJ recombination and retroviral integration,” Gent, et al.
“VDJ recombination and RAG mediated transposition in yeast,” P-280, that’s in Molecular Cell by Platworthy, et al. P-281 in the EMBO Journal, “En vivo transposition mediated VDJ recombinates in human T lymphocytes,” Messier, et al, spelled like the hockey player. P-283, it says PLOS Biology, do you recognize that journal title?
A. Yes. It stands for Public Library of Science.
Q. And that’s an article by Kapitnov and Gerka, RAG 1-4 and VDJ recombination, signal sequences were derived from transposons." P-747, an article in Nature, “Implications of transposition mediated by VDJ recombination proteins, RAG 1 and RAG 2, for origins of antigen specific immunities,” Eglewall, et al. P-748 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, “Molecular evolution of vertebrate immune system,” Bartle, et al., and now finally Exhibit P-755 in Blood , “VDJ recombinates mediated transposition with the BCL 2 gene to the IGH locus and follicular lymphoma.” Those were the articles in peer reviewed scientific journals that were discussed by Mr. Miller which you listened in on, correct?
A. I recognize most of them. Some of them I don’t recall, but that’s fine.
…
Q. There’s also books on the immune system that have chapters on the evolution of the immune system?
A. Yes, and my same comment would apply to those.
Q. I’m just going to read these titles, it sounds like you don’t even need to look at them?
A. Please do go ahead and read them.
Q. You’ve got Immune System Accessory Cells, Fornusek and Vetvicka, and that’s got a chapter called “Evolution of Immune Sensory Functions.” You’ve got a book called The Natural History of the Major Histocompatability Complex, that’s part of the immune system, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And here we’ve got chapter called “Evolution.” Then we’ve got Fundamental Immunology, a chapter on the evolution of the immune system.
A lot of writing, huh?
A. Well, these books do seem to have the titles that you said, and I’m sure they have the chapters in them that you mentioned as well, but again I am quite skeptical, although I haven’t read them, that in fact they present detailed rigorous models for the evolution of the immune system by random mutation and natural selection.
Q. You haven’t read those chapters?
A. No, I haven’t.
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I don’t. On some level, Behe doesn’t either, or he’d be doing something other than writing books aimed not at scientists, but at laypeople.
How many false claims have you made here in support of his arguments? Like the one below:
Really? In what year was the first Vpu function reported?
The problem is that you make claims about papers you haven’t read. Another problem is that you don’t really look at any evidence, you just look for words you can quote.
Behe makes false claims about the existence of a massive amount of scientific literature that he hasn’t even bothered to read, and you falsely deny that he admitted that under oath.
Behe uses a phony reference to support a claim you know is false, and you try to claim that it was justified by a single paper you’ve never read.
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Because they outline a sequence of steps, if the orb fails to grow (say, in the lifetime of a species), or the lens fails to appear, the sequence is halted.
No, I mean the population takes steps.
They don’t say the word “mutation”, but surely the 1% changes they speak of involve mutation and selection. And standing variation, etc.
If you insist on misrepresenting both biology and probability, then this is a straw man of no consequence. Even if you had the math right (you don’t) it would still be meaningless because biology don’t work that way.
So you think a single step in evolution (probability>0) gets only a single trial to succeed? I know what Wolfgang Busch would say. 
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I meant that Behe was unaware of this function of Vpu when he wrote his book.
Well, I’m sure if those chapters contained a rigorous model for the evolution of the immune system, we would have heard of them by now.
No, I’m interested in the evidence, in the truth, and I quote from abstracts when I can’t read the paper.
You really need to start reading what people say rather than just scanning for sound bites. Selection reduces genetic variance as it shifts the population mean. This can run for quite some time on standing variation alone. Nilsson & Pelger assume only that there’s enough mutation in random directions to maintain genetic variance over time. But remember that quantitative traits depend on many loci, any of which can be the source of new variation.
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And whose fault was that? Why do you disagree with me when I point out that Behe doesn’t read the primary literature?
And now that Behe is aware, did he correct the false claim in his book?
So you were objectively wrong, correct?
Why? I’m sure that you wouldn’t, because you lack the most basic understanding of how the immune system works. You haven’t even heard of what I heard of 40 years ago. I know many of the senior authors of those papers Behe didn’t read and falsely claimed to have looked for.
Why would you make such a ridiculous claim?
Truth? What’s the evidence regarding the workings and evolution of the vertebrate immune system? You’re not interested in anything of the sort.
There was nothing whatsoever in Yang’s abstract that supported Behe’s false claim about HIV. You instead made some incoherent claim that what was missing from a paper you hadn’t read would justify making a false claim–one that was obviously false years before Behe wrote his book.
What’s the truth–did Behe admit under oath to not reading the immunology literature?
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Yes, that’s fine…
Behe was at fault there, but he quotes the primary literature extensively in his book. This implies that he has read it.
Any second edition will no doubt contain the correction.
I would say no, that Behe has read enough of the literature to be able to support his conclusions.
I’m sure if those chapters contained what Behe said they did not contain, we would have heard it shouted on every street corner.
Some of it, he hadn’t read.
Has he corrected the book?
I think that you don’t have the slightest idea which is primary and which is secondary. BTW, we almost always cite. We almost never quote. That’s why quote mining is such a great marker for pseudoscience.
No, if we are interested in truth and dig deeper, we see that is not the case.
Wanna bet?
How could you possibly know enough to judge? How much of the literature have YOU read?
I’m sure that you are exaggerating.
So you were objectively wrong when you claimed he had not admitted that under oath.
And wasn’t the stuff that he hadn’t bothered to read the very same stuff that he said that one can “search high and low” for, but never find?
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…and given that, nothing you’ve been saying about that paper makes any sense. Isn’t that clear?
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