Mikovits is the only scientist who straddles CFS & XMV fully. She is on the scientific committee, she will be at the conference, she is being stopped from presenting. They are trying to oust the WPI. We cannot ask Mikovits or the WPI is they agree with this, because that would involve them.
Remember, you do hold an interest in this. The talk is on CFS, and the event is using tax dollars.
Fair enough V.
Whatever the ins and outs of this event and the signficance (or not) of Mikovits not being invited to speak, this "don't bother the big boys cos they'll take their ball away that they never let you have in the first place" attitude towards people is itself irrational. Tax dollars? CFS? yes people have a stake in all of this.
The constant invoking of scientific authority and mystique is itself irrational. All this speculation about Mikovits and her 'naughty girl' ways is irrational. The CDC paper being published while we wait for the Alter paper is, at the moment, seeming quite irrational. Kafkaesque.
If we are afraid to question scientists in case we step on toes, destroy fragile,fragile egos, we are setting ourselves up to fail. We need to ask questions. Asking what this conference is about, expressing concern at the way Mikovits has been ad hominemed, is understandable. The RATIONAL response from the conference organisers would be to explain why Mikovits may not need to speak, and that the CFS-XMRV connection is going to be considered in full, and that they take on board, honestly, people's legitimate and rational concerns.
IF they instead get all huffy - then we learn that rationality and clean science is not the order of the day. Something many of us suspect anyway : (
If they do the RATIONAL response, then we have a rare gift: an actual plausible reason to feel reassured that we are not being - excuse the English vernacular - shafted. Again.
We have precedence after precedence of being 'shafted' as a community in various ways. In that context - to think every little thing is going to be alright and not worry our pretty little heads and not dare engage with the mystical divine authority of science and its agents in case we step on their delicate little toes is itself irrational.