My final post on this topic: If viruses don't exist, then how can we see them?
Two papers show viruses that are large enough to be seen with an optical microscope. A third paper shows all of Koch's postulates satisfied for SARS-CoV-2 published in Nature. We're done.
Executive summary
This is my last post on this. I want to be perfectly clear what my position is.
The answer is yes, viruses exist and SARS-CoV-2 exists.
In the past 10 years, several types of giant viruses have been found. You can see these under a microscope.
People who tell you otherwise are misinformation spreaders.
Two papers show viruses that are large enough to be seen with an optical microscope
If viruses don’t exist, how can we see them?
These two papers show recently discovered viruses that are big enough to see and which have distinct shapes that can be easily observed:
The rapidly expanding universe of giant viruses: Mimivirus, Pandoravirus, Pithovirus and Mollivirus. Unexpectedly, four different families of eukaryotic 'giant viruses' have been discovered over the past 10 years with genome sizes, gene contents and particle dimensions overlapping with that of cellular microbes. The image above shows light microscope and electron microscope images of four different giant viruses.
If you think these papers are fake, the burden of proof is on you to show evidence of fakery. Generally, fakery doesn’t last too long in top journals, e.g., the faked HCQ paper in the Lancet. Baseless accusations won’t cut it with my readers. If you have proof either of these papers were faked, let’s see the proof.
Koch’s postulates have been satisfied for SARS-CoV-2
Not only can you see viruses, but Koch’s postulates have been satisfied for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in this paper and the results were published in Nature:
Our results demonstrate the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 in mice, which—together with previous clinical studies1—completely satisfies Koch’s postulates7 and confirms that SARS-CoV-2 is the pathogen responsible for COVID-19.
Of course, Massey et al. have a different interpretation of Koch’s postulates that is difficult, time consuming and expensive to meet, so they would claim that it doesn’t meet THEIR interpretation of Koch’s postulates.
They flatly refuse to debate any of us on this issue, bet or no bet. They can’t argue it’s a waste of their time because we’ll pay them $1M if they are right. That’s an opportunity. Why pass on it? Answer: because they know they would lose.
P.S. I’d ask Tom Cowan, Christine Massey, Mark Bailey, etc. about this but none of them want to talk to me.
The virus has been sequenced
There are thousands of COVID variants.
I used the S gene codons from this Wuhan variant.
Here’s the BLAST search result:
They will tell you gene sequencing is random and you can get anything you want, but clearly some sequences were identical, others had slight mutations in the S gene. But it only matched SARS-CoV-2.
ATCC offer 15 purified viruses for purchase
See the Purified Virus page. Why only 15? It’s explained on that page:
It’s hard to do the purification (cost, time, technical challenges)
Most researchers and applications don’t need purified virus samples.
Video
Please watch the video in this tweet and look at the comments:
If Tom Cowan et al. want isolated virus, Kevin McCairn would be happy to do the work and it will cost far less than the amount that Christine Massey has already admitted that they have pledged ($500K) for their challenge. However, they refuse to fund this work. This is how they keep their narrative going. Sam Bailey makes cute videos and never mentions all of the offers to do the work.
They are afraid of a public livestream debate… with just two people on our side vs. their entire team
Tom Cowan, Sam Bailey, Mark Bailey, Christine Massey, and all the other co-signers of their “Settling the virus debate” challenge are badly misinformed and refuse to being held accountable for their misinformation. The discussion is not with me; I have two friends (Kevin Mckernan and James Lyons-Weiler) that will show anyone watching a livestream who is telling you the truth. Cowan et al. can pick their FIVE strongest scientists to debate them. So 2 from our side and 5 from their side. If they want more, that’s fine with us (they will need all the help they can get). What could be more fair? But none of the virus deniers will agree to a public livestream discussion. They stopped responding to my emails as soon as I challenged them to defend their views on camera in a livestream. You can see some of the emails I’ve sent them below. We know they got previous emails since the contents show up in Sam’s latest video. They refuse to accept.
Since they refused my attempts to debate them, I even tried to entice them by offering them a chance to win from $200K to $1M if they win the debate in front of a panel of mutually selected judges. They have the funds so that isn’t the issue. It is baffling to me that they would not want to instantly double their money. The only reasonable hypothesis for turning down my generous offer is that they know they would lose. It’s a tacit admission that they have no confidence at all in what they’ve been telling people.
It is a stunning example of the Dunning-Kruger effect that you can observe by reading the 1,500+ comments on this post.
Do you think I’m wrong? You can win up to $1M!
If you think I’m wrong about the virus existing, you can win $1M. Here’s the term sheet that explains everything you need to know to double your money.
Do you see Sam Bailey offering the opposite offer? Heck no. If she did, I’d accept it.
One of us is confident in our beliefs. The other is not confident at all.
How science works: the burden is on them to show their novel hypothesis is superior to the current working hypothesis. They haven’t done that.
The current working hypothesis is that viruses exist. It fits 100 years of observations. If you want to say it’s wrong, you have to show that your NEW hypothesis explains the existing data better than the old hypothesis. That is how science works.
The burden is on Cowan et al. to show that the current hypothesis is inadequate to explain the observations and that it should be replaced by their new improved hypothesis which fits the observations better. They never meet that burden.
It’s ridiculously easy: All they have to do is show that the last 100 years of published papers on viruses are more likely explained by their hypothesis. No new experiments are needed.
The problem is that they don’t offer an alternate hypothesis that fits the observed data as well as or better than the current hypothesis! They have nothing.
They can’t even explain even a simple case where a family member gets COVID and then, all of a sudden, other people in the same household get the same illness. None of their explanations (and they offer hundreds of potential causes) can explain even this simple example. They want you to believe the unique gene sequences come from 5G or soda. It’s unbelievable that people actually take them seriously.
How people are being misled into thinking science works the way THEY say it does
Instead, they are misled into thinking that because they claim that “no virus particle has been isolated” based on the dictionary definition of isolation (instead of the virology definition), that that is proof that viruses don’t exist.
Further, they require that the isolated particles are used to infect “test subjects” which I assume are lab animals. But it’s a human virus. So why are we testing it on lab animals? We won’t be able to get an IRB to approve infecting humans. And infecting humans is hard and would require a huge quantity of virions to achieve success; very likely more virions that can be successfully harvested and preserved for the experiment.
Even worse, they require each test subject to have identical sickness. Virology requires no such thing. My wife and I are completely different. We have different immune systems. I’m male, she’s female. We have different immune histories. We have different health issues. She got COVID first and lost her taste. I picked it up from her, and didn’t lose my taste. So this proves virology doesn’t exist?!?!
And finally, the next impossible challenge. The virus isolated from test subjects must be identical to the original particles. I can guarantee you this is never true. This virus mutates in everyone and everyone gets many mutations. If virus in=virus out as they claim, there wouldn’t be any variants at all.
So their challenge is based on a fairy tale world that virology works they way they think it does. They don’t understand virology, so they make these rookie errors.
Why aren’t they specifying any tests for THEIR hypothesis?
Did you notice that they have no test whatsoever to validate that their replacement hypothesis is true? Whoops! A slight oversight!
The test for their hypothesis is simple: fit the observations over the last 100 years better than the current hypothesis.
They can’t do this at all.
The bottom line
You get the idea. Unless THEIR experiment is done to THEIR specification using THEIR judges, then virology is a hoax.
Their experiment as specified is impossible to do because it was designed to fail for the reasons I just pointed out. It’s a completely disingenuous challenge designed to fool the public. They did the same publicity stunt when they did a FOIA to the CDC asking for an isolated virus.
They want you to cast aside 100+ years of scientific studies, all of which are consistent with the “virus theory” because they can’t find an experiment which meets their requirements. Science doesn’t work that way. Science is a “best fit” of a hypothesis to data. Their hypothesis that “other things” caused the observed effect is ludicrous.
Claiming isolation is required to prove viruses exist is like saying the Higgs Boson doesn’t exist because you can’t isolate it. Yet all the theory and the observations are consistent with the Higgs Boson. It took 40 years to “prove” it exists.
It’s like saying gravity doesn’t exist because you cannot isolate it.
Creating an experiment that is hard to pull off technically is not proof of non-existence. It is simply proof that some things are harder to do than other things. If I cut up a newspaper into tiny pieces the size of a letter and then ask you to prove that a newspaper existed by re-assembling the pieces, that would be extremely difficult to accomplish, but it doesn’t prove that the newspaper that was torn up never existed.
More importantly though, this is not how science works (which I have already explained above in the section “How science works”).
I challenge anyone who thinks viruses don’t exist, not just the co-signers
I’ve also offered to bet $1M to ANYONE who thinks I’m wrong, but sadly there were no takers. That document explains why using financial risk is so effective in finding the truth.
Why there aren’t “isolated” viruses available at ATCC (by their definition)
Nobody does the isolation work today because nobody needs an “isolated virus” to develop assays. With the invention of genetic sequencing, the SARS-CoV-2 products from ATCC are more than adequate to meet all the needs of scientists around the world. It’s only Tom Cowan et al. who have a unique need for an “isolated virus” which is isolated to THEIR specifications.
Do they ever explain to you why ATCC only offers just 15 purified virus products? Here’s why:
Obtaining these essential materials can be challenging as the process for culturing, purifying, and titering a viral preparation can be time consuming and costly, requiring technical expertise, specialized equipment, and a broad range of supporting biomaterials and reagents.
Even if Cowan paid their expenses, ATCC wouldn’t get an ROI on the work, so it’s unlikely that they would do the work. Have they even asked? If not, why not?
Of course they haven’t asked ATCC. If they had, they’d publicize it! So since they won’t ask, I just sent in a quote request for a purified virus to ATCC.
This shows that they are disingenuous in their claims about wanting to isolate the virus. If they want it so badly, they should pay for it because nobody else needs it so nobody will pay for it.
If ATCC won’t do the work, I assure you that Kevin McCairn will do the work. Why aren’t they funding him or asking for a quote? Answer: because they know they are wrong.
Finally, did you notice that “they” aren’t offering to bet me or debate me? There’s a reason for that.
I’ve reached out to them, and all I get is silence. We are ready to go whenever they are.
Earlier document I’ve written related to the virus exists topic
If viruses don't exist, then how can we see them? (this document)
Rumble video of Patrick Gunnels admitting bacteriophages have been isolated (these are viruses)
If you think the SARS-CoV-2 virus or virology is a hoax, READ THIS NOW
So you can see, I’ve not avoided the topic, but at this point, I’ve made my case and you are welcome to your opinion.
Why did I spend so much time on this?
A large number of people have been successfully duped into believing viruses and virology are scams.
But this can easily be disproved by science. VERY easily. The virology explanation fits the facts. Their “viruses don’t exist” hypothesis leaves everything unexplained. It couldn’t be simpler.
Yet the virus deniers cannot be moved off “the virus has to be isolated based on a layman’s definition of “isolate” or it doesn’t exist.” This is stupid. That’s not how science works.
Yet, when presented with the facts, people reject them and stick with their beliefs.
The vaccines are a much more complex issue because the data is more complicated.
If we can figure out how to red-pill the people who are bought into the “there is no virus” story, then we may have a technique to red-pill people who think the vaccines are safe.
The problem I have with the vaccine crowd is that they refuse even to engage in dialog. The virus deniers are happy to engage in dialog, but just as dogmatic in their beliefs. So the virus debate allowed me to engage in changing people’s beliefs on a small scale. It was pretty eye opening as I expected this to be much easier than it appeared.
Do I have any doubts I got it wrong? Nope.
The fact that nobody will take my money suggests that they have no conviction in their beliefs. Yet, even without that conviction, it appears that nothing will change their minds. That was counter-intuitive to me.
If you were a virus denier and you have now changed your mind, please indicate that in the comments. I bet the number changed is near zero which suggests to me that logical arguments and data are not persuasive.
It reinforces the old Mark Twain quote:
It’s Easier To Fool People Than To Convince Them That They’ve Been Fooled.
And yes, you were fooled by that because Mark Twain never said that. Think I’m kidding? Here’s the reference.
What did I learn
No amount of evidence and explanation will make a difference to people dug in their beliefs, even if the arguments are simple and clear. The evidence for viruses is overwhelming: it fits all the observed data, bacteriophages have been isolated, there is a peer reviewed paper published in Nature proving Koch’s postulates, larger viruses can be observed under an optical microscope, there is no alternate hypothesis that fits the observations. None of that makes a difference to people bought into that narrative.
People who promote false views invariably shy away from debates. Some people are brave enough to engage, but when the going gets tough, they disengage. We saw this with Patrick Gunnels where as soon as I pointed out bacteriophages are viruses he told me never to contact him again.
People who promote false views will never risk any money in a challenge that is adjudicated.
The method used to mislead people is simple: Establish credibility in some area where you are actually telling the truth. Then you get a loyal following. Then you spin a false story that SOUNDS plausible but where people have limited expertise. So you “teach” people that if the virus hasn’t been isolated, it doesn’t exist. Or that you can get any genetic sequence you want because tiny pieces of RNA can be assembled into anything. Or that Sanger sequencing is unreliable. So you are perceived as an “educator” by leveraging the credibility you previously achieved. Once people are locked into the narrative, it’s hard to pull them out.
It’s even more effective if you produce an entertaining video about it such as this Sam Bailey video on virology where she positions herself as the expert in the field and she’s telling you what is REALLY going on. It promotes her book. By mixing in snippets of the truth (like that the PCR test being inaccurate but without telling you the whole story), she has just enough seemingly credible content that she positions herself as the expert who is going to enlighten you with the magician’s secrets! Pay no attention to what virologists tell you! They are misleading you! This method works remarkably well. Even though she’s misleading everyone, she gets comments like this one (with 186 likes): “Outstanding. You might be the most dangerous person to the orthodox medical establishment in existence. Bravo. I have such a deep respect for what you are doing.” Wow. I didn’t read all the comments, but they all appeared to be glowing! At this point, her followers are so loyal that she could debate us, lose badly on every single point, and her followers will believe she won the debate. I’m totally serious about that! How did Sam Bailey become an “expert on virology” and how did she form her views? She got that knowledge by reading the views of other misinformation spreaders rather than acquiring the knowledge through actually doing the work herself. Her book then propagates the misinformation to others in the guise of helping people to understand what is really going on. The cycle keeps going on and on like that. Few people have experts they can call to show them how they’ve been fooled.
The previous steps work remarkably well due to the Dunning-Kruger effect. The people who you educated now are “experts” and look down on people who are the real experts in the field. Masks are a good example where people are absolutely convinced that they are the “smart” ones in the crowd even though they’ve never read any of the clinical trial data.
So although I couldn’t shift anyone’s thinking as per 1, at least I verified that 2 - 3 hold as a way to assess truth and that 4 is true for any deception.
Bottom line:
It’s Easier To Fool People Than To Convince Them That They’ve Been Fooled.
Money is a simple, efficient way to determine who the truth tellers are. See the term sheet which explains in detail the advantages of this method.
One guy with a few followers can cascade into tens of thousands of believers in nonsense.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and well. Read the comments here.
Why I didn’t just ignore them
While I would like to do that, the mainstream doctors, media, etc. consider us all crackpots.
So if I ignore them, then the mainstream docs can say: "See? You didn't debate them! Why should we debate you?"
And they would be right.
So I listened to what they said, I read what they wrote, and I’ve written 6 articles in response and challenged them to a friendly debate. And when that didn’t work, I sweetened the offer with an opportunity to win $1M.
I’m not sure what else I can do to get these people in a public livestream debate to settle the issue.
How do we know that viruses exist? 100 years worth of experiments, that’s how!
These articles show how you can use “science” to prove that viruses exist.
How? Simple. The data observed over the past 100 years is a perfect fit to the “viruses exists” hypothesis than the null hypothesis. It’s no more complicated than that.
However, the above is difficult for people to understand that science works just like a courtroom in weighing evidence against a “he did it” vs. “he didn’t do it” hypothesis. In a court room, the jury would never say, “In order to prove he did it, you’d have to isolate the murder weapon” or “you’d have to see a video of him committing the crime.”
Why do researchers have a hard time infecting people with a virus in lab experiments?
Because the lab experiments don’t mimic the requirements for a successful transfer.
I guarantee you that if you infect a person, that person can spread it.
I have even demonstrated that in my own home when after my wife got infected, I was infected a few days later.
And of course we read about the super spreader events which are even more obvious.
But the people who try to do this in a lab don’t replicate the required conditions for infection so they fail. That is not proof that viruses don’t exist.
It is proof that you need to supply enough virions over a long enough time in the correct areas which contain the proper receptors if you are going to be successful. And even then you may fail.
Reader comment
From Don Newmeyer:
For a cell biologist like myself, this is an especially tedious and almost pointless debate. People have been studying these viruses for decades, and the scientific community would certainly have raised doubts if there had been any. We argue about everything that’s not firmly nailed down. (The only exception is the politics-driven monomania of late.) I wonder if the virus deniers are actually so numerous, or just a vocal minority.
Answer: Just a vocal minority who don’t even have the courage to even bet $100 that they are right. They have a total lack of conviction in their beliefs. They won’t show up for any debate and use ad hominem attacks as their excuse for avoiding defending their position.
Read my articles for more info
Here are some of the articles I’ve written:
Is there a virus? (Patrick Gunnels admits bacteriophages have been isolated. whoops!)
Has the virus been isolated? Yes, but not to “their” specs explaining how Koch’s postulates are obsolete.
I bet $1M a virus exists. Why aren’t they accepting my bet? No takers!
If viruses don’t exist, how can we see them? (this article)
Articles written by others
Challenge to Christine Massey (by Jeff Green). It’s pretty astounding. I’ll leave it at that. Jeff couldn’t make any headway either. Nobody can. You are arguing science with people who believe in religion.
Thoughts on the existence of viruses and the follow-up article
The “Settling the Virus Debate” challenge
We accepted their “challenge” and offered to do the work they specified. They refused and went into ad hominem attacks. After all, that is how science works.
They have $500K. They could EASILY fund their challenge and do it themselves. Why don’t they? We don’t know that because they won’t answer that question.
If the virus did exist, you’d think that at least one person would be accepting my $1M bet on the matter. You only need $200K to accept, a sum that Christine Massey says they have. There are currently no takers to my bet. Why wouldn’t Christine Massey and her friends accept? Because they know they will lose.
The mastermind behind the challenge is Tom Cowan. He’s not a scientist. He told people that 5G causes COVID. I don’t understand how anyone can take him seriously. Tom, so why was there no COVID in South Korea (which was the first country to massively roll out 5G) until just recently? He refuses to answer that simple question. That’s why he doesn’t want to talk to me; it would look bad if his followers saw how ridiculous his claims are. No legitimate scientist would ever make such an unfounded claim.
See The very disingenuous “Settling the virus debate” challenge for more information.
They have no alternate hypothesis to explain the data that is on the table
Generally, when you challenge an established hypothesis, you do that by presenting an alternative hypothesis that is a better fit to explain all the data (in this case, gathered over the past 100 years). They cannot even explain simple things like how my wife got COVID and then I got it 5 days later. Both of us have been virus free for the entire pandemic. So what caused the COVID antigen tests to go positive? Their alternative hypothesis is “well, we don’t know. It could have been 5G or maybe too much junk food.”
They won’t debate any of us
Here’s the offer I just sent to Mark Bailey right now (August 2, 2022 at 12:25pm PT)
It’s clear Mark gets my emails since they are included in Sam’s articles.
But they never get back to me on my debate offers because they don’t want to look bad in front of their followers.
I’ve sent a similar offer to Tom Cowan:
These people aren’t camera shy clearly. They are simply afraid of being held accountable for what they wrote.
I didn’t hear from either of them so I emailed Mark again on 8/3/22
On August 5, 2022, since I heard nothing, I sent this email
Someone is camera shy. It isn’t us. I guarantee it.
If they don’t accept my bet, this will be my last post on this topic
I have more important things to do with my time than waste more time on this.
I’ve already written 6 articles on the topic. I’ve beat the horse to death.
If you don’t get it, I’m sorry.
If you think I’m dense for not believing Sam Bailey, you are entitled to your opinion. You aren’t going to change my mind at this point. I’ve given them hours and they have no alternate hypothesis that is anywhere even close to credible. And you don’t really believe what Sam Bailey says or you’d accept one of my bets or offer one of your own as described in the term sheet.
Tom Cowan is the “mastermind” behind the challenge and Cowan isn’t a scientist. Their challenge is ridiculous. We have 100 years of data. We don’t need more data and especially data that are specified by a team led by a doctor who has had his medical license revoked and cannot answer a simple question about his 5G hypothesis. Is that the best they could find to lead such an important effort?
At this point, this is beating a dead horse.
I’ve written 6 Substacks on this (see above), and none of these people will debate me, even after extreme monetary incentives to do so.
At this point, if any of them think I’m wrong and are serious about settling the issue, they should accept one of my bets to prove that they are serious and I’ll be happy to engage and we can have a meaningful discussion.
They have more than enough money to do that (they have $500K and my bet minimum is $200K). Who wouldn’t want to double their money in 6 hours?
I've modified the start of the article to add an explanation as to why I went down the rabbit hole and what I learned and why it is relevant.
I also pointed out that the burden is on Lanka et al. to show their hypothesis better fits the data. They can't even explain the simplest observations. (added 8/2 at 10:47am PST).
So there are now two new sections at the start that weren't in the emailed version.
Let me know what you think.
You cannot attack people and then expect them to talk with you. They have lied to us about viruses in order to sell us drugs and injections. We have been lied to about everything why do you find it so hard to believe they have been lying to us about viruses??? https://greatreject.org/dr-stefan-lanka-claims-about-viruses-are-false/