Letter from Dr Mikovits to the editor of the IACFS Bulletin

[Gerwyn]

If you mean me, you may direct your comment at me directly, i don't mind. I don't know which old agruments you mean and to me it does not matter very much. At first, i did not even intend to post on here, even though i appreciate the forum. After Gerwyn's reply to one of my postings i kind of got dragged into this argument here because i did not and still don't agree with him/her. And i did not like the style and tone of his reply.

But if you are implying here, that i in some way have a "dirty" agenda and am not disclosing who i am and what my intentions are (i have just read some similar sounding remarks on another thread where Gerwyn was criticized), then i will take this personally. This is very the fun stops. I have had enough CFS for myself to not find such a remark funny. We are in the same boat, like someone (in a friendly way) replied to one of my first postings. And i totally agree with that. We want the same thing. BUT i do what i do here and might continue to do it for a while, even though at this moment i don't intend to, because i don't think that some of what is said here is helpful. On the contrary, i think it hurts the cause.
But i also don't worry, becasue i am sure that things will go their way, regardless of what anyone here does. The role of XMRV in CFS will be clarified.
Visiting this page should erase the doubts of anyone regarding that question
http://aboutmecfs.org/Rsrch/XMRVStudies.aspx

you made points I merely corrected them.Apparently I should not have done that according to the moderators of the forum. My post was factual strtaightforward and supported by peer reviewed evidence.I note that you did not question the content of my post but your percieved tone and style of my reply.I did not care much for the style,tone or content of your post but I chose to focus on the content.apparently I am not allowed to comment on the tone and style of other posters.
Inaccurate comments are ok but tone and style are not.
Best wishes to you Eric and to your beliefs

 

[Gerwyn]

I intend to stop this argument at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. For me it does not make sense to go on ad infinitum with this. That does not mean that i agree. In fact, i still stand behind the things i have said but i want to stop this.

I will reply to a number of the points we have discussed, of course you are free to reply to that but as i have said, as far as i'm concerned, i won't go on forever.

Not mentioning the positive findings by the WPI was a clear breach of ethics.I,m really suprised that this action which could cause so much harm to untold thousands of fellow sufferers does not anger you more

I,m not arguing I am stating scientific fact.

No are are no people and papers who can confirm any scientific facts.People who replicate studies can.

The point ofcourse is that you are expressing subjective opinions and thinking that they are objective.

We really know that there four methods of finding the virus.We also know that the europeans did not use any of them

I agree that XMRV probably was not there because home made criterea cant diagnose a neuroimmune endocrine disorder.

The patients in the IC cohort had already been in a trial which conclusively demonstrated that they did not have any neuro immune endocrine abnormalities.

The patients in the Science cohort had confirmed neuroimmuneendocrine abnormalities.

The chances of finding XMRV in a population of people with idiopathic chronic fatigue or fatigue associated with depression a la Simon wesselly,s patients would be no more than in a normal population.

Had there actually been XMRV present then Mclures approach would have been astronomically unlikely to pick it up.

We cant tell of course because she refused to use a positive sample as a control and did not use the blood of healthy people as a control either.Had she done so either way we would have eliminated at least one variable

.Either the test would have been shown to work or it would not have.

I am really astounded that a retovirologist of Mclure,s reputation did not design an experiment that controlled dependent variables

.As a result of the design we do not know whether the results were to do with the test,the cohort or both.

She had the opportunity to eliminate consideration re the validity of her testing methods yet did not do so.From a scientific perspective that is totally baffling as it would have been such a simple thing to do!


It does not matter at all what you tell me. (Just as little as it matters what i tell you). Can't you see that? I don't see how you can think you have any right to judge what is scientific and what is not. Who are you? I will not say this more pointedly now, in order not to put more oil in the fire.

I,m a qualified scientist who are you?Perhaps you do not think that a scientist is more able to judge whether something is good science than a layman.I don,t think that you would hold the majority view.

how would you expect to be able to objectively judge matters of science without being a trained scientist.

You are effectively saying that years of training does not give me the right to judge what is scientific but years of non training on your part does.I find that thinking to be rather alarming.Just my honestly held view of course



I don't agree. It is only logic and reason that solves any scientific issue. An experiment has to be the result of reason and logic, else it's a shot into the dark (which sometimes makes sense too, ok) and reason and logic are needed to interpret the result of an experiment and make sense of it. Isn't this true? But i have never said that i intend to solve a scientific issue using reason and logic here. To the contrary, what i have repeatedly stated is my opinion, that we need to let the people who are really qualified and know what they are doing and talking about sort this out.

You are entitled to your opinion.I need to respectifully point out that is no more objective than the opinion of any other lay person.We need people who are willing and able to apply the correct scientific methods to sort things out. So far the Europeans have not even attempted to do so



Scientific hypotheses begin with observation explanatory models are created based on observations using logic of a kind and then these models are tested predictively or experimentaly.you can chose to agree or not as you wish.that does not change the fact that scientific issues /disputes are not solved using reason and logic.You are of course entitled to your belief



But i think mentioning this again and again does not help. What we need is more high quality studies to clarify the XMRV question.

mentioning it time and time again will reinforce the idea that we do need high quality studies and not ones of poor quality like the european efforts thus far



This is not intelligent at all. They have returned a certain result (positive). But that might be a wrong result. I very much hope it's not, but everything is possible.

I will pretend that you did not actually write that

No, there are people and documents who can confirm this.

Only hypothesis testing can confirm scientific facts There are no amount of people or documents that can

 

[oerganix]

Hi V99
Thanks. I think i have read everything that i could find about that when it happened but if you can provide me those links i will read it again. Maybe i had missed some parts.
Eric

There is a whole thread on the Prague Conference, available to you here on PR. Basically, they questioned the ethics and the validity of the research, especially of the Dutch. Ruscetti specifically mentioned the "whisper campaign" alleging lab contamination, (the Dutch researchers excuse for not acknowledging their samples actually had XMRV in them), that is being conducted against WPI at this moment.

Eric, you claim to be a logical person, then you say, re the Failure to Find studies:
" It is just as well possible that they did not find XMRV in those samples because it was actually not there."

How is this logical? That they found ZERO XMRV? Japan has found it in 1.7% of blood donations from presumably healthy people. People from UK have had their blood tested by WPI and about 50% have tested positive. The original WPI cohort had samples from people from Europe and Australia who had come to the US for treatment at American clinics. How logical is it that those quick and dirty studies, sponsored by psychiatrists with a long history of distorting research regards CFS, would find ZERO XMRV? To my logical mind, the only way they could find zero XMRV would be if they had stored the samples so badly that it wasn't findable; or that Simon Wessely, who provided the samples to Dr McClure did something to them to remove any XMRV because he doesn't want it to be found; or they just didn't know how to find it. The last possibility makes the most sense to me, considering that they went out of their way to do it differently than WPI.

Logic tells me that there is a continuation of the decades long attempt to disprove any viral or retroviral cause of CFS. McClure's subsequent statements indicate that she was duped and used by Wessely, that she told his lies like a good little parrot, and now they have come back to bite her in the posterior.

Then you, Eric say: "i don't want people to cheer about things now and later be disappointed.
For that reason i say, please stay cautious, those news about XMRV are exciting and promising but please wait until we have more certainty."

On the face of it, that seems very noble of you, trying to spare the rest of us the uplift of having hope, because you fear that it might not pan out. We have already addressed this time and time again here, and I, for one, reject your attempt to take responsibility for my "false hope" and potential disappointment. The very fact that there is an organized effort to defame Dr Mikovits and WPI and any efforts associated with them is a lot more deserving of my attention. I assure you that I am perfectly aware that XMRV may not be "IT", but people who know more about it than you or I say it very well could be...that "it fits". (Drs Cheney, Bell and Klimas, for example)

Two more things that I have noticed about your posts: you repeat McClure's "crocodile tears" statements about trying to "spare" us the disappointment of finding out that XMRV isn't what we hope it is. And after criticizing Gerwyn's writing and punctuation, a red herring IMO, you constantly use lower case "i" instead of "I". Simon Wessely does the same thing in his emails. For those reason, I don't like the style and tone of your posts.

Again, you say: "i don't want people to cheer about things now and later be disappointed.
For that reason i say, please stay cautious, those news about XMRV are exciting and promising but please wait until we have more certainty."

I would prefer that you wait for more UNcertainty about the exciting and promising news of XMRV, that you stay cautious about trying to refute it with your brand of logic. If you've got evidence that XMRV isn't involved in CFS, please share. But until you do, please don't tell the rest of not to cheer the positive news about it.

 

[Advocate]

And just one more little thing. Is it so hard to add a space between the period at the end of a sentence and the first word of the new sentence?
Eric

Adam wrote: It would be useful for some of the new members on PR to acquaint themselves with old threads.

Hi Eric S.,

I keep going back to your admonishment of Gerwyn: "Is it so hard to add a space between the period at the end of a sentence and the first word of the new sentence?"

Well, maybe it is hard. That's where the history comes in.

A long time ago, in one post, Gerwyn listed his symptoms. Wow, I thought. Sounds almost like a stroke, I thought. So if he writes his posts upside down or backwards, I take his history into consideration.

Another history point: His posts--in terms of spaces, commas, capitalization--have improved immensely since he first started posting here. This demonstrates another benefit of posting frequently on the forum. :Retro smile:

I don't care what Gerwyn's scholarly qualifications are, because he certainly knows a lot more science than I will ever know. He has been a huge help to me by clarifying difficult concepts. He has pointed out flaws in the science of the politically motivated studies in Europe, even as others were using those same studies to gleefully attack the WPI or Judy Mikovits.

The bottom line is that it's very clear to me whose side Gerwyn is on, and that means a lot to me.

Advocate

 

[Forbin]

Originally Posted by Forbin
I saw a video seven months ago in which Dr. Mikovits stated that XMRV only replicates during cell division.

Originally Posted by Gerwyn
Is there any chance of a link to the video.It would be good for forum members to be able to access it

I've tried to find this video again on youtube, but so far no luck. It may have been among the videos posted by LuminescentFeeling and, unfortunately, his channel went away for some reason.

What I remember was Dr. Mikovits standing in a hallway, I think at some sort of conference, and she said that the virus replicates when "the cell divides, and only when the cell divides."

I found another video, possibly Mikovits' first interview on XMRV, in which she describes the virus existing in B and T cells and then replicating when those cells divide in response to a vaccine. That video is dated October 14th, 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQzlL0nd6I#t=6m34s

I'll keep loooking for the other video, though.

 

[oerganix]

I've tried to find this video again on youtube, but so far no luck. It may have been among the videos posted by LuminescentFeeling and, unfortunately, his channel went away for some reason.

What I remember was Dr. Mikovits standing in a hallway, I think at some sort of conference, and she said that the virus replicates when "the cell divides, and only when the cell divides."

I found another video, possibly Mikovits' first interview on XMRV, in which she describes the virus existing in B and T cells and then replicating when those cells divide in response to a vaccine. That video is dated October 14th, 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQzlL0nd6I#t=6m34s

I'll keep loooking for the other video, though.

I remember something like that, but a little different. She said, in response to a question about how vaccination might be invoved, that vaccination provokes an immune response and that the XMRV might then be stimulated to replicate by the immune activity.

 

[eric_s]

If you mean me, you may direct your comment at me directly, i don't mind. I don't know which old agruments you mean and to me it does not matter very much. At first, i did not even intend to post on here, even though i appreciate the forum. After Gerwyn's reply to one of my postings i kind of got dragged into this argument here because i did not and still don't agree with him/her. And i did not like the style and tone of his reply.

But if you are implying here, that i in some way have a "dirty" agenda and am not disclosing who i am and what my intentions are (i have just read some similar sounding remarks on another thread where Gerwyn was criticized), then i will take this personally. This is very the fun stops. I have had enough CFS for myself to not find such a remark funny. We are in the same boat, like someone (in a friendly way) replied to one of my first postings. And i totally agree with that. We want the same thing. BUT i do what i do here and might continue to do it for a while, even though at this moment i don't intend to, because i don't think that some of what is said here is helpful. On the contrary, i think it hurts the cause.
But i also don't worry, becasue i am sure that things will go their way, regardless of what anyone here does. The role of XMRV in CFS will be clarified.
Visiting this page should erase the doubts of anyone regarding that question
http://aboutmecfs.org/Rsrch/XMRVStudies.aspx

you made points I merely corrected them.Apparently I should not have done that according to the moderators of the forum. My post was factual strtaightforward and supported by peer reviewed evidence.I note that you did not question the content of my post but your percieved tone and style of my reply.I did not care much for the style,tone or content of your post but I chose to focus on the content.apparently I am not allowed to comment on the tone and style of other posters.
Inaccurate comments are ok but tone and style are not.
Best wishes to you Eric and to your beliefs

That posting was not directed at you Gerwyn. You must have misunderstood that.

 

[eric_s]

Hi Eric S.,

I keep going back to your admonishment of Gerwyn: "Is it so hard to add a space between the period at the end of a sentence and the first word of the new sentence?"

Well, maybe it is hard. That's where the history comes in.

A long time ago, in one post, Gerwyn listed his symptoms. Wow, I thought. Sounds almost like a stroke, I thought. So if he writes his posts upside down or backwards, I take his history into consideration.

Another history point: His posts--in terms of spaces, commas, capitalization--have improved immensely since he first started posting here. This demonstrates another benefit of posting frequently on the forum. :Retro smile:

I don't care what Gerwyn's scholarly qualifications are, because he certainly knows a lot more science than I will ever know. He has been a huge help to me by clarifying difficult concepts. He has pointed out flaws in the science of the politically motivated studies in Europe, even as others were using those same studies to gleefully attack the WPI or Judy Mikovits.

The bottom line is that it's very clear to me whose side Gerwyn is on, and that means a lot to me.

Advocate

Hi Advocate

I'm sure you will understand that it's not possible for me to go back through hundreds of threads and read up on everyone's history before i post a mesage. As i have said in antother thread just 20 minutes earlier, if that is the result of a condition that he has, then i would not have made those remarks. But if you read that other message posted by me, you can also read there why i made them. If you don't know which side i'm on, that's sad. And i would prefer if people abstain from calling the negative studies politically motivated, but of course you're free to do that. PROVE THEM WRONG. This is what will help. (And i don't mean by talk on this forum. No one in governments, pharma corporations etc. will care about that.) I'm waiting for this and hope that it will happen.

Eric

 

[eric_s]

I intend to stop this argument at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. For me it does not make sense to go on ad infinitum with this. That does not mean that i agree. In fact, i still stand behind the things i have said but i want to stop this.

I will reply to a number of the points we have discussed, of course you are free to reply to that but as i have said, as far as i'm concerned, i won't go on forever.

Not mentioning the positive findings by the WPI was a clear breach of ethics.I,m really suprised that this action which could cause so much harm to untold thousands of fellow sufferers does not anger you more

I,m not arguing I am stating scientific fact.

No are are no people and papers who can confirm any scientific facts.People who replicate studies can.

The point ofcourse is that you are expressing subjective opinions and thinking that they are objective.

We really know that there four methods of finding the virus.We also know that the europeans did not use any of them

I agree that XMRV probably was not there because home made criterea cant diagnose a neuroimmune endocrine disorder.

The patients in the IC cohort had already been in a trial which conclusively demonstrated that they did not have any neuro immune endocrine abnormalities.

The patients in the Science cohort had confirmed neuroimmuneendocrine abnormalities.

The chances of finding XMRV in a population of people with idiopathic chronic fatigue or fatigue associated with depression a la Simon wesselly,s patients would be no more than in a normal population.

Had there actually been XMRV present then Mclures approach would have been astronomically unlikely to pick it up.

We cant tell of course because she refused to use a positive sample as a control and did not use the blood of healthy people as a control either.Had she done so either way we would have eliminated at least one variable

.Either the test would have been shown to work or it would not have.

I am really astounded that a retovirologist of Mclure,s reputation did not design an experiment that controlled dependent variables

.As a result of the design we do not know whether the results were to do with the test,the cohort or both.

She had the opportunity to eliminate consideration re the validity of her testing methods yet did not do so.From a scientific perspective that is totally baffling as it would have been such a simple thing to do!


It does not matter at all what you tell me. (Just as little as it matters what i tell you). Can't you see that? I don't see how you can think you have any right to judge what is scientific and what is not. Who are you? I will not say this more pointedly now, in order not to put more oil in the fire.

I,m a qualified scientist who are you?Perhaps you do not think that a scientist is more able to judge whether something is good science than a layman.I don,t think that you would hold the majority view.

how would you expect to be able to objectively judge matters of science without being a trained scientist.

You are effectively saying that years of training does not give me the right to judge what is scientific but years of non training on your part does.I find that thinking to be rather alarming.Just my honestly held view of course



I don't agree. It is only logic and reason that solves any scientific issue. An experiment has to be the result of reason and logic, else it's a shot into the dark (which sometimes makes sense too, ok) and reason and logic are needed to interpret the result of an experiment and make sense of it. Isn't this true? But i have never said that i intend to solve a scientific issue using reason and logic here. To the contrary, what i have repeatedly stated is my opinion, that we need to let the people who are really qualified and know what they are doing and talking about sort this out.

You are entitled to your opinion.I need to respectifully point out that is no more objective than the opinion of any other lay person.We need people who are willing and able to apply the correct scientific methods to sort things out. So far the Europeans have not even attempted to do so



Scientific hypotheses begin with observation explanatory models are created based on observations using logic of a kind and then these models are tested predictively or experimentaly.you can chose to agree or not as you wish.that does not change the fact that scientific issues /disputes are not solved using reason and logic.You are of course entitled to your belief



But i think mentioning this again and again does not help. What we need is more high quality studies to clarify the XMRV question.

mentioning it time and time again will reinforce the idea that we do need high quality studies and not ones of poor quality like the european efforts thus far



This is not intelligent at all. They have returned a certain result (positive). But that might be a wrong result. I very much hope it's not, but everything is possible.

I will pretend that you did not actually write that

No, there are people and documents who can confirm this.

Only hypothesis testing can confirm scientific facts There are no amount of people or documents that can

I will reply later, right now i don't have time, i have to go out.
I just comment one ore two points now.

Not mentioning the positive findings by the WPI was a clear breach of ethics.I,m really suprised that this action which could cause so much harm to untold thousands of fellow sufferers does not anger you more

I don't know. But i would not have published that study until i had made sure why there is a discrepancy. But you know what? It does not make me angry. I'm to some degree even happy about it. Why? Because i hope they are wrong. And this is a sign that their work was not of the highest quality and might actually be faulty.

I,m a qualified scientist who are you?Perhaps you do not think that a scientist is more able to judge whether something is good science than a layman.I don,t think that you would hold the majority view.

how would you expect to be able to objectively judge matters of science without being a trained scientist.

You are effectively saying that years of training does not give me the right to judge what is scientific but years of non training on your part does.I find that thinking to be rather alarming.Just my honestly held view of course

Gerwyn, you know that some postings back i had openly asked you to say which degrees you hold. You did not answer. All you said was that titles do not matter. If you are indeed a qualified scientist with years of training, then please answer my question now. If you don't have a degree but have studied for years, have the courage to admit that. It's still a considerable achievement and all here will understand why you could not finish. And i will have much more respect of your opinions from now on. Not that that's so important. But i really would care to know.

Also you know exactly that i have time and time again said that i am not qualified to judge scientific matter in this field. It was me who had said that us laymen can't understand the science seriously and thus need to choose the experts we trust. So far i did not consider you as being such. If you like you can clarify that.
What i did do, was try to apply logical thinking, which i am capable of, and by doing so show that it is highliy unlikely that your hypothesis about the old blood being the reason for the results of those studies is true.

More later

 

[Gerwyn]

I will reply later, right now i don't have time, i have to go out.
I just comment one ore two points now.

I don't know. But i would not have published that study until i had made sure why there is a discrepancy. But you know what? It does not make me angry. I'm to some degree even happy about it. Why? Because i hope they are wrong. And this is a sign that their work was not of the highest quality and might actually be faulty.

Gerwyn, you know that some postings back i had openly asked you to say which degrees you hold. You did not answer. All you said was that titles do not matter. If you are indeed a qualified scientist with years of training, then please answer my question now. If you don't have a degree but have studied for years, have the courage to admit that. It's still a considerable achievement and all here will understand why you could not finish. And i will have much more respect of your opinions from now on. Not that that's so important. But i really would care to know.

Also you know exactly that i have time and time again said that i am not qualified to judge scientific matter in this field. It was me who had said that us laymen can't understand the science seriously and thus need to choose the experts we trust. So far i did not consider you as being such. If you like you can clarify that.
What i did do, was try to apply logical thinking, which i am capable of, and by doing so show that it is highliy unlikely that your hypothesis about the old blood being the reason for the results of those studies is true.

More later

If you read that post you will see that the first word was Microbiologist.Logical thinking cannot test a hypothesis as any scientist would know The BMJ did not know there was a discepancy because the dutch did not tell them.

just for your information I have a degree in Microbiology,chemistry and Law I hope that satisfies your curiosity.

I have also had specific training in medical statistics and the designing of clinical studies.powering cofidence levels,confidence intervals parametric-nonparametric tests Kurtosis and so on.The whole point of scientific research is to test the effects of changing dependent and independent variables.

In a RCT you use the principles of randomisation and or matched groups to control all the variables apart from the relationship between the dependent and independent variables thet you are investigating.

This is why I know that the design of the European studies is appalling.Studies of publishable standard need to be blinded in that the person allocating the subjects to the study has no idea of the patients history and neither should the person carrying out the study. this is why i know that the design of the European studies was appalling

. Mclure used different reagents, primers ,cell lines ,incubation periods, PCR constructed to detect high tire high replicating lentiviruses and an entirely different patient cohort.The methods of DNA extraction, blood storage and taking and of course the age and the volume of the blood used were all different.To cap it all the patients were supplied by only one diagnoser who knew that the patients had no neuroimmune endocrine symptoms.

This contrasts with the study by Lombardi et al who recruited patients from all over the United states and also included people from all over the world diagnosed by a number of different physicians experienced in the medical treatment of the illness.

The number of confounding variables makes the study impossible to interpret and the conclusions are unfalsyfiable.

In short we have the two cardinal sins of Science in one study.Unbelievably this in objective terms is actually the better of the three European studies.

So I am not expressing an opinion I am following the published methods for evaluating the scientific merit of scientific studies

 

[eric_s]

There is a whole thread on the Prague Conference, available to you here on PR. Basically, they questioned the ethics and the validity of the research, especially of the Dutch. Ruscetti specifically mentioned the "whisper campaign" alleging lab contamination, (the Dutch researchers excuse for not acknowledging their samples actually had XMRV in them), that is being conducted against WPI at this moment.

I have read their comments days ago. They do not validate Gerwyn's hypothesis about the old blood. Not as far as i can remember. The raise other doubts and i was pleased to read that but it's no prove of the XMRV/CFS association yet. I'm waiting for that.

Eric, you claim to be a logical person, then you say, re the Failure to Find studies:
" It is just as well possible that they did not find XMRV in those samples because it was actually not there."

How is this logical? That they found ZERO XMRV? Japan has found it in 1.7% of blood donations from presumably healthy people. People from UK have had their blood tested by WPI and about 50% have tested positive. The original WPI cohort had samples from people from Europe and Australia who had come to the US for treatment at American clinics. How logical is it that those quick and dirty studies, sponsored by psychiatrists with a long history of distorting research regards CFS, would find ZERO XMRV? To my logical mind, the only way they could find zero XMRV would be if they had stored the samples so badly that it wasn't findable; or that Simon Wessely, who provided the samples to Dr McClure did something to them to remove any XMRV because he doesn't want it to be found; or they just didn't know how to find it. The last possibility makes the most sense to me, considering that they went out of their way to do it differently than WPI.

Dr. Mikovits, in the letter that is the topic of this thread has pointed out a number of possible explanations. XMRV might not be present anywhere in the world in the same "ratio", it might have been a problem with the cohort etc. etc. So far i don't know about there being Europeans and Australians being in the Science cohort. But i might be wrong. Anyway, what i want is no more guesses, i want ANSWERS. And the only way to get them is more studies. Whoever claims to know the answer now is in my mind not serious. Look at how Dr. Coffin etc. behave. They do not say "yes" or "no" yet. Everyone is waiting and being cautious. And just in case you care: the things you say about the european studies might get you into legal troubles in a good number of countries, in my opinion. One should not accuse people without being able to prove something. But i don't think they will come after you in Nicaragua, don't worry.

Logic tells me that there is a continuation of the decades long attempt to disprove any viral or retroviral cause of CFS. McClure's subsequent statements indicate that she was duped and used by Wessely, that she told his lies like a good little parrot, and now they have come back to bite her in the posterior.

Then you, Eric say: "i don't want people to cheer about things now and later be disappointed.
For that reason i say, please stay cautious, those news about XMRV are exciting and promising but please wait until we have more certainty."

On the face of it, that seems very noble of you, trying to spare the rest of us the uplift of having hope, because you fear that it might not pan out. We have already addressed this time and time again here, and I, for one, reject your attempt to take responsibility for my "false hope" and potential disappointment. The very fact that there is an organized effort to defame Dr Mikovits and WPI and any efforts associated with them is a lot more deserving of my attention. I assure you that I am perfectly aware that XMRV may not be "IT", but people who know more about it than you or I say it very well could be...that "it fits". (Drs Cheney, Bell and Klimas, for example)

Two more things that I have noticed about your posts: you repeat McClure's "crocodile tears" statements about trying to "spare" us the disappointment of finding out that XMRV isn't what we hope it is. And after criticizing Gerwyn's writing and punctuation, a red herring IMO, you constantly use lower case "i" instead of "I". Simon Wessely does the same thing in his emails. For those reason, I don't like the style and tone of your posts.

Again, you say: "i don't want people to cheer about things now and later be disappointed.
For that reason i say, please stay cautious, those news about XMRV are exciting and promising but please wait until we have more certainty."

I would prefer that you wait for more UNcertainty about the exciting and promising news of XMRV, that you stay cautious about trying to refute it with your brand of logic. If you've got evidence that XMRV isn't involved in CFS, please share. But until you do, please don't tell the rest of not to cheer the positive news about it.

Stop that "crocodile's tears" sh.. I don't care about you, don't worry. But i won't accept anyone implying i am not honest here. This is no fun.
Do you want to know why i write "i" instead of "I". Because in my language, as in any language other then english, "i" is written with a lower case letter. I'm not an egoistic person and will not write it in capital letters for that reason. In my language we write "you" in capital letters. Think about that. Don't associate me with Wessely. That's inacceptable neither. This man is my enemy. (That does not mean i want to harm him in any illegal way of course). Is that clear enough?
And please, just don't reply to my postings anymore, i think that will be the best solution for you as well as for myself.

Eric

 

[eric_s]

If you read that post you will see that the first word was Microbiologist.Logical thinking cannot test a hypothesis as any scientist would know

No, it was actually "Microbiology" Go back and check (but don't edit) ;-)
I understood it in connection with the following statement about mitosis. Not as a declaration of the field you're trained in.

Yes, logical thinking can't test a hypothesis. But it can demonstrate that the hypothesis is highly unlikely. We can make a bet about the truth of that hypothesis, i will do that. Now i really have to go.

 

[Gerwyn]

No, it was actually "Microbiology" Go back and check (but don't edit) ;-)
I understood it in connection with the following statement about mitosis. Not as a declaration of the field you're trained in.

Yes, logical thinking can't test a hypothesis. But it can demonstrate that the hypothesis is highly unlikely. We can make a bet about the truth of that hypothesis, i will do that. Now i really have to go.

No Eric once again you are wrong a hypothesis is judged by its ability to fully account for observations and parsimony. Logic plays a part in the assembly of a hypothesis but not in its assessment only the scientific method can do that

 

[eric_s]

No Eric once again you are wrong a hypothesis is judged by its ability to fully account for observations and parsimony. Logic plays a part in the assembly of a hypothesis but not in its assessment only the scientific method can do that

Did you read my posting correctly? I did not say that logic is the method used by microbiologists to test a hypothesis. I said that logic can demonstrate that a hypothesis is highly unlikely. And i still think this is true. Everyone of us, in daily life, uses logic to determine wheter he thinks something is likely or not. You always refer to "the scientific method" as if microbiology was the only science existing. Other sciences apply other methods. Those are scientific too.
Once again, if of all the microbiologists in the world so far i have only heard you state your hypothesis about the old blood, despite Dr. Mikovits for example having very good reasons for stating it too, would she think it's plausible, then yes, that leads me, and i'm sure many other people as well, to think that your hypothesis is unlikely to be true. But please, feel free to test it using microbiology. That would be a good contribution. So far i have only heard you defend your hypothesis based on your knowledge. That's exactly what i suggested scientists should do now, regarding the quality of the testing method described my Dr. Mikovits in her letter to the CFSAC! But you said that this does not make sense and is not scientific. Remember?

 

[eric_s]

I want to end this argument now.

So i suggest we either let it stand or we will agree on a jury that will decide who is right and then accept the verdict.

And just one more little thing. You said in another thread that i have no scientific background. Not one in biology. But i have studied law. And courts have to decide about medical issues often. Unfortunately of course they don't always make the right decisions, sure. But those are cases where the juristic way of thinking, which is obviously scientific too, will judge biological matters in the end. They will hear experts from that area of science but they will make the decision wheter they believe something or not based on their way of working.

 

[Adam]

I want to end this argument now.

So i suggest we either let it stand or we will agree on a jury that will decide who is right and then accept the verdict.

And just one more little thing. You said in another thread that i have no scientific background. Not one in biology. But i have studied law. And courts have to decide about medical issues often. Unfortunately of course they don't always make the right decisions, sure. But those are cases where the juristic way of thinking, which is obviously scientific too, will judge biological matters in the end. They will hear experts from that area of science but they will make the decision wheter they believe something or not based on their way of working.

Eric. I am no scientist, but IMO, I think you might be mistaken there?

 

[Gerwyn]

I want to end this argument now.

So i suggest we either let it stand or we will agree on a jury that will decide who is right and then accept the verdict.

And just one more little thing. You said in another thread that i have no scientific background. Not one in biology. But i have studied law. And courts have to decide about medical issues often. Unfortunately of course they don't always make the right decisions, sure. But those are cases where the juristic way of thinking, which is obviously scientific too, will judge biological matters in the end. They will hear experts from that area of science but they will make the decision wheter they believe something or not based on their way of working.

Yes I have studied Law too.Law is not a science>juristic thinking is the opposite of scientific thinking.If you cant tell the difference between expansionist thinking(Law) and reductionist thinking(Science).then that would explain the content of your posts.One of the legal maxims is that a court of law is no place to determine matters of science.What jurors actually do is choose between to competing opinions having no scientific experise at all using their logical subjectivity to decide on relative and not scientific truth,Their processes have absolutely nothing to do with the scientific methods and their decisions are opinion and not fact

 

[eric_s]

Eric. I am no scientist, but IMO, I think you might be mistaken there?

Please clarify where you think i'm mistaken. Thanks.

 

[eric_s]

Yes I have studied Law too.Law is not a science>juristic thinking is the opposite of scientific thinking.If you cant tell the difference between expansionist thinking(Law) and reductionist thinking(Science).then that would explain the content of your posts.One of the legal maxims is that a court of law is no place to determine matters of science.What jurors actually do is choose between to competing opinions having no scientific experise at all using their logical subjectivity to decide on relative and not scientific truth,Their processes have absolutely nothing to do with the scientific methods and their decisions are opinion and not fact

LOL. You know what? In my language it's actually called "Rechtswissenschaft", which means "the science of law". It's ridiculous not to call it a science. What else is not a science? Mathematics? Economics? Science or not? Philosophy? Science or not? History? Etc. I've never before heard anyone deny that those are sciences. It might be a language issue though. Maybe you only call science what we call "sciences of nature", roughly translated.
Science, as for example in the definition used when working on a case in the area of constitutional law is
"research and doctrine".
I agree on what you said about a judge not determining matters of science. That's exactly the way i have argued. I did not say that i could actually determine myself wheter the hypothesis you've made was correct or not. Right? But i've tried to use logic to get to an assessment wheter it's likely to be true or not. And i'm ready to have a scientist give his opinion on that hypothesis and then accept that. If it's someone trustworthy.
Same here as in the other thread. That was my last comment on this.

 

[Martlet]

Stop that "crocodile's tears" sh.. I don't care about you, don't worry. But i won't accept anyone implying i am not honest here.

Moderator note: That's enough, Eric. You are getting far too personal. No matter what the perceived provocation, this is not the way to address another member.