I'm sorry, Kurt, but that post really bothers me. I'm having trouble coming up with words that aren't going to get me in trouble for criticizing a moderator, but I do want to speak up. I understand you are skeptical about XMRV; however I don't think it's fair to put yourself in a position of being objective and those who disagree with you as irrational. I think there is as much irrationality and entrenchment in the "disbelief" system as the "belief system" on this board--people seem very happy to credit obviously less rigorous studies. You're essentially implying that believing in XMRV is irrational. I argue that giving the WPI study credit is the rational thing to do, given the rigors of Science and the statements of John Coffin about its quality. Your opinion may differ, but that doesn't mean mine is less rational. I also find it uncomfortable that a moderator is making ethnographic observations about this board, and implying members are being irrational. It's a position of judgement that I think makes for a less comfortable place.
I understand that we are to be careful about the mods, and I very much appreciate the job you do, and the hard careful work you put in your posts. But I am uncomfortable with your statements here.
Let me add, as well, that I am XMRV+, as are others here.
Please forget about the 'mods' thing. The only time I am a moderator is when someone is writing insults and I have to step in. You are welcome to disagree with my personal opinions that I write as much as you like. If I make a mistake I want to know about that and will correct it if I can.
If that statement I made offended you and seemed patronizing, I am sorry for that. Maybe I was not careful enough in wording and I do not think that it is irrational to hope that XMRV will be an answer. What I am trying to say is that I see some elements of a belief system in the response to XMRV. The only application of hard scientific reasoning I see is in the defense of the XMRV hypothesis. That shows a lack of objectivity.
If you count up the number of supportive posts vs. questioning posts the ratio is probably more than 10:1 in support. If people do not ask questions here there may be important points missed. Being objective means to seriously look at both sides of a situation, and I have done that.
I'm not sure I agree that I am skeptical about XMRV, what I am skeptical about is whether we are getting the full story. What I am most concerned about is that it appears that the information in the Science article was not clear enough about the difficulty of finding XMRV. In fact Mikovitz has now revealed new information about testing that was NOT in the Science article but is required to get a positive result. I am willing to suspend judgement and see if other labs can find XMRV, this situation must rest on the science and not this or that opinion. But I do not see any reason to be as supportive of WPI as people generally are here, that is my opinion and it is based on many factors, not just what I have written in this post.
WPI is a business and I realize they have to work hard to gain enough financial support and market share to survive. But if they really cared about the CFS world as they say they do, they should have revealed everything that was required to run their tests and not let other labs waste their CFS funding running tests that could not find the virus, based on belief in the literal words WPI wrote in the Science article. For example, it was not clear in the Science article that ALL PCR tests of old samples might have to be run multiple times, or that multiple draws could be necessary. It was not clear in the Science article that pre-amplification was required for all PCR tests. And it is still not clear exactly how the samples were selected and why WPI/VIP has pulled their PCR test off the market. There are many more issues and questions, many are more technical than I understand, but based on comments backchannel with outside researchers there is a lot of frustration right now in the research world over WPI and their handling of this situation.
So I think there is enough evidence both for and also against the XMRV hypothesis to justify some serious discussion of both sides of the issue. And I just don't see that objectivity. What I see is defense of XMRV based on a hope that this will be the answer rather than based on a careful analysis of the entire picture of what is happening here. You are welcome to prove me wrong, just point me to any seriously objective posts, yours or someone else's, about WPI and the chance that this just might NOT be the answer we had all hoped it was....