But a filter which eliminated the parasite at one point in its lifecycle would eliminate the parasite in all phases of its lifecycle.
But then atovaquone resistance (which involves one mutation) should evolve rarely, too?
Because his books are not rhetorical, they are replete with references, and make arguments in biochemistry.
Behe is a biochemist, not a virologist, for one.
You can see this on a broader scale in fulfilled prophecy, such as āIsrael will always be a nation,ā despite attempts to wipe them out (Haman and Hitler, notably) and them being dispersed for 2 millennia. So this could happen in biochemistry, for example, here:
"āIf you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord your healer.ā (Exodus 15:26)
You canāt test a āprophecyā that extends to āalwaysā in a finite amount of time.
Think, man. Think!
Does such a āfilterā exist?
Having references, whether they do or do not support the claims being made, does not contradict my characterization of Beheās approach as entirely rhetorical. He doesnāt do anything.
No, he goes far afield from biochemistry. Whatās biochemical about his arguments about malaria, precisely?
Thatās a ridiculous excuse for inaction.
Since heās not a virologist, why is he making false claims about virology, specifically HIV, without reading the primary literature (those are the reports of people doing science)? And why do you take him seriously when you know he has no expertise?
And donāt motivated, talented scientists often bridge fields and follow the data into new ones? Whatās holding Behe back, Lee? The most obvious explanation is a lack of faith.
As predicted.
But letās go with that. Your initial claim was āI would expect the mutations would be fairly persistent, since the use of chloroquine would have virtually fixed the mutations in the population.ā
Why would the fact that most parasites have the mutations at one point prevent those mutations from becoming less prevalent due to genetic drift?
OK, so that clarifies exactly what totally wrong thing you were saying.
Yes, but the longer the prophecy is true, the less the probability that this is due to chance.
A double-chloroquine would do, a combination of two drugs as effective as chloroquine, says Beheās edge of evolution.
Do you mean run experiments? Iām not sure thatās required, to be able to form a conclusion.
The number of mutations required for chloroquine resistance, for one.
But he does read the primary literature, and he has expertise in biochemistry, which would involve some virology.
I think thatās what Behe has done.
That would depend on the probability distribution. 
Thatās a hypothesis. Why isnāt Behe testing it? Millions of lives are at stake.
Yes.
I am absolutely certain that it is, because in real science, all conclusions are tentative.
Thatās genetics, not biochemistry. Iām a geneticist, Behe and you are not.
No. For example, the White and Yang papers are secondary literature.
This is an example of the primary literature that falsifies Beheās conclusion:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1322965111
It contains actual data from hands-on experiments, something Behe quit doing >27 years ago. Behe ignores it and you ignore the data in it, looking for some snippet of text you can copy.
What do THE DATA in that paper say, Lee, not the words written by anyone about them?
No, thatās absolutely false. If you disagree, please explain how it would, keeping in mind that my PhD is in virology and I learned (and published) biochemistry in a sabbatical.
I definitely donāt, because he isnāt producing anything other than pseudoscientific rhetoric aimed at laypeople. To real scientists, his books are laughably bad.
Warning: attempting to discuss prophecy with @lee_merrill may end up with you trying to convince him that this is a rebuilt city, not a desolate patch of ground:
Well, @lee_merrill is convinced that Beheās books are brilliant science written by a genius. So I guess that puts you in your place, doesnāt it? You real scientist you.
On the one hand the prophecy is so vaguely defined as to be basically worthless (when exactly would a ānationā cease to exist?), and/or is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Like a person who says āIāll never amount to anythingā and then never does anything to change their circumstance.
All religions are notorious for inspiring their followers to stick together against outsiders and instilling in them a victim/persecution mentality. Christians are always making a big deal about how others are mocking them(there is no group of people who donāt get mocked), as if this is a āprophecyā.
Of course itās also the case that when a particular group really is persecuted often, as jewish people definitely have been, they develop a strong tendency to stick together and even define themselves by their shared experience of ongoing adversity.
None of this needs a supernatural explanation or constitutes prophecy. Itās just group psychology.
Well, yes, but just give me the mean per year, and I can still make my statement.
Take an Exponential distribution, say you have waited X years and no event. What is the probability you wait another X years without seeing an event?
Well, itās memoryless, so itās e^(lambda * x), correct?
IC. C what I did there?
Beheās argument has always been that IC1, as you call it, is an argument against Darwinian evolution. I noticed that in your posts on that thread you didnāt directly make a claim against IC1. You instead stated that, āNow, Beheās ID hypothesis is that IC1 systems cannot be evolved.ā No, thatās never what Behe hypothesized. He hypothesized that IC1 systems cannot have come about by Darwinian evolution.
As for IC2, heās clearly talking about a different thing than in what you call IC1. In IC1, heās talking about irreducibly complex systems. In IC2, heās talking about an evolutionary pathway. Iād have to see more context to understand why he called it an irreducibly complex pathway there, but itās pretty clear heās not talking about the same thing and did not change his argument or definitions.
Yes thatās true in one sense, in terms of what he said. Itās an assertion he makes without actually testing it.
So the charitable reading is that he is āhypothesizingā this. If you want to change that to āasserts with out demonstratingā, I wouldnāt object.
Yes, and he is presenting IC2 in response to deficiencies in IC1. Clearly IC1 can evolve if it isnāt IC2, which means that even acknowledging that IC1 isnāt perfectly contained within IC2 is an acknowledgment that IC1 isnāt a reliable argument against evolution.
The context is that he was responding to criticism of IC1 by coming up with a new and more refined definition of IC2. Go look up the article I cite. Itās linked.
So, in fact, he is changing his argument. Thatās the context.
Yep. Simply put, IC1 and IC2 are very different things. IC1-ness is determined by the physical state of a thing today. IC2-ness is determined by a particular mechanism at work in the history of a thing.
Basically, the argument morphed from āa system we can identify based on its extant traits (IC1) was unlikely to evolveā into āan extremely low probabilty outcome arising from a specific, singular mechanism was unlikely to occur (IC2)ā.
Similar, shifting context/ definitions have plagued creationist claims about āinformationā. Lee Spetner is a typical and blatant abuser of jumping between incompatible definitions on the fly to suit any particular case.
It was either really stupid (from the standpoint of maintaining clarity of arguments) or very clever (from the standpoint of muddying the waters) to retain the same name āirreducible complexityā while referring to at least two very distinct concepts.
Correct, meaning the waiting time does not depend on how long you have already waited. -)
