From The Mailbag: The Numbers, They Just Do Not Add Up
Dean
Kathleen writes:
From the Freakonomics blog, I found this article: Three Things You Don't Know About AIDS In Africa. It's not entirely related to the issues you have with AIDS, but I thought it would be interesting.
In fact it is entirely related to the issues I have with the scientific status quo. I don't know, for example, that Peter Duesberg is correct. But I do know that he simply does not deserve the kicking around he's gotten. A sane, rational scientific community would be saying, "Well you know, Peter's kind of a maverick and we think he's off-base here but he's a good guy who has made some worthy contributions, and anyway here's why we think he's wrong." The fury, the absolute condemnation, and the utter contempt have always hit me as a major red flag. Ditto the idea that just by expressing his doubts he's a threat to world health--what, adults are not allowed to hear about scientific doubters? Just hearing the doubts expressed is going to kill millions of people?
The truth is that independent researchers--mathematicians, mathematical biologists, medical doctors, and many others have looked at the data repeatedly and said, "you know, there's something very wrong here." Now an independent economist has drawn the same conclusion. She takes the standard position that HIV is dangerous, but concludes that the numbers we've had thrown at us about how HIV is ravaging Africa just don't add up. Which, quite obviously, they do not.
You have here a virus that even the establishment now admits carries about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being transmitted through sexual intercourse--i.e. if you sleep one time with an HIV infected person you have only a 1 in 1,000 chance of picking up the virus yourself. Even assuming the virus is all it's cracked up to be, that is wildly at odds with the danger that we were all told it represented.
For years they told us this virus was 100% lethal--that it would "kill Clark Kent" in Robert Gallo's words--and that turns out not to be the case. In fact, we've got people who've been HIV+ for over 20 years who are still walking around healthy as horses, refusing to take any medication, and willing to be part of experiments. Yet until very recently no one in the research community has expressed much of any interest in even talking to them.
They also now admit that the plague never really ravaged the US or European population, and is never going to.
Ah, but in Africa, it's totally out of control in the black population (and only the black population). Which means those primitive darkies must be screwing like rabid jackrabbits. Indeed, they often told us that as many as 1 in 3 black Africans were already dying of this hideous virus. As far back as the 1980s they were telling us that. Yet mysteriously, sub-Saharan Africa's population continues to grow at a brisk pace. So apparently after the raging epidemic started killing off a full third of the population, black African women started having babies at several times the normal rate?
Ah, but it was the rethinkers, the skeptics and the questioners, who all along were the nutjobs where were completely in the wrong?
I linked this earlier, but I'll link it again: Dr. Jeffrey Dach on fried watermelons. Still seems pretty on the money to me.
Question: I know you've been going on this thing about the AIDS/HIV connection for some time and you've taken a lot of flack for it. I was wondering; Why do you do it? I mean, what do you care for the debate? Why are you so engaged?
I'm not trying to attack you or anything. I can't recall you ever talking about it.
1) I studied the physical sciences in my youth and have an idea of what the scientific process (ie, 'scientific method') is supposed to be about. I wouldn't go so far as to say science was my 'religion', but I did have great faith in science due to the (supposed) process. With respect to AIDS research, the process has been flushed down the shitter. Dissent should be embraced. Dissenters shouldn't be blackballed from funding, publication, and professionally. Especially high caliber scientists. This bothers me a great deal.
2) The HIV hypothesis seems to me (after several years of moderately intense research on my part) to be extremely weak. Certainly weak enough to have questions about it addressed. If the hypothesis is wrong, the opportunity cost of the money thrown away researching it is mind-boggling. Thousands and thousands of lives lost. It's so f**king sad and wrong. That bothers me.
I ran across something interesting in the preface to _Road to Serfdom_ recently. Hayek said that some socialist intellectuals, at the time the book was published, took great pride in *not* reading the book and at the same time being very critical of it. Very similar to the HIV/AIDS situation - virtually identical to Moore's (non)response to the Perth group.
In my struggle to answer the question 'how did things go so wrong?' I'm beginning to think that scientists (be they physicists, virologists, economists, or whatever) are incapable of self-governance, especially with respect to their public subsidization. This poses a challenge because it's going to be difficult for 'lay-people' to govern scientists because of the disparity of knowledge. When I come up with a proposal to solve this problem I'll let you guys know ;)
-ckd
Moneyball
We don't need to hear that evolution crap, either. And frankly, we didn't need to know the Earth went around the Sun.
I would just like to add, "unprotected" sexual intercourse.
::cough::Intelligent Design::cough::
Hmm, what? No, I didn't say anything. What a silly question to ask.
book review
Ever since scientists have been sponsored this has been a problem. A problem I don't think has been resolved.
You can disagee with ID and think global warming science is spot on but it's quite another to accuse the former of trying to get God into the class room and the latter for being big business shills just to avoid the debate!
I think the principle is "light is the best disinfectant." The claims that are made, whether they be:
"HIV causes AIDS"
"global warming is caused primarily by humans"
"the Catholic Church possesses the authority of Christ"
"the Democratic Party is the party of the little guy"
"the Republican Party is the party of small government"
Should be able to stand up to scrutiny. The proper answer to an apparent contradiction isn't "we don't count that part," but perhaps "I'm sure it works, but let's take a look at it to see how" would suffice.
I question that one too!
There are several answers. But the first and foremost is all the sliming and abuse I've gotten, including from people I once respected and that I thought of (wrongly, obviously) as friends. When people are that irrational and abusive for such an intense and sustained period, generally speaking my instinct is to do the opposite of give up.
Second: after studying this intensely for more than ten years, it's entirely apparent to me that at bare minimum there's something very wrong here, and furthermore, we have spent more billions of dollars and more years studying this tiny little 9-gene virus than we spent putting a man into space and onto the moon. Yet still they cannot answer the most fundamental questions about it like "how exactly does it kill t-cells" and "what are your exact odds of becoming sick from it if you contract it and struggle to live a healthy, drug-free life?" They have no simple, coherent answers for that, and that's a problem.
Third: I've become friends with some of the scientists who are skeptics in this community. Some of them have political views I disagree with, some don't, but few are wildly outside of the mainstream. Few if any of them believe in conspiracy theories. None are racists. None are homophobes to any deep degree.
Fifth: It's entirely apparent at this point that quite a few people were unnecessarily killed iatrogenically by inappropriate medical treatments. Indeed, even members of the HIV establishment now admit that this is entirely true--and they just shrug it off as "hey, we were doing our best at the time." Not good enough.
Sixth: Read Out of Control by Celia Farber. Pay particular attention to the stories of Joyce Ann Hafford. Then realize: people like her, and many children as well, are being put in these obscene treatment programs. It's despicable.
What I find hard to believe is how many people DON'T care. This is a horror story.