"pamela" wrote in message
...
On 11:13 13 Apr 2016, Rod Speed wrote:

pamela wrote
Rod Speed wrote
pamela wrote

No one had debated if bacteria caused stomach ulcers because
the assumption had been that no bacteria could ever live
there.

No one ever assumed anything of the sort. In fact it
was well known that bacteria could and did live there.

It had long been held that the contents of the
stomach were far too acidic for bacteria to survive.

Bull****.

Consequently it was a real surprise that bacteria,
such as h.pylori, could be found there at all

No it was not. That was well known for a long time.

I see we don't share the same understanding of what happened.
I admit I don't hold a monoploy on the truth but Wikipedia says
something very similar to what I wrote:

"At the time, the conventional thinking was that no bacterium
could live in the acid environment of the human stomach."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori

In fact what that actually says is

It was identified in 1982 by Australian scientists Barry
Marshall and Robin Warren, who found that it was present in
a person with chronic gastritis and gastric ulcers,
conditions not previously believed to have a microbial
cause.

Which is nothing even remotely like what you wrote.

And
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora
says the exact opposite of what you wrote.

and, from that, it was a step to find
h.pylori was implicated in ulcers.

That utterly mangles what actually happened.

What did happen?

That wikipedia article is accurate.

If I'm mistaken then I would be interested
to hear the correct verson of events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_...e_and_research

Although even that is still debated by some to this day.

Sure, its certainly possible that not all ulcers are due to
h.pylori and it also doesn't explain why plenty who do
have h.pylori in their stomachs don't get ulcers

In fact 80% of humans do have h.pylori in their guts.

and the obvious flow on from the finding that h.pylori
is the cause of most ulcers is that it should be possible
to give everyone a decent dose of the appropriate
antibiotics and ensure that no one ever gets an ulcer
again. In practice its more complicated than that.

Trivially proven by ingesting the bacteria that was claimed
to be the problem and seeing it produce ulcers.

All great insights are simple when looking back on them

That's not true either. Evolution isnt, particularly with
how something as complicated as the eye developed.

Evolution isn't an insight,

Corse its an insight into how life came about.

so I'm not sure I follow why it's a relevant
counter example to what I said.

but it can't have been all that simple at the
time if they got a nobel prize for their discovery.

That's not how you get a nobel prize.

True enough but that's not what I said.

As an example, I think the idea that nitric oxide is a
cellular signalling compound in the human body is simple
enough but it took some major insights to discover that.

Similarly, the special theory of relativity is
straightforward enough to understand by reading up on it on a
long train journey but it took Einstein to have the insight
to discover it.

But plenty of other equally revolutionary insights are nowhere
near as easy to understand even when they have been
established.

I would think a retrospective view of what a discovery entails
is always easier to understand than it is for a researcher at
the time for who the understanding doesn't yet exist.

Sure that is nothing like your original.

I guess we will have to differ. Nothing I read in this thread
makes me change my mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora
should. It says the exact opposite of your original claim
that "It had long been held that the contents of the
stomach were far too acidic for bacteria to survive"

And in fact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_...e_and_research
says

It has been claimed that the H. pylori theory was ridiculed by the
establishment scientists and doctors, who did not believe that any
bacteria could live in the acidic environment of the stomach. Marshall
has been quoted as saying in 1998 that "(e)veryone was against me,
but I knew I was right."[10] On the other hand, it has also been argued
that medical researchers showed a proper degree of scientific scepticism
until the H. pylori hypothesis could be supported by evidence.[11]

which does show where that stupid claim about gut bacteria came from.

and I'm sure it's the same for you.

Because
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora
blows your original claim that "It had long been held that the
contents of the stomach were far too acidic for bacteria to survive"
completely out of the water.

I think we share too little common understanding to discuss this further.

It has nothing whatever to do with common understanding.

The claim that "It had long been held that the contents
of the stomach were far too acidic for bacteria to survive"
is just plain wrong.