User:Bothsidesofthecoin

I would like to call the editors of Wikipedia to task for applying the term pseudoscience to Dr. Tom Cowan, and there are many other terms used to describe him, which would be in the same vein, but this is about pseudoscience and its application to things one does not understand and therefor would label as pseudoscience.

The problem I have with applying the term pseudoscience to Dr. Tom Cowan and other Covid deniers, is that the claim they make is that Virology has no evidence to prove the existence of a virus as a pathogenic particle, and that the methods Virology uses are unscientific. For Wikipedia to be neutral could mean that one should understand an argument at the very least, rather than label it pseudoscience because it does not fit with one's current understanding as an editor.

Labelling something as fundamental as a scientific dispute in a dismissive manner is not neutral, one could argue. At first I considered that perhaps pseudoscience would be the correct term for Virology as applied by Dr. Tom Cowan, but you will note that the group of researchers in his camp refer to Virology as unscientific, not pseudoscience, which is the term applied to them.

I considered that one might broaden the neutrality of the descriptions of people whose views contrast with orthodoxy in the scientific world, otherwise known as accepted scientific understanding, by discussing knowledgeably the views of Dr. Tom Cowan and others who give evidence that the exercise of Virology is unscientific.

The Covid deniers claim that Virology is unscientific because there are no control experiments to disprove that the experiment itself does not create what is called a virius, neither in the methodology of the culture process, nor in the sequencing of the genome, nor in the PCR. They claim that the discipline of Virology is based on a circular logic where Virologists start with an artificial object provided by the scientists themselves rather than having isolated and proven that the particle called a virus is a pathogenic particle existing in Nature. The dispute states that neither do they prove contagion and Dr. Tom Cowan discusses the evidence for this as do others who dispute germ theory in general. Basically, virologist claim that the only way to find a virus is to culture it, because there is not enough to find in a diseased host to be isolated.

There is a paper by Dr. Mark Bailey detailing the argument in detail titled "Farewell to Virology", which is recommended for its clarity. https://drsambailey.com/a-farewell-to-virology-expert-edition/

There are also references in Wikipedia to Dr. Stefan Lanka and his court case in Germany challenging anyone to provide a paper showing that the measles virus had been isolated. He is another figure in this view that viruses do not exist as pathogenic particles. Ultimately this case was decided in favour of Stefan Lanka in Germany. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Lanka#cite_note-s%C3%BCdkurier-10

I see that the main problem being with orthodoxy, rather than the scientific method. Because "everyone" agrees does not yield truth. A more "neutral" approach by the editors of Wikipedia would go a long way toward truth based on evidence rather than truth based upon consensus. Science can be determined by what can be shown to have more than one view of reality. One should be able to understand that there are various theories and that the germ theory is just that: it is a theory, and there are other theories, such as terrain theory, or other so-called pseudoscientific theories which operate equally well in reality if understood, one could say, by way of being neutral. I have no problem with the term pseudoscience being applied in the sense that something varies from consensus in the established scientific circles, but ultimately, one should understand and discuss an argument and a theory more deeply before labelling anything with the term pseudoscience. I think it will be more difficult in future to be that lazy.