A new study has found that parasites carried by rats were probably not behind the outbreak of plague in Europe.
h/t nv53
8 Replies to “The Sound Of Settled Science”
Ha…
… ‘more likely’… ‘probably not’… ‘more likely’… ‘might be more likely’… ‘believed to have’…
Reminded me of the mealy-mouthed wording used in the UN’s very first IPCC report on MMGW.
The article itself points out that there are currently a few other active theories on the spread of the disease, so this sounds like science working properly, to me.
So based on computer modelling of the progress of outbreaks, using historical information partly constructed from proxies, the researchers concluded that Yersinia pestis was transmitted by a human-flea/louse-human chain.
That, rather than the murine-flea-human chain that we actually see in the field today, which we can actually use to trace individual infections, and which accounts for the known current distribution of plague (western Americas, central and southeast Asia, etc).
Who ya gonna believe, my computer model or your lyin’ eyes?
That has a vaguely familiar ring to it.
Give them a few more years and they will be saying God sent a pestilence on the people……
This should probably actually be filed under “Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors”, because this part: The Black Death, one of the worst pandemics in history, devastated European populations between 1346 and 1353 and was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
is wrong. We don’t actually know what the Black Death was. Yersinia pestis is one candidate, but it doesn’t account for all the symptoms recorded, and we’re dealing with incredibly sketchy records to start with. There are as many theories of what the Black Death was, medically, as there are on what caused it.
My image of the filthy Middle Ages suggests that it would be quite difficult to distinguish who or what carried the most lice and fleas transmitting the deadly bacterium. Humans living in squalor, with rats crawling over them while they sleep, sleeping with dogs on the ground, unbathed for months, if not for a lifetime … who knows which organism hosted the flea that killed ya? I almost treated the “rat story” as more of an urban myth than science anyway …
As a related story … I loved the scene in Shogun where the Japanese people were thoroughly disgusted by the filthy Westerners who first sailed into their island nation. A people who revered personal cleanliness were revolted by the unwashed, smelly, Europeans. Yeah, well … I’m gonna have to admit that SOME of “my people” were pigs … but at least my Swedish ancestors had Sauna (borrowed from the Finns?).
from the link:
“Plague of Justinian in AD 541.”
well shyt, we got one of those going on right now. I wanna know who’s spreading THAT?
also from the link:
“advised people to take precautions in South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.”
in other words, the place is a shythole. Donald was right, and very timely in his description.
A new study has found that parasites carried by communists were probably behind the outbreak of plague in Europe.
Ha…
… ‘more likely’… ‘probably not’… ‘more likely’… ‘might be more likely’… ‘believed to have’…
Reminded me of the mealy-mouthed wording used in the UN’s very first IPCC report on MMGW.
The article itself points out that there are currently a few other active theories on the spread of the disease, so this sounds like science working properly, to me.
So based on computer modelling of the progress of outbreaks, using historical information partly constructed from proxies, the researchers concluded that Yersinia pestis was transmitted by a human-flea/louse-human chain.
That, rather than the murine-flea-human chain that we actually see in the field today, which we can actually use to trace individual infections, and which accounts for the known current distribution of plague (western Americas, central and southeast Asia, etc).
Who ya gonna believe, my computer model or your lyin’ eyes?
That has a vaguely familiar ring to it.
Give them a few more years and they will be saying God sent a pestilence on the people……
This should probably actually be filed under “Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors”, because this part:
The Black Death, one of the worst pandemics in history, devastated European populations between 1346 and 1353 and was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
is wrong. We don’t actually know what the Black Death was. Yersinia pestis is one candidate, but it doesn’t account for all the symptoms recorded, and we’re dealing with incredibly sketchy records to start with. There are as many theories of what the Black Death was, medically, as there are on what caused it.
My image of the filthy Middle Ages suggests that it would be quite difficult to distinguish who or what carried the most lice and fleas transmitting the deadly bacterium. Humans living in squalor, with rats crawling over them while they sleep, sleeping with dogs on the ground, unbathed for months, if not for a lifetime … who knows which organism hosted the flea that killed ya? I almost treated the “rat story” as more of an urban myth than science anyway …
As a related story … I loved the scene in Shogun where the Japanese people were thoroughly disgusted by the filthy Westerners who first sailed into their island nation. A people who revered personal cleanliness were revolted by the unwashed, smelly, Europeans. Yeah, well … I’m gonna have to admit that SOME of “my people” were pigs … but at least my Swedish ancestors had Sauna (borrowed from the Finns?).
from the link:
“Plague of Justinian in AD 541.”
well shyt, we got one of those going on right now. I wanna know who’s spreading THAT?
also from the link:
“advised people to take precautions in South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.”
in other words, the place is a shythole. Donald was right, and very timely in his description.
A new study has found that parasites carried by communists were probably behind the outbreak of plague in Europe.