The absolutely necessary scientific evidence required

Written by Mike Stone on October 17, 2024. Posted in Current News

When engaging with those who defend the germ “theory” of disease and virology, I often ask them for the necessary logical and scientific evidence needed to support their positive claim that pathogenic entities exist and that they can transmit disease from one host to another

This request focuses on evidence derived from the scientific method—a series of logical steps that must be strictly followed for the evidence to be considered valid and scientific.

Additionally, I seek evidence demonstrating the fulfillment of Koch’s Postulates, another set of logical criteria that must be met in order to establish that a specific microbe is the cause of a particular disease.

The inherent logic of both the scientific method and Koch’s Postulates work in harmony, as they complement one another perfectly. Together, they form a rigorous standard that must be met in order to prove causation.

When I request the necessary evidence that should be found within any foundational paper claiming to demonstrate the existence of pathogenic “viruses,” I outline the required evidence as such:

1. Do you have evidence of particles, presumed to be “viruses,” that have been directly purified and isolated from the fluids of a sick human or animal, without the use of culturing, and then confirmed through electron microscopy?
2. Additionally, do you have evidence that these purified and isolated particles have been proven to be pathogenic naturally through adherence to the scientific method and through the satisfaction of Koch’s Postulates?

Along with this request, I provide the steps of the scientific method in case whomever I am conversing with is unfamiliar with them (which is, sadly, more common than one would believe):

1. Observe a natural phenomenon
2. Alternative hypothesis
   1. Independent variable (the presumed cause)
   2. Dependent variable (the observed effect)
   3. Control variables
3. Null hypothesis
4. Test/experiment
5. Analyze the observation/data
6. Validate/invalidate hypothesis

I also provide Koch’s four logical postulates so that it is crystal clear exactly what evidence is being sought:

This requested line of evidence forms a strong, logical chain of causation that must be demonstrated by those asserting the existence of invisible, transmissible disease-causing agents.

In legal terms, a chain of causation refers to a sequence of events where each event is caused by the preceding one, establishing a clear causal link between the cause and its effects. Each link in this chain binds cause and effect together.

When something is shown to cause a specific effect, the chain remains unbroken, confirming the relationship between the two.

An example of this would be a situation where a company releases toxic chemical residues into a river, contaminating the water and harming animals that live in or drink from it. This contamination could cause illness and death in the wildlife.

If the river water is also used for human consumption and is not properly purified, it could lead to health problems for those who drink or bathe in it. The chain of causation in this case is clear: the release of toxic chemicals led to the poisoning of the river, which in turn caused illness and death in both wildlife and humans.

This causal relationship could be established through a series of tests conducted via the scientific method.

For germ “theory” and virology, a similar chain of causation must be established through a logical progression of evidence that aligns with the scientific method and satisfies Koch’s Postulates. If one wants to directly prove the hypothesis that an invisible microbe within a host is causing disease, it must be demonstrated that:

1. The microbe actually exists directly in the fluids of sick hosts but not in the fluids of healthy hosts.
2. The specific microbe is identified, purified, and isolated as a valid independent variable prior to experimentation (known as time order: the cause must exist before the effect).
3. The microbe is introduced into a healthy host in the manner proposed by the hypothesis (via aerosolization, ingestion, etc.) as the mode of “infection.”
4. The specific disease associated with the microbe is reproduced following this introduction.
5. The disease is transmissible from a sick host to a healthy host in the hypothesized manner (e.g., through close contact, coughing, sneezing, etc.).
6. After transmission, the same microbe can be purified and isolated from the fluids of the newly sickened host and confirmed.
7. This process must be repeated with a large sample size with proper control experiments, and the results must be independently reproduced by other researchers.

If this logical chain of causation can be demonstrated, then the hypothesis that a microbe causes a specific disease can be accepted. However, if any of the links in this chain cannot be completed, the hypothesis must be rejected, as the broken chain falsifies the claim.

Over the past few years, no one has been able to provide the absolutely necessary chain of causation upon my request—whether for bacteria or “viruses.” Instead, I receive either indirect pseudoscientific evidence or excuses such as:

• I made up my own definition of the scientific method.
• Koch’s Postulates are outdated or do not apply to “viruses.”
• I created impossible standards to reject all evidence.
• I am not qualified to determine what constitutes necessary scientific evidence.
• No virologists or microbiologists would agree with what is requested.

While these excuses are often amusing, they are, in fact, quite alarming. Those making them are essentially admitting that they do not understand the scientific method or the nature of scientific evidence.

By arguing that it is impossible to provide this evidence, they are effectively conceding that the necessary and logical scientific proof supporting their position does not exist.

The final two excuses, an appeal to authority, are particularly troubling. This fallacy occurs when someone claims that an argument is valid or invalid based solely on the authority of a person or source, or when it’s dismissed due to a perceived lack of authority.

Here, my argument is rejected not on its merit but because it supposedly lacks an “accepted” expert source. This undermines the principle that an argument should be evaluated on evidence and reasoning, not on who makes it. While appealing to authority can sometimes lend weight to a claim, it doesn’t automatically make the claim true.

What’s especially concerning is that this fallacious reasoning suggests a misunderstanding of the necessary chain of causation, something their own field recognizes. A little research shows that I didn’t invent this chain of causation—it’s foundational in the scientific method and emphasized in Koch’s Postulates.

In fact, sources supporting their claims acknowledge this requirement. Let’s take a closer look at what some of these sources actually say.

While I usually avoid responding to appeals to authority, I do enjoy turning these logically flawed arguments back on those who rely on them. Many seem to believe that invoking “authority” provides a kind of protective shield for their pseudoscientific beliefs.

However, this is rarely the case. If they choose to dismiss me as a credible voice on the necessary scientific evidence to establish causation, that’s fine. But then they must also concede that the  CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) are mistaken about what constitutes necessary evidence for causation.

In the CDC’s April 27, 2022, webinar titled Show me the data! How numbers affect COVID-19 communications, Dr. John Brooks discussed how the CDC adheres to the scientific method.

He explained that their process involves observing a phenomenon, posing a question, and generating a hypothesis to explain it. This hypothesis is then tested through experimentation to determine whether it should be accepted or rejected.

While it can be easily argued upon critical analysis that the CDC’s evidence is not derived from the scientific method, Dr. Brooks emphasized that this method forms the basis for the CDC’s decision-making process.

Regarding Koch’s Postulates, the CDC’s own field manual published in 2018 titled Optimizing Epidemiology–Laboratory Collaborations stated that Koch’s Postulates form the basis of proof that an emerging agent is the etiological cause of a disease.

Each of the postulates is considered necessary to satisfy, as just finding an agent does not mean that it is the cause of disease.

Thus, it can be ascertained that the CDC believes adherence to the scientific method and the fulfillment of Koch’s Postulates are essential logical steps in directly proving that a specific agent causes a specific disease.

In alignment with the CDC regarding the importance of Koch’s Postulates in determining disease causation is the World Health Organization. On March 27th, 2003, the WHO stated, “Conclusive identification of a causative must meet all criteria in the so-called ‘Koch’s postulate.’”

On April 16th, 2003, the WHO was kind enough to outline the four essential steps required to prove that a microorganism is the cause of a disease:

“The 13 laboratories have been working on meeting Koch’s postulates, necessary to prove disease causation.

These postulates stipulate that to be the causal agent, a pathogen must meet four conditions: it must be found in all cases of the disease, it must be isolated from the host and grown in pure culture, it must reproduce the original disease when introduced into a susceptible host, and it must be found in the experimental host so infected.”

From these two statenents, it is evident that the WHO recognizes the importance of Koch’s four postulates in proving that a microbe can cause disease. In regard to the scientific method, while there may not be a direct quote outlining the exact steps of the scientific method from the WHO, we can piece together their approach.

According to the WHO’s Health Research Methodology: A Guide for Training in Research Methods, the scientific method “is a systematic body of procedures and techniques applied in carrying out investigation or experimentation targeted at obtaining new knowledge.”

It further explains that an “observation, or series of observations triggers a hypothesis; a cross-sectional survey is undertaken to generate proper hypotheses; an observational study establishes associations and supports (or rejects) the hypothesis; and an experiment is conducted to test the hypothesis.”

Thus, observation, hypothesis formulation, and experimental testing are key to the scientific method.

We can infer the WHO’s emphasis on this process further from sources such as the History of Vaccines website, which is a member of the WHO-led Vaccine Safety Net (VSN), a network established by the WHO in 2003 to promote access to trustworthy vaccine safety information.

This membership suggests that the site adheres to WHO standards for providing reliable and scientifically accurate information, including the importance of the scientific method. To become a VSN member, websites must meet strict criteria regarding credibility, the scientific rigor of their content, and accessibility.

The History of Vaccines site, run by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia—the oldest professional medical organization in the United States—serves as a resource for both medical professionals and the general public to learn about medicine as a science and an art, as endorsed by the WHO.

This alignment with WHO standards implies that the organization values the scientific method as the basis for presenting vaccine-related information.

According to the History of Vaccines site, the scientific method is a “disciplined, systematic way of asking and answering questions about the physical world.”

It noted that there are “certain qualities” that “must apply to all applications of the scientific method.”

These include an attempt to gain new knowledge, careful and controlled observations, and independent reproducibility.

The steps of the scientific method are listed as making an observation, forming a hypothesis, conducting a test, and making a conclusion.

What Is the Scientific Method?

“The scientific method is a disciplined, systematic way of asking and answering questions about the physical world. Though it can be useful to think of the scientific method as a simple series of steps, there is no single model of the scientific method that can be applied in all situations.

Rather, different scientific investigations require different scientific methods. Certain qualities, however, must apply to all applications of the scientific method.

One important quality of a scientific investigation is that it must attempt to answer a question. In other words, an investigation should not attempt to “prove” a point, but to gain knowledge. Another quality is that careful, controlled observations must form the basis of information gathering.

Finally, the results of a scientific investigation must be reproducible: other investigators, using the same process, must observe the same results. If a result is not reproducible, the original conclusions must be questioned.

Steps of the Scientific Method

What we think of today as the “steps” of science have developed over time, and they may differ according to the type of investigation being conducted.

Generally, though, the steps involve making an observation, forming a hypothesis (the “question” mentioned above), conducting a test, and making a conclusion.

The article correctly emphasizes that scientific investigations begin with observation, but this explanation is a tad simplistic. Not just any observation is sufficient; in natural science, the observation must pertain to a natural phenomenon—an event or process that occurs in nature without human influence.

The article provides an example of a “scientific” observation process with Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. However, this discovery involves human manipulation—specifically, the preparation of bacterial cultures in a lab.

Fleming’s observation emerged from artificially designed conditions (growing bacteria on plates), though the contamination by mold was accidental. While the relationship between the mold and bacteria was indeed discovered through observation, it occurred in a controlled, laboratory context rather than in a purely natural environment.

The scientific method traditionally requires that the initial observation involve a naturally occurring event, which then leads to the development of a falsifiable and testable hypothesis.

Since this observation took place under manipulated conditions, it does not entirely align with the requirement for observing phenomena in nature, free from human influence.

Fleming was fortunate that the underlying interaction—mold inhibiting bacterial growth—does occur without human intervention in various natural environments.

This is taken from a long document, read the rest here substack.com

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