>>but when Charles A. Thomas, Jr., the biochemist who is president of the
>>Helicon Foundation;
Who in the world is Charles Thomas and what is the Helicon Foundation?
and Kary Mullis, who is the 1993 Nobel Prize winner
Well, anyone can make a mistake. There has been substantial criticism
regarding the originality of Kary's contribution to the idea of PCR
(polymerase chain reaction). PCR is a technique that has revolutionized
molecular biology, and that some claim to have been around long before
Mullis decided to make a career out of a simple technique. Kary is best
described as a gadfly and co-authoring a paper with him does not necessarily
add credibility.
Tim Ikeda writes:
>In another post, Steve Clark mentions...
>
>S: [...] Peter has criticised the scientific establishment of too hastily
>S: favoring one conclusion and ignoring contradictory evidence. Does
>S: this sound like an issue Phil would rise to or what?
>
>*grin* What people say of Peter's thoughts about oncogenes...
Maybe Peter has been hanging out too much with Rubin. We considered for a
position here, a former student of Rubin's who also did a post-doc with
Peter. I was on the search committee and was filling Howard Temin in on the
candidate and explained that he got his PhD at Berkelely in Rubin's lab and
Howard just said Rubin's crazy. Then I explained that the candidate also
did post-doc work at Berkeley with Duesberg, and Howard said that he was
crazier.
SC
>S: Deusberg's major complaint is that even though there is an extremely
>S: strong correlation between HIV infection and development of AIDS, no
>S: one has injected HIV into someone in order to document its role in
>S: AIDS. However, a related simian virus (SIV) causes identical symptoms
>S: in monkeys so a viral origin for AIDS has precedence.
TI
>I think no one has deliberately been injected with HIV, but there are
>cases where inadvertent needle-sticks produced unwilling subjects.
>Transfusions, transplantations and epidemiological data have also
>gone a long way to establish the infectious nature of the disease.
>But all this was history long before 1993. [John Moore's review of
>Duesberg's book in Nature (28 Mar 96 - 380:293-294) absolutely rips
>on Peter, FWIW.]
Yes, but this doesn't really satisfy Koch's requirement because you cannot
be assured that HIV was the only pathogen untill the virus is rigorously
purified and then injected.
Steve
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792
"To disdain philosophy is really to be a philosopher." Blaise Pascal, Pensees
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