MENSA:
Mr. Serebrayakoff, the founder of MENSA was a countryman of mine and
harbored many negative elitist attitudes of people who consider IQ as a
substitute for knowledge and hard work.
After running away from my own country almost 20 years ago I felt the
understandable urge to "belong" and having my IQ tested for free at the
Church of Scientology in Stockholm (and run away from their recruiters) I
understood that this MENSA place may be a good place to meet people who
actually know something. Joined MENSA and alas... What a disappointment!
After several years of meetings all over CA, NV and even UT and later NY and
NJ, I found nothing but a bunch of self-indulgent, mostly lazy,
overwhelmingly sloppy and unbelievably snotty crowd that just happened to
have some neurons in their brains wired in a peculiar way that allowed them
to see questionable patterns in a very specific and completely useless set
of exercises. Oh, wow!


Homeopathy -
From a point of view of what common people call "common sense" quantum
physics makes no sense either. "Common sense" has its areas of application
and its gigantic failures as a mental tool.
My life and scientific experience proved that never should we mix
experiments and theories. Theories are just interesting pastimes.
Experiments are the core of science. Most of the medical treatments had
ridiculous explanations just before the end of 19th century. But medicine
was a very successful discipline despite that since antiquity and did its
job pretty well.
Jenner invented vaccines having no idea of mechanisms of immune response and
was ridiculed for years for attempts to make a hybrid between people and
cows for years by people who used arguments very similar to yours.
I do not give a damn about homeopathic theories. I do not give a damn if
they are capable of understanding the causes and effects of their treatments
as long as the treatments themselves show results and I saw that. I have
very little interest in so-called "peer reviews" that usually used to
validate science because I saw so often how "peers" jump out of their pants
to prevent concurrent theories to see the light of day. One of the best
examples are these two guys, Marshall and Warren who got their Nobel Prize
recently for proving that stomach ulcers is a bacterial disease and can be
cured in HOURS!
For more than 20 years they were called quacks, their work pushed aside and
their results questioned because they attempted to take away hundreds of
millions if not billions of dollars from gastroenterologists. I know some of
these real quacks who even now resist the truth. Reading about their
tribulations and how their work "did not make sense" in the eyes of
gastroenterologists is a scary reading that is the best explanation I know
why we still have no serious breakthroughs in cancer treatments. Peptic
ulcers is just some hundreds of millions of $$, cancer is tens of billions
of dollars that can be potentially taken away from cancer surgeons!
So before you or my good friends Lew and Michael Plant express their views
on homeopathy so cocky and easily, I suggest you exercise a little caution.
All you do is to pre-judge something that may as well save your life one day
as it did for countless patients. I knew a guy, who is a gastroenterologist
himself and despite years of our mutual friend trying to convince him to try
antibiotics on his own wife who had peptic ulcers, he, using 'common sense"
dismissed the whole thing and her ulcers turned cancerous and she died. His
words were "What do two crazy Aussies know about ulcers that I do not know?"
Apparently a freaking lot.

Sasha.



"Dominic T." > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> Alex Chaihorsky wrote:
>> Jesus, man, do you ever listen? You are a programmer, can you use Google
>> at
>> least? That does not require high IQ, anyone can use it.
>> I stated it clear from the first time - Peter Farley the founder of
>> Cetus.
>> Haven't you read the "History of Biotechnology"?
>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022...lance&n=283155
>> The book is about Cetus. Cetus was THE first biotech company, THE largest
>> IPO of all times, inventors of PCR (you know what PCR is, don't you?)
>> and
>> Peter Farley founded it.
>
> I am not a programmer, I am a Network/System Administrator. Programming
> is a small subset of my work. I was wrong then, I didn't spend time
> researching if they were the same guy just because of a silly newsgroup
> argument... I really don't care that much. The only Peter Farley that
> stuck out in my mind was the one I mentioned. I was wrong, I am capable
> and happy to admit it.
>
>> My connection to homeopathy is zero - (I wish it was not) - I work with
>> Farley on a completely different project - mathematically calculated
>> synthetic vaccines that were pioneered by Bio-Virus Research Inc. that
>> I
>> founded and own (do a search on US Patents with my last name).
>> However, as a scientist, I know that scientific explanation does not
>> warrant
>> truth and the lack of such an explanation does not warrant the lack of
>> such.
>> As an example I always use the aspirin. Do you know that we still do not
>> know how aspirin works?
>
> I am not doubting your level of intelligence, or your scientific
> background... it just has no bearing on this. I am in no way
> questioning these things, but thanks for the resume, it is impressive
> and I am sure you are successful. I have never claimed I do not believe
> in home remedies/chinese herbs/regular herbs/etc. in fact I routinely
> rely on herbs to help in certain situations and they always do.
> Riccola, Tiger Balm, and many more. I am even working with my father to
> see if Pu-Erh tea can truly lower his cholesterol level in an effort to
> get him off of Lipitor. I believe aspirin has many beneficial
> properties and it is derived from nature (the willow tree). However
> true homeopathy states that the less of something is the most
> effective, to the point of complete absense. That is selling snake oil.
> Make sure you understand the real story behind homeopathy, not just the
> accepted definition of natural cures... they are two majorly different
> things. Take Zicam for instance, it is Zinc and salt. The salt dries up
> the mucus and the zinc has been debated as far as its properties,
> people believe it works and who knows it really may. However it
> contains massive amounts of zinc, if it were a true homeopathic remedy
> it would contain almost none at all if any... that is my problem with
> homeopathy. Selling essentially air for money.
>
>> Farley and Dr. Diamond currently developed a treatment that almost
>> completely alleviate the suffering of AZT-taking AIDS patients based on
>> their whole new set of medical approached that combine homeopathy and
>> Chinese herbal medicine. You may not believe this "quackery" but South
>> African government distribute it all over their AIDS hospitals, but you
>> right - what do they know? They are not MENSA members... But wait, I
>> was!
>> But what did I do with my MENSA membership? I remember wiping something
>> with
>> it, but what?
>> Well, may be Farley's being a member of Reagan's "Technology Cabinet" for
>> 8
>> years will qualify him? No? Being one of the founders of "Young
>> Presidents
>> Club"? No? Being the first MD with MBA from Stanford? No?
>
> Again, many very smart people have gone down wrong paths and spent
> massive amounts of time and efforts on unproven and later debunked
> ideas. No one is outside of that, Einstein, Edison, and even your
> beloved Mr. Farley (the correct one this time). No one is ever that
> smart, to never be wrong. You can dismiss MENSA all you want, it is
> quite common for a lot of people to do... nothing new to me. Why do you
> harbor such hatred and resentment towards the organization? It is
> actually pretty meaningless and there have been many members who were
> murders, psychos, and nut-jobs, but they all had high IQ's. IQ is not a
> major measure of intelligence in my eyes, and my mention of it was to
> just show that I hadn't just fell of the turnip truck either. I have
> family members in scientific and medical backgrounds and also personal
> interests that I pursue, including one of the countries top
> Neurosurgeons. Fancy degrees and status do not impress or mean much to
> me, I have learned some of my most valuable lessons from common,
> everday people. My grandfather, mother, a small asian grocery owner,
> among others.
>
> Again, we have drifted so far off target and the thread is most likely
> not recoverable now for the initial intent, so I will respecfully end
> this now. I am not angry at you nor harbor any resentment, and I am
> more than open to speaking with you further about any number of
> topics... and as always you are welcome to email me anytime. I honestly
> mean that, not being a smart-ass.
>
> Take Care,
> - Dominic
> Drinking: getting ready to brew some Dragonwell
>