I followed the discussion between Graham Clark and Charles Faulkner as
well. My summary of it is:
One party (Clark) uses `pathogenity' as an absolut term. The relative
term in this conception is `virulence'. The other party (Faulkner)
uses `parasit' as the absolut term. So whenever Clark talks about a
pathogen, Faulkner talks about a parasit (please check out, if I got
that point right!). In Faulkner's conception both pathogenic and
virulent are relative terms.
Clark uses parasit and pathogen synonymous, if he uses parasit at all,
as absolut terms. Faulkner uses pathogenic and virulent as relative
terms, but he couldn't quite point out, why they are not synonymous in
his conception (at least he couldn't make it clear to me).
The question is, do we need more than two different (not synonymous)
terms? If so, I'd be the first to take party with Faulkner. I suggest
Faulkner tries for one last time to point out, why pathogenic and
virulent are not synonymous in his conception. But please be short and
sweet. It's really hard to follow, if the message gets too long.
If in case Faulkner useses pathogenic synonymous to virulent, the
fight between the party who wants to use these as synonyms and the
party who wants to use pathogen synonym to parasit will never end. It
would be very irrelevant at the same time.
Joachim (joaccigh at w350zrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de)
