Ray Peat dissed by Dr. Tom Cowan on Patrick Timpone show

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Blaze

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I have no issue with Cowan and his ideas on virus theory. Quite the contrary, I really appreciate how in depth Tom Cowan and Andrew Kaufman are on this subject. But on a recent show called “show me the virus” when confronted by Patrick Timpone with a recently made comment by RP that you don’t have to completely isolate particles in a solution to be able to test what viral material is in it, with a sour look he really dismissed disrespectfully Ray‘s comments saying no human thinks like this and offering no real professional criticism or data to back up his rejection of Ray’s remarks. This is what is wrong with science, anytime you encounter a different opinion than your own, make it personal, then just snidely dismiss it as idiotic, rather than use it as an opportunity to debate the concepts and learn from each other. Dr. Kaufman showed a little more restraint. A little less hubris from Dr. Cowan and this could have been a great chance for you to respectfully compare your science with Ray Peats science to see how things stack up to each other. A huge missed opportunity to expound. I truly appreciate your work on the virus theme but shame on you Dr. Cowan for being so outright dismissive.

And Patrick Timpone....I am a fan of yours , but you are certainly aware of the years of study and incredible depth of science there is behind RP and his remarks and could have mentioned that and stuck up for Ray who has given you a lot of appearances on your show, and not permitted his ideas to be so casually dismissed.
 
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LucyL

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Here's a link to the show. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'll just comment that Patrick has gotten soft in his old age ;) He's also way out in looney-ville and has been on the "viruses don't exist" train for a long time. Taken together, he doesn't challenge any of his interviewees much, and certainly not on points he's already sympathetic too. I too am a fan of Patrick, he's been doing great work interviewing fringe viewpoints for decades.

 

yerrag

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Patrick should get them together for a show. They'll have a lovefest.
 

Elie

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Cowan's point of view isn't so much that viruses don't exist, but that infection isn't as simple as we are told it is. (see excerpt he refers to below).

Does anyone have a link to Ray's ideas about virus identification? I'd love to learn about his take.

The State of Science, Microbiology, and Vaccines Circa 1918

Perhaps the most interesting epidemiological studies conducted during the 1918–1919 pandemic were the human experiments conducted by the Public Health Service and the U.S. Navy under the supervision of Milton Rosenau on Gallops Island, the quarantine station in Boston Harbor, and on Angel Island, its counterpart in San Francisco. The experiment began with 100 volunteers from the Navy who had no history of influenza. Rosenau was the first to report on the experiments conducted at Gallops Island in November and December 1918.69 His first volunteers received first one strain and then several strains of Pfeiffer's bacillus by spray and swab into their noses and throats and then into their eyes. When that procedure failed to produce disease, others were inoculated with mixtures of other organisms isolated from the throats and noses of influenza patients. Next, some volunteers received injections of blood from influenza patients. Finally, 13 of the volunteers were taken into an influenza ward and exposed to 10 influenza patients each. Each volunteer was to shake hands with each patient, to talk with him at close range, and to permit him to cough directly into his face. None of the volunteers in these experiments developed influenza. Rosenau was clearly puzzled, and he cautioned against drawing conclusions from negative results. He ended his article in JAMA with a telling acknowledgement: “We entered the outbreak with a notion that we knew the cause of the disease, and were quite sure we knew how it was transmitted from person to person. Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the disease.”69 (p. 313)
 

RealNeat

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To be frank if Patrick asked me the same question in the same manner I'd dismiss it too. He did not give them the full context of what Dr. Peat said and just puked up a one line statement. I was very frustrated in the way Patrick "summed up" Rays comments on the subject.

There needs to be a debate where people present their own evidence. I've learned from many stupid experiences that I highly dislike when other people try to summarize my views.
 

Tim Lundeen

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It's pretty much impossible to support the "viruses don't exist" position. There is so MUCH evidence explained by the virus theory.

There is also a TON of evidence that the SARS-Cov-2 virus can cause COVID-19 (of course, some COVID-19 cases may actually be caused by something else, or this virus may be present but irrelevant).

It is also clear that a person's immune-system health determines how well they do when exposed to SARS-Cov-2: Adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 (excellent paper, even though, as always, their conclusions from the data may be wrong)

But the way Cowan/Kaufan present the "it's not the virus" is just kooky: it turns off people who are pro-health, pro-quality-science, pro-discussion. I never link to it or bring it up, and I try to dissuade those who do.
 

Giraffe

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Can someone quote Ray here?


PT- But what about the deeper idea that Cohen that and more people are putting it out more and more, that the whole germ theory, that these things have never been isolated from HIV to Polio, never been isolated properly, they make that case. Have you ever seen a real pure isolation done Dr. Peat?

RP (18:13) - O, when a person takes a chemistry lab in school, you learn to identify chemicals with great precision, that's the purpose of the techniques. You don't have to purify things to identify them. I think that’s the crux of their argument, that’s based on the mistaken idea that you have to have absolute purity to know something exists. But when they talk about pure chemical reagents, even those are...every smallest bit that you analyze it’s going to have some atoms and molecules of other substances. You don’t have to purify chemicals to identify them with certainty.

PT- Well, their argument Doc, is that because you’re getting molecules and particles and pieces of monkey kidneys where they’ve been in the dish and everything, that you’ve never really isolated a virus, that it doesn’t exist as advertised.

RP (19:30) - Yeah but you don’t have to isolate a chemical to be confident that it exists.

PT- O, So a virus is a chemical?

RP (19:40) - Yeah, because it’s not a living substance, you should categorize it as a biological chemical. Like insulin is a chemical. Short bits and pieces of RNA just 5 or 10 base units, they work like chemicals, they can be catalytic and so on, so if it isn’t self sustaining, like a protozoan or bacteria has all of the features of life. If it isn’t self sustaining, you have to describe it as a non-living chemical substance. Even though complex...I think the problem comes in not looking at the actual nature of the virus. How did that complex chemical come into existence if it can only be multiplied in an organism? Like the bacteria-phage or plant viruses, they’re easy to get in a fairly pure form. Not absolutely pure, but enough that everyone, even a beginner can make electro micro-graphs of these things. Whereas with the small viruses, the electron microscope pictures are always muddy and a matter of judgment. If you see a majority of particles that are all approximately the same size and shape, you suspect something. But the evidence for even these small viruses even better than even things like the lochness monster and bigfoot and so on. There are pictures of them, but not everyone is convinced they exist. So viruses, the evidence is about a thousand times better than those other things. It’s good to be skeptical, because the evidence isn’t absolute as a lot of good chemical tests can achieve.

PT- So let me see if I can understand you Dr. Peat. What you’re saying is, the past, the whole germ theory thing is correct? The viruses do go around and we can share them with each other?

RP (22:45) - I’m a critic of the so-called germ theory, that gives causality to the germ because healthy people are not subject to getting sick from germs. So the great weakness of the germ theory is that you need a particular receptive host for the germ, and if you just eat well and are just relatively sanitary and get your vitamin D and sunlight, and so on, then you don’t worry about these viral or bacterial or fungal diseases.

source
 

Giraffe

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Thank you
Just want to add... I don't know what Ray has said in the Patrick Timpone interview. The interview I linked is with John Burkhausen. But there you have Ray's take on isolating the virus.
 

yerrag

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Thanks @Giraffe

Peat and Cowan agrees as both don't subscribe to the germ theory. They don't agree on the basis for which viruses can be identified. Peat says it can be identified without it being isolated while Cowan thinks otherwise. Cowan not only believes there is no SARS-COV2 virus, but that there are no viruses because they can't be isolated. So for him, none of the diseases such as AIDS, HPV, measles, flu, chickenpox etc - all attributable to viruses - are caused by virus because virus don't exist. Ray Peat believes however that viruses exist. But both believe in having a strong immunity, by which an individual with adequate nourishment, can withstand pathogens that are always around us and within us.

In the case of COVID-19, Cowan believes that the symptoms shown in a person with the "disease" is the body adjusting to the exosomes created by itself that trigger a genetic adaptation in the body to deal with new stressors in the environment. When the body senses a change in the environment that its current genetic makeup it feels is inadequate to neutralize, it produces exosomes to refashion the body's genes to make it more responsive to the threat it senses, to make it more capable of dealing with it. In the process of refashioning itself, the body will have symptoms that when left on its own, will eventually go away by itself- so long as the body is healthy. I am not sure if Peat agrees with this, but I think he does because Peat has also talked about exosomes.

To me, Cowan believes there are no viruses and that what is mistaken as virus are exosomes, whereas Peat believes that there are both viruses and exosomes. But both agree that a healthy body that provides a strong immunity is needed. Peat believes in the idea that when sick, the treatment is more about restoring the ability to deal with the pathogen, instead of directing the treatment towards killing the pathogen. It is a bit nuanced for me, as Peat also is a promoter of antibiotic usage, and that is why Peat is not rabid about every solution being metabolic - about strengthening the body with optimal energy production - as he also promotes the use of drugs that are directed at pathogens. But certainly, he doesn't subscribe to the idea of antibiotic treatment solely without incorporating a metabolic approach at the same time.

I think that Cowan acted the way he did, somehow dismissing Peat in a way seen as rude, is because he is annoyed that his central pillar, that there are no such things as viruses because viruses have not been isolated. and ergo not proven to exist, is questioned by Ray Peat by Peat saying viruses don't have to be isolated in order to be proven to exist. Ray Peat gave his reason for his position, but once again, there is the vagueness in his language that doesn't put clarity on the matter. Peat lacks Cowan's ability to reduce to layman's language many complex topics, and I wish Ray could speak in less abstractions. But that is how great minds are sometimes.

I hope the two can get together in a Patrick Timpone interview, with their homework done, so they can engage in a debate where none will speak over the head of the other, as well as the audience.
 

tankasnowgod

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There is also a TON of evidence that the SARS-Cov-2 virus can cause COVID-19 (of course, some COVID-19 cases may actually be caused by something else, or this virus may be present but irrelevant).
If by "evidence," you mean propaganda, then sure. There has been millions of tons of propaganda in the past 14 months.

But otherwise, you would be hard pressed to find even a milligram of evidence that this "jumped from a bat corona virus in Wuhan in December of 2019" exists with the official storyline they try to sell to you, never mind causing even a single illness.
 

Tim Lundeen

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If by "evidence," you mean propaganda, then sure. There has been millions of tons of propaganda in the past 14 months.

But otherwise, you would be hard pressed to find even a milligram of evidence that this "jumped from a bat corona virus in Wuhan in December of 2019" exists with the official storyline they try to sell to you, never mind causing even a single illness.
Have you read Adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 ? It is a recent survey of immune response studies for SARS-Cov-2 over the last year, with 183 references. I'm happy to look at evidence that all this is wrong, please let me know! There are also studies for treatment protocols, a good starting place for them is https://ivmmeta.com/ -- it describes ivermectin studies, and has links to other treatment protocols. If all of this evaluates treatment for some other condition, again, let me know! I have an open mind, and I frequently get things wrong, always happy to find a better model.
 

tankasnowgod

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Have you read Adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 ? It is a recent survey of immune response studies for SARS-Cov-2 over the last year, with 183 references. I'm happy to look at evidence that all this is wrong, please let me know! There are also studies for treatment protocols, a good starting place for them is https://ivmmeta.com/ -- it describes ivermectin studies, and has links to other treatment protocols. If all of this evaluates treatment for some other condition, again, let me know! I have an open mind, and I frequently get things wrong, always happy to find a better model.
None of that matters. They are using PCR tests to supposedly detect SARS Cov 2, which is pointless. It's like asking a blind man to describe the color of a dog. It doesn't work.

And whatever they are detecting, it probably isn't that same "jumped from a bat into that woman while she was eating it novel corona virus" they claim to have found in the first ever patient back in December of 2019. Never forget what kind of false bill of goods they are trying to sell you.
 

rei

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Thanks @Giraffe

Peat and Cowan agrees as both don't subscribe to the germ theory. They don't agree on the basis for which viruses can be identified. Peat says it can be identified without it being isolated while Cowan thinks otherwise. Cowan not only believes there is no SARS-COV2 virus, but that there are no viruses because they can't be isolated. So for him, none of the diseases such as AIDS, HPV, measles, flu, chickenpox etc - all attributable to viruses - are caused by virus because virus don't exist. Ray Peat believes however that viruses exist. But both believe in having a strong immunity, by which an individual with adequate nourishment, can withstand pathogens that are always around us and within us.

In the case of COVID-19, Cowan believes that the symptoms shown in a person with the "disease" is the body adjusting to the exosomes created by itself that trigger a genetic adaptation in the body to deal with new stressors in the environment. When the body senses a change in the environment that its current genetic makeup it feels is inadequate to neutralize, it produces exosomes to refashion the body's genes to make it more responsive to the threat it senses, to make it more capable of dealing with it. In the process of refashioning itself, the body will have symptoms that when left on its own, will eventually go away by itself- so long as the body is healthy. I am not sure if Peat agrees with this, but I think he does because Peat has also talked about exosomes.

To me, Cowan believes there are no viruses and that what is mistaken as virus are exosomes, whereas Peat believes that there are both viruses and exosomes. But both agree that a healthy body that provides a strong immunity is needed. Peat believes in the idea that when sick, the treatment is more about restoring the ability to deal with the pathogen, instead of directing the treatment towards killing the pathogen. It is a bit nuanced for me, as Peat also is a promoter of antibiotic usage, and that is why Peat is not rabid about every solution being metabolic - about strengthening the body with optimal energy production - as he also promotes the use of drugs that are directed at pathogens. But certainly, he doesn't subscribe to the idea of antibiotic treatment solely without incorporating a metabolic approach at the same time.

I think that Cowan acted the way he did, somehow dismissing Peat in a way seen as rude, is because he is annoyed that his central pillar, that there are no such things as viruses because viruses have not been isolated. and ergo not proven to exist, is questioned by Ray Peat by Peat saying viruses don't have to be isolated in order to be proven to exist. Ray Peat gave his reason for his position, but once again, there is the vagueness in his language that doesn't put clarity on the matter. Peat lacks Cowan's ability to reduce to layman's language many complex topics, and I wish Ray could speak in less abstractions. But that is how great minds are sometimes.

I hope the two can get together in a Patrick Timpone interview, with their homework done, so they can engage in a debate where none will speak over the head of the other, as well as the audience.
In the latest timpone interview i think it came out pretty clearly that peat thinks of exosomes and viruses interchangeably. In fact what he said there and what you referenced cowan saying are pretty identical.

"Cowan believes that the symptoms shown in a person with the "disease" is the body adjusting to the exosomes created by itself that trigger a genetic adaptation in the body to deal with new stressors in the environment. When the body senses a change in the environment that its current genetic makeup it feels is inadequate to neutralize, it produces exosomes to refashion the body's genes to make it more responsive to the threat it senses, to make it more capable of dealing with it. In the process of refashioning itself, the body will have symptoms that when left on its own, will eventually go away by itself- so long as the body is healthy."

This is pretty much the way peat describes exosomes, with the only difference being peat realizes these exosomes can travel from organism to organism and cause effect between individuals.

In summary the confusion could be cleared up by stating that "exosome" is the terminology when the organism does it to itself, while "virus" is when you receive an exosome coming from another organism. Even when they are virtually the same thing.
 

yerrag

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In the latest timpone interview i think it came out pretty clearly that peat thinks of exosomes and viruses interchangeably. In fact what he said there and what you referenced cowan saying are pretty identical.

"Cowan believes that the symptoms shown in a person with the "disease" is the body adjusting to the exosomes created by itself that trigger a genetic adaptation in the body to deal with new stressors in the environment. When the body senses a change in the environment that its current genetic makeup it feels is inadequate to neutralize, it produces exosomes to refashion the body's genes to make it more responsive to the threat it senses, to make it more capable of dealing with it. In the process of refashioning itself, the body will have symptoms that when left on its own, will eventually go away by itself- so long as the body is healthy."

This is pretty much the way peat describes exosomes, with the only difference being peat realizes these exosomes can travel from organism to organism and cause effect between individuals.

In summary the confusion could be cleared up by stating that "exosome" is the terminology when the organism does it to itself, while "virus" is when you receive an exosome coming from another organism. Even when they are virtually the same thing.
Thanks for the correction. They agree more than they disagree. I hope Pat Timpone gets them to thresh out the points they disagree on.
 

rei

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I have no faith in timpone getting anything done, he just babbles things and asks semi-relevant questions, leaving it pretty much up to the guest to answer in a way that makes the interview coherent to a listener. He's not a bad host but nowhere near a good one either.
 

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