Comments

1. #1 William Cowan

   May 21, 2008

   Hehehe, you didn’t have to cross out “cripple.” They’re intellectual cripples, so it still counts, right?

   So when can we expect a smackdown between AiG and the DI? I’d pray if I thought it would to bring about that awesomeness…

2. #2 Dustin

   May 21, 2008

   So when can we expect a smackdown between AiG and the DI?

   The mature thing to do is to write fake letters to one group on behalf of the other in an attempt to forment hilarity.

3. #3 Julie Stahlhut

   May 21, 2008

   Sounds like the (apocryphal?) story of the physics professor who received, in the same week, letters from two different self-proclaimed geniuses trying to convince him that they had invented perpetual-motion machines.

   The prof wrote each one a letter back, explaining that while he wasn’t an authority on perpetual-motion machines, he knew someone who was. And he sent each crank the name and address of the other.

4. #4 Jason

   May 21, 2008

   It’s like celebrity death match…

   Too bad we can’t get the clay-mation accompaniment…

5. #5 Blake Stacey

   May 21, 2008

   Julie Stahlhut (#3):

   I’ve heard that story told of a math professor who received a steady stream of such letters, each claiming to have proved Fermat’s Last Theorem (this was before Wiles, of course). Using the excuse that he was “not an expert in the field”, he sent each writer the address of the previous one. I think I read this in either Simon Singh’s book Fermat’s Enigma or Amir D. Aczel’s Fermat’s Last Theorem; there might have been a name attached to the story, but I don’t recall what it was.

6. #6 J-Dog

   May 21, 2008

   Dustin – Sort of like this?

   Dear DI: Please respond to the following Bible Verse, which is of course the Word Of God, and so, must Be True, because My Bible Tells Me so:

   Yea, verily I say unto thee, that teh DI is but composed solely of fruit-cake-ests and counters dumber than a stump in the field, that know not the Ways Of The Lord Thy God, who is NOT now, and shall never be, the Damned Designer.

   And verily I say unto thee, that those with 2 Doctorates shall be declared pretentious and therefore publicly shunned by all who love me as I love Myself, and Never, Never allowed to eat in the Baylor Cafeteria until hell freezes over. Yea, though they wear the Ugly Sweater of Sack-cloth and ass-wipe-age, it shall be so.

   Yours In Christ,

7. #7 Dustin

   May 21, 2008

   That letter reads more like something from William Dembski, but you’re on the right track.

8. #8 Felstatsu

   May 21, 2008

   J-Dog,

   What about the letter to AiG to get the sparks really flying?

9. #9 jre

   May 21, 2008

   Yesterday, my wife reported hearing an interview with Horowitz on our local independent radio station, KGNU^[1]. “Who is this wackjob, anyway?” she asked. Who, indeed.

   Does anyone know why Horowitz is on the interview circuit? Has he teamed with Kevin Trudeau to write “Secret Miracle Cures for Government-Bred Viruses THEY Don’t Want You Know About”?

   One nit-pick: It’s spelled Duesberg. I wouldn’t mention it, except that it can screw up your googling if you spell it the other way.

   ^[1] I love KGNU! You can’t hear this kind of goofy crap anywhere else.

10. #10 Eric Saveau

    May 21, 2008

    I’m envisioning a three-way debate between alien conspiracy nuts – one who believes that aliens are abducting humans for experiments, one who believes that aliens built the pyramids and haven’t been back since, and another who believes that aliens are benevolent and here to save us.

    They could take all sorts of questions about Atlantis, cattle mutilations, Area 51, and the holodeck on Star Trek, but manage to filter out anyone who points out that there is no credible evidence whatsoever for any account of alien visitation or contact.

    It could be loads of fun. And no less insane than the Duesberg-Horowitz match

11. #11 tincture

    May 21, 2008

    I think J-Dog’s letter would just confuse them. Stick with,

    “Those guys told me that you guys look like dorks.”

12. #12 Felstatsu

    May 21, 2008

    Everyone knows that Atlantis is hidden at the bottom of the ocean, domed and protected from our observation by technology so far beyond our comprehension only they can use it while they watch and observe us like animals in a zoo as they’ve already evolved beyond us. Area 51 is a hoax to divert our attention from all the real secret bases, unnumbered so we have no way to reference them once they’re found by the public. I don’t know about the holodeck though, everyone knows Star Trek is fiction, but Star Wars is real since it happened a long long time ago in a galaxy far away. I think I at least managed to get out the most crazy conspiracies heard to date. Enjoy.

13. #13 J-Dog

    May 21, 2008

    To: AIG
    From: Dr. Dr. William Dembski
    Re: The Designer

    Dear AIG – Jesus Christ, are you people stupid or what? I’m TRYING to sneak Creationism into public schools, and you damn religionists are queering my pitch!

    You CAN NOT let on that the Designer is GOD! The damn ACLU is watching us like a Catholic priest watches an altar boy, and we have to be smarter than that. We got ourselves a nice little thing going here with the Saved and The Tards, so let’s not screw it up, okay? I’m kinda used to wring one book with different titles every couple of years, and charging $20,000 a pop to speak at colleges, and I’d like it to continue. Except for Oklahoma – I was attacked by Satan disguised as an 8 foot Amazon, with sharp pointy teeth and tongue, and I am not going back there ever again, and I still wake up with nightmares of speaking to the audience with no pants on, and wearing that sweater.

    I know that you guys get all those donations from Granny, and Bobby Joe, so if you want the cash to continue, let’s make sure we’re all scratching each others backs, okay? And, Ted Haggard, please note that I said “back”…

    Yours in Christ, I mean The Designer,

    Billy

14. #14 William Cowan

    May 21, 2008

    So much win in this thread…

15. #15 John Phillips, FCD

    May 21, 2008

    J-Dog, as William Cowan said, truly, there is so much win in this thread and your letter from Dumbski is the icing on the cake

16. #16 Chris Noble

    May 21, 2008

    I’d like to claim responsibility but truth is stranger than fiction!

    
    Why don’t we do a TV series called “Crank vs Crank”.

    They’ve already had the warm up with David Crowe and Boyd Graves Debate HIV on Toronto’s CKLN Radio

17. #17 Chris Noble

    May 21, 2008

    I’ll try again

    
    Why don’t we do a TV series called “Crank vs Crank”

    David Crowe and Boyd Graves Debate HIV on Toronto’s CKLN Radio

18. #18 cooler

    May 21, 2008

    Dr. Darin Brown a brilliant Mathematics professer clearly won the HIV debate when he asked for the scientific evidence that proved HIV’s causality in 1986, after all as Dr. Brown noted this was when The IOM dedicated 2 billion per annum for HIV research, every doctor was taught in medical school that HIV was the cause of AIDS, the blood supply was screened etc.

    The papers You guys cite as proving causation are laughable, and very revealing on why you will debate a Horowitz but never a Duesberg.

    Here is the real HIV debate won by Dr. Brown.

    Apparently Tara closed the “Denialism they don’t remember” thread, so I must resort to putting a response to other posts here.

    Thank you Chris Noble for at least having the courtesy of responding to my lengthy post from a couple weeks ago.

    Chris Noble said:

    “As usual Drain [sic] Brown totally misunderstands the nature of the problem. It is encumbent upon the Denialists to demonstrate to the scientific community that any of their theories have any merit.”

    What a load of horseshit. YOU’RE the ones spending billions of dollars. YOU’RE the ones pumping people full of highly toxic ARVs. YOU’RE the ones instilling terror in people. YOU’RE the ones calling on people to be fired and hoping their careers be ruined. What a load of horseshit.

    I’ve been looking for ELEVEN years to find ANY justification for what you people are doing. I haven’t found an acceptable answer yet. Yes, it’s true I’ve been supplied with a few papers ON OCCASION such as Chris Noble did above, but none of these even come close to establishing causation. Apologists would say it’s because I “don’t understand the science” or “don’t understand the papers”. I say it’s because the papers don’t prove what you say they do. And I’m willing to put my reputation and career on the line to take it to the people to let them decide for themselves and let them take away power away from the establishment which is the only way this entire affair will ever end. This is a political problem, 100%, and political revolution is the only solution.

    “Denialists suffer from the delusion that the world revolves around them.”

    I don’t think the world revolves around ANYone.

    “There are plenty of cranks on the internet demanding that people prove Einstein’s relativity to them.”

    Which is entirely irrelevant to this.

    “Duesberg and Bialy have demonstrated that they will ignore any evidence presented to them.”

    What evidence?? For gods sake don’t say Ascher or Schecter or Darby. Really, Chris, you’re like a friggin broken record.

    In my estimation, apologists have demonstrated that THEY will ignore any evidence presented to THEM: Piatak, Padian, Rodriguez, and so on. Yes, I know there are “responses” to each of these (usually some form of childish taunting on AIDStruth or somewhere else, the equivalent of “nanny-nanny-nanny, YES SO YES SO YES SO, well I triple-dog-dare you, what about that??”), eventually it will be left both to those scientists who work outside HIV or aren’t emotionally attached to it, or finally to the general public to recognize how shitty and pathetic the orthodox responses to them have been. As I’ve pointed out before, the main reasons there is such a consensus at the moment are:

    1. Financial (money at stake)
    2. Cultural (science is as much a society/culture as anything else, you’re brought up into it)
    3. Political (pressure to conform, with severe consequences for those who don’t)
    4. Emotional/Social (doctors can’t give up HIV because it would diminish the priestly role over life and death they’ve acquired in the past several decades)
    5. Saving face (self-explanatory)

    There are cases in the literature where scientists and doctors literally HALLUCINATED evidence for disease causation. They were certain at the time that they were seeing “evidence” for such causation, but in time, it was shown their notions were completely wrong and their interpretations and observations entirely a product of their mental state and loss of touch with reality.

    As long as these forces are in place among those in power in science and medicine, HIV will continue to mesmerize the minds of medical scientists just as ecclesiastic and religious debates about angels on the head of a pin and requirements for salvation mesmerized the religious elite for centuries, and they will be powerless to see reality in front of their face.

    It will also continue to hold political sway. The HIV hypothesis is purely, 100% a POLITICAL problem, NOT a scientific problem. The evidence was non-existent 20-25 years ago, and it’s even less existent now.

    Since the HIV hypothesis is purely a political problem, POLITICAL INTERFERENCE is the ONLY solution to this problem. The people MUST take power away from those holding this PHENOMENON in place. This is why this issue MUST be taken to the PEOPLE. The people are not emotionally wed to the hypothesis, and they will recognize the enormous chasm between the hypothesis and reality sooner than anyone else.

    “I could go through and find some of these key papers, for instance Jay Levy’s isolation of ARV in 1984 that replicated Gallo’s and Montagniers work, Weiss’s demonstration that HIV binds to receptors on CD4+ cells. There are several other key papers published in this time period. These are what convinced the scientific community.”

    Let it be written for posterity that Chris Noble offered the following papers published between May 1984 and October 1986 as proof of the HIV hypothesis:

    1. Montagnier’s paper — a paper which even Montagnier at the time didn’t think proved anything re: causation

    2. Gallo’s 4 Science papers — where HIV could only be “isolated” in 26 of 72 “AIDS” patients, and in which HIV could only be “isolated” by stimulating cell cultures with IL-2 and PHA and detecting certain phenomena ASSUMED to be proof of the presence of a retrovirus, hardly proof of anything

    3. Levy’s “isolation” of ARV — again, HIV could only be “isolated” in 22 of 45 patients with AIDS, only marginally more “frequent” (!) than Gallo’s attempt

    These 3 papers are completely laughable in establishing causation. The best that can be said is that after taking cells from AIDS patients and subjecting them to enormous mitogenic stimulation, SOME of them began producing effects INTERPRETED by SOME as evidence of an infectious exogenous retrovirus.

    How on earth this proves ANYthing is beyond me. All it’s saying is [assuming "isolation" is really "isolation"], “Look! We ‘isolated’ HIV from a fraction of ‘AIDS’ patients! It must be the cause!!”

    What a friggin joke. If this is your idea of the foundation upon which to devote $2 US billion per annum and a massive educational campaign, you’ve got one more screw loose than I thought.

    4. Weiss demonstration that HIV binds to receptors on CD4 cells — despite the fact we now know that almost all “HIV particles” lack the gp120 spikes supposedly necessary to “bind” to CD4 cells, rendering them essentially non-infectious and therefore pathogenically irrelevant

    Nice try, Chris. But I have to at least give you enormous credit for offering a response at all.

    “Dairn [sic] also ignores several papers such as those by Ascher et al, Schechter et al and Darby et al that have specifically dealt with and refuted Duesberg’s claims.”

    Oh, give me a break. Duesberg’s responses to all 3 of these are out there for anyone to read on the internet and make up their own mind. Schechter, if I recall, wouldn’t even share his god-damn data, rendering the entire study completely worthless on that point alone.

    Even if one grants the studies prove what they say (and I’m not granting that), all 3 of these are purely epidemiological studies. All they prove is a correlation at best. Alone, they don’t prove the HIV hypothesis at all. I’m almost embarrassed explaining this to you.

    It all comes down to what I wrote almost 2 years ago in the magnificent pipedream (a document that is still extremely instructive and would be to relative newcomers to this blog, simply go to Harvey’s page and scroll down to “a magnificent pipedream” under “insurgency blogging”):

    “The epidemiology is supposedly used to justify the biological ‘quest’ for how HIV kills T cells or causes ‘AIDS’, yet at the same time, the epidemiology REQUIRES some kind of biological justification to move itself from beyond the realm of epidemiological surveillance tool and into the realm of gestalt diagnosis. The biology is supposed to justify the epidemiology, yet at the same time, the epidemiology is supposed to justify the biology. Another example of the ubiquitous circular logic of ‘AIDS science’. Caveat emptor.”

    All of your “epidemiological” (I put that word in parentheses given in my own experience — granted, primarily with HIV/AIDS — that its illogical practices strain the label of “scientific discipline” to its limits) “evidence” is based on WHAT?? HIV ANTIBODY TESTS?? And what are the antibody tests based upon? Proof that the HIV tests are sensitive and specific for HIV. Which is itself based upon some clear knowledge of what the hell “HIV” is in the first place. If your BIOLOGICAL understanding of the nature of “HIV” is all screwed up, then all the epidemiological evidence in the world is just being misinterpreted at best or contrived at worst. It all comes down to what I was taught as a mathematician — YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND YOUR BASIC DEFINITIONS AND NOTIONS FIRST or else all the rest of your thinking will be completely nonsensical.

    Likewise, the biological “evidence” in these early papers is entirely based on the notion that HIV is sexually transmitted and that “AIDS” is a coherent infectious disease. Who in their right MIND — without ALREADY accepting the notion that HIV and AIDS are both infectious and sexually transmitted would for a second consider Montagnier, Gallo, and Levy’s papers as proof of JACK SQUAT???

    “If science worked the way that Denialists pretend then we would still be trying to convince phogiston proponents that oxygen exists.”

    What a load of crap. The problem is not that science “works a certain way”, it’s that scientists are human like everyone else, and once the scientific process gets off on false branch of reasoning (which it inevitably will at times), the process of science itself will force science down that false branch of reasoning unless some external force is applied to make it conform more to reality. The process of hypothesis generation, experimentation, observation, and modification only works if all agents are allowed to pursue all avenues of investigation. When one narrow branch is pursued and all others completely cut off, IF that branch happens to be wrong, then the scientific process will continue working away and away, generating ad hoc hypotheses and further explanations and more and more branches in all and every conceivable direction will shoot off, desperately trying to “find” the branch of reality that has been cut off. As Feyerabend said, “VARIETY OF OPINION IS NECESSARY FOR OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE.” And the variety of opinion was certainly cut off prematurely in 1984-86, and the result has been predictable.

    Trrll offered the following in response to my question (again, such response is appreciated):

    “It is likely that much of the work that convinced people in the field was not actually published by that time. What typically occurs when a hot result is published is that labs all over the world jump on it and start trying to replicate it and extend it. After a year and a half, little of that work will have been published, but scientists in the field will be talking to one another about it, and will have a good idea of whether other labs are able to confirm it. So all of the people actually working in the field will know if the ‘buzz’ is favorable or unfavorable, and this is one point at which a new theory can collapse. So it is hardly surprising that after 17 months there was general agreement among virologists that the evidence for the virus was strong enough to support a major effort. Then there is a second phase in which those results are published, and begin to convince clinicians and scientists who are working on other aspects of the disease. [Followed by a link to the ever-popular NIAID/NIH "factsheet"]”

    and later

    “By ‘buzz,’ I am referring to the less formal communications between scientists that precede formal publication. Scientists in a field generally have a good idea whether a research direction is proving fruitful before the papers come out. Considering the potential importance of the discovery, everybody jumped on it, trying to reproduce and extend the results. This often happens in science when there is a possible breathrough. If the follow-up studies fail, then everybody drops that direction en masse, and the blip in funding dies out quickly. It is not a matter of faith — it is a matter of following up a potentially important result to find out whether it is valid or a blind alley as quickly as possible. And as we know, the follow-up studies supported the initial findings, and the rest is history.”

    and from another post:

    “There are many points at which the HIV hypothesis could have faltered based on subsequent work: if Duesberg’s original claims that HIV was not present in many AIDS patients had been confirmed once sensitive PCR tests had become available, if people had been found to mount an effective immune response to HIV as Duesberg claimed, if anti-HIV drugs had not been found to postpone the onset of AIDS in clinical trials and in the practical experience of AIDS doctors, if a plausible mechanism for HIV infection of cells of the immune system had not been found, etc., etc.”

    This forms the ENTIRE extent (unless I’ve missed something, do point out) of Trrll’s “response” to my query for what convinced the IOM to devote $2 US billion per annum in the name of the HIV hypothesis.

    WHAT A LOAD OF ****ING HORSESHIT.

    REALLY, HOW CAN ANY OF YOU PEOPLE READ THIS ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC CRAP WITH A STRAIGHT FACE?? WHAT THE **** IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE READING THIS BLOG?????????

    Meanwhile, “ElkMountain” (whoever he/she is) offers the following wonderfully insightful commentary on the nature of scientific process:

    “Think about the denialist fantasy of what really happened in the 1980s. What if it were true that two or three labs misled the entire world with nothing more than correlations? What if your IOM was premature with its statement? What if?… Answer: everyone involved in the scam would have been sliced to pieces, their careers ruined, mercilessly and within a few years, by hordes of skeptical scientists. And if there was a ‘gravy train’ in play, then doubly. With nothing more than correlation supporting HIV and AIDS, rival scientists would have found a more plausible explanation, double-time, and steered all the money into their own labs…. Instead, the hordes of skeptical scientists, to the disappointment of many of them, could only confirm the HIV link to AIDS again and again. Thousands of experiments later, there still is no alternative explanation for AIDS that holds up in the lab… If any rethinker reading this has a better explanation for AIDS, don’t keep it to yourself. Experiment, support, and publish, and you will become the most famous scientist of our time.”

    And then we have “Dr. Duke” from the complete outer edges of the universe, claiming Callen and Ashe never took recreational or pharmaceutical drugs (WTFF???) or that they claimed this themselves (WRONG on both counts, as anyone even REMOTELY familiar with ANYthing knows):

    “HIV-infected people such as Michael Callen and Arthur Ashe who lead very ‘clean’ and healthy lives, died of AIDS… My point was that…denialists simply ‘rethink’ the issue and declare that Michael Callen must have been lying about his healthy lifestyle”

    Then the Small Inquisitor proceeds to offer the following VIRTUOSIC double-talk and side-stepping that would make even Bill “it depends what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” Clinton proud as a peacock:

    “That NY Press article was published BEFORE the LA Coroner’s report into the death of Ms Maggiore’s daughter became publicly available. That report proves that MS Maggiore is HIV-infected because it shows that her daughter died of AIDS, with p24 antigens detected in her brain tissues (I think it is safe to discount the incredibly unlikely possibility that the daughter acquired her HIV infection from any source other than her mother). Once the LA Coroner’s report became available, it therefore provided solid medical evidence on the HIV infection status of Ms Maggiore, evidence that outweighs Ms Maggiore’s own, and conflicting public statements on the issue.”

    And Chris again:

    “How can you ignore the natural history studies that show a much higher mortality in people that are infected with HIV?”

    as if Chris has never even HEARD of the perth group

    Really, I’m serious. I don’t know WHAT the **** is the problem with you people.

    The posts on this blog have gone beyond attempts at scientific discussions or even political rantings or even ill-mannered personal attacks, and have entered the realm of HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS for future generations to ponder over the absolutely stunningly pathetic statements made here.

    darin

    Posted by: Darin Brown | November 9, 2007 10:20 PM

19. #19 cooler

    May 21, 2008

    Those chimpanzees are still alive and kicking after more than 20 years of being inoculated with HIV, they had to extend the window period from 10 months to 10 years when no one got sick, no one can explain why it takes 10 years to get AIDS, if the patient was truly teeming with virus wouldn’t they be dead within weeks?

    Where are the EM pics of these 100,000 ml loads? I think these are the reasons many people are starting to question HIV, especially in the gay community, the entire ACT UP San Francisco chapter have become dissidents.

20. #20 LanceR

    May 21, 2008

    Shorter Darin Brown:

    “Youse guys won’t play nice! I’m gonna talk and talk and talk and cry and scream and pout until youse all plays nice!”

    And on and on and on and on… ad nauseum.

21. #21 Brian X

    May 21, 2008

    cooler:

    Tara closed the thread because she was sick and tired of the endless noise you denialist losers were creating on her blog.

    I have an idea for you. Rather than picking on the women around here because you think they’re easy to attack, why don’t you go after Orac or PalMD? Oh, wait. That’s because they’ll hand you your ass on a cracked plastic platter in an eye blink. (Funny, Abbie seems to be the type to do that too. Good luck with that.)

22. #22 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    Ive already been on Oracs blog discussing vaccines and the 9/11 fraud. The only person that is a loser is yourself. Look at you I offer evidence and you have a crybaby ad hominem laced hissy fit. Dr. Brown once figured you people out, It’s nothing about the evidence to you people, this is a religion to you people as so spoken by Dr. Brown in this post.

    SLC,

    Your comments, even from someone “with a PhD in elementary particle physics”, remind me of the central sociological fact surrounding the reaction you embody:

    This has nothing to do with the HIV hypothesis. Nothing to do with the pros vs. cons of vaccine administration. Nothing to do with whether global warming is human-caused. Nothing to do with the cause of the 9-11 attacks. Nothing to do with the issues.

    It’s all about “joining the anti-crankery club”. It’s all about getting patted on the back for “being skeptical”. It’s all about wearing “Skeptical Inquirer” t-shirts and throwing around terms like “whackjob” (implying that anyone who doubts a consensus viewpoint is akin to ejaculate fluid) and “denier” (implying that anyone who doubts a consensus viewpoint is akin to Holocaust deniers). It’s all about having your ego stroked for helping in the fight against “scientific illiteracy” and “the cult of irrationality”. It’s all about the “taboo reaction” so eloquently and prophetically expressed by Feyerabend in Against Method years ago:

    “Science [relating another person's characterization] … is characterised by an essential scepticism; ‘when failures start to come thick and fast, defence of the theory switches inexorably to attack on it’.’ This is possible because of the ‘openness’ of the scientific enterprise, because of the pluralism of ideas it contains and also because whatever defies or fails to fit into the established category system is not something horrifying, to be isolated or expelled. On the contrary, it is an intriguing ‘phenomenon’ – a starting-point and a challenge for the invention of new classifications and new theories. We can see that Horton has read his Popper well. A field study of science itself shows a very different picture… Such a study reveals that, while some scientists may proceed as described, the great majority follow a different path. Scepticism is at a minimum; it is directed against the view of the opposition and against minor ramifications of one’s own basic ideas, never against the basic ideas themselves. Attacking the basic ideas evokes taboo reactions which are no weaker than are the taboo reactions in so-called “primitive societies.” Basic beliefs are protected by this reaction as well as by secondary elaborations, as we have seen, and whatever fails to fit into the established category system or is said to be incompatible with this system is either viewed as something quite horrifying or, more frequently, it is simply declared to be non-existent.”

    Read over the responses generated at this blog in reaction to HIV, vaccines, global warming, 9-11, etc. REGARDLESS OF THE MERITS OF THE DOUBTERS ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES, can anyone doubt that the “taboo reaction” expressed by the defenders of the faith here is any weaker than that in so-called “primitive societies”??

    darin

    Posted by: Darin Brown | January 13, 2008 6:57 PM

    I mean Erv just proved Darin right, look at the demagougic nature of her blog post, “DENIER FIGHT.” It’s no more scientific than a neon lighted street sign at a strip club.

23. #23 ERV

    May 22, 2008

    Shorter cooler:

    “Now this is the story all about how
    My life got flipped, turned upside down
    And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there
    I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called bel-air
    In west philadelfia born and raised
    On the playground where I spent most of my days
    Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
    And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school
    When a couple of guys said “we’re up in no good”
    Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
    I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
    And said “you’re moving with your aunte and uncle in bel-air”
    I begged and pleaded with her the other day
    But she packed my suitcase and sent me on my way
    She gave me a kissin’ and she gave me my ticket
    I put my walkman on and said I might aswell kick it
    First class, yo this is bad,
    Drinking orange juice out of a champagne glass
    Is this what the people of bel-air livin’ like,
    Hmm this might be alright!
    I whistled for a cab and when it came near the
    Licensplate said “fresh” and had a dice in the mirror
    If anything I could say that this cab was rare
    But I thought now forget it, yo home to bel-air
    I pulled up to a house about seven or eight
    And I yelled to the cabby “yo, home smell you later”
    Looked at my kingdom I was finally there
    To settle my throne as the prince of bel-air.”

    While thats a fine Bel-Air, Mr. Cooler, private conversations that you cannot continue on others blogs will not be continued here. Thats why the lord Jesus Christ invented gmail.

24. #24 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    Fine with me, you can delete all my posts, I don’t really care, but if one starts a thread attacking people, it’s probably natural that some will reposond to defend themselves.

25. #25 Chris Noble

    May 22, 2008

    …the entire ACT UP San Francisco chapter have become dissidents.

    Yeah, David Pasquarelli, Ronnie Burk and Michael Bellefountaine are all doing just fine.

    Cooler is a one-man cripple-fight.

26. #26 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    And these are not “private conversations”, they are just Dr. brown slicing the HIV hypothesis to peices, which is why I decided to post them, after all thats the topic on this thread, that we denialists are nuts, wouldn’t the nuts posts only further elucidate our lunacy and help your cause?

    Why would you start a thread saying people that beleive in something are nuts, and not let them defend themselves, especially if your hypothesis is correct, our posts will just prove your case even further?

27. #27 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    Tommy Morrison, all the long term survivors in the movie The other Side of AIDS are doing just fine as well, Mr. Noble, trading anecdotes doesnt prove much for you guys, if anything they further disprove the HIV hypothesis, for we know these people have lived for decades with HIV and been fine, while the people you mention could have died of a myriad of different conditions, you certainly have bought enough time by extending the window period from 10 months to 10 years.

28. #28 trrll

    May 22, 2008

    It appears that cooler’s condition, whatever it is, has progressed since we last saw him. He doesn’t seem to need the rest of us at all now–he can run the entire “debate” by himself, quoting the responses that demolished his arguments and then reprising his Monty Python Black Knight routine.

    I found his call to revolution particularly amusing. The “people MUST take power away from those holding this PHENOMENON in place. This is why this issue MUST be taken to the PEOPLE.” So the people are going to rise up, take over the means of production…er… research and..(well, it wasn’t quite clear where he imagined that things would go from there). From each according to his lack of scientific expertise, to each according to his delusions?

29. #29 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    That quote was made my Dr. Darin Brown you illiterate fool. He made complete fools of you guys when he demanded the scientific evidence on what caused the IOM to dedicate billions in funding to the HIV hypothesis in 1986.

30. #30 Chris Noble

    May 22, 2008

    …all the long term survivors in the movie The other Side of AIDS are doing just fine…

    Apart from the ones that died from AIDS such as Rex Pointdexter.

    Winstone Zulu gave up taking ARVs after getting sucked into HIV Denial. He became seriously ill and changed his mind. He’s doing just fine now.

    “What mattered to me as person living with HIV was to be told that HIV did not cause AIDS. That was nice. Of course, it was like printing money when the economy is not doing well. Or pissing in your pants when the weather is too cold. Comforting for a while but disastrous in the long run.”

    Winstone Zulu

31. #31 Brian X

    May 22, 2008

    cooler:

    I don’t need to supply evidence. The evidence has beaten your side to a bloody pulp over, and over, and over again, but you lot keep popping back up like Weebles with pellet gun damage. There is no point in arguing with you or anyone else on your side — you’re true believers who won’t accept any evidence you didn’t personally cherrypick.

    As for ACT UP SF, not only did the ACT UP Golden Gate chapter split off from them because they didn’t want to be associated with their crankery, but they changed their name so they’d never be confused with the nutjobs. ACT UP SF is nothing more than a suicide pact between the intentionally obtuse.

32. #32 Brian X

    May 22, 2008

    Trril:

    “Taking it to the people” is Crank 101, whether they’re sincerely deluded (like, presumably, Duesberg) or running a con (like, say, perpetual motion crank Joe Newman). That’s why you see ads for crocky books containing Theories of Everything in the back of magazines like Smithsonian and PopSci — the definition of a crank is someone who, when confronted with errors, refuses to correct them and goes outside the normal channels. (And I don’t mean ideological errors, I mean real, demonstrable problems in a theory or proof.)

    Actually, I think Abbie’s response took cooler just about as seriously as he deserves to be taken…

33. #33 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    “Rex Poindexter tested positive in 1996 and lived in health without AIDS drugs until 2003 when he was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Lymphoma. Rex started chemotherapy in September 2003, and began taking AIDS medications in December 2003. He died in January 2004 and is survived by his partner, John.”

    wow Lymphoma is an now an AIDS defining disease, wouldn’t be surprised, I thought HIV kills cells, doesnt make them grow out of control…………

    Brian x,
    great, you guys always claim you all won the debate in the literature 20 years ago, if thats the case please provide the overwhelming evidence that proved HIV’s causality that won you the debate 20 years ago? Waiting.

34. #34 Brian X

    May 22, 2008

    I reiterate, cooler: I don’t have to. I am not an HIV investigator, just a layman with an interest in good science. Abbie and Tara would be more than happy to provide such information, but you and your kind have already ruled them out as sources. You don’t want evidence. You don’t care. Just like creationists, or Moon hoax believers, or tax protestors, or Holocaust deniers, or any number of other types of cranks, you can have all the evidence in the world dumped in your lap and yet you’ll claim that somehow it isn’t evidence of anything at all.

    You know damn well the sources are out there and probably know where to look them up as well. The NIH, the CDC, the WHO, any number of medical journals. And yet somehow all of those sources are invalid and a few fringe scientists whose work is still stuck in the early 1990s at the latest know better than the mainstream of the field.

    No, really. You’re all alike. Doesn’t matter what your mishegoss is — you all think the same way, whine out the same complaints, give the same dishonest demands for evidence that has been dumped into your lap many times over, and accuse the establishment that has left you in the dust years ago of persecution. Don’t you get it? Even if you were right, which so few of you types ever are, you’d be completely irrelevant.

35. #35 David Marjanovi?

    May 22, 2008

    Those chimpanzees are still alive and kicking after more than 20 years of being inoculated with HIV, they had to extend the window period from 10 months to 10 years when no one got sick, no one can explain why it takes 10 years to get AIDS, if the patient was truly teeming with virus wouldn’t they be dead within weeks?

    Chimpanzees are not humans, you fucking moron. Chimps get infected but not ill. Only humans get ill. Chimps have adapted to the presence of HIV (and vice versa). We haven’t yet — and I don’t hope we ever will, because the process to do that is natural selection. (It would work, however. There are genetic variants that protect against AIDS — the people that have them are called long-term survivors.)

    Think a little.

    Or were you stupid enough to believe all illnesses can be contracted by all animals or even just all apes?

    Why aren’t mice used in HIV research? Because the virus cannot get into mouse T cells. That’s why.

36. #36 Fastlane

    May 22, 2008

    It’s only fun if they make it a cagematch…to the death of course. =)

    I’m just sayin’……

    Oh, and Abby, come visit us at Talkrational, all the kool kidz are there.

    Cheers,
    Fastlane aka Worldtraveller

37. #37 Dennis N

    May 22, 2008

    So back to the issue at hand: where can I get a copy of this cripple fight?

38. #38 BGT

    May 22, 2008

    I wondered how long it would take for Tara’s trolls to migrate over here during her vacation…..

39. #39 ERV

    May 22, 2008

    cooler– Well, youve just proven my point for me, havent you? If you knew anything about me or my blogging style, you would know that I dont delete comments unless they are spam or threats to me/other commenters.

    So you really dont give a crap about *this* blog.

    You just want a platform for your rants, and mine happens to be convenient for you right now.

    If you really care deeply about this topic, I suggest you open your own blog. There are numerous resources, like Blogger and WordPress, which are both free and easy to use.

    Of course comments that contribute to discussion, however inflammatory, are always welcome, but massive copy/pastes and conversations from other blogs are simply not welcome. You will not be using my blog as your litter box. I expect your next comment to be “I just opened my own blog at ______, if you want to learn the TRUTH about AIDS!” or something along those lines.

    Thank you for your cooperation.

40. #40 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    Dada cooler:

    way window period never viral
    is follow with they Sick,
    Sick, microbe and a are
    not microbe period never see
    way pathogenic of the taken
    way to if going Sick

    –ERV

41. #41 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    hahahahahahaha censorship i love it, couldnt care less, half the gay community doesnt beleive in your crap anyways anymore, oh the debate is on now btw.

42. #42 Dustin

    May 22, 2008

    Bahahaa. Cooler has been drawn and quartered, his vowels thrown into the fire and burned before his very eyes.

43. #43 ERV

    May 22, 2008

    Cooler showed no indication of complying with my reasonable request in #39. When he/she can, the vowels can come back.

44. #44 cooler

    May 22, 2008

    I dont want anything to do with your blog , just delete all my posts. You make no sense. I’m sure the 5 people that view your blog a day will be happy all my posts awill be deleted.

45. #45 jre

    May 22, 2008

    I don’t know that it’s much of a punishment.
    Cooler’s comments make more sense after being disemvowelled.

46. #46 Gos

    May 22, 2008

    ERV wrote: “HIV Conspiracy Theorists (HIV was man made to kill blacks/gays/whoever)…”

    Can you blame them for believing that HIV was made to kill them? According to CDC statistics, the average African-American is 10X more likely to contract HIV than the average white person in the US. If I thought for a second that HIV existed as a contagious retrovirus, that 10:1 ratio would be bizarre enough to support some rather bizarre conspiracy theories.

    Seriously, if we actually had any pictures of viral isolate, would HIV look like a bunch of little swastikas? How does a virus pick its victims according to race?

    I know of only one type of virus that can do that, but it’s not a virus in the biological sense, but in the socio-psychological sense. It doesn’t hop from cell to cell, but from mind to mind. Minds impaired by prejudice are most susceptible to this type of virus, and thus, when it spreads throughout society, it will most adversely affect groups (such as blacks and gays) which are the common targets of prejudice.

    I challenge anyone here to attempt to explain that 10:1 ratio from within the mainstream HIV paradigm, without resorting to arguments that are scientifically disproven and/or racist to boot.

    Think they’re picking it up in prison? Not according to a US Government study which examined that very question. Not only did they find that almost no one caught HIV in Georgia’s prison system, but this was in spite of the fact that fully 2/3rds were having unprotected sex, and most of the rest were using makeshift condoms made from sandwich baggies. (And prison sandwich baggies are weak — they have to be, or the prisoners would make them into cords which could be used as a weapon or in a suicide or escape attempt.)

    So maybe blacks just aren’t using condoms? I know of no studies which have borne this out, but I know of at least one 1986 study which showed the opposite. (Bausell et al, Public perceptions regarding the AIDS epidemic: Selected results from a national poll. AIDS Research)

    Or maybe it’s the “down low”? Here’s two words to blow that argument out of the water: Larry Craig. The guy was soliciting sex in a public restroom, for chrissake! You think he wasn’t promiscuous AND on the “down low”? For that matter, do you think he’s the only closeted gay white Christian conservative who’s doing what he was caught doing? Where’s the epidemic of AIDS among white, Christian, publicly heterosexual and privately gay/bi conservatives? If the “down low” is why so many blacks are allegedly getting HIV, then why aren’t the Larry Craigs and the Mark Foleys and the Trent Lotts and the Matthew Glavins and the Ed Schrocks and the Jim Wests of the world getting AIDS? How does HIV know to avoid these white men in favor of infecting blacks instead?

    I agree that the conspiracy theory that says that HIV was created by the US Government is bizarre — but what can you expect when people see what appears to be a virus that seems to favor blacks to whites by a 10:1 ratio? Bizarre facts lead to bizarre theories to explain them.

    — Gos

47. #47 Dustin

    May 22, 2008

    Ahh, it seems I was wrong then. Chagas is a socially constructed disease which is really just in the heads of South Americans.

48. #48 Gos

    May 23, 2008

    Dustin wrote: “Chagas was invented to kill South Americans. It’s true!

    Really, though, it’s sad that despite all of our technology, our days of totally eradicating diseases are over.”

    Are you sure that it’s despite all our technology? Quite frankly, we haven’t cured anything in longer than anyone can remember — not because of social trends, but because of financial trends in medicine — it’s simply not profitable to cure disease when you can render it chronic through treatment and have a customer for life. The sad fact is that in modern medicine, the only true cure for what ails you is to run out of insurance. The modern medical industry doesn’t cure disease — certainly not nearly as often as it invents a disease in order to create a market for a drug or actually causes one. GERD, SMON, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and yes, in many cases, AIDS — all either exacerbated or in some cases caused by pharmaceuticals, and ironically, in a disturbing number of these instances, caused by the very drug or drugs prescribed to treat the disease they cause.

    Incidentally, Chagas is not caused by a virus, but by a parasite carried by insects endogenous to the South American continent, and Chagas thus doesn’t pick its victims according to race, but according to the geographic region in which these particular insects which carry this particular parasitic protozoan happen to live.

    Try again — how does HIV pick its victims according to race within the American population?

    — Gos
    “Nobody here but us heretics…”

49. #49 Brian X

    May 23, 2008

    Cooler, re: #44:

    This isn’t reality TV. It’s unseemly to sob while taking your walk of shame.

    Gos:

    How do you know these closeted white guys aren’t getting it? I’ve heard HIV infection is rampant among closeted Catholic priests — I’d be very surprised if some of these Religious Righties aren’t infected as well.

    Besides, disease tends to spread better among the impoverished. Black people in this country fall disproportionately under that umbrella — they don’t have the same level of access to medical care or protection that affluent white or Asian people do, and, as we’ve seen from the Jeremiah White fiasco, black churches can be every bit as ignorant, repressive, and fear-driven as any other church. Conspiracy my ass. That’s all the petri dish you need to spread an STD like wildfire.

50. #50 Brian X

    May 23, 2008

    s/White/Wright… point being, as I seem to have left a few ends, that the sexual politics of many black churches are not that different from any other conservative Christian churches, and given the circumstances that so many American blacks live under, a situation that’s bad enough for middle-class white people is an absolute disaster for poor blacks.

51. #51 Chris Noble

    May 23, 2008

    I agree that the conspiracy theory that says that HIV was created by the US Government is bizarre — but what can you expect when people see what appears to be a virus that seems to favor blacks to whites by a 10:1 ratio? Bizarre facts lead to bizarre theories to explain them.

    If you follow that “logic” then gonorrhea with a racial disparity of 24:1 must be bizarre too. Nobody seems to be claiming that gonorrhea either doesn’t exist or was created as a bioweapon.

    CDC Racial Disparities in Nationally Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2002

    The only racism involved is the historical social inequity.

    Duesberg and Horowitz are both anti-science conspiracy theorists. They just disagree on the details

52. #52 Gos

    May 23, 2008

    Chris Noble wrote: “CDC Racial Disparities in Nationally Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2002″

    Are you and Tyler DiPietro working together? I just got finished responding to him posting the exact same article in this thread.

    Unfortunately, the post hasn’t gone through yet, so I can’t repeat here what I said there. However, it should be noted that the authors of that study did mention substantial gaps and racial disparity in reporting. As for the alleged racial disparity in the instance of gonorrhea, the vast majority of gonorrhea diagnoses in the US are presumptive — based not on testing, but on someone being known or suspected of having slept with an infected person. This leaves plenty of room for prejudice at the diagnostic and reporting level to create an illusion of racial disparity where none exists in the real world.

    Besides, do you honestly believe that blacks are 24 times more likely to place themselves at risk for gonorrhea? Hmmm…sounds to me an awful lot like the very sort of racist logic that led a bunch of white-coated quasi-Nazis to perform a rather controversial study at Tuskeegee in 1932, no?

    — Gos
    “Nobody here but us heretics…

53. #53 Brian X

    May 23, 2008

    Gos:

    Do you have no concept of the difference between attributing something like STD infection rate disparities to endemic racism vs. racistly accusing black people of putting themselves at risk?

    There is no conspiracy, and there is no need for one. Black people in this country are still subject to racism and denial of opportunities that white people take for granted. Poverty leads to hopelessness and anger. Poverty also leads to ignorance and apathy. Or perhaps you’ve forgotten Hanlon’s Razor?

54. #54 Shirakawasuna

    May 23, 2008

    That was a choice disemvoweling. Also, Bel-Air’d? Abbie = 4chan?

55. #55 ERV

    May 23, 2008

    /b/tard, melding 4chan with science = mad scientist = TAKE OVER PLANET.

    I would never think of doing such a thing…

56. #56 Chris Noble

    May 24, 2008

    Are you and Tyler DiPietro working together? I just got finished responding to him posting the exact same article in this thread.

    Paranoid?

    It’s probably because I posted the same link a year ago Denialism: “they don’t remember”

    The title of the thread is ironic. Denialist don’t remember. they keep on regurgitating the same bullshit again and again and again.

    Besides, do you honestly believe that blacks are 24 times more likely to place themselves at risk for gonorrhea? Hmmm…sounds to me an awful lot like the very sort of racist logic that led a bunch of white-coated quasi-Nazis to perform a rather controversial study at Tuskeegee in 1932, no?

    There isn’t a linear relationship between behaviour and prevalence.

    Risk taking behaviour are higher and access to medical care is lower in minorities. This is reflected in a higher incidence of many diseases from STDs to diabetes. The same is true in Australia.

    The racial disparities have nothing to do with the pathogens and everything to do with social inequity

57. #57 Snout

    May 24, 2008

    HIV is a pathogen transmitted human to human, and by only a limited number of modes: mother to baby, sexually, and blood to blood – most commonly by sharing needles.

    If HIV becomes prevalent within a community (e.g an ethic or racial group or a group such as a gay community in a city) its prevalence will increase relative to other human groups if its modes of transmission disproportionately select other members of the same group.

    In other words, if gay men have a higher prevalence of HIV than other groups, and gay men tend to choose other gay men to have sex with (rather than heterosexual men or women), then new infections will disproportionately appear in gay men.

    If black people have a higher proportion of HIV infections, but black people disproportionately choose black sexual partners, then the prevalence will increase in that group. Unless this is interrupted by behaviour change it turns into a feedback loop of increasing prevalence.

    This is not rocket science. It’s epidemiology based on the simple mathematics of probability.

    I’m a gay man who came into sexual maturity in the mid 1980s. It took me… ooh.. a couple of hours to work out that the risk calculations of my heterosexual friends did not apply to me as a gay man. I was pissed off about this because it is unfair. The probability for them that a random unprotected contact with another heterosexual might deliver HIV was infinitessimally less than a random unprotected homosexual contact for me.

    Then I realised that what’s fair and unfair have nothing to do with biological reality.

    The fact that my risk of getting HIV from other gay men was much higher than my heterosexual friends getting it from other heterosexuals is no one’s fault. It’s simply a biological fact to deal with, not a moral judgement, not a value judgement about the relative worth of homosexuality versus heterosexuality, or a judgement of my own or anyone else’s worth.

    I can’t remember thinking of it any other way during my adult life.

58. #58 Shirakawasuna

    May 24, 2008

    Awesome, /b/tard virology. A combination fit for Satan, I approve! (moar)