The hilarious electron microscope problem: going much deeper on fake viruses

I might call the problem hilarious on Monday; tragic on Tuesday. Either way it’s quite insane.

Researchers have long claimed that viruses display characteristic shapes, when samples from patients are placed under electron microscopes.

Turns out there are a variety of such shapes, depending on the type of virus:

Icosahedral.

Helical.

Combination of icosahedral and helical.

Spherical.

Bullet-shaped.

Filamentous.

The decision that these shapes indicate viruses—how was that made?

Well, it was made yesterday, when a patient sample was put under an electron microscope in New York, based on a decision made in 2012 with a microscope in Paris, based on a decision in 1994 in London, based on a decision in 1987 in Moscow, based on…

In other words, interpreting these shapes as viruses relies on prior identical interpretations, going all the way back to the first time a researcher decided that any of these shapes indicates a virus.

And that original first decision was based on…

Nothing.

Because no one has ever seen an isolated purified virus.

Bang.

Tomorrow, I could say a triangular shape with three tails and one circle in the middle of the triangle means VIRUS…just because I feel like it.

Because I like triangles.

Because I’m looking for funding.

Because I want to publish a paper.

Because I’m bored.

And my triangle with tails and a circle would carry as much weight as any of those other shapes I listed above—because none of those shapes has ever been proved to represent or indicate or BE a virus.

Therefore, even if we lined up 5000 people who have been diagnosed with a pandemic disease, and took mucus samples from each one, and subjected those samples to standard lab procedures, and then put those samples under an electron microscope, and discovered that…

…Every patient sample revealed the same shape…

We would know NOTHING about so-called viruses.

We might know something about irrelevant artifacts produced by electron microscope technology.

We might know something about interesting but irrelevant material found in the bodies of 5000 people.

Or not.

But we wouldn’t know a thing about viruses, their supposed (but unproven) existence, their supposed shapes.

We would just be SAYING we knew something.

And for THAT: