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HIV Denial
You may find this hard to believe, but there are people who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS. In fact, some don't even believe HIV exists. A commentary in PLoS Medicine, "HIV Denial in the Internet Era," gives some basic background on this movement. In addition to their day jobs, Tara Smith blogs at Aetiology, and Steven Novella is the host of the great podcast, "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" (I've been listening for about a year and a half, now).
HIV denial is not uncommon among the leading lights of Intelligent Design. Of course, it would be a logical fallacy to say that because they are wrong on HIV, they are also wrong on ID. But I think it is suggestive of being a contrarian crank.
4 comments:
Jared,
I think you're the first LDS person I've found that listens to the SGU. That's awesome. I've been listening for a little over a year now as well, and my brother is hooked, too. I too have been very interested in the whole Science vs Religion topic and recently, science one me over. Faith for me has died, proves to be ridiculous, non-trustworthy and non-evidence based, whereas science is much more on the other side of the spectrum of truth.
Science (the age of the earth and the origins of man in particular) killed my judeo-christian god because they not only contradict the holy texts but blow it out of the water completely as far as truth goes.
I'm writing you this comment because I'm very interested in how you can continue to be a believer, especially recognizing the fallacies of the human mind, and the fallacies in religious and LDS thought.
If you want to read my "exit story" from faith you can find it here. I now blog here on science and atheism so stop by if you like. Anyways, just wanted to drop by and say hi to a fellow SGU fan and I admit that I'm intrigued by you as a believing LDS scientist (i hope i got that right about you). Forgive me as i am pre-judging you to be employing the same psychological errors as other religious critical-thinkers (ie cognitive dissonance, wishful thinking, god-of-the gaps argumentation, belief because of family, etc.).
Glad you're keeping an open-mind, though. Talk to you later.
Jared,
I am a gay LDS man and have known for quite a number of years that HIV does not cause AIDS. It is caused by the immune system being weakened and worn down by multiple episodes of STDs, chronic drug use, blood transfusions, and other miscellaneous causes.
You may treat this news with scepticism but those of us with friends who died of AIDS have followed what common sense and many prominent scientists have been arguing for quite some time. This theory was originally advanced by Professor Peter Duesberg, a Nobel Prize winner who teaches at Stanford. He has laid out a very convincing case with much supporting evidences. There are also a number of other world scientists that agree with him.
However, after trying to be heard for a number of years in the late '80s and early '90s, he gave up trying to fight a system that was more interested in the funding monies being poured into the false theory than it was in finding a cure.
I do not know how old you are but if you remember what the original theory was built upon, we would have had hundreds of millions dead by now. It never came to pass because the assumptions made about HIV were incorrect.
I would suggest you check out www.virusmyth.net/aids/
We are very serious. Check it out before you dismiss it.
Michael,
Thanks for the comment. None of my friends or relatives have HIV (that I know of), and I am not plugged into the gay community. On the other hand, I have a freshly minted Ph.D. in microbiology and I have shadowed infectious disease doctors at an HIV clinic. I am sure that you will understand why I treat such claims with skepticism.
Having said that, I am not an expert in HIV pathogenesis. You are probably already familiar with this fact sheet, but I'll have to leave it there for now.
markii,
I am a faithful listener to SGU, and I do think about the things I learn there and their bearing on religion. Click on the "skepticism" category and you will see it's influence. I don't have fully formed thoughts on this right now, but here are some partial ones:
We all have to make value judgments, and not too long after I die, nobody will even remember me, much less care about how intellectually rigorous I was. I basically believe in the Church--something I have to be honest about when I think about intellectual honesty. It feels right, and I want it to be right. I recognize that religion--including Mormonism--has its problems, and I think people like Dawkins make many good and interesting points that are worthy of consideration. I also think that many religious people put forth bad arguments. But at the end of the day, I have to live in my own skin. I am doomed to contradiction--if I were to reject either religion or science, I would always think and/or feel I had made a mistake. So I choose to give them both room in my mind and heart and look forward to where they each lead.
Hopefully that makes some sense.
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