Scientia Press

In the COVID-19 pandemic, even though some inhaled virus immediately penetrates into the lungs, some remains in the throat where it replicates to very high numbers–for instance, a peak at 711,000,000 RNA copies per throat swab day 4 (Wölfel R et al.  Nature 2020;Apr 1).  Many of these replicates presumably descend into the lungs, where they furnish a stream of reinforcements that may cumulatively outweigh the replication of the initial penetrating dose.  Hence treating the throat with gargling seems highly desirable. Continue reading »

PDF:  What Makes a Theory Good_ A Reconnaissance of Explanatory Virtue

What makes a theory good? In his canonical 1991 book Inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton attempts to answer this fraught question. The philosopher identifies eleven explanatory virtues that are often placed within four groupings: evidential, coherential, aesthetic, and diachronic. Two others, James Beebe1 and Kenneth Dillon2, draw upon the same categorical schema to present four other virtues for consideration. All fifteen are listed and defined in the following table: Continue reading »

Contrary to media reports, there are existing effective methods of treating respiratory and disseminated infections that resemble the one caused by the COVID-19 virus.  Continue reading »

Concerned over shortages of face masks, U.S. medical authorities have until recently discouraged the use of face masks by the public.  But a good deal of evidence (Jefferson T 2007) shows that face masks reduced the risk of infection by 68% in SARS, an analogue of COVID-19.  This suggests that wearing face masks can go far toward slowing the spread of the pandemic.  Therefore, we need to find a way to provide enough of them not just to protect medical personnel but also to protect the public.  Reusing them seems a very attractive strategy. Continue reading »

Studies by Japanese researchers show that gargling is protective against respiratory infections.  Here is a letter that lays out the case for gargling against COVID-19. Continue reading »

Sekhmet (“The Mighty One”), the lion-headed goddess of ancient Egypt, was dreaded for her bloody rampages.  Yet she became the protector of kings and a favorite personal goddess of millions of Egyptians.

Why did Egyptians have a goddess who required such assiduous and even obsessive propitiation?  Why did other Egyptian goddesses play roles similar to Sekhmet’s?  What explains Sekhmet’s dual nature as destroyer and protector?  Why was she called the Eye of Ra?  Why was she originally depicted with an oval disk on her head?

We now have good answers to these questions.  But in order to understand them, we need to see why we should think that Sekhmet was Planet Venus.  And that requires us to investigate a major case of scientific rejectionism. Continue reading »

Students have long struggled, often in vain, with the rules of Latin grammar. The structure of sentences in Latin seems strange to the mind of an Indo-European native speaker. Also, Latin’s heavy use of gerundive and absolute constructions: all those verbal nouns entail a very different pattern of thinking than goes on in modern Indo-European languages. Continue reading »