[pct-l] Fwd: To " Filter or Treat"...or not to..."Filter and Treat"

Ken Murray kmurray at pol.net
Sun Sep 9 21:01:06 CDT 2012



TrailHacker,

That was a gracious post.  I may have been right on our exchange (although the final words have not been written, as we know in science), but that's certainly not always the case.

One thing that I don't want people to misunderstand:  As TrailHacker illustrates, it is not disagreeing with me that gets my hackles up.  

In the recent exchange, what bothered me was the attack on the reputation of a person who VOLUNTEERED their time over the course of several years, to put information together for the hiking community.  Rockwell did not make a dime off of it.  To see him attacked, WITH NO OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND OR DEFEND HIS POSITION, really torqued me.  

I don't think that is fair, and it feels equivalent to a smear campaign behind someone's back...who is equivalent to other trail angels.

Mine is an emotional response that brings out the sarcasm.  It's unfortunate, because it colors the discussion, and leaves a bad taste for everyone.  I'll try to be a better person.

Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: abiegen at cox.net
To: pct-l at backcountry.net
Cc: "Ken Murray" <kmurray at pol.net>, "Bruce 'Buck' Nelson" <buck at bucktrack.com>
Sent: Friday, September 7, 2012 6:40:15 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [pct-l] To " Filter or Treat"...or not to..."Filter and Treat"

One final comment on the discussion of treatment of water/giardia/etc.

About two years ago I had a similar exchange with Ken on the pct-l. I had posited that you should expose yourself to as many germs as possible so that your immune system would work better. I said that if you didn't use your immune system it would get into trouble attacking your own body. Ken strongly disagreed and said that that theory was without merit. The exchange went back and forth for several emails. I posed my sources, Ken knocked them down as unreliable.

Well recently a study of previous studies was done and determined that the theory that your immune system would get into trouble without external threats had little or no support in all the studies reviewed. It was an unsupported guess.

I'm man enough and scientist enough that I will now state publicly that Ken was correct and I was wrong. I won't apologize to Ken because that exchange didn't include any name calling or low blows. We had both expressed our views and sources strongly which is how science progresses. When more conclusive proof is uncovered, you accept it and move forward.

I personally enjoyed all the facts and sources shared in the recent exchange. A lot of information got passed back and forth. I understand that the stridency come from people not wanting other thrus to either ruin their hike by getting sick or not wanting thrus to waste their time and effort on a ritual that is not necessary. I go back and forth on the issue, sometimes treating, sometimes not. 

Now on the name calling; well I am reminded of Edison and Tesla. Yes, sometimes science goes in that direction too and things can get ugly. But sometimes the stakes can be pretty high and people get so emotionally attached to their position that it becomes personal.

Someday you guys may meet on the trail and hopefully you will bump knuckles instead of bumping heads. I find everyone to be really pleasant on the trail probably because the trail just consumes testosterone and adrenalin (please don't send me a bunch of links refuting that, I am just kidding). While on the list, the further away you get from kickoff and spring, the more testosterone and adrenalin build up and seek another outlet.

TrailHacker

--
"When my foot is in my mouth, I can't hike"
TH






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