>...Peter Borst drove a large wooden stake through its heart here:
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=BEE-L;f67db18a.1306

I read Peter's post when it showed up here...from the post (which was pasted from somewhere else, not Peter's own critique):

"The first red-flag...The terms "modern disease" and "gut bacteria/microbes/flora/etc" have been used and abused by pseudoscientific practitioners that promote fad diets (paleo and such), anti-vaccination people, anti-genetically modified food people, and other groups which employ the naturalistic fallacy....While there is a kernel of truth in a few of the claims, too often the terms get pseudoscientific treatment."

The above is absurd.  There is certainly an understanding that there are a class of "modern diseases", many of them linked to immune system malfunction.  It is certainly legitimate to look at diseases that manifest visibly in our modern society/lifestyle as a group.  There is certainly an understanding of the importance (and influence) of gut microbes in humans, bees, and other critters (every animal large enough to have an "inside" hosts gut microbes).

...but to dismiss the study _because_ it references gut microbes and modern disease?  Are terms like "blood", "toxin", "brain", "heart", "cancer", "healing", "medicine" not given pseudoscientific treatment and abused by pseudoscientific practitioners?  The content of the paper (not what bloggers are saying about it) is the real issue here.

A few concrete examples (like the ones I posted earlier) are all that is needed to dismiss the paper.  I wouldn't dismiss a paper because it discussed gut microbes, modern diseases, Roundup, or because a blogger gave it a bad review...I'd actually look at the paper.

deknow

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