| Again we ask Christopher Noble to tell us his method of proving the existence of a new retrovirus | 14 July 2004 |
Biophysicist
Department of Medical Physics, Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia, 6001,
Valendar F Turner, John Papadimitriou, Barry Page, David Causer, Helman Alfonso, Sam Mhlongo, Todd Miller, Christian Fiala
Send response to journal:
Re: Again we ask Christopher Noble to tell us his method of proving the existence of a new retrovirus
In his Rapid response “Re: We repeat our request: What is Christopher Noble’s method of proving the existence of a new retrovirus?” (9th July 2004) Christropher Noble wrote:
“The Perth Group wrote:
“…It is not my job to invent straw-man criteria for proving the existence of a retrovirus. I leave this entirely to the Perth Group”.”
We did not ask Christopher Noble for “straw-man criteria for proving the existence of a retrovirus”. It is not sufficient to tell others they are wrong. We asked him to provide a scientific method which, in his view, will prove the existence of a new retrovirus and allow characterisation of its proteins and genome. Christropher Noble is aware of the properties of retroviruses. He should be able to post a method either of his own or a method established by others which, in his view, will prove the existence of a new retrovirus.
Competing interests: None declared