From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri Mar 08 2002 - 16:16:13 MST
> (Pat Fallon <pfallon@ptd.net>):
> > > Pat Fallon writes:
> > > > I respectfully disagree. I think the Perth Group
> > > > [http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/perthgroup/index.html] provides a good
> > > > argument that there are indeed major flaws in current AIDS science.
> > >
>
> > I am not a doctor either, but I have been a professional bullshit
> > detector in other fields, and most of this AIDS-is-not-HIV stuff sets
> > off my alarms pretty heavily.
>
> The "bullshit dectector" in the field of virology used to be Koch's
> postulates. Koch's postulates are simply the application of logic to the
> problem of determining whether a disease is caused by an infectious agent or
> not.
Koch's postulates aren't anything like rules of logic; they're just
a very good method of proving that X causes Y. Absence of such proof
does not in any way suggest that X doesn't cause Y, just that it hasn't
been proven to a certain level. But that level is very high--probably
much higher than necessary to make useful deductions and practical
cures and treatments. Anyone who thinks biological systems as complex
as humans and retroviruses can be reasoned about with simple ideas
like Koch's postulates is a hopeless idealist. Indeed, applying the
very idea of "direct causation" to systems that complex is silly.
And the insistence upon such a high standard of proof among the
doubters is one of the things that weakens their credibility. While
90% of the population is probably too gullible and could use a good
does of skepticism, it is just as irrational to be among the small
minority of the pathologically skeptical like these folks.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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