Talk:Koch's postulates

message: This is a stray, I don't know where it belongs.  --Una Smith 21:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: This article appears to have been adjusted such that anyone investigating HIV=AIDS theories would find nothing here for support. Nukeh (talk) 07:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then it would be accurate. MastCell Talk 21:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

text: This talk page is intended for discussion of concrete and specific improvements to this article. I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest in that regard. AIDS denialism is a fringe view which is already given more than its due weight on Wikipedia in the articles dedicated to it; it really has no place here. MastCell Talk 22:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The name "Duesberg" is on this discussion page more frequently than "Koch", and I agree that Duesberg is a fringe view, but he has more than his due weight here.Nukeh (talk) 07:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That this talk page is a magnet for AIDS denialism is unfortunate. However, WP:WEIGHT is determined by proportionate acceptance of a view by experts in the relevant field, not by the number of mentions of a concept on a Wikipedia talk page (God forbid!) MastCell Talk 20:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias

message: The article says the authors are Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler. I read somewhere Friedrich Henle. Wich is correct? Henle was Koch student. Khullah (talk) 02:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doubts about authors 

message: I think it would be interesting for readers to have a list of the most well-known diseases that either pass and fail the postulates. Does anyone have any objection to me starting a section for each? BruceSwanson (talk) 16:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how useful that would be, since the postulates are not ironclad and don't take into account modern knowledge. "Failing" the postulates does not rule out causation, and they've modified post hoc several times (including by Koch himself) to address cases where an organism clearly caused disease but still "failed" the postulates (e.g. tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid). In any case, perhaps you could bring the sources you intend to use to create this list here for discussion first? MastCell Talk 16:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  The postulates are really just a rule of thumb - actual causation is determined by a full and proper statistical analysis or whatever. My guess is that the issue is not a particularly significant part of the topic, but I could be convinced otherwise. Did you have any particular sources in mind for this section? - 2/0 (cont.) 21:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

text: While I'm impressed at the progression from AIDS denialism to hepatitis C and prion denialism, could we avoid discussing our personal interpretations of Koch's postulates (per the talk page guidelines) and stick to what reliable sources have to say? As I'm sure you know, HIV does fulfill Koch's postulates, at least in the opinion of scientists who actually do research on the subject. What reliable sources do you have in mind to substantiate this discussion? If the answer is "none", then let's archive it now and save our breath. MastCell Talk 04:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Bruce's mind must be fertile indeed, since ideas take root so strongly that even a blizzard of facts cannot uproot them. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

text: HIV is known to satisfy Koch's postulates, as documented in the scientific literature (e.g. ) and by expert scientific bodies (e.g. ). I've asked you to provide sources for your claim to the contrary, but you've responded only with your personal viewpoint (marked by both logical and factual errors). You're misusing this talk page, and it's time to break the cycle. If you don't make some sort of effort to produce reliable sources with some relevance to the article content, I'm going to archive this thread in the next 24 hours or so. MastCell Talk 18:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. You have been asked specifically several times to provide your sources, but have not yet done so. Articles such as  specifically refute your ill-informed suppositions, so unless you can finally cite some authoritative sources, I agree with MastCell that there is nothing more to say here. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Diseases

message: Here is a link to a reliable source that claims HIV satisfies Koch's Postulates. Look at the section entitled Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS. You can see that in justifying HIV's satisfaction of postulate #3 (Transfer of the suspected pathogen to an uninfected host, man or animal, produces the disease in that host) it describes data obtained from uncontrolled sources -- accidental needlepricks, the David Acer/Kimberly Bergalis case, etc. (Note as well that the classic four postulates are condensed to three.)
Would it be original synthesis to state that data from such uncontrolled sources from outside the controlled laboratory-environment cannot logically satisfy the postulates, if a reliable source includes such data in its claim to have done so?  
Which takes precedence: the logic of the postulates themselves as derived form their literal words, or what a reliable source says about them? If it's the latter, shouldn't this article state that data derived from outside sources has successfully been used to justify conformity to the postulates, and then include the linked reference (above) as a footnote?  
I'm particularly interested in the opinions of real-name editors who work in the scientific field. BruceSwanson (talk) 20:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The postulates do not require that evidence come from a "controlled" source, whatever novel meaning you've assigned to the term. They only require (well, suggest) that an organism should be capable of causing disease if introduced into a healthy organism. HIV isolates are clearly capable of that, so the NIH statement that you linked seems quite sound. I found the remainder of your post difficult to parse, but it doesn't seem that it contains any specific changes to the article text that would be justified. Maybe you'll get a different answer from my "real-name" comrades, though. MastCell Talk 20:53, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: In Wikipedia we summarize what the source says and do not interpret it in novel ways ourselves. Since this source says that the postulates have been fulfilled, and the source is reliable, we can say that the postulates have been fulfilled and cite this source to support the statement. Since you have still not provided any sources to justify your personal convictions about Koch's postulates, you are continuing to abuse this talkpage. Please remember that Wikipedia is not a forum. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Echoing Tim and MastCell.  BS is violating WP:OR by attempting to argue for a claim that is clearly contradictory to the scientific consensus.  This leads to WP:NPOV which says we give weight to the scholarly majority and can safely ignore fringe pseudoscience like HIV denialism a priori.  Finally, BS' use of the talk page to argue for an inappropriate application of sources to further an AIDS denialist agenda is a WP:FORUM and WP:TP problem.  So we're yet again, done.  Bruce, HIV causes AIDS.  That's the scientific consensus.  If you don't like that wikipedia adopts that position, you can attempt to convince the community to change its stance on pseudoscicence, the scientific community and original research.  Until that happens, please don't bother pushing a dishonest and discredited agenda.  You're not casually interested in Koch's postulates, you're interested in misapplying them to prove HIV does not cause AIDS.  We're not interested.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 18:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

text: This article lists only 3 postulates - the 3 that the NIAID website describes in reference to HIV. As an aside: "Even at the time they were presented, the Henle-Koch postulates were never recommended as rigid criteria of causation and failed to apply to many diseases at the time when a causal relationship seemed almost unequivocal; Koch himself felt that fulfillment of the first two postulates might be sufficient evidence of causality." One wonders at the effort to turn these into rigid criteria of causation in 2010 when they were not considered such by their original authors in 1840. MastCell Talk 20:21, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

text: You know, in the late 1800s, Alfred Russell Wallace got into a dispute with a member of the Flat Earth Society. The Flat Earther demanded conclusive proof that the Earth was round, and wagered £500 that Wallace couldn't provide it. Against his better judgment, Wallace took up the challenge - after all, the Earth is round, and it isn't that hard to prove, and £500 was a lot of money in those days. Wallace took the Flat Earther to the Old Bedford River, the Flat Earther's home territory, and was able to demonstrate conclusively the curvature of the river's surface.What happened next is instructive. The Flat Earther refused to honor the wager, raising a number of post hoc objections which amounted to goalpost-moving. Having lost the battle in the reputable arena, the Flat Earther developed a personal animus toward Wallace, and engaged in a years-long campaign of defaming him and ultimately making death threats against him. Wallace prevailed in court, but the ultimate cost to him was clearly disproportionate. Wallace's engagement with the Flat Earther was a failure on a more fundamental level - it failed to convince any of the Flat Earthers of the error of their worldview - because the Flat Earthers were not capable of being convinced by rational, objective, factual discussion or demonstration. It was easier across the board for the Flat Earthers to embroider their conspiracy theories and increasingly bizarre objections than to rationally evaluate Wallace's demonstration and recognize that they were fundamentally wrong.In Texas, and perhaps other parts of the South, Wallace's experience would be summed up thus: "Never wrestle with a pig, because both of you will end up dirty, and the pig will enjoy it." I apologize for the tangent. To return to the point, this talk page does not exist as a forum for you to propound your personal philosophy on HIV/AIDS. Your userpage indicates that you have a blog, so if you'd like to publish your personal exposition of Koch's postulates, that might be the best venue. Here, let's stick to sources. If you are aware of any which address (or even raise) the questions you mention, please present them. Otherwise, I'll probably collapse this discussion, like the last one, as another abuse of this article talk page. MastCell Talk 18:45, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: What are Koch's Postulates?

message: My last edit was to show that the footnoted source finds three postulates sufficient to prove causation. Thus it is in agreement with its sentence: ... fulfillment of all four postulates is no longer required to demonstrate causality. Operative67 (talk) 00:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: HIV fulfillment of the postulates

message: The assertion that HIV causes AIDS does not follow Koch's postulates[13] in support of HIV/AIDS denialism.
It's probably some edit left-over of something that probably intended to mean something like "HIV/AIDS denialists assert that the association of HIV and AIDS doesn't fulfill Koch's postulates, even though the scientific criteria for such associations have been expanded since then, so on and so forth". By the way, I recall having read something, I guess from non-HIV/AIDS denier sources, along the lines of an "updated version" of such postulates, with a few additions, actually motivated by HIV/AIDS research.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 191.254.32.66 (talk) 03:11, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weird phrasing, "in support of HIV/AIDS denialism" / BTW, amendments to Koch's postulates?