Does Only The First Link Count In Google?

One of the more interesting discussions in the seo community of late has been
trying to determine which links Google counts as links on pages on your site.
Some say the link Google finds higher in the code, is the link Google will
‘count’, if there are two links on a page going to the same page.
Update – I tested this recently with the post Google Counts The First Internal
Link.
For example (and I am talking internal here – if you took a page and I placed
two links on it, both going to the same page? (OK – hardly scientific, but you
should get the idea). Will Google only ‘count’ the first link? Or will it read the
anchor txt of both links, and give my page the benefit of the text in both links
especially if the anchor text is different in both links? Will Google ignore the
second link?
What is interesting to me is that knowing this leaves you with a question. If
your navigation array has your main pages linked to in it, perhaps your links in
content are being ignored, or at least, not valued.
I think links in body text are invaluable. Does that mean placing the navigati on
below the copy to get a wide and varied internal anchor text to a page?
Perhaps.