Dear Kim- I promise you I have NO INTEREST whatsoever in the Asian Bird Flu study. Didn't read it, don't have an opinion. I was only addressing your statement that "a scientific study is NOT a representation of the real world." I think your motivation for that statement is possibly related to some views that you have previosuly expressed regarding THE TOPIC THAT WE ARE FORBIDDEN TO DISCUSS. (You know the one.) Were your statement true on its face, we'd still be cursing the bad air down by the swamp for malaria. And the mosquitoes would snicker, and pick us off, one by one. (Oh, and we wouldn't have gin and tonics, either. That would be a stone cold shame.) There is a lot of good science being done, some of it with ferrets as test subjects. I realize that the idea of animal testing in and of itself is repugnant to some on this list. If the subject interests anyone, it's always possible to Google "Ferret+test subject." That gets a lot of hits.I will say that were it not for studies done with ferrets, there would be *no* ADV test. Nope. And there would never be a cure. Were it not for work done by scientists, the Black Footed Ferrets would pass from this earth, as nobody would have figured out the role the role of the bacterium Yersinia Pestis, and Travis would be at home with April, and not on the plains at night (with or without loincloth) fighting the Black Plague. And thanks to some solid scientific studies, if Travis happens to *catch* the Plague, he won't die, and leave April bereft. There are a few nutcase scientists out there who publish fake results. They get caught. There are some who pass worthless results on for a quick buck. (The cold fusion guys.) They are a very, very small minority. And they get caught, because some ethical scientists puts his nose to the grindstone, and tries for that "reproducable result." And fails, and fails, and the word spreads. We live in an age where a good chunk of our population has come to feel threatened by anything that has the adjective "scientific" attached to it. Some because they have been burned by bad scientific reporting in the media, some who feel that we have begun to tread some pretty shaky territory because the potential of our technological growth is galloping along faster than our ethical development. Some have come to feel that the very term "scientific" is a threat to their deeply cherished religious beliefs. Well....I look at it this way. I view properly concucted scientific study as one of the very best tools we will ever have for being able to look into the mind of the one some have styled "The Great Architect." We make a connection that has never been clear to us before, never been revealed, view a previously unrecognized articulation of matter and energy and we can marvel and realize just how *astounding* creation is, and how wise the Creator. And sometimes, what a remarkable sense of humor the Creator appears to have. Did you know that cockroaches run away and *wash* themselves after touching *us*? Some observant scientist figured it out. And it made me spit out my coffee laughing, the first time I read that. I have never looked at a cockroach the same way, again. Now when I see a big honkin' one in Mexico I don't shriek, I feel empowered. I hiss "Go away, or I'll *touch* you!" And Senior roach obligingly runs away in terror, shrieking , in a tiny voice too high pitched for my monkey ears. It's all about perspective. And I suspect that most of us here have a deep reverence for Creation, every time we hold a beautiful, soft-furred ferret in our arms, and look into those delicately fringed eyes, stroke the blunt little ears, marvel at the intracacy of the whiskers and the cunning articulation of the tiny toes, each with its single arched claw. A miracle that Jehova neglected to mention when he was chewing Job out...A miracle, even without a cecum. Alexandra Back in MA. I *must* be alive after all, because I am actively suffering from the lack of palm trees, blooming bouganvillia, and soft tropical breezes. Instead I have bare trees and frozen salted road sand. Maybe I've died and gone to....a really unpleasant afterlife...hmmm. I'll have to think about it. [Posted in FML 6249]