“Or are you simply saying that, because you disagree with Professor Meselson’s political views, he must be opposed on anything he says — even if he’s right?”
I think JPL is saying that after Meselson’s documented deceptions over many years - Sverdlovsk, Yellow Rain and Operation Tailwind - he is not to be trusted much in any opinion he expresses on chemical and biological weapons.
The story personally related to me by Dr. Alexis Shelokov concerning Meselson’s outrageous dismissal of autopsy slides shown to him by courageous Soviet Drs. Faina Abramova and Lev Grinberg is enough for me to understand Meselson’s character.
I have no doubt whatsoever that Meselson is a true expert in his scientific area of expertise, but we're at war now with a bunch of fascists who want to kill us, and when it comes to the defense of the country, I wouldn't give two cents for anything the man says.
The man really should be where his heart lies: in Moscow or St. Petersburg where he can research bee shit, not here in America perpetrating his little con jobs.
There’s a 2007 PhD thesis at Princeton you may want to see on Yellow Rain.
Evidently, you aren't aware of it, but there is a difference between opinion and fact.
When Professor Meselson looked at the images of the Daschle anthrax and saw no additives, that wasn't an "opinion" about the powder, it was a statement of FACT of what he saw. The FACT that no additives were visible was supported by others, including Ken Alibek.
Tom Giesbert, who was the first to examine the powder under a Transmission Electron Microscope provided a picture of a "reference sample of pure anthrax spores" similar in character to what was in the Daschle letter. It doesn't look ANYTHING like the coated spores in the pictures I previously showed you.
Richard Preston describes what Geisbert saw this way:
The view was wall-to-wall anthrax spores. The spores were ovoids, rather like footballs but with more softly rounded ends. The material seemed to be absolutely pure spores.
There is no "opinion" that the spores were not coated. That is a FACT. There is only an idiotic "opinion" held by some that all the experts are not to be believed for one reason or another, and that the spores were coated.