wht (@wht2_0)

"When a scientific paper reports that a virus has been “isolated from a patient,” the ordinary reader understands this to mean that a particle has been extracted from the patient’s bodily fluid, separated from all other material, and characterized in pure form. That understanding is what the word means everywhere science uses it. A chemist isolating a compound from a solution means this. A pharmacologist isolating a drug from a urine sample means this. A microbiologist isolating a bacterial strain from a culture plate means this. In every domain that uses the word “isolation,” the operation being described is separation of the target from everything else. Virology has never performed this operation on any of the particles it calls a virus, in the entire history of the field.³ What virology performs under the label “isolation” is something else. The gap between what the word means and what the operation actually consists of is the sleight of hand from which the discipline inherits everything downstream." https://www.unbekoming.com/p/what-is-isolation?publication_id=355417&post_id=214350552&isFreemail=true&r=k7jkk&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email