A Senseless Strand
Senseless: unconscious; foolish, stupid; meaningless...take your pick. They may all be apt descriptors of this Strand.
Back in March of 2023, I had one of the most fascinating and amusing conversations that I have had since I joined what was formally known as Twitter back in December of 2022. It was with a plant virologist by the name of Thomas Baldwin who goes by the Twitter/X handle Sense Strand. I really didn't know much about Thomas at the time, and I definitely was unaware of his extreme love of plants as well as his crusade to protect his cereal.
“Meet Thomas Baldwin, PhD, assistant professor of barley pathology at North Dakota State University (NDSU). His research focuses on identifying the underlying mechanisms of host resistance to Fusarium head blight and other diseases in barley. He also manages the North American Barley Evaluation Nursery supported by the U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative (USWBSI).”
“Baldwin grew up in the picturesque region of Catskill, New York where the Hudson River and surrounding forests provide a beautiful backdrop. During his childhood, he developed a profound passion for nature and the environment. He attended the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) and earned his bachelor’s degree in plant biotechnology.
With a desire to understand and fight Fusarium diseases affecting cereals, Baldwin attended the University of Georgia, where he obtained his doctorate degree studying Fusarium seedling blight in maize and exploring the role mycotoxins play in translocation of metabolites and the pathogen itself during infection.”
https://scabusa.org/featured-researcher-bio/Thomas-Baldwin
Even though I was relatively new to Twitter, due to the experiences of others, I was already aware of the cesspool of commenters lurking there who resorted exclusively to logical fallacies and insults. I really had no desire to engage with those who were defending virology at that time. I was more interested in using the social media platform to raise awareness to the pseudoscientific fraud that has been enslaving us for over a century. I felt that engaging with the (controlled) opposition was an unnecessary distraction.
However, despite my best efforts to avoid such distractions, the people that I wanted to steer clear of quickly found my profile. Thomas was one of the first, and he continually requested that I join his Space by spamming a link inviting me to have a chat with him and his buddies. From my understanding of what Spaces are, it involves a video feed on Twitter allowing for live discussions. I understood that challenging people to a Spaces session is a tactic regularly utilized by Baldwin and others in an attempt to gang up on those who participate. Through the use of logically fallacious arguments and intimidation tactics, they want to appear strong when they are weak. I was not interested in joining such an affair, and I ignored his repeated calls. If we were to have a discussion, it would be in a thread where people could read the evidence presented for themselves. My refusal to join his Space paid off, and I eventually found myself in just such a discussion with Thomas in the Twitter threads over the lack of scientific evidence for “viruses” not long afterwards.
While I will not recount the entire discussion here (please refer to the linked article), the important outcome of my interaction with Thomas at that time was that he, as a plant virologist who publishes papers in “scientific” journals, clearly had no understanding as to what the scientific method is and how to incorporate it. Even though Thomas agreed with me as to the steps of the scientific method, he failed to show how his own papers that he published adhered to it. He couldn't even identify the proper independent variable, dependent variable, and controls when attempting to outline how virology adheres to the scientific method, and he was also confused by the null and alternate hypotheses in our conversation.
That interaction with Thomas ultimately ended when I warned him that his repeated insults that he hurled at me would result in my blocking him. I'm more than happy to carry on if people want to have a respectful and intellectually honest discussion. However, I will not tolerate insults and continued attempts to engage in logically fallacious arguments. Unsurprisingly, Thomas remained steadfast in his commitment to hurling insults after my warning, and he refused to answer me directly, spamming his Space link over and over again as if it was a valid response. While I was amazed at the complete lack of understanding that I had witnessed from someone calling himself a scientist, and I was curious what more could be uncovered from continued questioning, based upon his behavior, I was happy not to interact with Thomas any longer.
Regardless, I admit that since that time, I often wondered what would happen if our interaction had carried on further. Would we see Thomas continue to demonstrate his logically fallacious reasoning and his complete inability to understand basic concepts? Would he continue to unravel with questions regarding the scientific method? Would he continue to hide behind his Spaces link rather than carry on an intellectually honest written debate? Interestingly, the opportunity presented itself when I was tagged in a conversation about a response Thomas had prepared for Dr. Tom Cowan, demanding that they debate on his Space. Clearly, Thomas had not given up his bread-and-butter tactic.
While I should have listened to my own advice in order to save myself the headache, I ultimately did re-engage with Thomas in this thread. Just like the last time, there were some very amusing revelations that occurred from our interaction. As I feel that there are always important takeaways from these “debates,” especially regarding the mindsets of those who claim to be virologists practicing the scientific method, I am presenting excerpts from Round 2 with Thomas Baldwin, a.k.a. Sense Strand…and various other aliases on Twitter.
This latest interaction with Thomas began when I outlined the evidence that I would accept for a different man who does not use sound reasoning.
Below the Unreasonable Man's comment, I noticed a hidden reply from an account that I had blocked in the past. I had a feeling that it was Thomas as he was tagged in the conversation, and my curiosity over what the comment was got the better of me. I logged into an old alternate account that I had accidentally created when locked out of Twitter in the past in order to see if I was correct in my assumption. I wanted to see what sort of “insightful” comment had been left about me. My hunch turned out to be correct, and true to form, Thomas had left a comment that was attempting a genetic fallacy, which is where something is judged as either good or bad on the basis of where or whom it comes from. In this instance, Thomas wanted to use my background as a personal trainer to try and discredit me.
Against my better judgment, I responded to Thomas as I wanted to know what point he was attempting to make, even though I already knew it was a fallacious one. In his explanation, Thomas relied on a non-sequitur fallacy, which is where the statement or conclusion does not follow logically from what preceded it. He tried to compare performing surgery with my previous job as a personal trainer. My past as a personal trainer had nothing to do with the conversation, nor did it have anything to do with being able to demand scientific evidence in support of a positive claim. He also mixed-up knowledge and skill, leading Thomas to a flawed conclusion. Even as a personal trainer, I could possess the knowledge to perform a surgery even if I was not trained to perform one. That does not mean that I cannot speak on the subject due to my profession.
As he had jumped into my conversation with the Unreasonable Man, I challenged Thomas to provide the absolutely necessary evidence that I had requested from his friend.
Predictably, Thomas deflected by trying to claim that I had my own definition of the scientific method. Unfortunately for him, in our past conversation from March 2023, Thomas had already agreed with me as to what the scientific method is, and thus, he was fully aware that it is not “my definition.” However, this has not stopped Thomas from regularly portraying it that way in order to avoid having to provide the evidence requested of him.
As is often the case when they cannot produce a logical argument, Thomas then appealed to his own credentials and authority, which is a logically fallacious tactic that involves the dismissal of an argument by stating that whoever made it doesn't have the proper credentials, implying that their argument must be wrong or unimportant. I decided to remind Thomas that, despite having his lab, he failed miserably in the past to try and demonstrate how virology adheres to the scientific method. He produced the wrong independent variable, dependent variable, and control.
Thomas doubled down on his appeal to himself along with his debunked claim that it is “my definition” of the scientific method. Sometimes, you have to remind them over and over again of their mistakes before they will understand.
As he had done in the past, Thomas admitted that he agreed that the steps that I listed are the scientific method. As we had successfully cleared up his confusion, I once again asked him to provide the necessary evidence requested that should be found within any foundational paper claiming the existence of any pathogenic “virus.” Thomas decided to use the fallacious debate tactic of elephant hurling seventeen links to various studies in order to make it appear as if he had an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence on his side without demonstrating that any of the evidence fulfilled what was requested of him.
Funny enough, the very first link that he supplied was actually one of the foundational papers claiming the existence of “SARS-COV-2.” Thus, either Thomas actually knows what a foundational study is, or he got really lucky in a game of Eeny Meeny Miny Moe. Regardless, the Zhu study that Thomas provided fails as it does not contain any of the evidence requested. Not only did the researchers not purify and isolate a novel “virus” directly from the fluids of the sick host (they cultured their “virus” using human airway epithelial cells), the images of the “virus” were admittedly not of purified and isolated particles as noted by author Wenji Tan.
“We [show] an image of sedimented virus particles, not purified ones.” -Replying Author: Wenjie Tan
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/27/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/
The authors also admitted that they did not satisfy Koch's Postulates for proving a microbe causes disease as they did not attempt to prove pathogenicity:
“Although our study does not fulfill Koch’s postulates, our analyses provide evidence implicating 2019-nCoV in the Wuhan outbreak. Additional evidence to confirm the etiologic significance of 2019-nCoV in the Wuhan outbreak include identification of a 2019-nCoV antigen in the lung tissue of patients by immunohistochemical analysis, detection of IgM and IgG antiviral antibodies in the serum samples from a patient at two time points to demonstrate seroconversion, and animal (monkey) experiments to provide evidence of pathogenicity.”
Either Thomas was being intellectually dishonest and tried to pass the Zhu paper off as if it had the evidence that I had requested of him, or he simply did not understand what I had asked of him. Or it is possible that both are true. Whatever the case may be, after I pointed out the fact that his paper did not have the requested evidence, Thomas resorted to his standard “Nuh-uh” response, even though I clearly detailed why his paper was flawed. He then presented another paper without addressing any of the flaws that I had brought up with his first attempt.
In his second attempt, Thomas did not provide a foundational study as the paper that he had supplied was published in October of 2020. I pointed out to him that the study utilized Vero cell cultures for their “virus,” thus failing the first part of my request for him to provide evidence of purified and isolated “viral” particles obtained directly from the fluids without culturing. The study also failed to attempt to demonstrate pathogenicity through adherence to the steps of the scientific method. In other words, all the researchers did was image cell culture supernatant using cryo-EM and make up stories about the structures observed. It was yet another fail to provide direct scientific evidence of pathogenic “viruses.”
After showing Thomas that his second paper failed to meet the necessary requirements, he tried to claim that I wouldn't accept any evidence, completely disregarding the evidence that I had specifically outlined for him that would be acceptable. He then attempted to engage in the burden of proof reversal fallacy, challenging me to provide a paper that contained evidence derived from the scientific method in place of his being able to do so. I agreed to provide examples outside of virology once he was able to present a paper from the virology literature that adhered to the scientific method and proved pathogenic “viruses.”
Somehow, Thomas felt that I needed to “prove” the scientific method, a logical series of steps that we had already agreed upon were required to produce scientific evidence and knowledge. Keep in mind that this is the method that he claimed to apply in our previous conversation in order to publish papers, while oddly stating that I could not find a published paper where the scientific method was carried out. 🤔
My agreement to supply examples of the scientific method in practice after he did so with papers from the virology literature was somehow interpreted by Thomas to mean that I was asking him to prove the scientific method. I was asking no such thing. The scientific method does not need to be proven. What I wanted from Thomas was for him to provide an example from the virology literature that adhered to the scientific method and contained the necessary evidence that would be required in order to prove a pathogenic “virus.” I was unwilling to let Thomas shift away from his burden.
Thomas felt that he needed to share my tweet with his followers, incorrectly claiming once again that it was “my definition” of the scientific method. He stated that I needed to prove that the method was not impossible. This was a rather odd thing to see from someone who agreed with me on “my definition” of the scientific method and claimed to apply it in order to publish papers. As Thomas was now claiming that the scientific method was impossible even though his papers supposedly adhered to it, I wanted further clarification on what he meant.
He claimed that “my definition” was a bait and switch. I reminded Thomas that we had already agreed, in both conversations, upon what the steps of the scientific method are. Somehow, according to Thomas, that was the bait. It was clear to me that the only reason that Thomas viewed the scientific method as a bait and switch is that he did not truly understand the method that he professed to have applied in his published papers.
In response to my challenging him on his lack of understanding of the scientific method, Thomas supplied yet another paper that he felt satisfied the requested evidence as well as the steps that he was just claiming were impossible. This paper was published in August 2020 and was not one of the foundational papers used to claim the existence of a novel “virus.” What Thomas provided was yet another study that utilized Vero cells as well as Calu-3 cells, a human lung carcinoma cell line, in order to create their “virus.” The authors stated that they “aimed to image SARS-CoV-2 virions from the supernatant of infected cells without further concentrating or purifying the virus” in order to “avoid artefacts associated with virus concentration or purification.” In other words, the images created within the study were of unpurified cell culture supernatant, which they utilized to create 3-D models of what they claimed were “viruses.” They then conjured up stories about what the structures that they created in the 3-D images do in processes that they are unable to observe in real-time. There was no attempt whatsoever to try and demonstrate that the unpurified cell culture particles were pathogenic “viruses.”
Knowing that this latest paper did not even come close to containing the evidence requested and that it did not adhere to the steps of the scientific method that we had agreed upon, I asked Thomas to explain how his paper fulfilled what was asked of him. Within about 5 minutes, Thomas provided an image of a detailed write-up outlining each of the steps of the scientific method and how his paper “fulfilled” them, minus any mention of any control experiments. The amazingly quick response was highly suspicious, and I immediately suspected that Thomas had enlisted the help of an AI friend to write it, especially knowing Thomas's propensity for grammatical errors.
Right off the bat, it was clear that, like Thomas, the AI had tried its best to “fake it until you make it” by stating that the natural phenomenon that the researchers “observed” were the spike proteins of the lab-generated cell cultured creation. This was most definitely not a natural phenomenon which I immediately pointed out to Thomas.
When I explained that natural phenomena are not artificial creations, i.e. they are not made or produced by humans as they are events that occur naturally without human intervention, Thomas told me to cite this. I was actually rather surprised that something as simple as what a natural phenomenon is had perplexed Thomas, but I obliged by providing a source backing up what I said.
What Thomas fails to understand is that the goal of science is to explain observed natural phenomenon, as summarized by Chapter 2 ~ Science as a Way of Understanding the Natural World of the book Environmental Science.
“The broad goals of science are to understand natural phenomena and to explain how they may be changing over time. To achieve those goals, scientists undertake investigations that are based on information, inferences, and conclusions developed through a systematic application of logic, usually of the inductive sort. As such, scientists carefully observe natural phenomena and conduct experiments.”
From these observations, a hypothesis is proposed as a testable explanation for a presumed cause and effect relationship between the observed effect and the assumed cause of the natural phenomenon.
“The scientific method begins with the identification of a question involving the structure or function of the natural world, which is usually developed using inductive logic (Figure 2.1). The question is interpreted in terms of existing theory, and specific hypotheses are formulated to explain the character and causes of the natural phenomenon.”
“In contrast, a hypothesis is a proposed explanation for the occurrence of a phenomenon. Scientists formulate hypotheses as statements and then test them through experiments and other forms of research. Hypotheses are developed using logic, inference, and mathematical arguments in order to explain observed phenomena.”
Somehow, Thomas continued to struggle with what a natural phenomenon is, and how human manipulation is not involved in these phenomena. The very act of removing cells from a human or animal, growing them in artificial conditions, culturing an unobservable “virus” through the addition of many chemicals and foreign materials, and then manipulating the sample through various imaging preparation processes in order to create representations and 3-D models to “see” the artificial creation does not reflect anything seen in nature and does not equal an observed natural phenomenon. Thus, his study failed from the start.
Thomas continued to struggle with the concept of what an observed natural phenomenon is, and attempted to rationalize his incorrect understanding by providing an example of a man-made forest while avoiding a direct answer to my question as to whether he agreed that cell cultures are created through manipulation by humans.
Seeing that there was not going to be a light bulb going off in his head anytime soon regarding his misunderstanding of what a natural phenomenon is, I asked Thomas to explain what his independent variable (i.e. the presumed cause) and the dependent variable (i.e. the observed effect) are from his “observed natural phenomenon.” I called out his earlier use of ChatBot to answer for him in the hope that Thomas may either slip up or fess up, and he did not disappoint. 😉
Even though it was rather obvious that he had done so, I was actually quite surprised to see Thomas admit to using the AI to answer for him. Perhaps he just forgot to crop out the ChatBot logo this time? Regardless, the AI was incorrect once again as the structure and distribution of an artificial spike protein is not a cause of any natural phenomenon. There is no effect that the researchers “observed” the “spike proteins” causing in nature, especially by way of their structure, and there is no ability for the researchers to vary and manipulate their IV. Observed characteristics of proteins is not an effect seen in nature either. Everything that took place within this paper was an artificial creation on the part of the researchers. In order to paint the picture about the amount of human intervention involved in this so-called “natural phenomenon,” here are just a few examples demonstrating the various steps performed just for the researchers to be able to “see” their “natural phenomenon,” with the first one explaining the cell culturing steps employed:
Cells and virus
“Vero E6 cells were obtained from ATCC and were cultured in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium (DMEM, Life Technologies) containing 10% fetal bovine serum, 100 U ml−1 penicillin, 100 μg ml−1 streptomycin and 1% non-essential amino acids (complete medium). The Germany/BavPat1/2020 SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated by C. Drosten (Charité, Berlin, distributed by the European Virology Archive (Ref-SKU: 026V-03883)) at passage (P)2. A stock of SARS-CoV-2 was obtained by passaging the virus once in Vero E6 cells (P3). To produce SARS-CoV-2 virions, Vero E6 cells grown on 75 cm2 side-bottom tissue culture flasks were infected with SARS-CoV-2 (P3) at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 0.5. Culture medium from infected cells was collected at 48 h after infection, clarified by centrifugation at 1,000g for 10 min, cleared through a 0.45-μm nitrocellulose filter and fixed with 4% formaldehyde for 30 min at room temperature. Culture medium was supplemented with 10 mM HEPES (pH 7.2) before fixation. Virus-containing medium was subsequently split into aliquots and stored at −80 °C. Infectious supernatants containing SARS-CoV-2 virions were obtained from Calu-3 cells infected with P3 virus at an MOI of 5 for 48 h and processed as described above.”
This second example pertains to the imaging preparation process. You can see the different ways in which the researchers incorporated various additives to the previously heavily altered samples along with the utilization of multiple computer programs to create and interpret the images generated:
Cryo-ET sample preparation
“Fixed virus samples from the supernatant of infected cells without any concentration step (unconc) or concentrated by pelleting through a sucrose cushion (conc) were prepared, imaged, and processed in parallel. The virus suspension was mixed with 10-nm colloidal gold (in PBS solution) in 10:1 ratio. Then, 3 μl of the solution was added to a glow-discharged copper grid (C-Flat 2/2, Protochips). Grids were plunge frozen into liquid ethane by back-side blotting using a LeicaGP cryo plunger (Leica) and stored in liquid nitrogen until imaging.”
“To generate an initial template model of the spike protein from the viral surface, 68 spikes were manually picked from four virions of tomograms that were down-scaled by 4× binning of the voxels. The 68 spikes’ initial Euler angles (2 out of 3) were determined on the basis of the vector between two points, one on the head of the spike and one on the membrane where the spike anchors, respectively. The 68 spikes were iteratively aligned to one another for four iterations, applying three-fold symmetry to generate a low-resolution template that resembled a prefusion conformation of the spike. This template was used as an alignment reference for all virions (below). All postfusion spikes were manually identified and picked, and initial Euler angles were assigned in the same manner.”
The final example is how the images were processed in order to create a “consensus” structure:
Cryo-EM image processing
The scheduler functionality in RELION-3.1 was used for fully automated real-time processing during data collection9,46. Movies were motion-corrected and dose-weighted using the RELION implementation of the MotionCor2 algorithm47. Subsequently, non-dose-weighted sums were used to estimate the CTF in CTFFIND-4.1.1348. S trimers that were extending from the sides of virus particles were picked manually (4,493 particles from the first 100 micrographs) and then used as a training set for optimisation of the convolutional neural network in the automated particle picking software Topaz49. Extracted particles were subjected to 3D classification using a previously determined structure of the S trimer9, low-pass-filtered to 30 Å, as initial 3D reference. The selected 286,407 particles that contributed to 3D classes corresponding to S trimers were submitted to Bayesian polishing to correct for per-particle beam-induced motions and a second round of 3D classification to select the 55,159 particles that contributed to the best class. This final consensus set of particles was subjected to CTF refinement of per-particle defocus, per-micrograph astigmatism and beam tilt, followed by a second round of Bayesian polishing. 3D auto-refinements were performed with the selected particles after each round of 3D classification, CTF refinement or Bayesian polishing. The consensus structure had a resolution of 3.4 Å.”
There is much more that can be found within the methods section of the paper that showcases just how far from nature the images produced actually are. To claim that what is “observed” in this study is natural or reflects what occurs in nature is laughable. I provided a brief summary of the problems to Thomas that he did not address, although he offered to ask ChatBot again if I so desired.
Of course, I had to point out how hilarious it was that Thomas resorted to ChatBot for his answers rather than attempt to explain how his paper adhered to the scientific method himself. That he could not understand what a natural phenomenon is and needed AI to incorrectly answer for him was rather comedic and ironic, seeing as he began his career due to his love of nature. Sadly, Thomas was still struggling to understand that what the AI reported was not a natural phenomenon observed without human intervention. Thomas then went back to his forest example that he, for some strange reason, figured was a brilliant rebuttal.
Somehow, he felt that a forest planted by man reflected an observed natural phenomenon that needed studying and explaining. However, the cause of the forest existing is already known as it was created by man. There is no need to explain what caused the forest. Regardless, Thomas continued to try and claim that structural confirmation is a cause of an observable effect in nature. I explained that creating images from unpurified cell culture soups and conjuring up stories about the computer-generated structures has nothing to do with natural science. It is pseudoscientific fiction.
Unfortunately, our conversation did not last much longer. As I had previously blocked Thomas's friend Burki, I was warned that if I did not unblock him, the conversation would end. I was not interested in conversing with people I had already blocked previously on my main account, especially as I wanted to keep the discussion solely between Thomas and myself. I had already wasted enough of my time responding to Burki while Thomas sat on the sidelines. As I was unwilling to unblock Burki, Thomas decided to block me and end the conversation in retaliation. To me, this was an obvious sign that he was looking for an easy way out of a conversation that he felt was not going in his direction. However, I have to give Thomas credit as he made the wise decision by cutting and running. The longer our discussion continued, the worse it looked for him. It has become clear to me, based upon our interactions, that Thomas does not like to converse without having the ability of falling back on others to interject on his behalf, whether they are human or AI. On his own, Thomas falls apart.
From my previous conversation with Thomas, I already knew that he struggled not only with his understanding of the scientific method, but also in his attempts to show how virology adheres to it. This has not changed. He also continues to rely on logical fallacies, challenges to join his Space, and calling upon others, including AI, to argue for him. This conversation showed me that Thomas has made no progress in the year since our first encounter. While it became clear that nothing had changed, I did come away with a deeper understanding of just how far away Thomas is from truly grasping natural science and the scientific method. For a man who developed a profound passion for nature and the environment during his childhood, it is entirely shocking that he could not comprehend what a natural phenomenon is. Without being able to grasp this very basic concept, there is no ability for Thomas to truly understand what natural science is all about. There will be no capacity for him to fully comprehend the scientific method. He will always believe that creating heavily altered substances artificially in a lab and writing up fictional narratives to explain the computer-generated images is a way to understand what really occurs within the natural world. Sadly, the frightening reality is that Thomas is the embodiment of many within the scientific community who do not understand the purpose of science along with the method used to acquire scientific knowledge. Until he can gain some common sense, Thomas will always be lost, arguing in circles over a method that he agrees with in one breath, and then says is impossible in another. Unless he gets back to nature in order to understand it, plant virologist Thomas Baldwin, and those whom he represents, will always remain a senseless strand flailing in the wind.
The Bailey's also examined glandular fever and the Epstein-Barr “virus.”
looked to dispel the hysteria over “avian influenza.”Christine also shared more Freedom of Information (FOI) request responses, this time from Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases, showing that they have no scientific evidence of pathogenic “viruses.”
has some great content as usual, with her first article looking at the war on insects.
Betsy also provided a very in-depth explanation relating to the lack of contagious disease.
examined how statistics have been used by the medical industry to lie to us throughout history.
Once again you deserve a medal for your patience, Mike!!
Baldwin is not a scientist, but a technologist passing for a scientist, a distinction noted by David Rasnick in “The Viral Delusion.”