AIDS denial: A lethal delusion - health - 22 June 2009 - New Scientist
Here's an interesting article on the history of HIV/AIDS denialism.
The story does have some parallels to global warming skepticism: there are a few scientists out of thousands who believe they have identified the truth, and that everyone else is wrong and just won't admit it because of self interest. Their work is not usually directly in the field of HIV research, rather they critique the work of the "believers".
As I have also said in the past, skeptics should remember the number of engineers and other science types who are 9/11 conspiracists.
And I make this post with my usual reminder that my position is that, even if warming is not proceeding at a dangerous pace, ocean acidification alone is reason to reduce CO2.
Poor analogy.
ReplyDeleteThe race on two continents to identify a new killer disease was firmly real science, object, replicable, robust.
No one had a political agenda, nor, at that point, was anyone after a money making scheme - the treatments would come later - the first desperate challenge was to find out what was suddenly killing gay men. Ah, yes, remember way back when, before it became a disease that "anyone" could catch?
Did you ever read "And the Band Played On" - quite an achievement, a gripping yarn.
The story of global warming is not comparable, neither in science nor in the outcome.