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Dawkins does not actually understand Darwin that well. I am not a fan of his (Dawkins that is).

But Alzheimer's does NOT disproportionately affect women. It is simply that there are more old women around so more get it. Nothing disproportionate about it. And I am not aware of Alzheimer's not getting attention. It is getting more attention than almost anything else. It has had less...

Old men are a waste of space. Old women can be very useful grannies. So the Darwinian forces keep women alive longer. The forces appear to act mostly through more rapid deterioration in arterial patency.

I see that but if there is anything to report, any sort of 'finding', why not show appropriate controls as one would in a scientific presentation so that scientific viewers can judge the material? It does not need to take up any significant amount of time. Unless such controls have been done...

You raise some interesting questions, @Samuel. The problem lies in the nature of the way we have to calculate probabilities - Bayes theorem and all that, as you know. So the question is why does it seem that doctors are less likely to take interest and look for autoantibodies, the more...

I also do not really understand this stuff about not publishing. Publishing does not slow anything down. And it is easy to put out results in brief form in conference proceedings. I always used to put out data as soon as I thought we were sure it was meaningful. The delay from experiment to...

I don't actually think that is what good science is about. Most good science is done by hard working people that nobody has ever heard of with a commitment to particular problem . 'Bringing in' people with names does not have a track record for being productive. To my mind the real problem with...

Dear @Graham, I suspect a simple explanation here. I doubt protein is relevant. I also very much doubt any sort of allergic or immune basis. What I think is more likely is that meat is very often cooked in a way such that there is likely to be ingestion of amines such as tyramine. Red meat often...

This makes no sense since the heart is made of cells. I cannot access the media release but it looks like pure hype. People need to remember that a test is never more precise at diagnosing than the clinical diagnosis it is supposed to be testing for. The best it can do is correlate 100% with...

Perhaps it has not occurred to Ms Dusenbery that the reason why Alzheimer's disproportionately affects women is that all the poor men are dead of male dominant diseases before they get old enough. So I was a lazy scientist doing bad medicine all my life studying RA, was I? The 70kg standard...

Nicely measured letter Graham. I would be very happy to add my name but think it may be good for me to voice my opinions independently.

It looks as if you cannot apply if you have ANY opinion on ME/CFS: Under conflict of interest: Personal non-financial interest 29.A personal non-financial interest in the matters under consideration refers to an opinion on the matters under consideration published in the 12 months before...

It is all a matter of what is likely. One of the problems of 'guidelines' is that it is assumed that doctors 'make a diagnosis' and then treat. In real life we do not act like that, and for very good reason. If there are dark clouds in the sky we do not say 'no diagnosis of raining because...

I guess Dr Bishop may be a close friend of Michael Sharpe? She seems to be making use of exactly the sort of self-interested bigotry she decree sin others.

I think what is interesting about that piece is how patronising and simple minded it is. Everyone in science actually knows all about this problem. The fact that it seems to be fascinating news to Dr Bishop speaks volumes. It is just that some people conveniently forget when they are dealing...

Why is reality so much more surreal than surrealism these days? I was giving Dr Bishop the benefit of the doubt! It's a good thing I am not on twitter. I would have been worse than James Coyne I think. Although I might have used fewer profanities.

I have always found the word excellence should be associated mentally with the little action of touching the side of the nose with the forefinger twice. Is there an emoji for that?

This looks to me like part of 'the system'. It allows very open and democratic but is the complete opposite. You get elected if you are the right sort of chap as defined by the right sort of chaps. Anyone casting doubt on any other right sort of chap will be politely told they will not be needed...

This appears to be an abject admission of failure: "Agency officials don't plan to begin requiring that homeopathic products get approval — officials say that would be impractical" Why would it be impractical? The case that precipitated this seems to be one in which atropine (belladonna) was...

I think it all becomes too speculative to link a relative with AS to ME. But it would be an interesting epidemiological question as to whether there was a familial link.