Re: [asa] Medicine and Evolution

C'mon Rich. You know that when someone like Stein says "evolution" they
don't mean viral resistance to drugs. There's a huge definitional problem
here with the term "evolution," but let's not fall for the schtick that ID
advocates don't care about poor people with AIDS. It's as lame as the
schtick that evolutionary biologists are all cousins of Hitler.

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ben Stein in Expelled said this:
>
> "When neurosurgeon Michael Egnor wrote an essay for high school students
> saying doctors didn't need to study evolution in order to practice medicine,
> the Darwinists were quick to try and exterminate this new threat."
>
>
> What's the threat? Try HIV.
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/105/21/7552
>
> The precise identification of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env)
> responsible for productive clinical infection could be instrumental in
> elucidating the molecular basis of HIV-1 transmission and in designing
> effective vaccines. Here, we developed a mathematical model of random viral
> evolution and, together with phylogenetic tree construction, used it to
> analyze 3,449 complete env sequences derived by single genome amplification
> from 102 subjects with acute HIV-1 (clade B) infection. *Viral env genes
> evolving from individual transmitted or founder viruses generally
> exhibited a Poisson distribution of mutations *and star-like
> phylogeny, which coalesced to an inferred consensus sequence at or near the
> estimated time of virus transmission. Overall, 78 of 102 subjects had
> evidence of productive clinical infection by a single virus, and 24 others
> had evidence of productive clinical infection by a minimum of two to five
> viruses. Phenotypic analysis of transmitted or early founder Envs revealed a
> consistent pattern of CCR5 dependence, masking of coreceptor binding
> regions, and equivalent or modestly enhanced resistance to the fusion
> inhibitor T1249 and broadly neutralizing antibodies compared with Envs from
> chronically infected subjects. *Low multiplicity infection and limited
> viral evolution preceding peak viremia suggest a finite window of potential
> vulnerability of HIV-1 to vaccine-elicited immune responses*, although
> phenotypic properties of transmitted Envs pose a formidable defense.
>
>
> Yeah, you don't need evolution for medicine. Tell high school students they
> don't need to study evolution because there is absolutely no need for an HIV
> vaccine. Egnor was shocked by the "viscousness" of the attack on him for his
> comments. I wonder why.
>
> Rich Blinne
> Member ASA
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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