ebola/crapola

[Marla Brunker]

Vampire Junction <vampires at freenet.ufl.edu> writes:
 
>No, I don't think you're in the least bit sorry that you do indeed, sound 
>elitist.  It seems to me that you and others are pissed off because 
>people who do not have a grand title at the end of their names ("Armchair 
>hacks" as you refer to us) are posting to your precious newsgroup.  Now, 
>I sound nasty, because I'm just a little tired of the snobbery going on 
 
	Some of us - not all with PhD's - have actually
sat ourselves down at some point and made a point of getting the basics
of molecular biology straight. Some of us take an interest in viruses
even when they are not the stuff of headlines, sensationalist books,
stupid and sensationalist movies, and nauseatingly stupid and sensationalist
made-for-TV movies.
	Suddenly this newsgroup is flooded with posts from folks
who have apparently learned every bloody thing they know about viruses from
the above-mentioned claptrap...and whining that they are not being treated on
an equal basis as those who take this subject seriously.
	Sorry to burst your bubble, but people who study viruses full-time,
for a living know more than people who saw a couple of TV shows about them.
People who read the Journal of Virology and the Plenum Press series
on viruses know more than people who only read The Hot Zone.
You find that "elitist"? TS.
 
> There was a day when *you* knew very little about the subject and 
>someone had to teach *you*.  We deserve the same respect. 
 
	The someone who had to teach me was me. What you're insisting on
is being that the Internet be used to teach basic virology to someone who
can't get it together to hit the library.
 
> I just don't have the money to go to 
>college, and i reckon a lot of other people who tick you (and a few others) 
>off by posting here are in the same boat as I.  I find your remarks to be 
>*very* insulting and degrading.  Yes, I have read "The Hot Zone" and "The 
>Coming Plague" and "The Invisible Invaders" and a myriad of other books 
>and research papers that have to do with virus' and retrovirus'.   
 
	Right, you'd be a world-class virologist, but "you just don't have
the money to go to college". Like the rest of us have trust funds. (Just out of
curiousity, do you know the difference between a research paper and, say,
a review article, seeing as you brought them up?)
 
>I'm not a PHD, does that make me or anyone else less intelligent  
 
	No, but being able to deal with scientific information only if it's
posed in headlines and sound-bites just might.