Infectious disease, including TB

[Henery]

No doubt Wantling will be along soon to tell us the case is another conspiracy against the "free thinkers" who will save the world from desease, .... just not yet
I've been following this thread and it's great credit to the Ag industry that this , clearly deluded , person has been given such a polite hearing.

Prepare for another screed of rambling fact free conscience

 

[Muck Spreader]

Made me think of you @john.wantling , not sure why.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38650739

It just makes me very angry when I read about these snake oil peddlers and the lies and deceit they put forward to steal money from desperate people.

 

[john.wantling]

Waiting!

In the Thornbury trial in the 1970's MAFF did the Tb equivalent of removing the handle from the Broad Street pump, they removed Badgers from the area and with it the source of the Tb bacteria. Cattle in the area stayed clear of Tb all the while there were no Badgers.
What do you think of that then John?

topground, your thoughts mean nothing simply because TB isnt an environmental (outside-in) process. Once again, we are on the wrong train heading into the wrong direction. Also, how do we test for TB, taking into consideration that we dont have a test. Who says that cattle stayed clear of TB? Was this just politics or wishful thinking? I would suggest that believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. As I repeat, when you understand that TB is an inside-out process, all this talk about infectious can be totally discarded. John Wantling, Rochdale

 

[JJT]

In the Thornbury trial in the 1970's MAFF did the Tb equivalent of removing the handle from the Broad Street pump, they removed Badgers from the area and with it the source of the Tb bacteria. Cattle in the area stayed clear of Tb all the while there were no Badgers.
What do you think of that then John?

topground, your thoughts mean nothing simply because TB isnt an environmental (outside-in) process. Once again, we are on the wrong train heading into the wrong direction. Also, how do we test for TB, taking into consideration that we dont have a test. Who says that cattle stayed clear of TB? Was this just politics or wishful thinking? I would suggest that believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. As I repeat, when you understand that TB is an inside-out process, all this talk about infectious can be totally discarded. John Wantling, Rochdale

So if it's an "inside-out" process, what causes it to "come out"?

 

[john.wantling]

But she did not say this in any shape or form. She was meticulous in her demand for hygiene and sterilising everything as she had heard of this Read through this
Florence-nightingale-avenging--angel.co.uk

Well, it's in the 'Medical Detective' book and it's also in the 'Notes on Hospitals' book by Florence Nightingale herself, so it seems that she did say it. Hygiene isnt the main issue, it is the theory of catching a disease from another. When we talk about 'infection'. we usually translate this into the 'catching' of disease, but I suppose that it can also mean cells infecting other cells inside of the body. It's easy to get the two mixed up. I have emailed Hugh Small about this. See what he says. John Wantling, Rochdale

 

[john.wantling]

So if it's an "inside-out" process, what causes it to "come out"?

Professor Bechamp explained this - a metamorphosis. The bacteria feeding off the filth and also a product of the filth, but we can also replace the word ''filth' with poison. There must be filth to begin with, and then comes the TB as a self-defensive mechanism. One we understand this metamorphosis, we no longer need to think in terms of an 'infectious' process unless we change the word 'infectious' and replace it with poison. John Wantling, Rochdale
Dr Robert Young Germs

 

[JJT]

Professor Bechamp explained this - a metamorphosis. The bacteria feeding off the filth and also a product of the filth, but we can also replace the word ''filth' with poison. There must be filth to begin with, and then comes the TB as a self-defensive mechanism. One we understand this metamorphosis, we no longer need to think in terms of an 'infectious' process unless we change the word 'infectious' and replace it with poison. John Wantling, Rochdale
Dr Robert Young Germs

So it IS actually an "outside-in" process. The "poison" from the outside goes in causing the tb to "come out". I suppose one possible poison could be some sort of biological agent, I don't know, maybe a bacterium? Maybe this bacterium could be carried around by other animals and left ready for cattle to be "poisoned" by it.... who knows.....

 

[john.wantling]

No doubt Wantling will be along soon to tell us the case is another conspiracy against the "free thinkers" who will save the world from disease, .... just not yet
I've been following this thread and it's great credit to the Ag industry that this , clearly deluded , person has been given such a polite hearing.

Prepare for another screed of rambling fact free conscience

Henery, we are raised within the confines of a distorted reality, such as TB being an 'infectious' disease. This we call truth. This then forms our mindset, which is easily explained. I was in conversation with Jim West, a critical thinker from the US, who said that we are 'afraid of being politically irrelevant', whilst at the same time we are imprisoned by this robotic mind-set, which we repeat endlessly. We also find comfort within the confines of the herd (Farmers Forum) where we find a sense of security through our belief in the myth of infectious disease. This is our home, and so by default we must support it. This is similar to religious faith. We can see this very clearly as no one wants to debate - we all want to defend. It’s a taboo to venture outside this defensive (political) box. The scientific experiment has failed (mode of transmission unknown) but regardless of this fact, we still believe in transmission. This is all very odd, to say the very least. Some folk on this thread say that they side with the science, but at the same time they defend an experiment that has failed. Like Dave Murphy once said, we have theories, and we also have direct perception. If we dont have direct perception, then we depend on theory alone, but that is a fatal error. Look at it this way, I have a theory that I can cross a busy main road without looking. My personal perception or experience tells me to look both ways, but the 'science' says that we dont need to look. Sadly, I get run over if I side with the science, but we are under so much pressure to side with the science, which of course is theoretical, just like infectious TB. John Wantling, Rochdale

 

[john.wantling]

No,John, the reason we can't accept what you're saying is down to the fact you are talking out of your arse.
Have you requested professional help yet?

Storeman, look at this issue simply. Either TB is an inside-out process or an outside-in process. I claim that the outside-in process is wrong, that we are focusing on the wrong environmental bacteria. This is so obvious, at least as far as I am concerned, that it goes without saying. The issue is that we are so conditioned by infectious politics that the mind is set in stone. We then defend our psychological condition, which is political. We find it incomprehensible that the science or the politics can be wrong, regardless that we are left with a failed scientific experiment. When the experiment fails (mode of transmission unknown), this is telling us something, but we simply dont want to hear it. That is a big problem. If TB is an inside-out process, then those who think that it is an outside-in process must be wrong. It is as simple as that. The problem is that if this was proved that TB was not infectious, you still would not accept it. John Wantling, Rochdale

 

[milkloss]

Quite a good article I thought:

Playing by the Rules

• Harriet Hall
  Skeptical Inquirer Volume 33.3, May / June 2009
  
  It is useless for skeptics to argue with someone who doesn’t play by the rules of science and reason.
  
  If no amount of evidence will change your opponent’s mind, you are wasting your breath.
  
  I recently read Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny (Barrett Brown and Jon P. Alston, Cambridge House Press, New York, 2007, no relation to the movie Flock of Dodos). It’s a hilarious, no-holds-barred send-up of the lies and poor reasoning employed by the intelligent design movement. I was particularly struck by a quotation from William Dembski’s book Intelligent Design: “We are dealing here with something more than a straightforward determination of scientific facts or confirmation of scientific theories. Rather we are dealing with competing world-views and incompatible metaphysical systems.”
  
  That doesn’t just apply to intelligent design. It cuts to the essence of what skeptics encounter on every front, from
  
  dowsing to homeopathy, from ESP to therapeutic touch. We are trying to evaluate the science behind claims that are often not based on science but on beliefs that are incompatible with science. The claimants are happy to use science when it supports them, but when it doesn’t they are likely to unfairly critique the science or even to dismiss the entire scientific enterprise as a “materialistic worldview” or “closed-minded.” We are talking at cross purposes. How can we communicate if we say “this variety of apple is red,” and they insist “it feels green to me”?
  
  We get frustrated when we show these folks the scientific evidence and they refuse to accept it. Dowsing fails all tests, but dowsers “know” from personal experience that it works for them. Homeopathy is not only implausible, but it has been tested and has failed the tests. Yet proponents refuse to acknowledge those failures and still want to talk about data from the nineteenth century and make claims for the memory of water. We have to realize we are not even speaking the same language. We are trying to play a civilized game of gin rummy, and they are dribbling a basketball all over the card table. Before competing, doesn’t it make sense to define what game you’re playing and what the rules are?
  
  Before arguing with a mathematician about the solution to a geometry problem, it’s essential to establish whether he is following the rules of Euclidean geometry, where parallel lines never cross, or non-Euclidean geometry, where they sometimes do.
  
  Science has been a very successful self-correcting group endeavor. It wouldn’t be successful if it didn’t follow a strict set of rules designed to avoid errors. (Note: there are no rules written in stone; I’m talking about conventions that are generally understood and accepted by scientists, conventions that grow naturally out of reason and critical thinking.) If proponents of intelligent design or alternative medicine want to play the science game, they ought to play by the rules. If they won’t play by the rules, they effectively take themselves out of the scientific arena and into the metaphysical arena. In that case, it is useless for us to talk to them about science.
  
  If you want to play the science game, here’s what you do:
  
  1. Submit your hypothesis to proper testing. Testimonials, intuitions, personal experience, and “other ways of knowing” don’t count.
  2. See if you can falsify the hypothesis.
  3. Try to rule out alternative explanations and confounding factors.
  4. Report your findings in journal articles submitted to peer review.
  5. Allow the scientific community to critique the published evidence and engage in dialogue and debate.
  6. Withhold judgment until your results can be replicated elsewhere.
  7. Respect the consensus of the majority of the scientific community as to whether your hypothesis is probably true or false (always allowing for revision based on further evidence).
  8. Be willing to follow the evidence and admit you are wrong if that’s what the evidence says.
  If you want to play the science game, here are some of the things you don’t do:
  
  1. Accuse the entire scientific community of being wrong (unless you have compelling evidence, in which case you should argue for it in the scientific journals and at professional meetings, not in the media).
  2. Design poor-quality experiments that are almost guaranteed to show your hypothesis is true whether it really is or not. Use science to show that your treatment works, not to ask if it works.
  3. Keep using arguments that have been thoroughly discredited. (The intelligent design folks are still claiming the eye could not have evolved because it is irreducibly complex; homeopaths are still claiming homeopathy cured more patients than conventional medicine during nineteenth-century epidemics).
  4. Write books for the general public to promote your thesis—as if public opinion could influence science!
  5. Form an activist organization to promote your beliefs.
  6. Step outside the scientific paradigm and appeal to intuition and belief.
  7. Mention the persecution of Galileo and compare yourself to him.
  8. Invent a conspiracy theory (Big Pharma is suppressing the truth!).
  9. Claim to be a lone genius who knows more than all scientists put together.
  10. Offer a treatment to the public after only the most preliminary studies have been conducted.
  11. Set up a Web site to sell products that are not backed by good evidence.
  12. Refuse to admit when your hypothesis is proven wrong.
  Changing Our Minds
  Scientists will change their minds when the evidence warrants. Before we waste time arguing, one thing we can do is ask our opponents what it would take to change their minds. One woman I asked said no amount of evidence could change her mind because she knew from personal experience that her claim was true, so any evidence that said otherwise would have to be false and fabricated. End of discussion. She’s out of the game.
  
  The rules of science are pretty clear about what it takes to change our minds. I’ll use the example of Helicobacter and ulcers. We used to think that stress and too much stomach acid caused ulcers; now we think a bacterium causes ulcers. Here’s a summary of why we changed our minds:
  
  1. Scientists noticed bacteria in biopsy samples from ulcers.
  2. They identified the bacteria as Helicobacter pylori.
  3. They found a strong correlation between ulcers and the presence of the bacteria.
  4. One of the researchers, who was healthy and not a Helicobacter carrier, was able to induce an ulcer in himself by ingesting the bacteria.
  5. They found that treating patients with antibiotics cured ulcers.
  6. They found that antibiotics were superior to previous ulcer treatments.
  7. The studies were replicated and conducted in different ways that corroborated each other.
  8. The bacterial hypothesis was not inconsistent with the rest of scientific knowledge.
  If we had the same quantity and quality of evidence for homeopathy, we’d gladly accept it. In fact, if the evidence met criteria 1 through 7, we’d provisionally accept it while we kept checking the data and tried like crazy to figure out the mechanism behind homeopathy. (For more on this, see “Bacteria, Ulcers, and Ostracism” in the November/December 2004 Skeptical Inquirer.)
  
  There are two issues that are often misunderstood: scientific consensus and prior plausibility.
  
  Prior Plausibility
  Homeopathy is completely implausible. We would have to accept robust evidence that it worked, but we would require much stronger evidence than we would for, say, a new antibiotic. If the claims for homeopathy were true, we would have to revise much of what we know about physics, chemistry, and physiology.
  
  The crossword analogy is helpful. If you think the answer to 1-across should be “library” but the clue to 1-down is a five-letter word for the author of Tom Sawyer and the clue to 2-down is a four-letter-word for the name of Eve’s husband in Genesis, you have to reject “library” and keep looking for a word that starts with T-A. You have to recognize that no matter how strong your conviction that 1-across must be “library,” you must be wrong and there must be another answer that you just haven’t considered.
  
  Consensus
  It’s easy to dismiss the scientific consensus as a popularity contest, a vote on opinions. But it’s far more than that. The body of evidence stands or falls on its own merits, and when the weight clearly tips the balance to one side, everybody can see it. The scientific community is made up of experts who know how to evaluate the evidence and who thrash out disagreements in medical journals and scientific conferences. It is easy for the scientific community to reach an agreement based on clear evidence. There are times when the evidence is less clear and controversy among scientists is appropriate, but there comes a time when it would be perverse not to accept the evidence, just as it is perverse to deny evolution or germ theory. The scientific consensus on evolution and the germ theory is a recognition of reality, not a matter of opinion.
  
  A reasonable default assumption is that the scientific consensus is usually right; if it isn’t, it will change as the evidence becomes clearer. Truth will prevail. It does no good to attack the scientific consensus as prejudiced or closed-minded. The consensus will change only when it incorporates new and better evidence. One of the irrational tactics we’ve seen over and over is for opponents to cite one or a handful of studies to support their belief. They ridiculously assume that it was new information that the people who reached the scientific consensus had failed to consider or that it somehow outweighs all the other studies that found the opposite to be true.
  
  Play by the Rules or Go Play Your Own Game
  There’s no point in arguing scientific facts with someone whose worldview is metaphysical and nonscientific. There’s no point in presenting geological age data to someone who “knows” the age of the Earth from the Bible. Before we get into a useless debate, maybe we should find out what game our opponents are really playing. If they are playing ping pong, it’s silly for us to bring a football to the table. It would be handy if we could get them to say up front what game they are really playing, but all too often they have deluded themselves into truly believing they are following the rules of science.
  
  If they won’t play the science game by the rules, we are justified in crying “foul” and disqualifying them. Then they can go away somewhere else and play their own game by whatever rules they want, and we won’t be able to refute them. If they are relying on beliefs unsupported by evidence, let them say so. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear a homeopath say, “I believe homeopathy works based on my personal experience and on nonscientific evidence like testimonials, and I categorically reject the results of any scientific trial that fails to support my beliefs. Homeopathy cured my neighbor’s uncle’s cousin of cancer. Trust me. I’m a nice guy so you should believe whatever I tell you.”
  
  If they’d say that up front, we wouldn’t waste any of our valuable time rehashing scientific evidence that they will just ignore. They would be out of the game, permanently. And patients would have a better basis for giving truly informed consent.
  
  

 

[john.wantling]

So it IS actually an "outside-in" process. The "poison" from the outside goes in causing the tb to "come out". I suppose one possible poison could be some sort of biological agent, I don't know, maybe a bacterium? Maybe this bacterium could be carried around by other animals and left ready for cattle to be "poisoned" by it.... who knows.....

JJT, you are getting there. The poison is an outside-in process, or whatever is causing TB to manifest. The filth (poison) comes before the bacteria; the bacteria it is a product of the poison. This is why we need science to come to the rescue to discover what poison is causing this to happen to one cow or animal. Another cow may be another poison, but I would suggest looking at the pollution of the environment, nuclear pollution, pesticides, or the drugs that a farmer may inflict on a cow. This is why we need a detective and an environmentalist and a toxicologist and a farmer who knows the history of the cow. But do take note that a toxicologist is never invited to the infectious (political) party, and also note that the science (by default) translates into infectious language. The academic must do this as otherwise, no funding, no job, no pension. The infectious myth is theoretical because a theoretician claims that it is infectious, regardless that the theoretician cannot ever find a mode of transmission, mainly because they are not looking, and also it does not exist in the sense of infectious disease. The academic is employed by the infectious industry, so he is not allowed to look for the poison. If he does, he will be punished, he will not survive as an academic. In other words, he must transform into a theoretician to survive, but when that happens, we can throw the science down the drain. The badger is a mere scapegoat. John Wantling, Rochdale

 

[JJT]

 

[john.wantling]

Quite a good article I thought:

Playing by the Rules

• Harriet Hall
  Skeptical Inquirer Volume 33.3, May / June 2009
  
  It is useless for skeptics to argue with someone who doesn’t play by the rules of science and reason.
  
  If no amount of evidence will change your opponent’s mind, you are wasting your breath.

Milkloss, this ‘skeptical inquirer’ doesn’t really help matters. It is yet another example of you moving away from the issue of bovine TB. It says that ‘scientists will change their minds when the evidence warrants’ but this is not true and I have explained why, because if they were to place any doubt on the infectious myth, they would not survive. I should not use that word (scientist) because they no longer exist. They are now nothing more than theoreticians. This means that they dream up a theory to support the industry that employ them. This is no longer science, it is fake science or science by numbers. At the end of the day, the farmer is mass slaughtering his healthy cows. That in itself tells me one thing; the so-called ‘science’ is an ass. John Wantling, Rochdale

 

[matthew]

[Snip}
The badger is a mere scapegoat. John Wantling, Rochdale

Nope. He's dead. Riddled with a grade 3 zoonotic Pathogen called Tuberculosis - whichever way you cut it. In or out, out or in.
Dead's dead. And the bacteria which caused his death, he has already shared.

 

[milkloss]

Milkloss, this ‘skeptical inquirer’ doesn’t really help matters. It is yet another example of you moving away from the issue of bovine TB. It says that ‘scientists will change their minds when the evidence warrants’ but this is not true and I have explained why, because if they were to place any doubt on the infectious myth, they would not survive. I should not use that word (scientist) because they no longer exist. They are now nothing more than theoreticians. This means that they dream up a theory to support the industry that employ them. This is no longer science, it is fake science or science by numbers. At the end of the day, the farmer is mass slaughtering his healthy cows. That in itself tells me one thing; the so-called ‘science’ is an ass. John Wantling, Rochdale

I have a feeling you just pretty much described yourself there John.

 

[topground]

In the Thornbury trial in the 1970's MAFF did the Tb equivalent of removing the handle from the Broad Street pump, they removed Badgers from the area and with it the source of the Tb bacteria. Cattle in the area stayed clear of Tb all the while there were no Badgers.
What do you think of that then John?

topground, your thoughts mean nothing simply because TB isnt an environmental (outside-in) process. Once again, we are on the wrong train heading into the wrong direction. Also, how do we test for TB, taking into consideration that we dont have a test. Who says that cattle stayed clear of TB? Was this just politics or wishful thinking? I would suggest that believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. As I repeat, when you understand that TB is an inside-out process, all this talk about infectious can be totally discarded. John Wantling, Rochdale

John,
Removing the handle from the Broad Street pump stopped the Cholera outbreak in its tracks and from that action it was accepted that the source of the Cholera disease was the water drawn by the pump. When Badgers were removed from the area of the Thornbury trial cattle stopped being infected with Tuberculosis until Badgers found their way back to the area.
Rather than dismissing my question and reverting to parroting your inside out theory, please set out logically how these two examples of basic epidemiology don't stack up.
Also Tuberculosis appears as lesions in the lymph nodes and organs of the body of infected animals including humans as an Internet search will show you. How do you explain those changes?

 

[Storeman]

Storeman, look at this issue simply. Either TB is an inside-out process or an outside-in process. I claim that the outside-in process is wrong, that we are focusing on the wrong environmental bacteria. This is so obvious, at least as far as I am concerned, that it goes without saying. The issue is that we are so conditioned by infectious politics that the mind is set in stone. We then defend our psychological condition, which is political. We find it incomprehensible that the science or the politics can be wrong, regardless that we are left with a failed scientific experiment. When the experiment fails (mode of transmission unknown), this is telling us something, but we simply dont want to hear it. That is a big problem. If TB is an inside-out process, then those who think that it is an outside-in process must be wrong. It is as simple as that. The problem is that if this was proved that TB was not infectious, you still would not accept it. John Wantling, Rochdale

You are basically arguing about something that is already scientifically accepted by using nonsensical language.
Inside-out.
Outside-in.
You use big words to try and prove your point, but you are talking rubbish.
You say that if it was proved that TB was not infectious, I would not accept it. The thing is I would, if science proved that. But it doesn't and it won't because TB is infectious. That has been proven.

It is not me that fails to accept proven science, it is you.

 

[Wellytrack]

John,
Removing the handle from the Broad Street pump stopped the Cholera outbreak in its tracks and from that action it was accepted that the source of the Cholera disease was the water drawn by the pump. When Badgers were removed from the area of the Thornbury trial cattle stopped being infected with Tuberculosis until Badgers found their way back to the area.
Rather than dismissing my question and reverting to parroting your inside out theory, please set out logically how these two examples of basic epidemiology don't stack up.
Also Tuberculosis appears as lesions in the lymph nodes and organs of the body of infected animals including humans as an Internet search will show you. How do you explain those changes?

With respect, and I do appreciate everybody's input and opinions, why are you still arguing the toss with someone who sporadically logs in with obvious pre prepared replies of maniacal nonsense to anybody with a credible opinion.

I gave up after 'magic' was given as a reason for transformation.

Im waiting for a citation to Sponge Bob SquarePants as evidence in the next post.

 

[topground]

With respect, and I do appreciate everybody's input and opinions, why are you still arguing the toss with someone who sporadically logs in with obvious pre prepared replies of maniacal nonsense to anybody with a credible opinion.

I gave up after 'magic' was given as a reason for transformation.

Im waiting for a citation to Sponge Bob SquarePants as evidence in the next post.

Same reason why you posted, absolutely nothing on the television so it passes the time. I don't expect a sensible answer from JW but I find it mildly entertaining asking anyway!

 

[Osca]

Quite a good article I thought:

Playing by the Rules

• Harriet Hall
  Skeptical Inquirer Volume 33.3, May / June 2009
  
  It is useless for skeptics to argue with someone who doesn’t play by the rules of science and reason.
  
  If no amount of evidence will change your opponent’s mind, you are wasting your breath.
  
  I recently read Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny (Barrett Brown and Jon P. Alston, Cambridge House Press, New York, 2007, no relation to the movie Flock of Dodos). It’s a hilarious, no-holds-barred send-up of the lies and poor reasoning employed by the intelligent design movement. I was particularly struck by a quotation from William Dembski’s book Intelligent Design: “We are dealing here with something more than a straightforward determination of scientific facts or confirmation of scientific theories. Rather we are dealing with competing world-views and incompatible metaphysical systems.”
  
  That doesn’t just apply to intelligent design. It cuts to the essence of what skeptics encounter on every front, from
  
  dowsing to homeopathy, from ESP to therapeutic touch. We are trying to evaluate the science behind claims that are often not based on science but on beliefs that are incompatible with science. The claimants are happy to use science when it supports them, but when it doesn’t they are likely to unfairly critique the science or even to dismiss the entire scientific enterprise as a “materialistic worldview” or “closed-minded.” We are talking at cross purposes. How can we communicate if we say “this variety of apple is red,” and they insist “it feels green to me”?
  
  We get frustrated when we show these folks the scientific evidence and they refuse to accept it. Dowsing fails all tests, but dowsers “know” from personal experience that it works for them. Homeopathy is not only implausible, but it has been tested and has failed the tests. Yet proponents refuse to acknowledge those failures and still want to talk about data from the nineteenth century and make claims for the memory of water. We have to realize we are not even speaking the same language. We are trying to play a civilized game of gin rummy, and they are dribbling a basketball all over the card table. Before competing, doesn’t it make sense to define what game you’re playing and what the rules are?
  
  Before arguing with a mathematician about the solution to a geometry problem, it’s essential to establish whether he is following the rules of Euclidean geometry, where parallel lines never cross, or non-Euclidean geometry, where they sometimes do.
  
  Science has been a very successful self-correcting group endeavor. It wouldn’t be successful if it didn’t follow a strict set of rules designed to avoid errors. (Note: there are no rules written in stone; I’m talking about conventions that are generally understood and accepted by scientists, conventions that grow naturally out of reason and critical thinking.) If proponents of intelligent design or alternative medicine want to play the science game, they ought to play by the rules. If they won’t play by the rules, they effectively take themselves out of the scientific arena and into the metaphysical arena. In that case, it is useless for us to talk to them about science.
  
  If you want to play the science game, here’s what you do:
  1. Submit your hypothesis to proper testing. Testimonials, intuitions, personal experience, and “other ways of knowing” don’t count.
  2. See if you can falsify the hypothesis.
  3. Try to rule out alternative explanations and confounding factors.
  4. Report your findings in journal articles submitted to peer review.
  5. Allow the scientific community to critique the published evidence and engage in dialogue and debate.
  6. Withhold judgment until your results can be replicated elsewhere.
  7. Respect the consensus of the majority of the scientific community as to whether your hypothesis is probably true or false (always allowing for revision based on further evidence).
  8. Be willing to follow the evidence and admit you are wrong if that’s what the evidence says.
  If you want to play the science game, here are some of the things you don’t do:
  1. Accuse the entire scientific community of being wrong (unless you have compelling evidence, in which case you should argue for it in the scientific journals and at professional meetings, not in the media).
  2. Design poor-quality experiments that are almost guaranteed to show your hypothesis is true whether it really is or not. Use science to show that your treatment works, not to ask if it works.
  3. Keep using arguments that have been thoroughly discredited. (The intelligent design folks are still claiming the eye could not have evolved because it is irreducibly complex; homeopaths are still claiming homeopathy cured more patients than conventional medicine during nineteenth-century epidemics).
  4. Write books for the general public to promote your thesis—as if public opinion could influence science!
  5. Form an activist organization to promote your beliefs.
  6. Step outside the scientific paradigm and appeal to intuition and belief.
  7. Mention the persecution of Galileo and compare yourself to him.
  8. Invent a conspiracy theory (Big Pharma is suppressing the truth!).
  9. Claim to be a lone genius who knows more than all scientists put together.
  10. Offer a treatment to the public after only the most preliminary studies have been conducted.
  11. Set up a Web site to sell products that are not backed by good evidence.
  12. Refuse to admit when your hypothesis is proven wrong.
  Changing Our Minds
  Scientists will change their minds when the evidence warrants. Before we waste time arguing, one thing we can do is ask our opponents what it would take to change their minds. One woman I asked said no amount of evidence could change her mind because she knew from personal experience that her claim was true, so any evidence that said otherwise would have to be false and fabricated. End of discussion. She’s out of the game.
  
  The rules of science are pretty clear about what it takes to change our minds. I’ll use the example of Helicobacter and ulcers. We used to think that stress and too much stomach acid caused ulcers; now we think a bacterium causes ulcers. Here’s a summary of why we changed our minds:
  1. Scientists noticed bacteria in biopsy samples from ulcers.
  2. They identified the bacteria as Helicobacter pylori.
  3. They found a strong correlation between ulcers and the presence of the bacteria.
  4. One of the researchers, who was healthy and not a Helicobacter carrier, was able to induce an ulcer in himself by ingesting the bacteria.
  5. They found that treating patients with antibiotics cured ulcers.
  6. They found that antibiotics were superior to previous ulcer treatments.
  7. The studies were replicated and conducted in different ways that corroborated each other.
  8. The bacterial hypothesis was not inconsistent with the rest of scientific knowledge.
  If we had the same quantity and quality of evidence for homeopathy, we’d gladly accept it. In fact, if the evidence met criteria 1 through 7, we’d provisionally accept it while we kept checking the data and tried like crazy to figure out the mechanism behind homeopathy. (For more on this, see “Bacteria, Ulcers, and Ostracism” in the November/December 2004 Skeptical Inquirer.)
  
  There are two issues that are often misunderstood: scientific consensus and prior plausibility.
  
  Prior Plausibility
  Homeopathy is completely implausible. We would have to accept robust evidence that it worked, but we would require much stronger evidence than we would for, say, a new antibiotic. If the claims for homeopathy were true, we would have to revise much of what we know about physics, chemistry, and physiology.
  
  The crossword analogy is helpful. If you think the answer to 1-across should be “library” but the clue to 1-down is a five-letter word for the author of Tom Sawyer and the clue to 2-down is a four-letter-word for the name of Eve’s husband in Genesis, you have to reject “library” and keep looking for a word that starts with T-A. You have to recognize that no matter how strong your conviction that 1-across must be “library,” you must be wrong and there must be another answer that you just haven’t considered.
  
  Consensus
  It’s easy to dismiss the scientific consensus as a popularity contest, a vote on opinions. But it’s far more than that. The body of evidence stands or falls on its own merits, and when the weight clearly tips the balance to one side, everybody can see it. The scientific community is made up of experts who know how to evaluate the evidence and who thrash out disagreements in medical journals and scientific conferences. It is easy for the scientific community to reach an agreement based on clear evidence. There are times when the evidence is less clear and controversy among scientists is appropriate, but there comes a time when it would be perverse not to accept the evidence, just as it is perverse to deny evolution or germ theory. The scientific consensus on evolution and the germ theory is a recognition of reality, not a matter of opinion.
  
  A reasonable default assumption is that the scientific consensus is usually right; if it isn’t, it will change as the evidence becomes clearer. Truth will prevail. It does no good to attack the scientific consensus as prejudiced or closed-minded. The consensus will change only when it incorporates new and better evidence. One of the irrational tactics we’ve seen over and over is for opponents to cite one or a handful of studies to support their belief. They ridiculously assume that it was new information that the people who reached the scientific consensus had failed to consider or that it somehow outweighs all the other studies that found the opposite to be true.
  
  Play by the Rules or Go Play Your Own Game
  There’s no point in arguing scientific facts with someone whose worldview is metaphysical and nonscientific. There’s no point in presenting geological age data to someone who “knows” the age of the Earth from the Bible. Before we get into a useless debate, maybe we should find out what game our opponents are really playing. If they are playing ping pong, it’s silly for us to bring a football to the table. It would be handy if we could get them to say up front what game they are really playing, but all too often they have deluded themselves into truly believing they are following the rules of science.
  
  If they won’t play the science game by the rules, we are justified in crying “foul” and disqualifying them. Then they can go away somewhere else and play their own game by whatever rules they want, and we won’t be able to refute them. If they are relying on beliefs unsupported by evidence, let them say so. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear a homeopath say, “I believe homeopathy works based on my personal experience and on nonscientific evidence like testimonials, and I categorically reject the results of any scientific trial that fails to support my beliefs. Homeopathy cured my neighbor’s uncle’s cousin of cancer. Trust me. I’m a nice guy so you should believe whatever I tell you.”
  
  If they’d say that up front, we wouldn’t waste any of our valuable time rehashing scientific evidence that they will just ignore. They would be out of the game, permanently. And patients would have a better basis for giving truly informed consent.
  

I was doing fine with that until we got to dowsing. Because dowsing DOES work. I have tried it; I have seen it work for others and I have experienced it myself; I didn't expect it to work; it wasn't a reaction (the movement of the wires) which I created. I can't replicate it. However, neither can I "un-know" what I have experienced, or meekly say that it didn't happen because some scientists, not having devised a test which will reveal it, find that it doesn't work for them, therefore it cannot exist.

The scientific method is a fine tool - but that is all it is; a tool. It does not confer the privilege of being right; and to assume that it does is actually pretty illogical. It is only as good as the tests employed and the tests are only as good as the understanding of the problem in the first place.

In the spirit of the penultimate paragraph, wouldn't it be nice to hear a scientist say - "I believe dowsing doesn't work because I have never seen scientific proof for it - but the huge body of experience of dowsing from people who must be acknowledged sane, suggests that it is worth examining further, as our lack of proof may be down to the inadequacy of our experiments, as in so many other cases where scientific opinion was later revised."