From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: AIDS risk/Duesberg
Date: 4 Jan 93 18:12:56 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
Supersedes: <103632@netnews.upenn.edu>
In-reply-to: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)

In article <C05MH4.Mur@umassd.edu>, pmsc13sg@UMASSD (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>(Matthew P Wiener) writes:

>[my query about proving HIV causing AIDS]

>>What do you mean _proven_??  You sound like some moronic creationist
>>playing stupid philosophical word games.

>SG     This is seriously bizarre.

Only if you make it so.  Only if you completely avoid discussing the
experimental evidence--which is exactly the crux of the HIV causes AIDS
discussion--and then dance as many word games as you can avoiding the
facts, will it be bizarre.  Your choice.

Since the facts speak overwhelmingly against your claims, it's not too
surprising that you avoid them as much as possible, and the few you do
bother to cite are usually boffo.

>				   An alleged scientist claiming that faith 
>leads to proof while science leads to...?

I never made any such claims.  Of course, a Randroid would have hard
time dealing with what is actually said, so I'm not surprised that you
came up with that gibberish.

>					   As Kant, the leading modern 
>intellectual influence said,

Uh oh, gibbering moron Randroid alert!  Kant invocation.  Yawn....

>			      "I have limited knowledge therefore, to make from 
>for faith." Weiner is obviously a student of Kant.

Actually, I'm not.  I can't be.  My comprehension of Kant, while superior
to Rand's, is too weak to comment on.  Grossbag is obviously a brainless
Randroid, unable to comprehend actual thought.

>						    Proof is, as defined by 
>Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff, [...]

Peikoff is a gibbering moron, like his heroine.  I couldn't care less how
he defined proof.  I use the word in its more normal senses.  Duesberg
was using it in an extreme and scientifically irrelevant sense, and this
is what I was criticizing.

>>The ultimate experimental proof--putting people in bubbles and injecting
>>them with HIV and waiting for several years--will of course never be done.

>SG	Thanks for confirming that there is, as Deusberg claims, NO PROOF that 
>HIV causes AIDS. I hope others notice this unwitting (half-witting, actually) 
>praise for good science. 

I did not confirm Duesberg.  I realize less than subtle distinctions are
lost on RANDS (Rejectaneous Acquired Neuron Deficiency Syndrome) victims
like yourself, but here goes: my claim is merely that Duesberg's "no proof"
argument sets absurdly high standards of proof for HIV->AIDS, and as such,
is a meaningless gambit on his part, nothing more.

>>The closest approximations were the unwitting victims of HIV+ blood and
>>blood products--for which there have been numerous peer-reviewed studies
>>in the medical journals, and research experiments with HIV and SCID-hu mice,
>>for which there are also peer-reviewed papers in the research journals.

>SG	Weiner limits "knowledge" to "closest approximations" because logical 
>postivists

I am certainly not a logical positivist.  I do not limit "knowledge" to
"closest approximations".  Since Grossbag has been stupid to figure out
what I was saying, he has to resort to phoney Randroid arguments. 

>	    oppose certainty for, as Rand notes, [...]

I certainly do not oppose certainty.  I certainly do oppose stupidity.

Rand was a gibbering moron, incapable of understanding anything more
sophisticated than a banana.  I couldn't care less what she notes about
philosophy or science, except for its amusement value.

>>Yes.  There are certain diseases that were well-known before 1980 to be
>>associated with the injectables and ultrapromiscuous world.  Only the
>>viral ones (eg, hepatitis) showed up in the transfusion community.

>SG     The Ctr. for Disease Control, in the early 80s,

That's the Centers for Disease Control.  Your ignorance regarding AIDS and
related matters obviously knows no boundaries.

>						        considered 
>non-injectable drugs as causing AIDS.

Very briefly.  Very very briefly.  Before any of the facts were in.  As
the evidence began pouring in--they were at the heart of it--they quickly
realized the disease was infectious.

>SG 	There is much more that can be said but Weiner is a scientist, i 
>presume, and i am not. The point is that some scientists have mucho govt money 
>and mucho publicity while others do not. Yet both groups are composed of 
>scientists.

I do not have mucho money, govt or otherwise, and I do not have publicity
beyond USENET.  I do, however, read the journals extensively, and you do
not.  I have certain basic intelligence, including solid skills in logic,
and you, being a Randroid, do not.

>	     Something is rotten. 	

The only thing rotten is the smell of decay between your ears.  Only a
complete gibbering moron would cite cases from 1872 as proof of non-HIV
AIDS causation, as if doctors in 1872 ran careful tests for HIV and came
out negative.

For those interested in facts, not confused propaganda, see L H Breimer
"Did Moritz Kaposi describe AIDS in 1872?" CLIO MEDICA 19:156 (1984).  The
case is rather weak, but suggestive, and impossible to decide on today.
The original diagnostic KS cases were, in fact, aggressive and lethal.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine