Mike, thank you!

[481]A That’s correct.

Behe walked into a trap of his own making. Confronted with the evidence, journals, books, and all he faced a tough choice – be called a for denying the evidence or ignorance? Behe chose right it seems.

[476]Q Journal papers are valuable.

[477]A They sure are.

[478]Q And they’re just referring to the findings accumulated over 140 years, correct?

[479]A Well, as I tried to make clear in my testimony, findings accumulated over 140 years that support the contention that Darwinian processes could explain complex molecular systems total a number of zero.

And so they — this is another example of confusing the various aspects of evolutionary theory. It’s a very difficult problem, which is why I think students should have it clearly explained to them that evolution is a complex idea, and support for change over time, or support for common descent does not run into supporting natural selection and random mutation.

[480]Q Zero papers, Professor Behe?

[481]A That’s correct.

On the one hand, papers are supposed to “support” ID even if they don’t mention ID or even make a positive argument for it. Yet when it comes to supporting evolutionary biology, the bar switches from limbo to pole vault levels.

[Behe’s answer here is critical to the analysis. His assertion is obviously NOT that there are no books or articles that generally discuss the evolution of the immune system. Of course there are. His assertion is that none of the books and articles provide detailed testable answers about how the immune system could have arisen through Neo-Darwinian mechanisms. If he were to be impeached by the 58 books and records, the material impeaching him must go to what he said, not something he did not say.]

It is critical, but not in the way “BarryA” means. Behe doesn’t get to rely upon an Infinitely Plastic Past in order to recast everything he said into something else.

[Behe concedes there are “many” articles that generally discuss the evolution of the immune system. If that were the issue to which the 58 books and articles went, plaintiffs were impeaching him on a point he had conceded, which was strange indeed.]

It is one thing for an expert to make a concession, and another to find out just how egregious a mismatch there was between reality and what the expert claimed.

About Behe admitting that the materials were authoritative, “BarryA” says:

I wrote my second post after reading Behe’s testimony.

It seems that there is an epidemic of ID advocates willing to state with certainty what is — or is not — in particular sources without bothering to become familiar with them. Behe and the scientific literature, and now “BarryA” and the trial transcripts. As a lawyer might put it, were you lying to us then, “BarryA”, or are you lying to us now?

I assume the answer is the latter, because I did find Behe admitting just that in the transcript:

[134]Q. Is that your position today that these articles aren’t good enough, you need to see a step-by-step description?

[135]A. These articles are excellent articles I assume. However, they do not address the question that I am posing. So it’s not that they aren’t good enough. It’s simply that they are addressed to a different subject.

And Behe was asked directly about the status of the books, also contrary to “BarryA”‘s report of his reading of the transcript:

Can you confirm these are books about the evolution of the immune system?

Just because Behe didn’t have a good answer doesn’t mean that he wasn’t asked.

“We can look high or we can look low in books or in journals, but the result is the same. The scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system.”

Not ‘no answers of this very restricted, particular type that I get to decide whether some paper fits or not, and I never will decide one fits’, but “no answers” period.

Sure he did. AFTER he moved the goalposts, because the papers were about exposing the lie in his book.

“By the way, anyone want to cite a particular study that does in fact detail the evolution of the immune system?”

What sort of ignorant idiot would think that a detailed description of the immune system would fit in a single paper? Oh, I know…an idiot who’s never bothered to read any of the primary immunology literature, right, Larry?

“Behe never said under oath that the papers did not exist.”

So what? He said in his book that they didn’t exist, and he was lying. He also moved the goalposts rather than admit that his claim in the book was false.

“And you are too dumb to understand that what really counts is not what the trial transcripts say but what the judge’s final opinion says. ”

What really counts, Larry, is what the DATA SAY. Both you and Behe are afraid to look at the actual data, because you have no real faith in your assertions.

“The final opinion treated the publications as though the ultimate issue was not their existence but was the truth of their contents.”

Gee, maybe unlike you and Behe, the judge actually read some of them!

“The opinion says later, ‘We therefore find that Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large.’”

Behe’s claims that certain sytems are IC is a different matter, and EVERY ONE of those systems has been shown NOT to be IC, by Behe’s own definition. Yet another matter is Behe’s boneheaded claim that evolution cannot produce IC systems.

Why not look at the data, Larry? Afraid?

that said:

[quote]A (from Behe). And in the context that means that [b]the scientific literature has no detailed testable answers to the question of how the immune system could have arisen by random mutation and natural selection.[/b][/quote]

Yes this IS exactly what Behe said, and paraphrasing as him saying that none of that literature exists is quite valid, as those 58 references (and many more besides) that do in fact experimentally examine the evolution of the immune system were extant when he said this.

so, while larry quibbles over pedantics, he ends up simply reinforcing the point that Behe was singularly (like Larry) undeducated on the subject when he wrote his book, and no less so when he testified on the stand.

congrats, larry, your own selective quotation makes the case for the prosecution.

you should stop while your behind.