How can Dean be so righteous and even-keeled on all these complicated issues, ranging from Middle East conflagration to religious historicity to American Idol, but so off-base with this AIDS jive?
Hell, EVERYBODY knows that HIV causes AIDS, right?
If you are thinking the above, but truly and honestly don't really know about AIDS, because it hasn't affected your life, your family, your friends, so you really haven't spent deep time on the problem-- that's okay! That's cool. No problem.
But, if you wanna learn something on the issue, I strongly urge you to read this short little book by Dr. Rebecca Culshaw, mathematician extraordinaire, that will answer most, if not of your questions.
I know what you're thinking Hank, how could a self-proclaimed, but definitely "world famous" idiot like me, presume to contradict the "Tank" I first met about two years ago on the wide and wonderful internet, right here at DW...but...
It does seem to me that what IS transpiring TODAY at your and Mondo's (?) old stomp-the-mini- pods-into-smithereens" stomping grounds has 100% vindicated Dean's courage and bedrock common sense -- at least about some things, the scientific kind always, however, as far as I have experience of him... and as we *all* three of us know really well... I have quite a bit since encountering an email from him addressed to one of my more despised heteronyms, who shall go unspecified for the sake of what little remaining decorum there is in the world -- in much the same manner as his keen intuition and knowing which authorities had real authority, and rare-these-days, ability to read and think at the same time, in his endorsment of Duesberg's aneuploidy theory as a viable alternative/cooperative hypothesis to mutation-cancer was proved sound and very prescient this month by the editors of the most mainstream, and generally influential popular science magazine in the world.
Yeah, I saw that Scientific American piece by esteemed, renegade, maverick, Dr. Duesberg. Heluva piece on cancer -- unlike AIDS, everyone is at risk for cancer!
I like the blurb from Sci Am:
Current wisdom on the role of genes in malignancy may not explain some features of cancer, but stepping back to look at the bigger picture inside cells reveals a view that just might.
It's the chromosomes, Stupid!
Also, the SciAm piece had reference at the end to an prescient paper, called "The Sigmoidal Curve of Cancer, which kinda explains how its gonna go down to slowpokes like me.
I continue to have my doubts about HIV, but what I have no doubts about whatsoever is the bizarreness and inappropriateness of the behavior of the scientific and journalistic establishment on this.
I also continue to await some sort of explanation from defenders of the current funding system--that system that goes by the phony name "peer review" for funding--as to why it still won't approve a single grant application from the man they admit is the founder of the currently hot aneuploidy theory of cancer causation.
It's the same NIH establishment that invites Peter to give presentations to packed houses. The same one that approved 22 of his grant applications in a row until in an invited--invited!!--paper he questioned his fellow molecular biologists on their then-hot theory.
Now over a decade after advancing the aneuploidy theory, he still gets every grant application turned down. What's the excuse now? He can't write good? Or is it that they just don't like him, and the "anonymity" of this phony funding system is and always has been a crock?
Just ventured to local Barnes &Noble, in downtown big City, USA.
Bought 3 copies of Scientific American: Top right on the cover, "CANCER AND CHROMSOMES -- A Radical New Theory."
Incredible Editorial Page -- "When Pariahs Have Good Ideas."
Money Quote:
"Readers may therefore be shocked to see Duesberg as an author in this month's issue. He is not here because we have misgivings about the HIV-AIDS link. Duesberg has also developed a novel theory about the origins of cancer, one that supposes a derangement of the chromosomes [It's the chromosomes, Stupid!], rather than individual genes, is the spark that ignites malignant changes in cells."
The bottom line: If you care about cancer and mitigating its terrible effects on us (500K deaths/year), you should read this magazine.
Do you not detect just a hint of sarcasm there on the part of the Scientific American editors? Since when should having a maverick opinion make one a pariah in science?
I'm still waiting to hear why Peter can't get a grant application some ten years after advancing the theory that everyone in the field now admits is an important development, and possibly the most important development, in many many years in cancer research. The system's not broken, eh?
(I'd also like to hear some apologies from all the commenters and other bloggers who issued so many snotty, nasty comments toward me when I said Peter's theories on cancer were very strong and would be making big news. Alas, I think I'll be holding my breath for a while there.)
I also love that stuff about "conspiracy" too. Is this the word that muddled corporate and government bureaucrats always reach for when someone questions their methods and their conflicts of interest? I daresay it is.
Yes yes, that's it. Conspiracy. And also wicked politics. Reasonable people cannot possibly question them, only crackpots and conspiracy theorists and political whackjobs, and the very naive.
Or, no, wait! We're in a cult! That's it. We worship Saint Duesberg. That must be it too.
Once more, Mr. Tank, you force me to object, and this time quite strenuously.
I thought you read my friend's book, and even more than once? Even an idiot like me understood that it was ALL about that question, but framed properly as a scientific history, and it *never* calls anybody stupid! Try reading it again, and focus on the *bulk* of the book which is about cancer genetics, and not the middle section which is about AIDS and the scientific history of *that* idea.
Somethimes you are **too cute for my tastes Senor Hank.
Don't quite follow you, Sir. A little too cryptic.
But, here's my analogy:
1. Hank has a real nice library of learned books at his home. In fact, there are 23 rows of shelves comprising his life-time collection.
2. If my son, sneaks into my library and with a felt pen, opens a book, say, "Anna Karennina", and defaces page 128 -- that would irritate me, but it wouldn't completely ruin Tolstoy's masterpiece, nor ruin my beloved library.
3. If my son, sneaks into my library and starts overturning several shelves, randomly ripping out whole pages (think of the Singing in the Rain scene from Clockwork Orange , that would wreck my beloved libary.
You are making a very fundamental mistake David. You are treating oncogene-theory as though it were HIV-theory. It is NOT. It has a real scientific history, and to appreciate WHY and HOW Peter's aneuploidy hypothesis is so strong it is necessary to know the history of the field and how Peter moved from onc genes to oncoo-chromosomes, and the difficulties he encountered.
It is not the same story as his rejection by some of these same people for HIV views. Close...but significantly different.
That is EXACTLY what my book does! I cannot believe that you have read it several times...honestly.
You >cannot, as with HIV and AIDS take the theory apart as a lawyer with analogy. In fact you cannot even discuss it that way, because while a virus killing a cell and the basic bioology of the immune systm is easy stuff...oncogene theory is NOT, and it is not stupid on its face the way virus-AIDS is.
What anyone can legitimately do, however, is ask...25 years of mutation/oncogene cancer, to what results? And then, one can and should say.... Maybe some other theory would work better.....
But you cannot make flippant analogies like you did above. All this shows is that you have partially digested an analogy from Peter and tried to say it in different words. Such analogies are sometimes good from him, often they are not and we have had long email arguments involving George Miklos, dissecting exactly which aspects of such analogies really held.
HIV/AIDS is NOT and never was Science. You can laugh at it all you want.
You cannot do the same for oncogenes, and if you try it again with me I will be very angry.
Go and read my book like it was about an answer to your question above and stop being a smart aleck.
I would agree that oncogene theory is nowhere near as weak. I would note again, however, that they have indeed been drilling a dry well for some time, and part of that is because of the bureaucratic way of thinking that has become such a problem.
I believe that Peter got a bad reputation for all the wrong reasons, and he couldn't get his cancer applications approved either, and that's definitely been a problem.
I also dislike a system that's so crusted with bureaucratic layers that it takes more than ten years for a development of this order of magnitude to reach any respect, and that still the researcher behind it can't get funded.
That said, the cancer research establishment has acted ten times, a hundred times, better than the HIV establishment has. This despite the fact that cancer continues to kill far more people every year than the hyped AIDS epidemic (unless you count all those poor people in Central Africa who might have been saved by better nutrition, sanitation, and malaria control instead of given drugs and condoms that everybody now admits they didn't really need.)
The system needs reforming. That's what I believe. And it starts with looking what gets done with people who challenge the establishment.
Still I will admit to being too flip about, in part due to some of the more humorous parts of Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, &AIDS that showed some foolishness from some cancer researchers (which I will quote if the good Doctor has forgotten), and some because of what I see as too much slowness, too much reluctance to fund research that needs doing.
As someone who's seen cancer take loved ones, and whose dollars pay for this research establishment, I feel it necessary to demand reforms.
4.24.2007 8:23pm
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
How can Dean be so righteous and even-keeled on all these complicated issues, ranging from Middle East conflagration to religious historicity to American Idol, but so off-base with this AIDS jive?
Hell, EVERYBODY knows that HIV causes AIDS, right?
If you are thinking the above, but truly and honestly don't really know about AIDS, because it hasn't affected your life, your family, your friends, so you really haven't spent deep time on the problem-- that's okay! That's cool. No problem.
But, if you wanna learn something on the issue, I strongly urge you to read this short little book by Dr. Rebecca Culshaw, mathematician extraordinaire, that will answer most, if not of your questions.
HBarnes
It does seem to me that what IS transpiring TODAY at your and Mondo's (?) old stomp-the-mini- pods-into-smithereens" stomping grounds has 100% vindicated Dean's courage and bedrock common sense -- at least about some things, the scientific kind always, however, as far as I have experience of him... and as we *all* three of us know really well... I have quite a bit since encountering an email from him addressed to one of my more despised heteronyms, who shall go unspecified for the sake of what little remaining decorum there is in the world -- in much the same manner as his keen intuition and knowing which authorities had real authority, and rare-these-days, ability to read and think at the same time, in his endorsment of Duesberg's aneuploidy theory as a viable alternative/cooperative hypothesis to mutation-cancer was proved sound and very prescient this month by the editors of the most mainstream, and generally influential popular science magazine in the world.
Yeah, I saw that Scientific American piece by esteemed, renegade, maverick, Dr. Duesberg. Heluva piece on cancer -- unlike AIDS, everyone is at risk for cancer!
I like the blurb from Sci Am:
Current wisdom on the role of genes in malignancy may not explain some features of cancer, but stepping back to look at the bigger picture inside cells reveals a view that just might.
It's the chromosomes, Stupid!
Also, the SciAm piece had reference at the end to an prescient paper, called "The Sigmoidal Curve of Cancer, which kinda explains how its gonna go down to slowpokes like me.
HankBarnes
I also continue to await some sort of explanation from defenders of the current funding system--that system that goes by the phony name "peer review" for funding--as to why it still won't approve a single grant application from the man they admit is the founder of the currently hot aneuploidy theory of cancer causation.
It's the same NIH establishment that invites Peter to give presentations to packed houses. The same one that approved 22 of his grant applications in a row until in an invited--invited!!--paper he questioned his fellow molecular biologists on their then-hot theory.
Now over a decade after advancing the aneuploidy theory, he still gets every grant application turned down. What's the excuse now? He can't write good? Or is it that they just don't like him, and the "anonymity" of this phony funding system is and always has been a crock?
Bought 3 copies of Scientific American: Top right on the cover, "CANCER AND CHROMSOMES -- A Radical New Theory."
Incredible Editorial Page -- "When Pariahs Have Good Ideas."
Money Quote:
"Readers may therefore be shocked to see Duesberg as an author in this month's issue. He is not here because we have misgivings about the HIV-AIDS link. Duesberg has also developed a novel theory about the origins of cancer, one that supposes a derangement of the chromosomes [It's the chromosomes, Stupid!], rather than individual genes, is the spark that ignites malignant changes in cells."
The bottom line: If you care about cancer and mitigating its terrible effects on us (500K deaths/year), you should read this magazine.
HankB
Do you not detect just a hint of sarcasm there on the part of the Scientific American editors? Since when should having a maverick opinion make one a pariah in science?
I'm still waiting to hear why Peter can't get a grant application some ten years after advancing the theory that everyone in the field now admits is an important development, and possibly the most important development, in many many years in cancer research. The system's not broken, eh?
(I'd also like to hear some apologies from all the commenters and other bloggers who issued so many snotty, nasty comments toward me when I said Peter's theories on cancer were very strong and would be making big news. Alas, I think I'll be holding my breath for a while there.)
Yes yes, that's it. Conspiracy. And also wicked politics. Reasonable people cannot possibly question them, only crackpots and conspiracy theorists and political whackjobs, and the very naive.
Or, no, wait! We're in a cult! That's it. We worship Saint Duesberg. That must be it too.
What a piece of work is man.
It's the chromosomes, Stupid!
HB
p.s. How on earth did all these genius cancer researchers focus on the genes all these years and miss the chromosomes?
I thought you read my friend's book, and even more than once? Even an idiot like me understood that it was ALL about that question, but framed properly as a scientific history, and it *never* calls anybody stupid! Try reading it again, and focus on the *bulk* of the book which is about cancer genetics, and not the middle section which is about AIDS and the scientific history of *that* idea.
Somethimes you are **too cute for my tastes Senor Hank.
Don't quite follow you, Sir. A little too cryptic.
But, here's my analogy:
1. Hank has a real nice library of learned books at his home. In fact, there are 23 rows of shelves comprising his life-time collection.
2. If my son, sneaks into my library and with a felt pen, opens a book, say, "Anna Karennina", and defaces page 128 -- that would irritate me, but it wouldn't completely ruin Tolstoy's masterpiece, nor ruin my beloved library.
3. If my son, sneaks into my library and starts overturning several shelves, randomly ripping out whole pages (think of the Singing in the Rain scene from Clockwork Orange , that would wreck my beloved libary.
No. 2 is the gene theory
No. 3 is aneuploid theory.
HankB
You are making a very fundamental mistake David. You are treating oncogene-theory as though it were HIV-theory. It is NOT. It has a real scientific history, and to appreciate WHY and HOW Peter's aneuploidy hypothesis is so strong it is necessary to know the history of the field and how Peter moved from onc genes to oncoo-chromosomes, and the difficulties he encountered.
It is not the same story as his rejection by some of these same people for HIV views. Close...but significantly different.
That is EXACTLY what my book does! I cannot believe that you have read it several times...honestly.
You >cannot, as with HIV and AIDS take the theory apart as a lawyer with analogy. In fact you cannot even discuss it that way, because while a virus killing a cell and the basic bioology of the immune systm is easy stuff...oncogene theory is NOT, and it is not stupid on its face the way virus-AIDS is.
What anyone can legitimately do, however, is ask...25 years of mutation/oncogene cancer, to what results? And then, one can and should say.... Maybe some other theory would work better.....
But you cannot make flippant analogies like you did above. All this shows is that you have partially digested an analogy from Peter and tried to say it in different words. Such analogies are sometimes good from him, often they are not and we have had long email arguments involving George Miklos, dissecting exactly which aspects of such analogies really held.
HIV/AIDS is NOT and never was Science. You can laugh at it all you want.
You cannot do the same for oncogenes, and if you try it again with me I will be very angry.
Go and read my book like it was about an answer to your question above and stop being a smart aleck.
I believe that Peter got a bad reputation for all the wrong reasons, and he couldn't get his cancer applications approved either, and that's definitely been a problem.
I also dislike a system that's so crusted with bureaucratic layers that it takes more than ten years for a development of this order of magnitude to reach any respect, and that still the researcher behind it can't get funded.
That said, the cancer research establishment has acted ten times, a hundred times, better than the HIV establishment has. This despite the fact that cancer continues to kill far more people every year than the hyped AIDS epidemic (unless you count all those poor people in Central Africa who might have been saved by better nutrition, sanitation, and malaria control instead of given drugs and condoms that everybody now admits they didn't really need.)
The system needs reforming. That's what I believe. And it starts with looking what gets done with people who challenge the establishment.
Still I will admit to being too flip about, in part due to some of the more humorous parts of Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, &AIDS that showed some foolishness from some cancer researchers (which I will quote if the good Doctor has forgotten), and some because of what I see as too much slowness, too much reluctance to fund research that needs doing.
As someone who's seen cancer take loved ones, and whose dollars pay for this research establishment, I feel it necessary to demand reforms.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.