Real disease "detectives" use evolutionary biology

Posted 9 June 2006 by Tara Smith

I wrote recently how evolution and phylogenetic analysis of HIV isolates has provided evidence that the progenitor to HIV jumped into humans in Cameroon or a nearby area. Obviously it's a topic that's interesting to me, but may seem a bit esoteric to some. RPM over at Evolgen has a new post showing another application of phylogenetic analysis to HIV that may be of interest to readers here, where infectious disease epidemiology meets CSI.

6 Comments

Shalini, BBWAD · 10 June 2006

[where infectious disease epidemiology meets CSI.]

How again does ID (Incredible Dumbness) 'help the progress of science'?

k.e. · 10 June 2006

Shalini that sort of non linear thinking will get you BANNED on Under De-church-pews...oh right BBWAD ..D'oh

For some reason, no doubt non-linear, I thought ID was Indelible Dembski-ism a now defunct sub genre of a Branch Davidian-esque personality cult centered around some crack- pot pseudo-scientist calling himself a mathematician.

Red Right Hand · 10 June 2006

I'm not an expert on the science here, but I recall this case from when it first became news back in the early-90's.

It was very controversial (for a number of reasons, political as well as scientific) and if I'm not mistaken the conclusions reached by those CDC studies have been called into question. This may not be the best example of a phylogentic analysis success story, and I'm not sure those of us on the pro-evo side of he debate should be eager to cite it as such.

Still, as I said, I'm not an expert, and my memory is a little unclear on the case. Just a red flag...

Red Right Hand · 10 June 2006

This was the infamous Kimberly Bergalis (sp?) case. Sorry, no link, try wikipedia.

Jim Anderson · 10 June 2006

And by "CSI," I presume you mean "Complex Specified Information." Dembski is vindicated!

(Kiddin'.)

Shalini, BBWAD · 11 June 2006

[I thought ID was Indelible Dembski-ism a now defunct sub genre of a Branch Davidian-esque personality cult centered around some crack- pot pseudo-scientist calling himself a mathematician.]

This cult split from the ICR (Institute for Certified Retards) tent after it got a bashing.

Poor cultists. Ashamed of their own past.