Mad dogs and Canadians

Scary to me that in the year 2018 we have people embracing such primitive, uneducated, non-science based and dangerous approaches. Maybe scarier is that evidently this treatment is approved by Health Canada.

Also:
"She added that the saliva was so diluted that it wouldn’t contain any trace of rabies virus."

If that's the truth, and I don't believe it was probably tested, but if that's the truth, why use saliva from a rabid dog at all?

IMO, exposing a young child who is exhibiting behavioral problems to anything tainted with rabies virus to any capacity or at any level, is simply dangerous and stupid.

What I believe we have here is dangerous "Witch Doctor" practice, creating placebo affect.

 

Again, the report is that an extremely diluted rabies saliva was administered to a young boy and he got better. All the hair on fire reaction is that the observations don't match their theory. If we're going to even mention science, there has to be observation as part of it. The reactions we have here are dogma, not science.

 

Nor can it be claimed to be medicine. Yes, the scientific observation was that the patient "got better", but why? And how? What was the effective medicinal ingredient? And what was really wrong with him in the first place?

 

safe (but) ineffective@18. Makes a fair point that lactose pills (with memory) do no harm. One might respond that they do, indirectly, if they steer consumers away from safe and effective medical treatments. Or if they dilute public appreciation of the edifice of science. Of which the edifice of medicine is subsidiary.

So it's quaint and all but seriously...

Se how I injected "dilute" into that? If public appreciation of science gets sufficiently diluted there will be no memory effect. I don't actually fear that. Just fightin' fires.

he got better@22. This is indeed the report, unverified by neutral observers. Assuming such do exist. Reliance on N=1 anecdotes fits neatly into the definition of dogma, so there you go.

 

Serial dilutions are an important tool of science, and, taken much further, are the backbone of homeopathy. Therefore I choose to expound. There really are skills involved, and the process can be done wrongly.

Sometimes it is basically impossible to do right, illustrated by an example unrelated to virus. Phosphate ions adsorb to glass and 'cut loose' when liquid-phase concentrations are lower. You can't make serially diluted phosphate 'standards' in glass containers or with glass pipettes. Gotta use polyethylene, polypropylene, etc.

But serial dilutions are necessary for preparing standard solutions, to find bacterial 'most probable numbers', and for many other laboratory dances. As a teacher (pedant) it can be necessary to assess kids' skills. I tell 'em to make several (matching) sets of serial dilutions, make sure they understand the steps, then leave the room. Come back and fire up a spectrophotometer. Secretly (as you might guess) I am hoping that at least one of the series turns out wacky. Teachable moment. So I says "do it again (again and again) until all your series lock onto that line". Then they have skillz; essentially self taught. Because knowing theory and calculation is not enough. You gotta make your brain and eyes and hands work together to achieve (in this case) a quite verifiable result. Happens better when The Bad Guy is not in the room.

Thanks for reading to end of serial-dilutions rant. Something I take quite seriously. Have no knowledge whether homeopathists go to a similar boot camp.

 

pleasure, it really was one of your more lucid diatribe's.

 

affect@21 should be effect. I really am tiresome...

 

lucid@26. Damned by faint praise. Feint praise. Once you know the wordz you can play with them.

 

that's a tough one.

 

some struggle with our and are.

 

and two to too many apostrophes. '''

 

Tiresome? Not at all. Tired some, maybe....

I've been waiting patiently for someone to ask if the affliction of the barking boy might have been dogma.....

 

Possessive apostrophication is xxx's or xxxs' depending on whether noun is singular or plural. Pronouns are not apostrophicated.

Thus, it's its unless your meaning is "it is". People who get paid big bucks for writing screw that up. Tochatihu gets angry

 

i wish i was one of them, it would be worth your ire.

 

barking boy#32 has ADHD per testimony. In my view a very difficult situation to manage or treat. Thus I cannot say whether being in a non-traditional medical setting, with a whole new set of distractions offered, might lead to (temporary) improvement. I just can't. So we are stuck with N=1 and click baited by rabies.

 

was@34. Were. Past tense subjunctive mood. You're doing this on purpose, right?

 

you caught me doc.

 

Subjunctive verbs are a really big deal in Spanish. English pretty much fluffs over them. Leaving minute wreckage that only triggers pedants.

That or which? non-restrictive clauses. This could go on for far too long. So, write wrong and I'll try not to right them.

 

Just one more and done. Ever noticed "the"? It's an article. Those poorly trained, or attempting to puff up verbiage will put "the" before a large fraction of (the) nouns.

I have received scientific manuscripts with >5% of words being "the". tiresome. Recently I just send private messages back to journal editors. "Look, it's your journal buddy; if if you don't want it to be seen as sloppy, then fix it yourself. I'll 'review' scientific aspects." This does not necessarily make me popular.

"The", properly used, is a restrictive article meaning this (these) and no other(s).

Believe it or not, I have sympathy. School teachers were responsible for putting all such rules into your heads. They did not in mine because I was goofing off etc. Consequently in grad school I finally encountered someone who knew and said "your writing sucks". So, I taught myself.

Clearly we write to 'informal' standards in chats like this. My only defense is that sometimes after having my head in manuscripts for hours, it is hard to switch off.

Evocative, compelling, well-structured writing is a thing of beauty; like (some) music. It is also very hard to achieve. Do or do not. But, contra Yoda, there is try.

 

i was staring out the window, wondering why i was stuck inside.