"...pathogenic viruses are REAL..."
I have to point out that you're not acknowledging the opportunistic nature of living things if you completely deny that pathogens exist in every form that can be pathogenic. Do take care to be aware of your biases. It isn't necessary to believe the polio virus was the sole cause of symptoms of polio to grant that there is a pathogen that causes those symptoms. The fact that DDT causes those symptoms doesn't mean some, or several, pathogens don't. There are various causes of AIDS that have been proven since the 19th Century, malnutrition, foreign DNA in our blood, certain chemicals, like vinyl nitrite, vaccines, and etc, but that neither proves nor disproves some virus from Green Monkeys does or doesn't cause AIDS too.
The base condition is nescience. Learning that Bob steals money and becoming secure from Bob's larcenous actions doesn't make your money safe, because you don't know that no one else steals money. We need to acknowledge we cannot be sure we know all possible mechanisms of action regarding anything, and that certainly includes virii. The basic premise of pathogenic virii is sound, and it is consilient with living systems. That should give us pause before we dismiss the entire concept of pathogenic virii out of hand.
IMHO, doing so is contrary to observed natural mechanisms. Were there no pathogenic virii, that would be inconsistent with what we observe living things do at every scale, from banks stealing from us by fraud, to anemones eating plankton. Note that nothing I've said is support for any particular claim of viral disease. I have given specific examples where false claims confound the theory of pathogenic virii, that neither is that confounding evidence that virii don't cause disease.
I appreciate good information, and I'll watch Dr. Willner's presentation with that mindset. I hope you take this comment the same way, so you are not deceived and lulled into a false sense of security regarding real risks. BTW, not until just now did I realize that this video had anything to do with AIDS, so my above remarks were prior to that realization.
I have heard about half of his presentation, and find some strong disagreement with some of his statements, which I consider irrational. He presumes that because he has knowledge of some causes of AIDS, no other causes can exist, and this - however much he believes it to be true - isn't demonstrable.
Thanks!
i always welcome you keeping me on my toes and i expect nothing less from someone devoted to truthseeking and kindness.
poisons do exist. things that kill living cells do exist, like alcohol, antibiotics or even other predatory observable living organisms like parasites. i saw some myself. i know they are real.
the claim however that there are invisible things entering our body to reprogram our cells and turn our own body against itself... is nothing but an unproven assumption to me at this point, meaning until i see evidence that convinces me otherwise.
i will always be open, much like with the shape of the earth or any other '"controversial" topic - i have no preference and do not care one way or another. i just want to hear the best evidence for and against - and the evidence FOR the existence of pathogenic viruses is about as flimsy as for other topics everybody deems super certain. which simply should not be the case if this topic was indeed as certain as everybody makes it out to be.
i have no hesitation changing my mind, and i do not fear being wrong, i welcome it. the faster i can hear that point noone mentioned to me before - the point that proves it beyond doubt - the faster i can go back doing other things.
which is why i value having aware people around me that can point out what they see, to me - like you often do.
but apart from the religious invoking of scientific consensus, pointing to cgi generated graphics of "the covid virus" or dodgy comparisons of the theoretical virus model with real, physical and observable predators in a forest that hunt for prey i have heard a better case against it than for it.
that may yet change though, however the likelihood for that happening is dropping every day.
what i do care about is not giving a theory this default legitimacy just because we grew up believing it. it assumes there is this mountain of supporting evidence which when i look into it is not only wrong, but i find the opposite is the case.
not sure i can ever know for sure but considering what i have seen and weighed, the evidence for the existence of microviological dna altering microorganisms that travel freely between hosts to turn their own bodies against themselves... is nowhere near convincing at this point.
i sometimes hope i can be convinced otherwise because it would have some far reaching implications. that said the covid times have not made the virus case any stronger and i have been living without the fear of invisible infection agents that want to invade and attack me - for more than a decade now, with great satisfaction.
my gratitude to you for sharing your thoughts with me
In fact everything is a poison - at the right dose. Too much water kills people by causing hydrolysis. Too much O2 causes people to spontaneously combust.
My point about consilience suggesting that viruses do exist should be carefully considered. I once spoke to Carlos Santana on social media. I pointed out that life was an act of war. Every blade of grass is locked in a fight to the death with every other blade of grass for nutrients, light, water, and space, even blades of grass on the same plant. Every living thing feeds either on the living or the dead. After ~4B years of opportunities being taken advantage of every possible mechanism that could exist has arisen, and that includes snippets of genetic code that cause themselves to be replicated by organisms, which is all virii are. Carlos pointed out that of all living things, only we can make peace, and he reckoned that's why we are here. Changed my life.
Were there no such things as virii, CRISPR would not exist, because CRISPR is a mechanism taken from bacteria that cuts such genetic code out of their DNA. The preponderance of circumstantial evidence, such as the existence of thousands of different CRISPR mechansims in a wide variety of bacteria, strongly suggests that viruses are an actual thing. This isn't a comment about HIV or SARS2 virii in particular, and some fraud or another being perpetrated is not everything in that field being proved a fraud. Lots of people are perfectly happy with their banks, despite we know that banks commit frauds all the time, and I won't even use them.
I am glad you keep an open mind. That is how to become right when we are wrong, and like you I share that desire to be proved wrong, because if I'm wrong I want very much to find out so I can stop being wrong. The majority of claims that viruses don't exist say that they've never been isolated in the lab, or been proven to replicate, etc. These are problematic with parasitic mechanisms as small as viruses to achieve, and our incompetence to provide such evidence doesn't mean that such things don't exist.
I am not betting my life that viruses exist, but I strongly suspect they do, because such a parasitic mechanism has to have arisen after ~4B years of genetic stews globerating in slimy potholes. Biology is just that complex. I'm more certain fraud exists, because I have seen that pack my fudge. When I got Chicken Pox, or the Mumps, all I know is that I was sick, and I couldn't see the little buggers causing me misery, unlike evil banks.