No one is saying people don't get sick. That's not the argument.

The argument is about cause.

Science is observational. You observe a real phenomenon: two or more people getting sick in the same space with similar symptoms. That's real. That has always been real. No one in this conversation is disputing that.

You then form a hypothesis. There is a submicroscopic particle inside these fluids being transmitted from person to person, causing illness.

That is a hypothesis. And here is where the scientific method has a very specific requirement that, according to Alec Zeck, has never been met.

In order to move from hypothesis to experimentation, you need to isolate the presumed cause, the independent variable, the thing you believe is responsible, by itself, and demonstrate that it produces the observed effects.

With respect to the entire field of virology? Zeck says that has never been done.

He says that, instead, we have mistaken pseudoscience for science because it came from authoritative bodies. Governments. Institutions. And because those sources said it, we stopped asking whether other explanations for the observed phenomena had ever been seriously considered.

The observed phenomenon is real. The presumed cause for that phenomenon? That, says Zeck, has never been proven to exist nor proven to cause any of it.

@delbigtree