My essay has achieved its aim: it has provoked a debate.1,2 But might I suggest some rules of engagement in the debate? Could commentators please argue the points that have been raised rather than try to read my mind? I do not feel ‘frustration’ or ‘unrest'.3 I do not have ‘a problem’ nor do I see myself as a protector of any sepulchre rendering me liable to ‘almost paranoid’ responses.4
While we are at it, lighten up a little. Humour has an honourable tradition in philosophy. The example of the bus was chosen not simply for a reductio ad absurdum of denying objectivity nor as a link to the less obvious example of MMR vaccination, but because it was — ironic.
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2004.