ERV on Scienceblogs describes a new example of what I call the Behe blunder, making a big anti-evolution point that might be valid if you had got your facts right in the first place. This one is soon to be a classic in the tale of “Why do people laugh at Creationists?”

First, she quotes them:

David Klinghoffer wrote…

An illustration of this that Seelke mentions is antiviral drug cocktails used to treat HIV infections. The cocktails, comprising three drugs working simultaneously, take advantage precisely of the HIV virus’s key weakness — its general inability, for all the virus’s notoriously high rate of mutation, to produce three separate protective mutations at the same time. To save lives, medicine here is using its implicit knowledge of evolution’s inadequacy.

Then she explains HAART therapy, and how Klinghoffer has Behe-blundered:

HIV-1 does NOT need to ‘evolve’ resistance to all the drugs in HAART therapy. The drug resistance mutations are already there, in every patient, for no reason at all. Just chance. Its just a matter of how fit those resistant viruses are, and they do regain fitness over time.

Read “IDiots and HIV-1, now with gratuitous lazrs.”

We’ve heard ID proponents and Creationists talking about “the imminent demise of evolution” for years. In fact, it’s been going on for more than 100 years. “Imminent demise” has been a theme since before Darwin. Back then, it was used against the old-earth theory that the earth’s landscapes were a result of evolution and natural forces, not one God-given, supernatural, brief flood. Deniers soon switched over to claiming the imminent death of evolution, but they waited their whole lifetimes while evolutionary theory went from strength to strength.

Answers in Science has a nice, long compilation of these claims, dating back to 1825. Far from being predictive, they are rhetorical rallying cries for the faithful young-earthers and evolution-deniers. Read “The Demise of Evolution” — the longest running falsehood in creationism“.

DaveScot, an administrator at the Uncommonly Dense blog, has resigned because their new manager is too lenient on comments.

Maya, quoted:

DaveScot
11/17/2008 1:56 pm

This was essentially a decision on my part that it would take up too much of my time to continue effective moderation censorship of the site under relaxed rules.

The “crisis” I warned about by mimicing Joe Biden’s infamous “test the mettle of the new guy” gaffe was anticipation of a rush by gratuitous religion bashers and design deniers to see what disruption intelligent and inflammatory informed comments they could get away with. Keeping the current polite dialog cesspool of ignorance and sycophancy going in such an environment is more work than I’m prepared to take on. Under the previous rules it was only taking a few minutes of targeted intervention gutless and ignorant censorship each day. That’s solely, IMO, a result of the ruthless moderation terrified censorship policy established by Bill Dembski in the first months of UD and carried on by me….
Fixed that for you, Davey.

JohnW remarked:

DavidBrennan is no longer with us. His comments and responses to his comments were disappeared along with him.
- DaveTard

I love science and I hate what is being done to it through the use of despicable tactics to suppress open dialogue.
- DaveTard, 13 hours later

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Who is John Moore, you ask? Apparently he writes for the National Post:

Complaining that science won’t take ID seriously is like grieving the fact that mathematicians won’t consider a flower pot to be a number.

-John Moore, National Post

Chris Comer, the former director of science curriculum for the state of Texas, has sued the Texas Education Agency for firing her. Her offence? Forwarding an e-mail that discussed the use of Intelligent Design as a stalking horse for creationism. Chris Comer sues Texas Education Agency. Hat tip: Darwin Central.