Eco'
the history of science is littered with fierce, even violent (few duels iirc back in the day, lol) debates over issues.
Some folk happily worked with each other over decades even though in disagreement.
Some could never be resolved during the lifetimes of the people involved.
While Science in the end maybe about facts (and not alas, always 100% of the time), the reality is, it's about PEOPLE.
Joe has a position A on subject Y
Jolene favours position B
and they will butt heads on that
That's life, inevitable and GOOD for science because it's NOT about being a bloody Democracy, where the largest/loudet voice wins. About verifiable, repeatable facts.
Long as each view point/person has logic and evidence for their position, it's perfectly reasonable for them to disagree, even against the "established view".
Science is not some immutable, perfect, 100% correct impossibility. Every day new data and theories trump old established ones.
Much as I loathe idea, it is possible the psychs are right about ME....the odds though are staggeringly small, but do exist if you have true honesty in this (and nobody get at me on this, it's way things are: always that chance you can be wrong/right even though the odds are insane or it would make you want to puke hairballs! lol).
Betting on the lottery, 1:14 million, when yer life is on the line, is NOT good odds though
XMRV could be right, it could be wrong....*only time and many MANY MANY experiments and debates* will show the reality.
But, when it comes to money and power, research inevitably starts to get corrupted. Ego does it all the time, lot of studies over the years have been "tweaked" to boost someone's belief in a certain thing, and usually they get caught out, hence, peer review (it's not perfect but is best we have at moment)
I don't know of folk you are talking about, nor do I have any knowledge of their honesty, I genuinely don't know, pro or con.
None of us can really tell, we just assume and hope for the best and usually, they are honest
Bu again, as said, when it comes to power/money, and thus health research in particular, there's a woeful amount of stuff that goes on :/
yet also, because it's about folks
lives, there's incredibly brave, scrupulously honest researchers who "shake the pillars of heaven", history remembers some of those type as heroes.
In short...we're only yakking, most of us are very ill, most courts do NOT wanna see silly spats especially with seriously sick people wasting time best left for serious things
you know, like folk being mugged, serious assualts etc. Bit of perspective, hm?
I'm very jaundiced about anything anti-XMRV, not because I think the researchers of any one piece are automatically bad/wrong/fraudulent, but because there IS a serious desire by very powerful very unpleasant people, to have this whole issue and disease BURIED, and I want to be bloody CURED while I have some chance of a life left!
None of us have a right to be so cock sure about anything, really, especially because were ill and thus more inclined to screw up!
and I do not exclude myself from that :
just because I rant and bitch at times, doesn't mean
me, the guy underneath the ME sickness sh*t, is not a nice, well informed person (but I do have a real dislike for folk being screwed over)
Can we keep the ire for folk who have deserved it, and even give them the possibility of the benefit of the doubt/being correct, even if that gives us gas?
Life is literally too short for such stuff.
