The Origin of HIV in the USA

[Giambattista]

Ape.

It's been refined - it happened more than once, they think, accounting for some of the variety in the strains.

Ape? I distinctly remember the word "monkey" being used, not ape.

 

[James R]

From memory, HIV supposedly developed from SIV, the Simian Immuniodeficiency Virus.

One theory I read was that it could have tranferred to humans who ate "bush meat" - i.e. monkeys or apes they killed and ate.

 

[kororoti]

Bigoted how..? Gays face a lot of criticism in the USA for having a lascivious lifestyle. What value judgement exists there, unless you equate its meaning -- lusty -- to "bad?" That lifestyle isn't a bad thing, nor is admitting its existence a prejudicial thing; that's the truth. Sexually active gays are significantly more likely to have multiple sexual partners at one time than non-gays. That's also a truth. For better or worse, the truth is the truth.

Heterosexuals wish we could have sex that much, but we're limited by the libido of our female partners.

Being a gay man must be great. Sometimes I wish I was gay.

No, and absolutely idiotic for someone to ask, if they knew me at all. This thread is not about me. Keep it that way. This thread is about the origin of HIV in America and the intrigue surrounding it. If you have nothing further to say on that matter, then you are here as a troublemaker, and you should be avoided.

Yeah. I have to agree it's a total tangient. If you're here to discuss politics or religion, you should go to the appropriate section and discuss it there. I don't care if someone is a card carrying member of the KKK so long as it doesn't affect their knowledge of science. (....Granted that membership in that particular group probably would damage someone's understanding of biology....)

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Ape? I distinctly remember the word "monkey" being used, not ape.

A lot of laymen use the word "monkey" generically for all primates. (And paradoxically, many of the more ignorant among them exclude humans from that category.) Properly speaking, the order Primata is divided into two suborders.

• Strepsirrhini includes the infraorders of lemurs and lorises.
• Haplorrhini includes two infraorders:
  [*]Tarsiformes, the tarsiers.[*]Simiformes, divided into two parvorders:

  [*]Platyrrhini, the New World Monkeys: marmosets, capuchins, tamarins, etc.[*]Catarhhini, divided into two superfamilies:

  [*]Cercopithecoidea, the Old World monkeys.[*]Hominoidea, the apes, divided into two families:

  [*]Hylobatidae, the gibbons or "lesser apes."[*]Hominidae, the "great apes": two living species of gorillas, two of orangutans, two of chimpanzees and one of humans.​

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

I don't agree with any of that.

You can disagree all you like. That doesn’t make you correct.

The preponderance of statements from those articles leads to that conclusion, along with the admission of "high rates among young gay men of episodic and ongoing unsafe sexual practices."

No, they do not. Your first reference scientifically demonstrates that heterosexual people display the same unsafe sexual practices and risk behaviours as homosexual people. As James R pointed out, your own references demonstrate that any differences in the incidence of such behaviours in hetero- compared to homosexual people is negligible (in the low single digit percentages). They do not, as you purport, demonstrate that ".... sexually active gays are significantly more likely to have multiple sexual partners at one time than non-gays."

Unless you have an adequate reason for believing that their desire for more sexual partners is not manifesting in their behavior... then that seals it.

It seals nothing. If you don’t stop twisting science to support your predetermined viewpoints, I’ll stop you.