Posted on 12/14/2011 4:59:02 AM PST by James Oscar
Thanks for the ping.
Thanks!
Bump to current.
I wonder where James Oscar and Mother Abigail are.
Excerpts:
MA: There is a colleague of mine who long ago wrote this famous phrase:
MOST SPECIES ARE SUBJECT TO CYCLES OF SUSTAINED GROWTH AND SUDDEN CALAMITY.
IT IS A RHYTHM AS OLD AS LIFE ITSELF.
Do you think that is accurate?
Q: I am not sure, I know that wild animals (when they loose their predators) multiply until starvation or hunters or something weeds them back down. Is that what you mean?
MA: Pretty much. Few, if any natural populations are constantly at equilibrium densities. Variation in the weather, predation, health and other environmental parameters results in great variability in populations.
In our discussion of rhythms or Chaos, I explained that Chaos is a set of rhythms that lie outside our normal perception. A nonlinear system will be chugging along with easily understood parameters, but often it will move to a “period doubling” phase and on to chaotic dynamics (which can be read as “all hell breaking loose” or “I can't tell what is going on).
MA: Which brings us to human population, which is following an exponential growth pattern. With the advent of modern medicine, better sanitation, and increased food supplies, the biggest constraints on population growth were removed.
Many people feel uncomfortable discussing this issue, but because I am very old and have spent a large part of my life in close contact with issues of disease and death - I do not have that reservation. Can you and I have that conversation?
Q: Yes of course.
MA: Would you like a drink first?
Q: Very much so....
MA: When we look at the potential outcomes for any event we are required as scientists to look at a broad spectrum of possible results.
That does not make us negative, nor does it leave us without recourse. It simply makes us prudent in our approach and honest in our work.
Would you agree?
Q: Yes
MA: Very well, lets you and I consider the novel H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009 in a larger context and see if there are any issues that are being overlooked.
Would you consider influenza to be the most threatening virus to us as a species?
Q: No, I would think Ebola or Marburg would be far more likely to do real damage.
MA: I believe I disagree. While Ebola and Marburg are very deadly bugs, they are rare and geographically contained.
Q: What about Reston [Virginia]?
MA: Yes, there was a huge potential for an outbreak in that situation, but even if Ebola Reston proved lethal to humans - the old tried and true measures of isolation, barrier nursing and containment would have prevailed. It is a matter of how easily the virus spreads.
Ebola is extremely deadly but difficult to catch. If you spend a lot of time butchering primates, then you have some serious infectious issues, but even then it is just not that easy to transmit.
The most common vector is actually preparing the dead.
MA: That is not to say that strange things couldn't happen and mutation or biological warfare or some nut job could really cause problems but it is largely just a very rare and distant medical oddity - no, Influenza is far more threatening than that.
Q: O.K. the flu is much more dangerous because of how easily it spreads.
MA: That and the introduction of new strains to a naive population can have devastating effects.
I hope that wherever she is, and whatever she is doing, Mother Abigail is doing well.
Doing a little BookMarking of the past, FRiend...
Tatt
Mother Abigail threads were in 2003 and truly shook the place up.
James Oscar is a writer who posted many articles here that he wrote. Worth going through his “In Forum” link on his page.
Combined N-JCT and Bring Out Your Dead ping lists.
Lots of info is still current and VERY applicable to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
So, in a nutshell for those of us who don’t have the time or inclination to read this entire thread, what is her point?
“Free Republic’s most unreadable post ever.”
Yes, by a thousand-fold. What a collection of pure drek!
Stay clean, watch your nutrition and general health, avoid possibly sick people for the duration, or risk not surviving.
Oh, and governments lie.
BookMark
Stuff we all knew already.
What is she claiming the governments lie about?
The seriousness of the outbreak?
How well they are dealing wit it?
It’s source?
All of the above?
Are they trying to lull us into a false sense of security, or frighten us by overstating the problem?
Mother Abigail stopped posting in 2012, I think it’s a bit much to expect her to give blow-by-blow commentary on the events in China in 2020.
I didn’t expect that.
I guess it’s just safe to presume they lie to us about everything.
Your credibility just went out the window.
Saying “Rock on” to someone you claim to be awed by, then a few sentences later using “loose” instead of “lose”, and you’re a professional writer?
You had my attention right up to there, but now, not so much.
I’ll continue reading for a bit, just to see when you make your next blunder.
I so wish you were wrong!
Half the people in power will lie when the truth would serve them just as well. *sigh*
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