Error-free Creationist Literature?

[VoxRat]

No input from Dave yet?
Pity.
Oh well...
Moving on:

research has now found a substantial amount of evidence that they serve several major roles in ecology and are actually essential for life.

wrong. Life would be different from what it is if viruses never existed. It doesn’t take much, if any, “research” to realize that. But Bergman fails to cite any research supporting the assertion that viruses are essential for life at all.

Without viruses, the genetic revolution we are now experiencing would be impossible.

Same idea. Of course the “genetic revolution we are experiencing now” would be impossible! The” genetic revolution we are experiencing now” depends on genetics as we are experiencing it now. If genetics were very different, of course the genetic revolution would be different! Case in point: a lot of researchers use lentivirus vectors to artificially transfer genes to cells. If lentiviruses didn’t exist (more specifically, if AIDS hadn’t become such a research focus) that tool wouldn’t have been developed. Does that mean that without AIDS the genetic revolution would be impossible? No.

They also serve numerous beneficial functions that we are just beginning to research and understand.

Wrong! Maybe Bergman is just beginning to understand them, but the I was learning about these things 35 years ago in undergraduate genetics courses.

The Discovery of Viruses…
Dutch botanist Martinus Bijerinck called this infectious fluid contagium vivum fluidum

Beijerinck. You’d think Bergman could at least get the guy’s name right. When you read a review about aeronautics, and the author goes on about the Rite brothers, you should be a little wary.
But let’s skip over the historical stuff… there’s not enough substance to worry about anyway…

[more later...]

[VoxRat]

Five basic morphological shapes of viruses exist: spherical, cylindrical, brick, bullet and tailed.

He left out pleomorphic. A category that includes influenza, HIV… a few viruses of some minor significance like that. Pleomorphic viruses are little squishy bags with no neatly defined shape.

Viruses are contained by a protein cover called a capsid that is often coated with an envelope made of carbohydrates or lipids—

Wrong! The envelope is always made of lipids and proteins. Some of those lipids and many of those proteins have carbohydrates attached to them (i.e. glycolipids, and glycoproteins). No viral envelopes are made of carbohydrate, nor is carbohydrate an integral part of any viral envelope.

---an icosahedral capsid is made up of 122 capsomers

Wrong! Did you notice how Bergman didn’t give any citations for this? The reason for that is that Bergman appears to be simply making stuff up here. Actually, the number of capsomers depends on the triangulation number (“T”) of the virus. (T is related to the size of the virus.). The number of capsomers is 12 + 10(T-1), for reasons that might interest geometricians and autistic people. ( ). Bergman’s number (122 capsomers) works for a virus with T=11. (I’m not aware of any. Perhaps Bergman is. I wouldn’t bet on it.). The virion Bergman shows in his Figure 1, for instance, is an adenovirus. Adenovirus has a T number of 25 (going from memory here; sue me if I’m wrong); hence, 252 capsomers. Here’s a more informed source, in case anyone is interested.

of which 110 are hexameters and 12 are pentameters.

Hexameters? Pentameters? Bergman appears to be confusing virology and/or biochemistry with poetry here. Poets distinguish between pentameter (e.g. Iambic) and hexameter. Biochemists speak in terms of hexamers and pentamers; assemblies of proteins consisting of 6, or 5, separate polypeptides, respectively. Virologists often speak of hexons or pentons – protein assemblies in the capsid with 6- or 5-fold (respectively) symmetry. A penton will generally be a pentamer of some kind; a hexon will generally be a hexamer of some kind.

This coated capsid houses nucleic acid and other structures that facilitate preserving the genes they contain (Figure 2).

What the hell is that supposed to mean???
It doesn’t mean anything to me, and I've been working in this field for more than three decades.
Perhaps some Bergman fan will care to elucidate.
Dave Hawkins, for instance? You want to field that one? What do you take that to mean? Polyamines? Polymerases? What?

The nucleic acid may be either double or single stranded DNA or RNA. If RNA is used as the master code, the virus is called a retrovirus and requires the complex enzyme called reverse transcriptase to convert the RNA to DNA

This is one of the most hilarious boners in the whole piece. Bergman is telling the unsuspecting rubes that a virus that uses RNA as its genome is a retrovirus. PMWIFOMCL (A dav-o-nym from IIDB that means “pardon me while I fall off my chair laughing”). Is influenza a retrovirus? Is the common cold (rhinovirus) a retrovirus? Is West Nile virus a retrovirus? No, no and no. And yet in all of these viruses “RNA is used as the master code”. Most viruses with RNA genomes are, obviously, not retroviruses. Retroviruses are a very special group of viruses with an RNA genome and the unusual capacity to copy that RNA genome into a DNA copy.

Finally, all viruses contain proteins (called antigens) extending from their surface that can bind with specific receptors on the host cells.

Wrong!. An “antigen” is any substance, viral or not, protein or not, surface or not, that can elicit an immune response. Bergman appears to be describing viral surface receptors – the proteins that interact with specific cellular receptors – to begin the cell invasion process. These proteins are, in fact, antigenic, as are, generally, all viral – for that matter, all foreign (to a given host) proteins.

[more later...
feel free to jump in here any time, Dave Hawkins. People might start to get the sense that maybe your hero, Bergman, doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, and that you bought his uninformed gibberish hook, line and sinker]

[Thlayli]

The Discovery of Viruses…
Dutch botanist Martinus Bijerinck called this infectious fluid contagium vivum fluidum

Beijerinck. You’d think Bergman could at least get the guy’s name right. When you read a review about aeronautics, and the author goes on about the Rite brothers, you should be a little wary.

Common creationist tactic. Misspell the names so if somebody tries to check their sources, they find nothing no matter what.

[ericmurphy]

Wow. The guy is a complete buffoon, by the sound of it. But this guy is Dave's hero, someone Dave thinks has all this knowledge unknown to real scientists?

It does seem that someone's scientific knowledge is inversely proportional to the esteem Dave holds that person in. Except for me, of course. Dave despises me way more than such an inverse relationship would imply.

[ck1]

Great, Voxrat. Please keep going.

At this point, I have nothing to add, as you have covered all the bases.

[Susannah]

Quote: (Bergman)

---an icosahedral capsid is made up of 122 capsomers

...
Quote:

of which 110 are hexameters and 12 are pentameters.

Hexameters? Pentameters?

Here you go.

:ROFL:

[VoxRat]

Great, Voxrat. Please keep going..

I think I'll take a break here, and rant a little about the no-show creationists here.

As I said in the OP, this whole thread is in response to the incredibly bold creationist assertion that "creationist scholarship" - exemplified by articles published at the AnswersInGenesis website - is at least as thorough, reliable, respectable... in short, "scholarly" as mainstream science (i.e. peer-reviewed professional scientific journals - the kind you find in university libraries.)

I brought this up last April on a whole thread devoted to "Creationist 'Scholarship' " over at the Dawkins forum.

Here's an example of the follow-up-free bluster and bravado we saw over there:

So it's a Creationist Scholarship vs. Evolutionist Scholarship War that you want is it?

I can arrange that.

This is one of TWO* ... count them ... only TWO* errors that I have found in "Creationist Scholarship" to date from examining materials from the reputable creationist organizations: ICR, AIG, CMI, GRISDA, and CRS.

How many will I find when I examine Evolutionist Scholarship? Hmmm. How long have these errors persisted? Hmmm again. How many textbook authors knew about these errors, but did nothing? Hmmm yet again.

We shall see, won't we?

*Dave is referring here to (1) an astonishingly wrong article on AiG in which Carl Wieland claimed that chromosome fusion was impossible because DNA would be read backwards (!!???) and (2) the now infamous "Baboon Dog" story, in which AiG claimed there was a breed of dogs so genetically degenerate that no males survived to sexual maturity (!!!????)

Well, he never got around to "arranging" his
"Creationist Scholarship vs. Evolutionist Scholarship War ".

And he never met the challenge of coming up with a single creationist article from AiG - or anywhere else, for that matter - he was willing to offer for scrutiny as one free of major error in fact or logic.

The challenge has been repeated many, many times. Most recently in this thread at IIDB that started out thus:

Dave,
Can you point to any AIG article that disputes mainstream science and contains no errors of fact or logic?

Of course. Hundreds of them. Most of them do. A better question (and much less work) would be ... "How many errors can YOU find, CK1?" I predict that you can find VERY, VERY few. Give it a try if you like ...

This is a direct challenge to any creationist.

Present a single example of an AIG article that makes a claim contrary to mainstream science and which contains no errors or fact or logic?

Again ... most of them do. Instead of asking your inane question, why don't you try answering my reasonable one above?

and it went on and on like that for over 400 posts with Dave repeatedly asserting that the challenge was "inane" or "absurd" - without ever explaining why - and without ever attempting to meet it.

So that's why I'm going through this Bergman paper. Dave has claimed it's revolutionary, that it's an excellent example of creationists pioneering concepts that "evolutionists" scramble to catch up with decades later, and that just by reading this one article, he has become more educated on the subject of viruses than PhD virologists who have been actively engaged in teaching, researching, publishing in virology for decades.

So surely, even though he refused to nominate an article for scrutiny, Dave would consider this one as good as they get, right? And yet, here I am, trying to break down the wrong in it into bite size chunks, so as not to overwhelm him, and he can't be bothered to show up to defend it.

Frankly, I'm disgusted by the pusillanimity.

[Black5]

Frankly, I'm disgusted by the pusillanimity.

As we all are, although I admit I had to go look up what it meant. Good post VoxRat.

[Perrin]

Hexameters? Pentameters? Bergman appears to be confusing virology and/or biochemistry with poetry here.

This made me really laugh out loud. Most of what you are telling us here is news to me, but that a virus does not deal in hexameters and pentameters is blindingly obvious even to me. Bergman obviously is a complete idiot.

[Plognark]

Wow....what an extraordinary shithead :shock:

[VoxRat]

Some of the more complex viruses also have accessory structures that enable them to attach to selected organisms.

There are no viruses that do not have “accessory structures that enable them to attach to selected organisms”. Without such a structure, the virus couldn’t infect, hence couldn’t exist.

These structures include a long tube-like sheath, several tail fibres, and an injector (Figure 3).[10][11] Each of these seemingly simple structures is enormously complex, and each has hundreds or thousands of parts.

Now, wait a minute…
What “structures” are we talking about here?
Sheaths, fibres, injectors, right?
Bergman doesn’t cite any papers to support his assertion that any of these “has hundreds or thousands of parts”. At this point, I don’t imagine anyone needs to be told why Bergman doesn’t cite anyone to support this. You guessed it; it’s wrong!. Bacteriophage T4, for instance, which Bergman seems to have in mind here, has a pretty large genome, as viruses go; it has a total of about 300 genes. That includes a large number of enzymes involved in DNA replication, the capsid structure, etc. etc. It doesn’t have “hundreds” – let alone “thousands” of genes available for one of these accessory structures. Maybe Bergman is saying that each of these structures has “hundreds” or “thousands” of repeated subunits? That would be like saying that polyethylene (about the simplest synthetic plastic there is) is enormously complicated, because the smallest visible chunk of it has untold billions of carbon atoms in it!

Viruses have none of the characteristics of life… They lack most of the cell enzymes and organelles needed to live…The few enzymes they possess (such as integrase) are usually related to the mechanisms they use to enter their host cell.

Wrong!. Most viral enzymes have nothing to do with host cell entry. A few viral enzymes do. Integrase doesn’t.

They are usually only able to multiply in their specific host, and often in only a specific organ within the host (such as the liver). All members of one viral type are usually almost identical in every way except for the glycoprotein antigens on their protein coat.[13] It is this signal that can trigger an immune system response in a host.

Wrong! Pretty much every viral protein triggers an immune response from a (vertebrate) host.

Once it was realised that viruses are gene carriers, the next step was to determine how they carried genes to other cells and spliced them into these cells’ DNA.

Wrong! Very few viruses even do this, so obviously that’s not “the next step” – unless we’re just talking about that small subset of viruses that do. If we are, Bergman forgot to tell us that.

The contents of the gene package that allowed viruses to carry out their role was another research focus.

What the hell does that mean???

As the role of viruses became better understood researchers began to try to exploit them for human uses. This gave rise to the genetic revolution, including recombinant DNA technology and gene therapy.

Wrong! The “genetic revolution” can be defined in all kinds of ways. And viruses and their gene products have been used in all sorts of clever ways in biotechnology. But there’s no way to rationalize Bergman’s claim that “trying to exploit [viruses] for human uses” gave rise to the genetic revolution.

Viral Replication
Viruses are the smallest infectious agents known

Wrong! Viroids are smaller.

The relation between viruses and their hosts is complex, and usually begins when a virus makes contact with a potential host cell.

Wrong!
The viral life cycle is, well a cycle. Where you choose to say it “begins” is completely arbitrary.

All known life forms can be ‘infected’ by viruses but some life forms appear to be less prone than others, for example, some species as arthropods gymnosperms are known to be virus hosts.[15]

???
A typographical error, I guess.
So we don’t really know what it was supposed to say.
We can be reasonably sure, though, based on the track record so far that it was going to be...
Wrong!

[more later...]

[ck1]

A couple of additional thoughts based on the above:

Quote:
Viruses have none of the characteristics of life… They lack most of the cell enzymes and organelles needed to live…The few enzymes they possess (such as integrase) are usually related to the mechanisms they use to enter their host cell.

Wrong!. Most viral enzymes have nothing to do with host cell entry. A few viral enzymes do. Integrase doesn’t.

The term "entry" specifically means only that - passing through the host cell membrane. Integrase and other enzymes for replication operate post-entry.

Quote:
They are usually only able to multiply in their specific host, and often in only a specific organ within the host (such as the liver). All members of one viral type are usually almost identical in every way except for the glycoprotein antigens on their protein coat.[13] It is this signal that can trigger an immune system response in a host.

Wrong! Pretty much every viral protein triggers an immune response from a (vertebrate) host.

Also, host specificity is another issue here. Zoonosis, adaptation of a virus to a different host is a natural phenomenon and one of major concern in biomedical research (think bird flu, SARS). Examples from retrovirology:

chimps==>humans (HIV)
gibbon apes ==> koala bears (KoRV)
mice ==> human prostate cancers (XMRV)

Quote:
As the role of viruses became better understood researchers began to try to exploit them for human uses. This gave rise to the genetic revolution, including recombinant DNA technology and gene therapy.

Wrong! The “genetic revolution” can be defined in all kinds of ways. And viruses and their gene products have been used in all sorts of clever ways in biotechnology. But there’s no way to rationalize Bergman’s claim that “trying to exploit [viruses] for human uses” gave rise to the genetic revolution.

I think Bergman is talking about the origins of cloning technology here. In 1972 Paul Berg used biochemical methods to insert lambda phage and E coli genes into SV40 virus. In 1973 Boyer and Cohen figured out how to use restriction enzymes to get genes into plasmids. The Boyer/Cohen methods were more generally useful. Berg got the Nobel for his work, Cohen got the Nobel for something else, and Boyer got really rich. And virus and plasmid based vectors are both used for cloning at present.

The problem with this section is that Bergman seems to be making general statements about virus entry and replication based on one virus type, but does not make it at all clear what virus he is discussing when.

[VoxRat]

The problem with this section is that Bergman seems to be making general statements about virus entry and replication based on one virus type, but does not make it at all clear what virus he is discussing when.

I'm pretty sure that's because he doesn't know what virus he's discussing when.

[VoxRat]

Bergman then proceeds to go through the steps of viral replication.

Attachment.

[a few wrong things, but they’re not important enough to quibble about.]

Penetration. Subsequent to attachment, most viruses are drawn into the cell by the cell membrane ‘closing in’. This process is called endocytosis and it is the same process the cell uses to take in nutrients.

Well, some nutrients anyway.

There are some virus types although, that can pass directly through the pores in the host’s cell membrane.

Wrong!. No cells have pores large enough for a virus to pass through.

Transfection. The viral DNA is spliced into a specific site on the host DNA by integrase.

Wrong!. First of all, transfection is simply the process of getting nucleic acid into a cell – generally by a (human) biotechnologist, not a virus. Secondly “transfection”, per se has nothing to do with integration of the foreign nucleic acid into the host’s.

The enzyme does this by cutting the circular plasmid DNA, then splicing in the new DNA and repairing the two splice sites (see Figure 5).

Wrong! What “circular plasmid DNA”??? Bergman is obviously very confused at this point. He’s talking about a process for which he has the wrong name, the wrong DNA… a process which, even if you make charitable guesses about what he might be even trying to say, would apply to only a small fraction of virus types, and here it is under the rubric of one of the general steps in viral replication.

Replication and Synthesis. The viral DNA or RNA directs the host cell to produce copies of viral nucleic acids and proteins, including enzymes.

Well, that’s true enough. Or it would be, if Bergman weren’t addressing a creationist target audience, which is notoriously confused on concepts of will and agency. So, rather than labeling this Wrong!, we’ll just warn potential creationists [Ha! As if any are going to read this!] that “…DNA or RNA directs” doesn’t mean that it has a will.

Assembly. Once inside the cell, the virus can set up what might be likened to the biological equivalent of an assembly line (Figure 4)[16]…

Uh oh! “Might be likened to” rapidly morphs into “is indistinguishable in any and all respects from” by some of our creationist friends.

[snipped a lot of not particularly interesting, not particularly general, and not particularly controversial stuff]

Release. The new viruses are released from the cell to infect other cells, spreading even more genes to other cells.

Bergman is getting sloppy with his terminology here. Let’s be clear: new virions are released. It’s still the same virus. And when we say “spreading even more genes to other cells” – what we really mean (generally) is spreading more copies of the same genes (i.e. the viral genes) to more cells.

Retroviruses cannot damage cells until they use reverse transcriptase to convert their RNA to DNA. The host then may integrate the virus’ genes in its own DNA, thereby producing a copy of the virus whenever the cell replicates. In this state a phage genome is referred to as a prophage.

Wrong! A retrovirus is not a phage; a DNA copy of a retrovirus integrated into the (animal) host’s DNA is not called a prophage.

[more later...]

[Steviepinhead]

This reminds me of the flensing that Febble gave Lee_Merrill over at IIDB when Merrill was trying to defend Behe's idiocy against VoxRat's withering scrutiny. Febble made the point that, before you even attempt to write about a topic with clarity, you need to understand that topic thoroughly, and then to be very clear what it is about that topic you wish to communicate. (And I'm sure Febble said that much more clearly than I did.)

Here, Bergman appears not to have even a knowledgeable layperson's understanding of viruses, virus life-cycles, or viral infection. He's got a garbled cartoon impression, perhaps picked up from perusal of reasonably-accurate illustrations accompanying popular science articles on specific viruses like HIV... To put it another way, if we gave an intelligent layperson without a post-secondary degree--someone like, f'rinstance, our own ericmurphy--a day to bone up on viruses, I'd unhesitatingly put eric's grasp of the subject up against Bergman's in almost any reasonably-fair test or essay or debate format we could come up with.

In short, Bergman's got only the most rudimentary grasp of the subject matter: he understands some of the overarching generalities of virus structure and activity--though he still manages to get some of these basics wrong in embarassing ways--but he has essentially no nuanced grasp of any of the details of any particular virus's structure, life-cycle, activities, or interaction with its host or the host's immune system.

Dave Hawkins' claim that Bergman's error-filled lay-pop "recapitulation" of Viral Basics 001 somehow represents a creationist conceptual leap well beyond the "cutting-edge" of real virological research would be excruciating, if it wasn't so hilariously hubristic.

Not to mention davey's, er, pusillanimous failure to come to Bergman's defense here...

[Eldarion Lathria]

Error free? To be acceptable to other creotards creationist articles don't have to be error free. But they do have to be the following.

1: They cannot conflict in any way with with the conflicting tales in the Bibble.

2: They must be full of sciency sounding words to impress those ignorant of the subject discussed.

3: They must contain truthiness. They must sound true without actually being true.

4: They must have quotes mined from actual scientists, and taken out of context. The reader will not have read the article the quote was mined from, but may have heard of the scientist. Therefore the scientist's credibility is added to the article's. Long disproven theories by dead scientists are also acceptable, if they don't conflict with the bibble.

5: There must be at least one baldfaced lie.

6: They cannot be testable, falsifiable or reproducible. Because cretinism always falls back on 'goddidit' and the sheep must not test god.

7: They must not connect to the real world.

Follow these rules, and you'll go far in the cretinist quackery.

Eldarion Lathria

[Ad Absurdum]

Meh!

I keep misreading AiG as Ali G, who did actually interview Hovind...

Geeze, what a complete fucked idiot, a brit twit posing as a american muslim ghetto hoodie. He makes Hovind look intelligent.

You are joking!!?!?!

if not, please... OMFG DIE

[RAFH]

Wrong! Did you notice how Bergman didn’t give any citations for this? The reason for that is that Bergman appears to be simply making stuff up here. Actually, the number of capsomers depends on the triangulation number (“T”) of the virus. (T is related to the size of the virus.). The number of capsomers is 12 + 10(T-1), for reasons that might interest geometricians and autistic people. ( ). Bergman’s number (122 capsomers) works for a virus with T=11.

I hate to interject with a potential mathematical error, but if T = 11, then 12 + 10(T-1) would equal 12 + 10(11-1) or 12+ 10(10) or 12 + 100 or 112, not 122. I think you are looking for T = 12, which would give 12 + 10(12-1) or 12 + 10(11) or 12 + 110 which equals 122.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled disection.

[VoxRat]

Wrong! Did you notice how Bergman didn’t give any citations for this? The reason for that is that Bergman appears to be simply making stuff up here. Actually, the number of capsomers depends on the triangulation number (“T”) of the virus. (T is related to the size of the virus.). The number of capsomers is 12 + 10(T-1), for reasons that might interest geometricians and autistic people. ( ). Bergman’s number (122 capsomers) works for a virus with T=11.

I hate to interject with a potential mathematical error, but if T = 11, then 12 + 10(T-1) would equal 12 + 10(11-1) or 12+ 10(10) or 12 + 100 or 112, not 122. I think you are looking for T = 12, which would give 12 + 10(12-1) or 12 + 10(11) or 12 + 110 which equals 122.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled disection.

good point.
I blame the beer.
The important point, however, is that Bergman doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

[VoxRat]

The Origin of all Viruses
Some evolutionists hypothesise that viruses ‘evolved’ from bacteria by natural selection.

WrongNo “evolutionists” hypothesize any such thing. That explains why Bergman, once again, gives no citation for this made up “fact”.

… Others hypothesise that viruses were the first form of life, and that bacteria evolved from them (as did all other life).

Wrong again. Which is why, again, Bergman gives no citation to support made up “fact”.

The fatal problem with this theory is that viruses are not living, and in order to reproduce and to make ATP, they require all of the complex cellular machinery present in bacterial cells.

Which – surprise! – no “evolutionist” is unaware of. Hence the lack of citations. Hence the need for Bergman to make up stuff about what “evolutionists” supposedly “hypothesize”.

Other scientists speculate that a reverse symbiosis occurred, and that viruses arose out of cell parts such as bacterial plasmids and other organelles, and eventually evolved into separate forms of life.[18]

So far evidence is lacking for each of these theories. Both bacterial plasmids and viruses contain the nucleotide sequences required to initiate replication. While these structures are necessary for the function of each, this does not prove either’s phylogeny. Further, all ‘ancient’ viruses so far discovered in ‘ancient’ amber and other places are fully developed, functional viruses.

Oh, look! No citations again! What do you suppose that means?
Could it be that Bergman doesn’t have a single example of an ancient virus recovered from amber?
I’m guessing yes.

[post tenebras lux]

I hate to interject with a potential mathematical error, but if T = 11, then 12 + 10(T-1) would equal 12 + 10(11-1) or 12+ 10(10) or 12 + 100 or 112, not 122. I think you are looking for T = 12, which would give 12 + 10(12-1) or 12 + 10(11) or 12 + 110 which equals 122.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled disection.

good point.
I blame the beer.
The important point, however, is that Bergman doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Well, maybe Bergman can claim he was drunk when he wrote it too? ;beer;

[VoxRat]

Well, maybe Bergman can claim he was drunk when he wrote it too? ;beer;

Heh heh...
If that's the case, I think we'll have to agree he's got a lot stronger brew than I have.

[Flint]

Not that I have any citations, but I'd be hard-pressed to model any sort of cellular evolution which did not ALSO produce virus equivalents. They're basically a given. In fact, I'd expect the number of different viruses to outnumber the number of different cells by a couple orders of magnitude anyway. The equilibrium of such a system would maximize the number of viruses that could exist, which would require some minimum number of cells as catalysts. Very similar to the way animals can be seen as parasites on plants.

[ck1]

Here, Bergman appears not to have even a knowledgeable layperson's understanding of viruses, virus life-cycles, or viral infection. He's got a garbled cartoon impression, perhaps picked up from perusal of reasonably-accurate illustrations accompanying popular science articles on specific viruses like HIV... To put it another way, if we gave an intelligent layperson without a post-secondary degree--someone like, f'rinstance, our own ericmurphy--a day to bone up on viruses, I'd unhesitatingly put eric's grasp of the subject up against Bergman's in almost any reasonably-fair test or essay or debate format we could come up with.

In short, Bergman's got only the most rudimentary grasp of the subject matter: he understands some of the overarching generalities of virus structure and activity--though he still manages to get some of these basics wrong in embarassing ways--but he has essentially no nuanced grasp of any of the details of any particular virus's structure, life-cycle, activities, or interaction with its host or the host's immune system.

Dave Hawkins' claim that Bergman's error-filled lay-pop "recapitulation" of Viral Basics 001 somehow represents a creationist conceptual leap well beyond the "cutting-edge" of real virological research would be excruciating, if it wasn't so hilariously hubristic.

According to the biographical material appended to the article Bergman "currently teaches biology, microbiology, biochemistry, and human anatomy at the college level and is a research associate involved in research in the area of cancer genetics." Doesn't say where.

[Black5]

Geeze, what a complete fucked idiot, a brit twit posing as a american muslim ghetto hoodie. He makes Hovind look intelligent.

RAFH, the guy in the hoodie is the same actor who does Borat. It's his shtick and he is having fun at Hovind and companies expense.