<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Mar 13, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Hal Finney wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">This is a great subject, that demonstrates many important and surprising</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">effects.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">One is the problem with the oft-stated idea that "extraordinary claims</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">require extraordinary evidence".<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Who decides what is extraordinary?</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>That is not the question. Claims that go against what we have held to be true to the best of our knowledge must at least do as good a job of covering the data as the theory they would displace and as good a job at prediction if applicable. Otherwise there is little point in considering dropping the old theory for the new.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Why the long insistence on some kind of fairness or arbitrariness being involved when it has already been argued that this is not the case and not a relevant issue?</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Another is our emotional resistance to the possibility that medicine may</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">not be very useful.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>This leaves us feeling powerless and vulnerable.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Even back in the 19th century doctors were regarded with awe for their</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">healing powers, powers we now know to be almost non-existent.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Irrelevant again.</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"></FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It's possible that the academic community has attempted to send their</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">message, only to find it falling on deaf ears.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>People may just refuse to</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">believe that it could be true, as we have seen in many responses here.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Or, it could be that the Big Medicine and Big Pharma have somehow been</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">able to suppress this message in order to protect the benefit they</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">receive from the enormous sums spent on medical treatment.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The academic community or the scientific and medical community. I highly doubt the latter hold that vaccination is useless.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>