From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest)
To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org
Subject: fegmaniax-digest V19 #58
Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org
Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org
Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org
Precedence: bulk


fegmaniax-digest        Thursday, July 28 2011        Volume 19 : Number 058



                               Today's Subjects:
                               -----------------
  Re: For What It Is Worth               [Stewart Russell <scruss@gmail.com>]
  RE: For What It Is Worth                 ["Marc" <malberts1@earthlink.net>]
  Re: For What It Is Worth        ["Eddie Tews" <eddie@durianapocalypse.net>]
  RE: For What It Is Worth                 ["Marc" <malberts1@earthlink.net>]
  Re: For What It Is Worth        ["Eddie Tews" <eddie@durianapocalypse.net>]
  RE: For What It Is Worth                 ["Marc" <malberts1@earthlink.net>]
  Fwd: NEW on DIME: Robyn Hitchcock - 1988-07-31 - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA (AUD)  [lep <]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:10:26 -0400
From: Stewart Russell <scruss@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: For What It Is Worth

On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 3:07 PM, Eddie Tews <eddie@durianapocalypse.net> wrote:
> <URL:http://www.naturalnews.com/022332_disease_medicine_germs.html>.

If there's one thing that we /can/ agree on, it's that Mike Adams
probably shouldn't ever be a rapper:
<http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/an_antivaccine_rap_by_a_rapping_health_r.php>

 Stewart

- -- 
http://scruss.com/blog/ - 73 de VA3PID

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:58:18 -0400
From: "Marc" <malberts1@earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: For What It Is Worth

For what it's worth, nearly everything Mike Adams promotes is covered at
http://www.whatstheharm.net/.  

Oh, and he's a grade-A crackpot that believes, among other things, the 9-11
Truth movement, that "there is a strong correlation between Gaga fans and
unwanted teen pregnancies" in part because Gaga is a Satanic
witchcraft-practicing  necro-worshiper (no, I'm not making this up), that
food irradiation is literally an a policy of genocide, that The Secret is
something other than silly claptrap that taken to its logical conclusion
blames the victims for any adverse thing that happens to you, that the
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics is essentially a gag order
prohibiting scientists from talking about philosophical topics, that
"Feminism is a minority social movement, whose members murder innocent
children in order to obtain sexual gratification," that the principle of
astrology has been proven to be scientific, and that there is a conspiracy
to suppress the truth of cold fusion.  In other words, there is every reason
that nothing Mike Adams ever says should be taken uncritically as having any
relation to reality.  

Eddie wrote:
<URL:http://www.naturalnews.com/022332_disease_medicine_germs.html>.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:41:56 -0700
From: "Eddie Tews" <eddie@durianapocalypse.net>
Subject: Re: For What It Is Worth

<In other words, there is every reason that nothing Mike Adams ever says 
should be taken uncritically as having any
relation to reality.>

i don't know anything about mike adams -- not the author of this piece, as 
it happens -- but i don't think anything anybody says should be accepted 
uncritically.  that's why we have science, n'est pas?  we can *test* 
hypotheses.

i personally think the piece linked to is a pretty good first step, in point 
of fact, in thinking critically about received wisdom in re this particular 
topic.  but it's only just that: a first step.  the author recommends some 
sources, should one wish to take a second step.  that's really about all one 
could ask for a thousand-word essay, methinks.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 22:14:02 -0400
From: "Marc" <malberts1@earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: For What It Is Worth

Eddie wrote:
<<<In other words, there is every reason that nothing Mike Adams ever says
should be taken uncritically as having any relation to reality.>

i don't know anything about mike adams -- not the author of this piece, as
it happens -- but i don't think anything anybody says should be accepted
uncritically.  that's why we have science, n'est pas?  we can *test*
hypotheses.>>>

Mike Adams is Natural News.  Everything on there is on there because he
allows it and edits it.  

<<<i personally think the piece linked to is a pretty good first step, in
point of fact, in thinking critically about received wisdom in re this
particular topic.  but it's only just that: a first step.  the author
recommends some sources, should one wish to take a second step.  that's
really about all one could ask for a thousand-word essay, methinks.>>>

Except that this article isn't a good first step.  It's a collection of
misrepresentations, logical fallacies, and outright misrepresentations.
Here's a quick fisking (compressing the quotes into single paragraph form
where applicable to ensure my writing is separated from what the article
states):

  " Modern medicine is firmly founded on the "Germ Theory of Disease"
promulgated by Louis Pasteur in the 1860's. Pasteur's 140-year-old theory is
still the medical paradigm upon which Western medicine fights disease as we
enter the 21st century.  But with a huge increase today in infectious
diseases and the rapidly rising epidemic of cancer, diabetes, heart disease
and other chronic illnesses; we have to wonder if Pasteur's theory is really
that sound."

Nice if you wish to misrepresent your enemy, but not factually sound.
Modern infectious disease theory is founded on Pasteur.  Cancer, however, is
not generally thought to rest on germ theory and suggesting that it and
other chronic illnesses do is a complete misrepresentation of what modern
medicine states.  Not a good first step, if you consider the first two
paragraphs the first step.

" Consider this alarming statistic from a report commissioned by the
Nutrition Institute of America in October, 2003: 2.2 million hospital
patients suffer Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) to prescribed medicine each
year leading to the deaths of 106,000 people. In other words, over 2,000
Americans die each week from properly prescribed medicine in properly
prescribed doses."

This may be true, but it is a non-sequitor.  Drugs are given for conditions
other than infectious diseases.  These stats are about 4x higher than the
government statistics
(http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Surveillan
ce/AdverseDrugEffects/ucm070461.htm), so you have to wonder what this
uncited source is that leads to such an unflattering portrayal.  Plus, it is
certainly worth keeping in mind that this sort of statistics is misleading
by design.  Notice what is missing?  That's right--how many of these people
would have died if they weren't prescribed medicine?   So you have a
situation where you greatly inflate bad outcomes and completely bury
positive outcomes, so really how critically does the author want you to
think about this issue?  Clearly not too critically--this is polemic and
nothing more.

" This is a serious indictment of pharmaceutical medicine which is
inextricably based on Pasteur's germ theory."

Let me see if I can understand the logic here:  

1) the practice of medicine prescribes drugs
2) people sometimes have bad reactions to drugs
3) this is a problem with pharmaceutical medicine
4) therefore Pasteur's theory should be tossed out the window

Aside from the issue of a false premise (that all or even most of the
adverse reactions could have been foreseen or that the patients would have
been alive to have an ADR if they hadn't been prescribed medicines in the
first place), the conclusion does not follow.  The proper conclusion here is
that scientific medicine needs to do more to understand adverse drug
reactions.  The conclusion the author reaches, however, seems to be based on
the premise that the law of large numbers doesn't exist and the kinds of
inflated ADR stats they provide no one with a germ-based disease could have
possibly been helped by the medications they received.  This, of course, is
something that they would need serious research citations in order to
demonstrate.  They lack these entirely, so this is just slinging mud and
hoping it sticks.

Skipping a bit here....

" However, Koch had to abandon part of his first postulate when he
discovered that healthy people could carry the germs of certain diseases and
yet show no symptoms. He also had to revise his third postulate when it was
shown that some people could be exposed to virulent germs yet not catch the
disease."

While both of these have a germ (pardon the pun) of truth, they are used
here to mislead.  Koch did abandon the first postulate, but this is actually
a strength of scientific medicine.  The theory is modified to fit empirical
evidence, and the fact that sub-clinical carriers exist for certain diseases
had to be accounted for.  Therefore, Koch abandoned a part of his theory
that did not fit facts.  His third postulate specifies "should," not "must,"
and does hold currently for most germ-based diseases.  

" The "proofs" of the new Germ Theory were already showing flaws."

Nice rhetorical trick here, but as I stated above the strength of scientific
medicine is that the theories are only as good as the evidence, and if
improved evidence requires revising the theory you do so objectively.  The
author instead begs the question--if the theory were showing flaws, what
replaced it?  Certainly not a non-germ theory of disease.  In fact, many
argue that the mistake of scientific medicine was to hold too closely to
Koch's Postulates too long, thus stunting the early growth of the field of
virology since many diseases are extremely hard or impossible to culture (a
requirement of Koch).  As they moved away from using Koch as the only
standard for cause of infection, the scientists found the evidence
strengthened the case for a germ-based theory of disease (if you expand the
definition to include viruses, naturally).

" Still, despite being highly controversial in the late 1800s, the Germ
Theory was quickly adopted by the medical powers of the day. This new theory
about germs invading from outside the body empowered the medical and
pharmaceutical industry as guardians of human and animal health. People
became dependent on the fledgling medical/drugs industry for information and
protection from disease. Thus, Modern Medicine was born."

Controversial to whom?  The competing theory prominent in the 19th century
was the miasma theory of disease, which was proven to be unfounded by John
Snow in 1854.  Work by him, Semmelweis, Fracastoro, Bassi, Henle and others
prior to Pasteur set the stage for an actor-based theory of disease, even if
bacteria and viruses were not specifically implicated until later years.
This really is a false controversy:  the author doesn't like the conclusions
of modern medicine that the germ theory of disease is valid, so they pick at
things that were postulated (and abandoned as evidence demonstrated it
should be) more than 100 years ago.  They then essentially state "this is
what modern science still believes" and proceed to ignore the fact that in
the intervening 100+ years average life expectancy has improved about 130%
thanks in large part to a strengthening of ties of modern medicine to the
germ theory.   Once again--this isn't a good first step, and this isn't
critical.  This is having an axe to grind and proceeding to grind it,
regardless of whether or not your axe is getting any sharper.  They then
follow up with the emotionally loaded term "dependent," ignoring the fact
that those folks who couldn't be dependent on the pharmaceutical industry
because they came about prior to the germ theory and its subsequent
improvements generally died due to their lack of dependency. 

Just to make this point abundantly clear--this is not a scientific
controversy.  This is a controversy only because certain people want to
believe in magic beans, pixie dust and the naturalist fallacy and thus spin
like crazy to make a case that you should follow their lead and ignore what
science has demonstated.  It might not be Mike Adams who wrote this, but
this is what Adams does time and time again and time and time again he's
off-base. 

" A number of eminent scientists opposed Pasteur and The Germ Theory, most
notably the highly respected Professor Antoine Bichamp. Bichamp was a
reserved, modest man and a much more distinguished scientist than the
self-promoting chemist, Louis Pasteur. (It is believed today that Pasteur
stole much of Bichamp's work and passed it off as his own. This prompted
R.B. Pearson to write a book in the 1940s called "Pasteur, Plagiarist,
Imposter.")  See text at (http://www.whale.to/a/b/pearson.html)"

Bechamp was a highly respected professor who was proven wrong in his idea
that bacteria were essentially the result of spontaneous generation caused
by the disease, rather than the cause of the disease itself.  Pasteur may
have been a bastard, but he demonstrated beyond a doubt that spontaneous
generation such as Bechamp argued was incorrect.  It should be noted that
Bechamp was a good scientist and had a number of good points and ideas, but
this does not prove Pasteur was wrong on this one key point.  This is the
thing that makes science different from politics--the personalities are not
an argument for or against a theory, but rather the evidence proves the
theory.

Skipping the Ph stuff for the most part.  Even if this article were correct,
it would only prove that germs need certain conditions to cause full-blown
disease, not that germs are not the cause of disease.  Also, the Pasteur
death-bed quote has been demonstrated as false by others:
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/pasteur.htm is a good source.

I'm going to stop here as the rest is just an exposition on the Bechamp
theme and previous arguments fisked above.  Basically, this isn't a good
first step.  It's simply a rehash of a large number of similar arguments
that have been forwarded on the subject, all with equally faulty footing.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:57:35 -0700
From: "Eddie Tews" <eddie@durianapocalypse.net>
Subject: Re: For What It Is Worth

<Koch did abandon the first postulate, but this is actually
a strength of scientific medicine.  The theory is modified to fit empirical
evidence, and the fact that sub-clinical carriers exist for certain diseases
had to be accounted for.  Therefore, Koch abandoned a part of his theory
that did not fit facts.  His third postulate specifies "should," not "must,"
and does hold currently for most germ-based diseases.>

well, but (as we've been through ad nauseum), the postulates, as originally 
formulated, were logical necessity.  in other words, if they're abandoned, 
the theory falls apart.  it's just logic.  and the *reason* they were 
abandoned was because they weren't holding empirically.

great, except that the theory is still considered valid, because, according 
to the postulates' wikipedia entry, "a body of evidence that satisfies 
Koch's postulates is sufficient but not necessary to establish causation." 
but it *is* necessary.  that's what science *is*.

well, whatever.  i wasn't trying to raise a whole big ruckus again (though i 
can certainly forgive anybody for not believing that...)  you continue to 
eat your drugs; i'll continue to eat my raw fruit and veggies -- and i 
expect we'll both be happy with our respective decisions.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 05:59:56 -0400
From: "Marc" <malberts1@earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: For What It Is Worth

Eddie wrote:
<<well, but (as we've been through ad nauseum), the postulates, as
originally formulated, were logical necessity.  in other words, if they're
abandoned, the theory falls apart.  it's just logic.  and the *reason* they
were abandoned was because they weren't holding empirically.

great, except that the theory is still considered valid, because, according
to the postulates' wikipedia entry, "a body of evidence that satisfies
Koch's postulates is sufficient but not necessary to establish causation." 
but it *is* necessary.  that's what science *is*.>>

Um, no it isn't.  I'm not sure where you got that idea, but that is more
like what high school debate is than science.  Science is about constantly
testing and retesting your hypotheses and considering any postulate or
theory true only provisionally and until you can further refine it.  I
believe you are caricaturing science here as a sort of system where once you
establish something you're done--it must stand exactly as you originally
envisioned it or the theory is false.  This is clearly not how scientists
view science, as if it were they would figure out things once and be done
with the field.  You are requiring here that when something is initially
discovered that it be discovered in whole cloth and any modification of the
discovery renders the whole theory invalid.  Neat and tidy, but if it really
worked the way this article and you are characterizing it we'd have revert
back to teacingh kids that a force is required to maintain motion per
Aristotle since relativity removed key planks of the Newtonian theory of
gravity.  Instead, the way science treated the question (and what took
Einstein so much time in his work) was that if you found something Newtonian
theory didn't properly address you had to explain that anomaly while still
explaining everything that Newton saw as well since the evidence backing
Newton in the macro world was so strong and abundant.  The same is true with
Koch's postulates.  While they present a framework that can be used, there
are other lines of evidence that exist that can be used as well to prove
disease causation.  

So what you're stuck with is that for you to toss out Pasteur, you not only
have to explain everything the germ theory explains but you have to be more
successful at doing so.  Perfection is not expected, but continual testing
and refinement is.  So when Koch's theory was found incomplete, science did
what science does and they took what was useful (as they did with Newtonian
physics at the macro level) and refined it where it needed to be refined.
And supporting lines of evidence are welcome (such as Lister's work with
sterilization, which although it wasn't a direct test of germ theory did
demonstrate that if you killed germs on surgical instruments then patients
got infected less, something that would be a humungous threat to Bechamp's
pleomorphic theory, or the fact that treatment of germs by modern medicine
changes infectious disease from the cause of nearly 60% of deaths in the
mid-1850s to less than 10% today). This is really how science works.

Now in the Natural News world, this would mean that because not all
conditions could be met 100% of the time that in fact oil dirtiness never,
ever affected an engine or caused any problems.  Instead, dirty oil must be
caused by 

<<well, whatever.  i wasn't trying to raise a whole big ruckus again (though
i can certainly forgive anybody for not believing that...)  you continue to
eat your drugs; i'll continue to eat my raw fruit and veggies -- and i
expect we'll both be happy with our respective decisions...>>

I'm perfectly willing to believe you when you say this wasn't your intent,
Eddie.  But seriously--posting anything from a site like this or Whale.to is
practically an invitation for a slapdown since their caricatures of
scientific medicine are so wrong-headed and dangerous.  No one on the
scientific medicine side would ever suggest that eating fruits and veggies
is a bad thing.  In fact, scientific medicine has tested and retested the
hypothesis that fruits and veggies are good for you, and they found that
they are.  What they haven't found, however, is that just eating them will
keep you from getting an infection.  So what you have is a germ of truth
(fruits and veggies good!) followed with a whole lot of hand-waving to
suggest all the heaping mounds of scientific evidence demonstrating the
basic idea that germs can cause disease is a load of rubbish.  My objection
here is that sites like these take the good and then use it to spin the bad,
and that people who would otherwise have very treatable conditions are
harmed because they do things like take extra Vitamin D when they're
diagnosed with breast cancer and they die from it.  Or they treat their
infant's eczema with homeopathy (which, if you aren't aware, is little more
than magic water even including a little ritual to imbue the water with the
magic "memory") when there are easily available treatments known to be
effective, and the child dies while the parents are sent to prison for abuse
and neglect.  

I certainly hope that you're lucky and you don't catch anything nasty out
there.  I also think it's great that you enjoy healthy veggies and fruits,
as they are demonstrably full of vitamins and minerals (lots of debate on
raw foodism however, as many vitamins and minerals are only accessible when
cell membranes break down with heat, but that's a different subject).  But
what I don't like and what I hope you're taking away as my position here is
that it seems people on the alt-med side (not necessarily you--I don't know
one way or another here) seem to only be able to justify their alt-medisms
by mischaracterizing the scientific method, scientific evidence, and other
aspects of how medicine works, and this nothing but spin.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:15:28 -0400
From: lep <softboygirl@gmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: NEW on DIME: Robyn Hitchcock - 1988-07-31 - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA (AUD)

- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: DIME <dimebot-31@dimeadozen.org>
Date: Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 12:29 PM
Subject: NEW on DIME: Robyn Hitchcock - 1988-07-31 - McCabe's Guitar
Shop, Santa Monica, CA (AUD)
To: DIME <dimebot-31@dimeadozen.org>



A new torrent has been uploaded to DIME.

Torrent: 366874
Title: Robyn Hitchcock - 1988-07-31 - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa
Monica, CA (AUD)
Size: 320.06 MB
Category: Rock'n'Roll
Uploaded by: artokosan

Info hash: 5565edb9fd11aa7c8b60a1c5fc257b6af767654f

Description
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robyn Hitchcock
McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA
July 31, 1988

Source: Audience recording
Transfer: Cassette acquired in trade (unknown gen) > Technics RS-T55R
> Behringer UFO202 > USB > Audacity 1.3 > TLH
Taper: Unknown

Setlist:

01 - Intro
02 - Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl
03 - St. Petersburg
04 - Intro to One Long Pair of Eyes
05 - One Long Pair Of Eyes
06 - Singing as a Mime
07 - Veins of the Queen
08 - Intro to Winter Love
09 - Winter Love
10 - I Got The Hots
11 - Intro to Raymond Chandler Evening
12 - Raymond Chandler Evening
13 - Listening To The Higsons (false start)
14 - Listening To The Higsons
15 - Intro to Ted Woody and Junior
16 - Ted Woody and Junior
17 - Intro to Legalized Murder (cuts in)
18 - Legalized Mureder
19 - Mr. Rock-n-Roll
20 - My Wife and My Dead Wife
21 - Tuning-Intro to Glass
22 - Glass
23 - I've Got A Message For You
24 - My Favorite Buildings
25 - Too Much Of Nothing (false start)
26 - Too Much of Nothing

Notes: Solo acoustic show. It's a pretty good show, decent sound, lots
of audinece interaction (someimes a bit too much input from the
audience). A very interesting setlist, one of my favorite mix of
songs. I don't know what generation my copy of the tape is, but I'm
guessing it's low since the tape hiss isn't too bad. Raw transfer from
tape, No EQ. Feel free to tweak for your own enjoyment, but please
only trade this source.

Transferred by artokosan

*** DO NOT DISTRIBUTE IN LOSSY FORMATS. DO NOT SELL THIS RECORDING,
TRADE IT FREELY ***
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use the URL below to download the torrent (you may have to login).

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=366874&hit=1

Take care!

dimeadozen.org


### Mail queued to EzTorrent v0.6.5r383 async outbound mailer on
2011-07-27 at 16:27:18 GMT
### Mail forwarded to MTA by EzTorrent v0.6.5r383 async outbound
mailer on 2011-07-27 at 16:29:03 GMT



- -- 
"people with opinions just go around bothering one another."  -- the buddha

------------------------------

End of fegmaniax-digest V19 #58
*******************************