No, I didn't say they were. The point being is that you're not going to get great aerobic conditioning from deadlifts when compared to any other specific aerobic activity, like running.

That shouldn't even pass the sniff test, yes? If you would like to test the theory, I'll run for 5 weeks, you deadlift, then we'll test our aerobic thresholds (or whatever else you'd like to do!) :)