From: hal@finney.org
Date: Thu Mar 07 2002 - 15:03:04 MST
Pat Fallon writes:
> I respectfully disagree. I think the Perth Group
> [http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/perthgroup/index.html] provides a good
> argument that there are indeed major flaws in current AIDS science.
>
> People are dying of AIDS indicator diseases, but the question is, is the
> cause a single, common infectious virus? The past is littered with
> assertions of scientific truth and experts who ridiculed anyone who
> disagreed. Infectious theories of scurvy, beriberi, pellagra, and more
> recently, SMON and retroviral theories of cancer to which nearly all doctors
> once subscribed have collapsed.
I'm not qualified to evaluate the arguments pro and con on the linkage
between AIDS and HIV. I am not a biochemist, virologist, epidemiologist,
or a member of any of the other scientific communities which have
investigated this issue and have become convinced that the linkage
is valid.
However, I do have confidence in the working of the scientific method
and the scientific community. Scientists make mistakes, but there are
many institutional mechanisms for correction. Otherwise science would
never have propelled us into this rapidly-changing world.
It's been almost 20 years since the HIV hypothesis was advanced as
the cause of AIDS. From what I read, the connection is more strongly
accepted today than ever. The drop in AIDS mortality due to the use of
reverse transcriptase inhibitors is exactly what was predicted by the
conventional theory.
If the arguments against the HIV hypothesis were really as good as the
AIDS revisionists claim, I am confident that the real experts in the
field, people who have devoted their entire working lives to studying
and understanding the issues, would be persuaded. For a layman to
second-guess them and assume that they are stupid or dishonest is IMO
an unwise strategy for understanding the world.
Hal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:12:49 MST