Error-free Creationist Literature?

[ck1]

This may be the only place Dave used the word "nitpicking". However, he made it clear when he started his own Bergman thread, that he did so because he wanted to divert the discussion to focus on the "big picture" and avoid the details.

Isn't that like saying you want to solve a jigsaw puzzle without bothering to put the pieces together?

Yes.

But I was encouraged that Dave started that thread and interpreted it as a willingness on his part to discuss this virus article, but Dave sometimes prefers to have these discussions on threads created by him, with titles chosen by him and an OP written by him. Well, this thread was viewed as redundant and not relevant to this forum and moved to Retardo Dungeon where it has veered off into other issues. And Dave has not returned to the main Bergman thread. Too bad.

[RAFH]

This may be the only place Dave used the word "nitpicking". However, he made it clear when he started his own Bergman thread, that he did so because he wanted to divert the discussion to focus on the "big picture" and avoid the details.

Isn't that like saying you want to solve a jigsaw puzzle without bothering to put the pieces together?

Yes.

But I was encouraged that Dave started that thread and interpreted it as a willingness on his part to discuss this virus article, but Dave sometimes prefers to have these discussions on threads created by him, with titles chosen by him and an OP written by him. Well, this thread was viewed as redundant and not relevant to this forum and moved to Retardo Dungeon where it has veered off into other issues. And Dave has not returned to the main Bergman thread. Too bad.

I don't think davey was willing to discuss the virus article, he was just trying to deflect, deflate and dilute its impact. Plus attempt to control the direction and content. Of course, getting moved to the Dungeon thwarted that but at least he now gets to play martyr.

[Faid]

We're not talking about 'the last word' on anything, Lux. We are talking about a topic which, evidently, is not too common knowledge among scientists. But it would be--and thus, would be included at Wiki--if they had bothered to read creationist papers.

Not evident at all. The Nature article you cited didn't demonstrate that in the least, and it turns out that you missed the reference to the topic in the EB article you claimed omitted it.

The only person who seems to have been unaware of the stuff is you.

Oh really? Were YOU aware of it prior? Be honest now.

Noooooooo! Not THAT old lie by dave again!

Dave, I was aware of it prior. I had TOLD you, when this was first discussed at IIDB. I had quoted from my 1989 biology textbook (FOURTH edition). Remember? "Be honest now".

Of course you do. You just pretend not to. Shame on you.

Dave, what about ck1's wiki link? WHY is it irrelevant? Can you explain WHY?

And what about this link?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysogeny

Amazing, innit? Scientists knew about the benefits of transduction through Lysogeny WAY before your "cutting edge scientist" Bergman sang his first Hail Mary, dave.

You have seen the Encyclopedia articles. You have seen the Wiki links. You have seen the Biology textbooks. You have been so devastatingly PWND, that it must physically hurt.

And yet, you go on. You babble about a SPECIFIC textbook (for Junior high students) that doesn't mention Lysogeny, or about a SPECIFIC wiki article that doesn't mention it, ignoring all the others that DO (and it's a WIKI article, for crying out loud). And, by those two lone examples, you argue that scientists didn't know about all this before Bergman!

WHO wrote all those articles, davey? WHO wrote those textbooks? Creationists? Bergman in a time machine? Aliens? WHO?

And now, after having seen ck1's last post (and knowing you can't even try to distort its meaning, like you did with the previous ones) you avoid all further discussion and turn to irony mode- as if we don't all know what that means.

You got schooled again, dave. When will you learn? Tsk tsk.

[hecaterin]

Do you think maybe Dave doesn't realise that phages are viruses? It's hard to see why he would dismiss those articles otherwise. (Of course dishonesty is an option.)

[Coleslaw]

Do you think maybe Dave doesn't realise that phages are viruses? It's hard to see why he would dismiss those articles otherwise. (Of course dishonesty is an option.)

And phages were talked about in Sinclair Lewis' Pulitzer prize winning 1925 novel Arrowsmith, as Dave was told in a prior discussion of Bergman on IIDB.

[Gary Hurd]

Lookie here boys and girls,

There is no creationist anything that is not a pile of shit. They all lie, they always lie, and they must lie because that is all they have.

[ericmurphy]

So Dave absolutely has the crap kicked out of his argument (which was idiotic to begin with, being that it was not a research paper, but a literature review paper). His response? To make fun of everyone who annihilated his argument, claiming they're dodging his well-aimed arrows.

Pretty fucking pathetic, Dave. And yet another argument of yours that's just a smoking hole in the ground.

Two in one week. First, your meltdown on nested hierarchies. Now, your meltdown on the current state of creationist knowledge (if that's not too strong a term for it) of virology.

[Lucretius II]

We're not talking about 'the last word' on anything, Lux. We are talking about a topic which, evidently, is not too common knowledge among scientists. But it would be--and thus, would be included at Wiki--if they had bothered to read creationist papers.

Dave, we are talking about a topic that was news to YOU when you read Bergman's article. News to you. Not to the scientists who did the work some of which Bergman ineptly cited. So you learned something new. You previously apparently thought microbes only caused disease. Now you know otherwise. Good. But please do not blame scientists for something YOU did not know.

Really, Dave, the bottom line here is not your new realization that viruses and bacteria have an important place in the biosphere and have uses in medicine and agriculture, and perhaps even in the origin of life on earth. The real reason you are pushing this is that you firmly believe that all living things were created "good", but that as the result of the "Fall", we now have carnivorous animals, deteriorating genomes and pathogenic microbes. Right?

Hi CK-- I've known that most bacteria are beneficial since about the 6th grade. We're not talking about bacteria primarily. We're talking about how VIRUSES supply genetic information to bacteria so that they can adapt and survive.

This information is not well known.

If it is, then why don't Miller/Levine say anything about it in their 2006 High School Biology textbook in the section on Viruses??!! (Perrin, you can check me)

And why does EB say so little about it? It's a pretty doggone big deal don't you think?

And why doesn't Wiki have anything about it? And why did you cite irrelevant Wiki articles to try to answer my questions?

And why does it seem like it's so painful to you to admit that a creationist author was the one that informed me about this (and plenty of others here, I might add ... but will they admit it? I doubt it.)

Now that is much more like the Dave I have come to know ,after his brief admission he may have been wrong, he then ignores that and any evidence that Bergman was a 4th rate copyist and blindly goes on with his original assertion that he (Bergman) was "ahead of the field",even though anyone with half a brain can see exactly what Bergman is/was.
Was "worried" for a while Dave that you may have been "infected" by rational thought.

[ck1]

So Dave absolutely has the crap kicked out of his argument (which was idiotic to begin with, being that it was not a research paper, but a literature review paper). His response? To make fun of everyone who annihilated his argument, claiming they're dodging his well-aimed arrows.

Pretty fucking pathetic, Dave. And yet another argument of yours that's just a smoking hole in the ground.

Two in one week. First, your meltdown on nested hierarchies. Now, your meltdown on the current state of creationist knowledge (if that's not too strong a term for it) of virology.

Actually, several people have mistakenly characterized Bergman's paper as a review paper. Review papers are supposed to be comprehensive summaries of the work in a particular field with some commentary, and are written by acknowledged experts in that field. Bergman is not an expert in virology, his haphazard and mostly incorrect statements do not constitute a review, and his citations are largely from out of date textbooks with few references to primary research papers. An article, not a review paper.

[RAFH]

So Dave absolutely has the crap kicked out of his argument (which was idiotic to begin with, being that it was not a research paper, but a literature review paper). His response? To make fun of everyone who annihilated his argument, claiming they're dodging his well-aimed arrows.

Pretty fucking pathetic, Dave. And yet another argument of yours that's just a smoking hole in the ground.

Two in one week. First, your meltdown on nested hierarchies. Now, your meltdown on the current state of creationist knowledge (if that's not too strong a term for it) of virology.

Actually, several people have mistakenly characterized Bergman's paper as a review paper. Review papers are supposed to be comprehensive summaries of the work in a particular field with some commentary, and are written by acknowledged experts in that field. Bergman is not an expert in virology, his haphazard and mostly incorrect statements do not constitute a review, and his citations are largely from out of date textbooks with few references to primary research papers. An article, not a review paper.

Yes, you are entirely correct, but I would offer that "literature review' was what Bergman was attempting, sort of, if he had known what such was. As it is, he probably thought he was doing original research.

He's a creotard, what can one expect?

Worse, though it's not really his fault, he's a hero to davey.

[VoxRat]

...
Actually, several people have mistakenly characterized Bergman's paper as a review paper. Review papers are supposed to be comprehensive summaries of the work in a particular field with some commentary, and are written by acknowledged experts in that field. Bergman is not an expert in virology, his haphazard and mostly incorrect statements do not constitute a review, and his citations are largely from out of date textbooks with few references to primary research papers. An article, not a review paper.

I was gonna say...

I might go a step further, and call it an "article", not an article.

The fact that anyone could think this "article" is in the same universe as real-world science papers - review or original research - is a pretty good indication that individual is so clueless that trying to explain the difference to that individual will be an exercise in futility.

But this effort isn't really for that individual, is it?

It's for the entertainment and edification of everyone else. Part of the entertainment value comes from that the extraordinary gymnastics executed by that individual in the single-minded determination to avoid facing reality.

[ck1]

...
Actually, several people have mistakenly characterized Bergman's paper as a review paper. Review papers are supposed to be comprehensive summaries of the work in a particular field with some commentary, and are written by acknowledged experts in that field. Bergman is not an expert in virology, his haphazard and mostly incorrect statements do not constitute a review, and his citations are largely from out of date textbooks with few references to primary research papers. An article, not a review paper.

I was gonna say...

I might go a step further, and call it an "article", not an article.

The fact that anyone could think this "article" is in the same universe as real-world science papers - review or original research - is a pretty good indication that individual is so clueless that trying to explain the difference to that individual will be an exercise in futility.

But this effort isn't really for that individual, is it?

It's for the entertainment and edification of everyone else. Part of the entertainment value comes from that the extraordinary gymnastics executed by that individual in the single-minded determination to avoid facing reality.

Oddly enough, when I wrote that post, I did type "article", but decided I didn't need that touch.

[VoxRat]

He's a creotard, what can one expect?

Worse, though it's not really his fault, he's a hero to davey.

Oh, it is his fault.

At least largely.

This is the guy who claims to have "seven degrees" - including two PhD's - among all the other lies and/or creative recastings of the truth, in his online curriculum vitae. And since his target audience is creationists, a notoriously credulous demographic, he counts on their swallowing it, hook line and sinker.

[RAFH]

...
Actually, several people have mistakenly characterized Bergman's paper as a review paper. Review papers are supposed to be comprehensive summaries of the work in a particular field with some commentary, and are written by acknowledged experts in that field. Bergman is not an expert in virology, his haphazard and mostly incorrect statements do not constitute a review, and his citations are largely from out of date textbooks with few references to primary research papers. An article, not a review paper.

I was gonna say...

I might go a step further, and call it an "article", not an article.

The fact that anyone could think this "article" is in the same universe as real-world science papers - review or original research - is a pretty good indication that individual is so clueless that trying to explain the difference to that individual will be an exercise in futility.

But this effort isn't really for that individual, is it?

It's for the entertainment and edification of everyone else. Part of the entertainment value comes from that the extraordinary gymnastics executed by that individual in the single-minded determination to avoid facing reality.

Yeah, and I want him to get really, really contorted into a very difficult and uncomfortable position and then suffer a cramp that prevents him from uncontorting while being aggravated by that contortion.

Yes, I know, a very unxian thought, but then, I am very unxian.

[Dave Hawkins]

Careful reading is very important. I'm guilty of not reading carefully sometimes and I thought that Perrin had caught me not reading carefully with this Encyclopedia Britannica article. I even conceded this.

BUT ...

After reading it again, very carefully this time ... it looks like the joke's on Perrin. Read it again carefully for yourself.

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease. In fact, bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

For some background, I have said (and still am saying) that Bergman is ahead of many scientists (even many in the life sciences) in his knowledge of viruses. Bergman knew 8 years ago that viruses are essential to life on the planet thus the Biblical inference that they were originally created "good" and some of them have gone "bad" is well supported from the evidence we have.

I said "How in the world does an EB author who is himself a professional virologist fail to mention the very significant fact that viruses are essential to life on the planet in his virus article??!!"

And the most obvious answer is ... Maybe he doesn't know.

Which is fine. You can't expect scientists to know everything. But this little fact does refute the notion that creationists are somehow "behind" in science because the creationist Bergman does know. And the reason Bergman knows is because he reads "radical" authors like Sonea and Margulis and he reads another "radical" book ... the Book of Genesis.

Perrin jumped in and said "Never trust creationist authors ... Dave can't read" and quoted the snippet above from EB.

Now at first glance I thought he had me. And since--even if he did have me--it doesn't affect my point much, I didn't give it a second thought ... until later. I have now taken the time to re-read it and you should too. You will find that it does NOT say what Perrin thinks it says. It does NOT say

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease. In fact, they may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

Can you spot the difference between this slightly altered paragraph and the actual paragraph? There's only one word changed and when I read the real paragraph the first time I inadvertently skipped right over the word 'bacteriophages' and my brain inserted the word 'they.' Weird, huh? Same thing must have happened to many of you. Here ... I'll highlight it for you ...

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease. In fact, they bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

Now do you see it? Again, my original quoting of this in the beginning of this post is the correct version.

So the paragraph is NOT saying that viruses are essential to life on the planet. I was right the first time. It is saying two things ...

1) Most viruses do not cause disease.
2) Bacteriophages, a subset of viruses, MAY be helpful

But nothing about most viruses being essential to life on the planet. Which is what Bergman recognizes thanks to his reading of Genesis, Sonea and Margulis. I gave a link previously to Sonea's A New Bacteriology but now I quote Margulis from the Foreward ...

This important little book is indeed a manifesto for a new bacteriology. It will help stimulate what could be a long and enduring battle to improve our awareness of the role played by microbes in our environment and to change our traditional concepts about bacteria.

For three centuries bacteria have been considered to be alien and awe inspiring, even by sophisticated professors and dedicated students. Most of us still think that these tiny living beings are primarily germs and pathogens ... in this book, Dr. Sorin Sonea and his late colleague Dr. Maurice Panisset have begun to set the record straight. These organisms are not only our own ancestors but also are the basis of our life-support system. They supply our atmospheric gases, they cleanse our water supply, and in general, they ensure us a livable environment.

Only recently have we recognized the true achievement and the communicative ability displayed by these all-pervading life forms. As Sonea and Panisset lucidly demonstrate, bacterial species are not to be conceived of in the same terms as those of plants and animals. A give visible bacterium is deficient, often lacking the genes it needs to do its ob. In never functions as a single individual in nature. Therein lies the theme of this book: bacteria work in teams. They contain a constant, stable genetic system (the large replicon), but they function in the world by acquiring and exchanging a diverse set of variable genetic systems (several small replicons, including plasmids, viruses, and so forth). Small replicons are passed among bacteria with the rapidity and fluidity we associate with international telephone call and transoceanic cables. We begin to comprehend not only the place of bacteria in the living world, but our error in considering them to be primitive because they are small. Their spores [I think she's referring to viruses and other replicons here ... see also Bergman's mention of 'spores' below] are comparable to satellites, their communication system forms a worldwide network.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZYD...1OPL88#PPR7,M1

There you go. I highlighted the important part about viruses (and other small replicons). This is the very important information which every virologist should be aware of and should write about when they write articles on viruses. But they don't. Or don't very much. But Bergman does. And Bergman realizes from this that

A review of the structure, function, and role of viruses in ecology is presented. It is concluded that viruses are non-living entities, similar to seeds and spores whose functions include carrying genes from one plant or animal to another. Viruses are a part of a system that helps to produce the variety that is critical for life and, importantly, they carry resistance to disease from one organism to another. Most viruses live in their host without causing problems. Pathogenesis is evidence of something gone wrong, a mutation or the accidental movement of genes, and not evidence of a system deliberately designed to cause human disease and suffering.

Now ... back to the regularly scheduled 'Voxrat Goes Hunting for Minutia' program.

Link here to my rejected thread that CK1 the virologist liked but it got rejected anyway.

[post tenebras lux]

Dave: could you be so kind as to check if the guys who wrote the EB article on Gravity remember to mention that gravity is essential for life on this planet?

[ericmurphy]

So Dave absolutely has the crap kicked out of his argument (which was idiotic to begin with, being that it was not a research paper, but a literature review paper). His response? To make fun of everyone who annihilated his argument, claiming they're dodging his well-aimed arrows.

Pretty fucking pathetic, Dave. And yet another argument of yours that's just a smoking hole in the ground.

Two in one week. First, your meltdown on nested hierarchies. Now, your meltdown on the current state of creationist knowledge (if that's not too strong a term for it) of virology.

Actually, several people have mistakenly characterized Bergman's paper as a review paper. Review papers are supposed to be comprehensive summaries of the work in a particular field with some commentary, and are written by acknowledged experts in that field. Bergman is not an expert in virology, his haphazard and mostly incorrect statements do not constitute a review, and his citations are largely from out of date textbooks with few references to primary research papers. An article, not a review paper.

I stand corrected. It's not even a review paper. It pretends to be a review paper. It has review-paper pretensions.

In actual fact, it's just a religious screed in a white lab coat.

[ericmurphy]

Now ... back to the regularly scheduled 'Voxrat Goes Hunting for Minutia' program.

It would be more accurate to say "Voxrat Goes Hunting for Individual Sentences Without Gross Errors, and Not Having Much Success So Far."

It's really alarming, Dave, to see you be so utterly, blatantly wrong about something, but be unable to let it go, and keep digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole. You've been trying, unsuccessfully, to defend this position since your rd.net days. And the longer and harder you defend it, the more reprehensible you look.

[Occam's Aftershave]

Now ... back to the regularly scheduled 'Voxrat Goes Hunting for Minutia' program.

It would be more accurate to say "Voxrat Goes Hunting for Individual Sentences Without Gross Errors, and Not Having Much Success So Far."

It's really alarming, Dave, to see you be so utterly, blatantly wrong about something, but be unable to let it go, and keep digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole. You've been trying, unsuccessfully, to defend this position since your rd.net days. And the longer and harder you defend it, the more reprehensible you look.

Sad part is, Hawkins shows no signs of bottoming out. His slobbering rant against Glenn Morton yesterday where he claimed to be just like Jesus took him to a new low.

[VoxRat]

Now ... back to the regularly scheduled 'Voxrat Goes Hunting for Minutia' program.

It would be more accurate to say "Voxrat Goes Hunting for Individual Sentences Without Gross Errors, and Not Having Much Success So Far."

It's really alarming, Dave, to see you be so utterly, blatantly wrong about something, but be unable to let it go, and keep digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole. You've been trying, unsuccessfully, to defend this position since your rd.net days. And the longer and harder you defend it, the more reprehensible you look.

"Minutiae"?
(I assume you mean plural)
Minutiae!?

Dave thinks these issues are minutiae?
And Dave thinks I have to go "hunting" for them!?
OMG.

Hey, Dave... What happened to "Scientists are supposed to be concerned with DETAILS!"?

What happened to "I am a guy who is very interested in details"?

See, the important point that you seem to have missed here is that, if you disregard this wrong sentence here, and that wrong wrong sentence there, there's nothing left of the Bergman article to even talk about.

That's what we're doing here: taking it one sentence at a time, so you can't later say we missed the diamonds in the dirt. And that is, in fact, how you should be reading science papers. The "big picture" is worth exactly nothing if none of the individual "brush-strokes" - the facts the case is supposed to be built from - stands up to scrutiny.

But never fear: when I get to the end, after I finish demonstrating all the individual errors, we'll step back and look at the "big picture". That's what you want, right? Only you have to be patient; we're still going through the background work here, without which a look at the "big picture" is a waste of time.

[RAFH]

What's really bad is both Britannica and Wiki fail to mention davey and how fabulously smart he is and how many doctorates he should have, if he could be bothered to ask for them, being his time is so precious and he has so many other fields yet to conquer.

Perhaps in a week or two, when he is in possession of all human knowledge, he'll be able to inform all the various schools of their need to recognize his perfection. Maybe using his new, as yet untested, telepathic powers.

[ck1]

Dave,
I do not think I said I "liked" your thread or the arguments you were trying to make.* I was pleased to see you post something in response to the Bergman critique, as you had been mostly ignoring the whole thing. It was also amusing to watch you try to divert attention from voxrat's "nitpicking" of "minutiae". Didn't work, did it?

*the word I used was "entertaining"

[Apostasius]

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease. In fact, bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

I haven't looked up the Britannica entry, but I will assume this is correct. Let me break it down:

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease.

This sentence establishes that most viruses, irrespective of the target organism, do not cause disease.

Next:

In fact, bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

Bacteriophage may be helpful due to the fact that they transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another.

Viruses of plants and animals may be helpful due to their ability to convey genetic information among similar species resulting in better host survival in hostile environments.

Why would one fixate on omission of the phrase "essential to life", a nitpicky detail, and not on the "nitpicky" catalog of errors in Bergman's work that show him to lack credibility as a source?

[Black5]

His slobbering rant against Glenn Morton yesterday where he claimed to be just like Jesus took him to a new low.

Don't underestimate afdave. He can sink lower. He has hidden depths we will see soon.

[Lucretius II]

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease. In fact, bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

I haven't looked up the Britannica entry, but I will assume this is correct. Let me break it down:

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease.

This sentence establishes that most viruses, irrespective of the target organism, do not cause disease.

Next:

In fact, bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

Bacteriophage may be helpful due to the fact that they transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another.

Viruses of plants and animals may be helpful due to their ability to convey genetic information among similar species resulting in better host survival in hostile environments.

Why would one fixate on omission of the phrase "essential to life", a nitpicky detail, and not on the "nitpicky" catalog of errors in Bergman's work that show him to lack credibility as a source?

I did in fact read the EB article all the way through (and I am not even a scientist) and that is a correct version of what it says at the top of page 10.
Anyway on to your question highlighted above I think it is just the fact that this one phrase "essential to life", IS in fact mentioned by Bergman and does not appear in any of the established scientific litlerature, that Dave has been able to find (for find read misquote/quote mine/ generally misinterpret ) means to Dave that Bergman is so obvioulsy a genius never before seen on the planet .
That's all just THREE words show how brilliant Bergman is in Daveworld