AIDS denial is immoral

[Zephyr]

Amen. Fucking stop the redundancy!

And stop the redundant fucking, it only makes the HIVirus spread!

I heard on the news today that the Treatment Information Group has laid charges of genocide at the International Criminal Court against the South African Treatment Action Campaign. They claim that the anti-retrovirals are making all those HIV+ people die.

Bizarre, isn't it?

On 4 January 2007 we served (PDF, 22kB) a 59-page draft bill of indictment (PDF, 137 kB) at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, in which we apply for the prosecution of TAC leader Zackie Achmat on a charge of genocide for his direct criminal role in the deaths of thousands of South Africans from ARV poisoning.

 

[theTooth]

@Sauna:

1. I don't believe HIV is widespread - the majority of the tests in our part of the world come back negative, which wouldn't be the case if HIV infection would be widespread.

2. I don't say there is no psychological effect, but this is probably highly exaggerated. If somebody shoots at you from the car which is going away from you, the speed of a bullet is lower for the speed of the car, but I don't think it would help you if it would hit the target.

3. Sometimes you need to imagine you are in somebodyelses shoes, to be able to understand the situation.

4. Right, so people in bigpharma don't know what they are doing? That is obviously a great plan to have a very profitable business - which the pharmaceutical business is.

5. Some facts make you happy, some make you unhappy, but it doesn't change the facts. If you are free falling without the parachute from 1000 meters, knowing the facts about gravity could surely spoil your day, but not knowing about it would not change the results of the fall.

 

[Athelwulf]

MetaKron: Where can I buy shares in the AIDS industry? Which company do you recommend? I wanna get rich quick, and this AIDS industry may be the way to do it.

 

[Sauna]

You are totally ignorant on the definition of "theory" and "fact". The two are not mutually exclusive.
And they are not ranked in order of truth like rungs on a ladder.

In the context, yes they are.

Fact is proved. Theory is not.

Theory:

"a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. "


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Theory&x=0&y=0

Fact:

1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.



http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Fact&x=0&y=0

Fact eliminates speculation. Theory should not.

The lack of evidence to prove that a "specific defect in her immune system prevents the generation of antibodies" is moot because alternative explanations are possible.

The very fact that you think they are shows me three possibilities: that you weren't well educated by your high school science teacher; that you simply didn't pay attention in your high school science class; or that you're just a stupid layman who thinks he can conquer science without even a proper understanding, who thinks he's so much smarter than scientists, who thinks he knows so much more about virology than the scientist who studied it at a university for six years and makes a career out of it.

Back again then to the usual ad hominem - straw man instead of valid argument are we?

Too bad not yet to be mature enough to know better.

This thread is about morality. Jurisprudence is therefore the applicable discipline, not virology.

 

[Sauna]

1. I don't believe HIV is widespread - the majority of the tests in our part of the world come back negative, which wouldn't be the case if HIV infection would be widespread.

Never mind the belief, would be because of what evidence?

Where please is the data to show how many are infected but not seroconverted?

2. I don't say there is no psychological effect, but this is probably highly exaggerated. If somebody shoots at you from the car which is going away from you, the speed of a bullet is lower for the speed of the car, but I don't think it would help you if it would hit the target.

Probably because of what evidence?

How do you measure this?

I judge in the first instance from my own experience of drugs, psychology and infection.

3. Sometimes you need to imagine you are in somebody elses shoes, to be able to understand the situation.

OK, so?

4. Right, so people in bigpharma don't know what they are doing? That is obviously a great plan to have a very profitable business - which the pharmaceutical business is.

And this is thus their prime concern, more so than the welfare of the AIDS patient?

5. Some facts make you happy, some make you unhappy, but it doesn't change the facts.

Yes it does. Facts continually change; we invent them and create them, and with never a greater effect than that of the self made self, content or desperate, for all else depends in turn upon it.

If you are free falling without the parachute from 1000 meters, knowing the facts about gravity could surely spoil your day, but not knowing about it would not change the results of the fall.

Indeed, whatever you happen to think you know about a virus and the symptoms, that is not going to make up for the karma of the infected individual.

That is for him to work out.

The fall begins and ends in the mind, and thus depends upon the morality of the situation.

If you rather suppose that our fate is totally determined by the circumstance, that pe se is immoral. It denies the human responsibility.

 

[Athelwulf]

In the context, yes they are.

No they're not. And I will show you.

Fact is proved. Theory is not.

Theory:

"a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. "

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Theory&x=0&y=0

Also from your link:

a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.

[...]

—Synonyms 1. Theory, hypothesis are used in non-technical contexts to mean an untested idea or opinion. A theory in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena: the theory of relativity. A hypothesis is a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation of phenomena or relations, which serves as a basis of argument or experimentation to reach the truth: This idea is only a hypothesis.

You conveniently ignored the very first definition of the word "theory", the one which proves my assertion, in order to make it seem like you had the edge. That is intellectual dishonesty, but I suppose I couldn't have expected anything else from you.

And from my links:

A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=theory

the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another

http://m-w.com/dictionary/theory

Notice that I'm giving you the very first definitions of the word. These definitions are the ones used in scientific discussion, which you are participating in. The other definitions conveying conjecture are not the proper definitions of the word in science, but is rather common parlance. Basically, you're speaking Dutch while we're speaking Latin.

Fact eliminates speculation. Theory should not.

Not in science. A theory is an explanation of an observed phenomenon. "Theory" and "fact" in science are like apples and oranges; you can't compare them. This is why they are not ranked in order of truth like rungs on a ladder. Theories are not more or less true than facts. They are in layman's terms, but not in science. And need I remind you that you're participating in a scientific discussion, not a casual chit-chat with your bud over a beer?

Back again then to the usual ad hominem - straw man instead of valid argument are we?

Oh yeah, like you know everything about the scientific method. Ask any scientist, and you will find my assertion to be correct. You cannot be taken seriously if you misunderstand what you're talking about. And you really do misunderstand what you're talking about. That's not strawman; that is truth. Like I said, go read a book about the basics of science. You need it.

You can't be taken seriously if you don't know what you're talking about. You're the annoying, computer-illiterate guy looking over the computer repairman's shoulder saying, "Are you sure that fancy-looking piece of plastic goes there? The color doesn't match. Do you know what you're doing?".

Too bad not yet to be mature enough to know better.

Throw ad hominems back at me however much you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you refuse to understand the scientific method properly. Why should you be taken seriously in your criticism of the scientific consensus when you don't even know what the fuck you're talking about? Tell me, why should you?

This thread is about morality. Jurisprudence is therefore the applicable discipline, not virology.

Nice try. You and the other nutcases have sidetracked the thread into an argument over whether you're right or scientists are. As such, you are having a scientific discussion, not a moral one. As such, I think I'll ask another mod to move the thread to a forum where it would fit in better, as I have no jurisdiction over this forum.

 

[MetaKron]

MetaKron: Where can I buy shares in the AIDS industry? Which company do you recommend? I wanna get rich quick, and this AIDS industry may be the way to do it.

You can't. There is no "ground floor" left for buying stocks. You have to open a new market.

 

[MetaKron]

And stop the redundant fucking, it only makes the HIVirus spread!

I heard on the news today that the Treatment Information Group has laid charges of genocide at the International Criminal Court against the South African Treatment Action Campaign. They claim that the anti-retrovirals are making all those HIV+ people die.

Bizarre, isn't it?

The charges are absolutely true and the people who are selling the ARV medications know it.

 

[invert_nexus]

Fact eliminates speculation. Theory should not.

Yep.
Serious lack of understanding about the Scientific Method and the Philosophy of Science.
If you wish, I'll educate you.

 

[MetaKron]

The HIV scientists use words like "may" and "might" a lot. These words they use instead of showing real statistics from real studies. The press and the believers on the Internet convert "may" and "might" to words like "certainly." No one takes responsibility for saying that HIV certainly does cause AIDS. They reference this to somewhere else, and the references just regress until you find out that the original source did not state that HIV certainly causes AIDS. In the beginning Gallo said that HIV was the "probable cause" of AIDS. Later on the press treated it as if he had said that HIV certainly did cause AIDS, and this is important because the idea that it is certain just came out of thin air, like in the game of Grapevine.

Also, no matter how much of a genius someone is, he has not made a valid scientific statement anything like "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS" unless he has published a paper describing the known alternatives and why the HIV theory is better. There are valid ways to do this and nonvalid ways to do this. No one, no matter what his "authority", would, if he had any integrity at all, just make hand-waving dismissals of valid alternative ideas concerning any scientific matter.

The first thing that should have been established was a proper definition that did not have to be changed several times over the years. The use of T-cell depletion was invented simply to target certain populations that tended to have not true depletion, but inversion of a pair of types, T4 and T8. This inversion can be caused by Prednisone: Immunological abnormalities including inversion of the T4/T8 ratiocan be induced by other viral and non-viral agents such as Epstein-Barr virus, chemotherapeutic agents, prednisone and adrenalin This means that even if it could be said to be valid to define AIDS as T-cell depletion, this would not point to HIV disease as much as it would point to pharmaceuticals, stress, and other common factors.

As long as we have definitions of AIDS that vary and don't make much sense, they can get away with things like the Bangui definition, which allows epidemiologists to assume HIV without doing any actual testing for HIV. They can get away with diagnosing AIDS when they find antibodies for HIV the same way. Of course you're going to get 100 percent AIDS in people who test HIV positive when that's the only criteria that you need for a diagnosis and you don't have to actually test the immune system over a period of 20 years in a drug-free population. The scientific rigor that we need is entirely missing and excuses and another stack of speculations dont' make up for that.

 

[Oniw17]

The HIV scientists use words like "may" and "might" a lot.

Just like evolutionary scientists...and....all scientists?

 

[Athelwulf]

Yep.
Serious lack of understanding about the Scientific Method and the Philosophy of Science.
If you wish, I'll educate you.

I already have. He chooses to be stupid on this matter. Maybe you shouldn't waste your time.

 

[MetaKron]

Just like evolutionary scientists...and....all
scientists?

And the AIDS scientists are like creationists who make even worse speculations using much worse science, and then make those speculations into positive statements. The creationists think that they can do this because it's "belief" and of course, belief trumps scientific reason.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

And the AIDS scientists are like creationists who make even worse speculations using much worse science, and then make those speculations into positive statements. The creationists think that they can do this because it's "belief" and of course, belief trumps scientific reason.

Unfortunately you have been unable to criticize even a single peer-reviewed paper. Hence we can only take your word for it.

 

[Athelwulf]

And the AIDS scientists are like creationists who make even worse speculations using much worse science, and then make those speculations into positive statements. The creationists think that they can do this because it's "belief" and of course, belief trumps scientific reason.

Well, I suppose it's good you at least don't refute the scientific consensus on evolution — though it's hardly any consolation given your much more harmful and immoral stance against the scientific consensus on facts concerning AIDS.

 

[MetaKron]

Well, I suppose it's good you at least don't refute the scientific consensus on evolution — though it's hardly any consolation given your much more harmful and immoral stance against the scientific consensus on facts concerning AIDS.

Your claims of consensus, and your calling my stance "harmful" and "immoral", these things demonstrate that you don't understand science and have no idea of the correct way to refute my claims.

 

[MetaKron]

Unfortunately you have been unable to criticize even a single peer-reviewed paper. Hence we can only take your word for it.

You can lead a horse's ass to water...

 

[invert_nexus]

I already have.

You missed a bit.
But, I'm only going to educate him if he asks, so as not to waste my time.
I don't anticipate him asking.

 

[leopold]

In the beginning Gallo said that HIV was the "probable cause" of AIDS. Later on the press treated it as if he had said that HIV certainly did cause AIDS, and this is important because the idea that it is certain just came out of thin air, like in the game of Grapevine.

then why pray tell are you coming unglued on the scientific community?
shouldn't you be biting the ass of big media?

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Well, the early findings were confirmed.

No need to concentrate on what people said 20 years ago.