Some people have expressed a very (and very nastily) contemptuous attitude towards the antiinnatia theory and its author. Their confident contempt is based on the notion that after so many years, the textbooks have never even mentioned this theory, and nor do any of the "leading experts" (in the context that Bernard Rimland can be ignored as a candidate for "leading expert" status not least due to being helpfully dead now). It follows, these people "reason", that therefore the theory has failed, is a proven dud. And they assert that it follows that they do not have to themselves point to any fault of reasoning or evidence damning the theory, because there is "obviously" "no case to answer" anyway.
Those who say this are in effect saying exactly the same as "Hello, I am a mindless herd-following sheep. I've noticed that none of the rest of the herd is heading your way, so I fail to see any reason why I should either. Baahh!"
Indeed, why think for yourself when you can just let others do your thinking for you instead?
"~Independent-minded~"? -- Baahh!
(See also description in Anna Karenina chapter 3.)
Showing posts with label "skeptics" replied to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "skeptics" replied to. Show all posts
Fallacy about acrodynia (pink disease)
On the leftbrainrightbrain blog, "daedalus" asked:
Pink disease has zilch to do with my explanation of any autism causation, or the data I will be citing in relation to mercury. The key causal variable posited in my update review is constant inhalation of elemental mercury vapor. It matters little how many tons of mercurous chloride were applied to infants, as Hg2Cl2 is a very different chemical from mercury vapor. The former is a substantially stable solid, whereas the latter is a highly reactive gas. Indeed it’s well-known that chlorine (gas) strongly counteracts the toxicity of mercury gas, rendering it far less toxic to the workers in chlor-alkali plants. It does so by reacting with the mercury to produce mercury-chlorine salts such as the same Hg2Cl2 that was involved in Pink disease.
Indeed "daedalus" above states that:
Furthermore, the mercurous chloride was put in the babies' mouths. It's well-known that even elemental mercury has little or no toxic effect, is neglibly absorbed, when swallowed. And furtherfurthermore, those teething powers were of course not applied except at teething age (apologies for dazzling you with this rocket science here!), whereas the causality described in my update review requires continuous sustained intake.
To which I reply:RPC, why don’t you read up on what was called Pink Disease. It was a serious disease of children in the first half of the 20th century. It was a leading cause of death, with about 23% of child deaths attributed to it. Eventually it was realized that it was actually mercury poisoning from teething powders. Many of the teething powders that were produced and sold had a grain of mercurous chloride in them. Yes, a grain. If you don’t have the conversion factor handy, that is 65,000 micrograms per dose. Yes, 65,000 micrograms of mercurous chloride per dose, and many children were given multiple doses. Many tens of millions of doses were sold, with a single company reporting sale of 30,000,000 doses in one year.
Many tens of millions of children received many thousands of times more mercury from teething powders than ever received from vaccines. Mercury from teething powders gave many children pink disease and killed over a thousand. Where is the autism from the first half of the 20th century when children were given so much mercury that over a thousand were killed by it?
Pink disease has zilch to do with my explanation of any autism causation, or the data I will be citing in relation to mercury. The key causal variable posited in my update review is constant inhalation of elemental mercury vapor. It matters little how many tons of mercurous chloride were applied to infants, as Hg2Cl2 is a very different chemical from mercury vapor. The former is a substantially stable solid, whereas the latter is a highly reactive gas. Indeed it’s well-known that chlorine (gas) strongly counteracts the toxicity of mercury gas, rendering it far less toxic to the workers in chlor-alkali plants. It does so by reacting with the mercury to produce mercury-chlorine salts such as the same Hg2Cl2 that was involved in Pink disease.
Indeed "daedalus" above states that:
Many tens of millions of doses were sold, with a single company reporting sale of 30,000,000 doses in one year.and yet only:
over a thousand were killed by itwhich indicates a death rate of something like only one in a million, not exactly the most deadly formula in history.
Furthermore, the mercurous chloride was put in the babies' mouths. It's well-known that even elemental mercury has little or no toxic effect, is neglibly absorbed, when swallowed. And furtherfurthermore, those teething powers were of course not applied except at teething age (apologies for dazzling you with this rocket science here!), whereas the causality described in my update review requires continuous sustained intake.
Why mercury supposedly could not get to DNA to cause antiinnatia!
Wegener's collossal epoch-making discovery of continental drift was dismissed with derision by the community of professional geologists for 50 years, apparently merely because he was unable to show any mechanism by which the continents might drift. That was even though his deriders were in no position to show anything that would prevent the continental drift. And was even though volcanos have long made it reasonable to believe there is a layer of molten rock under the Earth's crust.
A similar situation exists in respect of the incorporation of environmental mercury into the antiinnatia theory (in the forthcoming update review paper). 'Skeptical' nitpickers could say that there is no demonstrated means by which mercury ions could reach the DNA in order to attach to it as per the theory. They would point out that the DNA is in working normal life not loosely and openly floating around in body fluids but instead is confined to a very controlled environment of proteins such as histones and secluded away inside the protective membrane of the cell's nucleus which in turn is some way in from the cell's lipid bilayer outer membrane. They would further point out that the DNA is to a large extent tightly curled up in condensed inactive form, further inhibiting unconstrained access by rogue mercury atoms. They would claim that mercury would have already bound with sulphydryls of proteins before it could get to the DNA. They would claim that mercury is bound much more strongly to other things than to DNA (though not sure if there's any real evidence on that).
Those who dismissed Wegener's continental drift theory could not show any videos or even photos from under the Earth to substantiate their assertions. And likewise those who would dismiss the idea of mercury getting to the DNA can't actually show any proof that mercury never gets to it. And despite even some of those queries listed above being true, they do not genuinely undermine the case, as I will now explain.
The antiinnatia theory does not entail a notion that most or even a high proportion of gene-expression is suppressed by antiinnatia. If it were then it would surely result in non-life or at the very least a being that had little resemblance to a human. On the contrary, antiinnatia theory entails only a very small proportion of gene-expression being suppressed, perhaps 1/1000th or less to produce an autism diagnosis condition. Furthermore it is not being suggested that all children exposed to mercury become autistic, rather only a small minority. And even they only become affected by the mercury after 18 months or so, in accordance with the evidence shown in the update paper.
Furthermore there is the fallacious notion that mercury is absolutely a "bad" "toxic" thing such that the organism's mechanisms could only be designed to keep it out. On the contrary, the whole point of the antiinnatia theory is that antiinnatia is highly advantageous provided it does not reach the excessive levels which manifest as autism.
And so, at lower levels, mercury as an antiinnatia factor would not be opposed by the organism but actually positively selected for. There would be natural selection positive selection of processes (or 'faults') which passively or even actively admit mercury to access the DNA. I don't mean flooding the DNA with mercury, but merely allowing just a very few atoms of Hg to sprinkle themselves sparsely on the DNA. DNA strands are rather complex molecules. It is quite conceivable that there are occasional locations among all that complexity at which a mercury atom could find itself relatively welcome and unrepelled.
That is clearly a far from unreasonable concept. Everyone is free to choose their own reckoning of the burden of proof in this matter, but it looks to me like the common-sense burden of proof lies with any "skeptics" to show that the mercury could not even occasionally, even after 18 months constant exposure, even in very modest doses get to the DNA, rather than the burden being to show that it does.
Should I say that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? No, because there is not an absence of evidence. In the update review I will show the compelling abundance of other (including non-biochemical) evidence that mercury is an antiinnatia factor. That's what gives me faith in the unseen, faith that the binding to DNA that has been decisively shown in vitro also occurs in living human beings.
A similar situation exists in respect of the incorporation of environmental mercury into the antiinnatia theory (in the forthcoming update review paper). 'Skeptical' nitpickers could say that there is no demonstrated means by which mercury ions could reach the DNA in order to attach to it as per the theory. They would point out that the DNA is in working normal life not loosely and openly floating around in body fluids but instead is confined to a very controlled environment of proteins such as histones and secluded away inside the protective membrane of the cell's nucleus which in turn is some way in from the cell's lipid bilayer outer membrane. They would further point out that the DNA is to a large extent tightly curled up in condensed inactive form, further inhibiting unconstrained access by rogue mercury atoms. They would claim that mercury would have already bound with sulphydryls of proteins before it could get to the DNA. They would claim that mercury is bound much more strongly to other things than to DNA (though not sure if there's any real evidence on that).
Those who dismissed Wegener's continental drift theory could not show any videos or even photos from under the Earth to substantiate their assertions. And likewise those who would dismiss the idea of mercury getting to the DNA can't actually show any proof that mercury never gets to it. And despite even some of those queries listed above being true, they do not genuinely undermine the case, as I will now explain.
The antiinnatia theory does not entail a notion that most or even a high proportion of gene-expression is suppressed by antiinnatia. If it were then it would surely result in non-life or at the very least a being that had little resemblance to a human. On the contrary, antiinnatia theory entails only a very small proportion of gene-expression being suppressed, perhaps 1/1000th or less to produce an autism diagnosis condition. Furthermore it is not being suggested that all children exposed to mercury become autistic, rather only a small minority. And even they only become affected by the mercury after 18 months or so, in accordance with the evidence shown in the update paper.
Furthermore there is the fallacious notion that mercury is absolutely a "bad" "toxic" thing such that the organism's mechanisms could only be designed to keep it out. On the contrary, the whole point of the antiinnatia theory is that antiinnatia is highly advantageous provided it does not reach the excessive levels which manifest as autism.
And so, at lower levels, mercury as an antiinnatia factor would not be opposed by the organism but actually positively selected for. There would be natural selection positive selection of processes (or 'faults') which passively or even actively admit mercury to access the DNA. I don't mean flooding the DNA with mercury, but merely allowing just a very few atoms of Hg to sprinkle themselves sparsely on the DNA. DNA strands are rather complex molecules. It is quite conceivable that there are occasional locations among all that complexity at which a mercury atom could find itself relatively welcome and unrepelled.
That is clearly a far from unreasonable concept. Everyone is free to choose their own reckoning of the burden of proof in this matter, but it looks to me like the common-sense burden of proof lies with any "skeptics" to show that the mercury could not even occasionally, even after 18 months constant exposure, even in very modest doses get to the DNA, rather than the burden being to show that it does.
Should I say that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? No, because there is not an absence of evidence. In the update review I will show the compelling abundance of other (including non-biochemical) evidence that mercury is an antiinnatia factor. That's what gives me faith in the unseen, faith that the binding to DNA that has been decisively shown in vitro also occurs in living human beings.
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