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Active member
Before opening this specific topic, let's agree about why an answer is important.
1) If you're a chicken, this is already a pandemic and there have been huge consequences already.
2) If you're a chicken (or turkey, or duck) farmer, knowing the answer may enable you to take effective action to prevent loss of your livelihood, and relieve you from doing things that won't make a difference.
3) If you are in a position of authority to control poultry transportation (both legal and illicit), or to augment poultry biosecurity, or to increase effective surveillance in poultry or wild birds, then perhaps an answer might lead to a solution to the problem.
4) If you are a human (farmer or not), you might shape your food choices, travel plans, or recreational reading list based on the answer, but please don't base your emergency preparations on it. If any emerging infectious disease (from any source) that has a significant "attack rate" and a non-trivial "case fatality rate" (or case morbidity rate) mutates to spread human-to-human, then the question of its etiology becomes irrelevant.
Clearly, people should be preparing for a probable near-term pandemic, regardless of the answer to this question. Said differently, if you are trying to gage the threat level, or make decisions regarding emergency preparedness, it doesn't matter what mechanism(s) are facilitating the spread, unless that answer affects the outcome. So far, it hasn't. In all probability, it won't. During H5N1's spread over the last 5 years, and 4 continents, and into dozens of countries, and causing thousands of wild bird deaths, millions of domestic poultry deaths, and hundreds of human infections, the answer to this question has been irrelevant. Don't harbor false hopes that there is a simple solution that hinges on "spread via poultry trade" and that once addressed, the problem will go away. People have been doing much, in many ways, simultaneously, to combat the spread, and H5N1 has marched right through; extensive vaccination, increased biosecurity, poultry trade blocks, rural education programs, etc. The message for the average person is .... "Prep. now, and ask questions later". Now, on to answering the question.....
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I thought this thread was a particularly appropriate topic to explore the basis for belief in ANY position, particularly when we feel a need to make decisions based on that choice, and supremely when the decision carries the potential of huge consequences to our health and life itself.
How Do We Know Anything?
We either learn it for ourselves, or we accept what someone else says as the truth. Since learning everything for our selves is way too slow, we rely heavily on accepting data and conclusions from others, that seem to "fit" with the preceding stuff that we have accepted as true. Despite starting out in life at essentially the same "zero" point, the numerous variables in personal development leads to a vast diversity in what each of us knows later in life. Nobody can know everything, hence we rely on specialists. We rely on each other. By the time people are adults, it is likely that the unique combination of life experiences has caused each of us to become a specialist in something, even if we aren't aware of it. This is what makes everyone a valuable part of the whole. What has become more difficult, as the world's collection of knowledge has increased exponentially in recent years, is to be able to confidently access what you need to know, when you need to know it. The question in this thread is how to weigh the disparate and competing arguments on the mechanism(s) of the spread of HPAI H5N1. The challenge is to sort the sound information from the dis- or mis-information.
What (and whom) should we believe?
What you can believe of what someone tells you is based on their knowledge, coupled with their honesty. If they don't truly know, and neither do they have the "most informed opinion", their honesty is irrelevant. Even if they do know, if they are dishonest, either deliberately, or by sloppiness, then their conclusions are less than worthless. The greatest difficulty occurs when specialists, of equal gravity, or publications of seemingly equal yet sometimes inscrutable credentials, disagree. That is when we must dig a little deeper or "read between the lines" to find the truth. We should employ "critical thinking skills" to establish credibility, examine authority, probe hidden (or visible) agendas, and observe discrepancies. If you don't know a particular topic, then "know someone who does".
Like the old saying about buying a used car, "If you don't know cars, it's good to know someone who does know cars". In this case, it becomes important to "know" the contributors to this forum.
To answer the question above, let's dig into the two sources of information, and the motivation(s) behind the two sources of information.
1) If you're a chicken, this is already a pandemic and there have been huge consequences already.
2) If you're a chicken (or turkey, or duck) farmer, knowing the answer may enable you to take effective action to prevent loss of your livelihood, and relieve you from doing things that won't make a difference.
3) If you are in a position of authority to control poultry transportation (both legal and illicit), or to augment poultry biosecurity, or to increase effective surveillance in poultry or wild birds, then perhaps an answer might lead to a solution to the problem.
4) If you are a human (farmer or not), you might shape your food choices, travel plans, or recreational reading list based on the answer, but please don't base your emergency preparations on it. If any emerging infectious disease (from any source) that has a significant "attack rate" and a non-trivial "case fatality rate" (or case morbidity rate) mutates to spread human-to-human, then the question of its etiology becomes irrelevant.
Clearly, people should be preparing for a probable near-term pandemic, regardless of the answer to this question. Said differently, if you are trying to gage the threat level, or make decisions regarding emergency preparedness, it doesn't matter what mechanism(s) are facilitating the spread, unless that answer affects the outcome. So far, it hasn't. In all probability, it won't. During H5N1's spread over the last 5 years, and 4 continents, and into dozens of countries, and causing thousands of wild bird deaths, millions of domestic poultry deaths, and hundreds of human infections, the answer to this question has been irrelevant. Don't harbor false hopes that there is a simple solution that hinges on "spread via poultry trade" and that once addressed, the problem will go away. People have been doing much, in many ways, simultaneously, to combat the spread, and H5N1 has marched right through; extensive vaccination, increased biosecurity, poultry trade blocks, rural education programs, etc. The message for the average person is .... "Prep. now, and ask questions later". Now, on to answering the question.....
==================================================================
I thought this thread was a particularly appropriate topic to explore the basis for belief in ANY position, particularly when we feel a need to make decisions based on that choice, and supremely when the decision carries the potential of huge consequences to our health and life itself.
How Do We Know Anything?
We either learn it for ourselves, or we accept what someone else says as the truth. Since learning everything for our selves is way too slow, we rely heavily on accepting data and conclusions from others, that seem to "fit" with the preceding stuff that we have accepted as true. Despite starting out in life at essentially the same "zero" point, the numerous variables in personal development leads to a vast diversity in what each of us knows later in life. Nobody can know everything, hence we rely on specialists. We rely on each other. By the time people are adults, it is likely that the unique combination of life experiences has caused each of us to become a specialist in something, even if we aren't aware of it. This is what makes everyone a valuable part of the whole. What has become more difficult, as the world's collection of knowledge has increased exponentially in recent years, is to be able to confidently access what you need to know, when you need to know it. The question in this thread is how to weigh the disparate and competing arguments on the mechanism(s) of the spread of HPAI H5N1. The challenge is to sort the sound information from the dis- or mis-information.
What (and whom) should we believe?
What you can believe of what someone tells you is based on their knowledge, coupled with their honesty. If they don't truly know, and neither do they have the "most informed opinion", their honesty is irrelevant. Even if they do know, if they are dishonest, either deliberately, or by sloppiness, then their conclusions are less than worthless. The greatest difficulty occurs when specialists, of equal gravity, or publications of seemingly equal yet sometimes inscrutable credentials, disagree. That is when we must dig a little deeper or "read between the lines" to find the truth. We should employ "critical thinking skills" to establish credibility, examine authority, probe hidden (or visible) agendas, and observe discrepancies. If you don't know a particular topic, then "know someone who does".
Like the old saying about buying a used car, "If you don't know cars, it's good to know someone who does know cars". In this case, it becomes important to "know" the contributors to this forum.
To answer the question above, let's dig into the two sources of information, and the motivation(s) behind the two sources of information.
