Hey Ed,
No insult received...everything is fine. I respectfully have alternative viewpoints to yours.
1. I would not agree with you that the truth about one potential technological process to create improvised biological weapons should be delivered in a public format and therefore available to terrorists who would be likely to repeat that process. That would be irresponsible and potentially legally “complicatory” which is why I refuse to address technological issues on this blog. As far as conspiracy theories go, I wasn’t addressing them at all or promoting one view over another. My point is merely to say that if I see something on line that describes a process to create a weapon that can hurt people and that I know that process to not be of value, I am not going to correct it for the sake of “truth to the public”. I would hope that IF a terrorist was going to attack the people and couldn’t be stopped, that he or she would use such misinformation to develop his/her weapon. If people want to argue about conspiracy theories, that’s their right but I won’t engage in such discussions for the aforementioned reasons.
2. As an experienced scientist myself, I see your perspective when you are attempting to educate me as to the difference between theory and fact and will agree with you that there is a difference between the two. I will also provide the following though for your consideration. “Facts” are only as strong as the evidence upon which they are based and the people interpreting that evidence. A very, very important skill every scientist must develop is to analyze the methodology and results before agreeing or disagreeing with the conclusions. Quite well known scientists have had their conclusions “debunked” due to problems in their methodology...happens all of the time. One very public piece of information is that there was a very small amount of powder recovered for examination which means the sample size for the study was very small and subject to high degree of error and arguement. It’s like trying to draw conclusions on the lifestyles of the people of the world by only examing a couple of cultures. Sorry, I am not going to continue discussing the forensic conclusions or methodologies for the aforementioned security concerns.
Wish you the best, Ed. I’m very happy all of you are so dedicated to the investigation (we need to find the killer/killers) but I do just ask you to please keep in mind the security issues involved before you hit the “post” button. What you discover is important and hopefully the respective authorities are appreciative as you turn your information over to them.
I don't mean to be argumentative, but this statement is untrue.
The Leahy letter was discovered unopened. According to The New York Times, the Leahy letter contained 0.871 grams of refined powder or approximately 871,000,000,000 spores. That's more than what you need to create a "couple of cultures."
The New York Post letter was also recovered unopened, although it had somehow gotten damp, so the unrefined powder was clumped and looked like "Puppy Chow."
And while the Leahy letter had been opened, it was evidently set aside as soon as the envelope was cut open and a puff of powder escaped. Most of the contents should have been intact.
While about 1.5 grams of refined powder and less than a gram of unrefined powder is not a lot for the kazillion tests they wanted to perform, it was more than enough to make SOLID SCIENTIFIC EVALUATIONS of the nature of the powder in the letters. The ONLY guesswork involved here is the guesswork used by the conspiracy theorists to promote their theories.
What you seem to fail to appreciate is that we are using published information here. All most of us are doing is debating whether the information published immediately after the attacks is as valid as later information which showed that early information to be totally invalid.
Except for ZacandPook, no one is discussing specific manufacturing techniques. And I seriously doubt that anyone is paying much attention to ZacandPook's beliefs since his totally unscientific beliefs are buried inside mountains of irrelevant material that has nothing to do with anything. It may be "misinformation," but it is probably recognized as misinformation by almost everyone.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are here to learn. We know that it's possible to learn even though a waterfall of misinformation is pouring down beside us. The trick is to find the facts amid the torrent of beliefs and opinions. And since it's all based upon published information and not upon new experiments we are performing, I doubt that we're talking about anything that a wannabee terrorist couldn't learn infinitely more about by opening a book on microbiology.