AIDS Inc: Common Logical Fallacies

I believe it was 'ole Abe Lincoln who talked about fooling all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time.

For the past 25 years, the AIDS experts bunglers have excelled in the art of ducking, weaving, dissembling and obfuscating about AIDS. In short, they've been fooling a whole lotta folks into thinking that taking toxic cancer chemo to treat a harmless retrovirus is sound medical practice.

But never fear -- 'ole Hank is here -- with a handy, helpful guide of logical fallacies to know when these jokers are pulling your chain. Enjoy!

Ad Hominem:
If you don't believe that HIV causes AIDS, well, you suck.

Appeal To False Authority:
The NIH has a great government website, which explains why HIV Causes AIDS

Appeal To Emotion:
Look, millions of poor Africans are gonna die, if you don’t immediately start believing that HIV causes AIDS!!!

Appeal to Fear:
Did you see what we did to Duesberg? If you don't accept that HIV causes AIDS, we will strip away your funding and ostracize you. Now, get smart, will ya?

Appeal To Force:
If you don't agree that HIV causes AIDS, we will call CPS and take away your children.

Appeal To Majority:
C’mon, everybody’s wearing a red ribbon, why not you?

Appeal to Novelty:
Yeah, I know that retroviruses historically haven’t been show to kill cells, but this is a NEW retrovirus from a Chimpanzee in Cameroon via the Castro!

Appeal To Numbers:
Thousands of scientists think that HIV causes AIDS, why not you?

Appeal To Tradition:
Traditionally, viruses are very bad things, causing many different ailments, why not this virus, too?

Argumentum Ad Nauseum:
HIV causes AIDS. You’re a Denialist. HIV causes AIDS. You’re a Denialist. HIV causes AIDS. You’re a Denialist. HIV causes AIDS. You’re a Denialist. HIV causes AIDS. You’re a Denialist. HIV causes AIDS. You’re a Denialist.

Begging The Question:
AIDS is the disease that is caused by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Burden Of Proof:
Can you prove that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS?

Complex Question:
Have you stopped beating your wife while denying that HIV causes AIDS?

False Dilemma:
Either you accept that HIV causes AIDS or you're responsible for killing millions of Africans.

False Premise:
Since HIV is found in all cases of AIDS, obviously HIV must cause AIDS.

Gambler's Fallacy:
Look, highly credentialed scientists have usually got it right in the past, so I just know they got AIDS right this time!

Guilt By Association:
You know who else doesn’t believe that HIV causes AIDS?
*(insert pictures of Nixon, Mbeki, Kary Mullis here)*

Non Sequitur:
HIV causes AIDS, because if not, that means we've been lying to people all these years.

No True Scotsman:
Argument: "No Scientist questions whether HIV causes AIDS

Reply: " Dr. Kary Mullis questions whether HIV causes AIDS."

Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true scientist questions whether HIV causes AIDS.

Post Hoc/False Cause:
Since we’'ve started pumping people with AZT and other toxic drugs, AIDS deaths have decrease 62%. Therefore, HIV causes AIDS.

Red Herring:
Well, you say that to prove HIV causes AIDS, requires extraordinary evidence, because it's an extraordinary claim. Well, we’d like to note that "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" is itself an extraordinary claim.

Slippery Slope:
If you don't accept that HIV causes AIDS, you will do poorly in class, drop out of school, commit crimes, go to prison, and die of AIDS.

Comments

[TS]

Very fine, Hank. You must make and sell a T shirt out of it!

But which Nixon disbelieved/s?

[LS]

Very Good, indeed!

That's a lot of work, that.

I'm thinking that an appeal to standard human bias is a primary factor.

Appeal to the Standard Deviants (the standard historical biases).

* Blacks have more sex and less-clean sex.

* Gays have more sex and less-clean sex.

* Black populations are too high.

* Homosexuality is a mortal sin (is immoral, is unclean, etc).

ergo...Blacks and Gays have sex that kills them.

[LS]

PS. Where's Barnesville?

I was looking for the corner grocery, and the whole city is gone!

(One vote for 'barnesville' versus 'you bet your life'. I expect to be outvoted, but still...)

[HankBarnes]

Hey LS,

Yes, you have nailed it -- the Appeal to Exclude the Marginal Member of Society --er, something like that.

The voting is still open, good Sir! So, don't fret.

Yes, we are tinkering and updating and rearranging -- the public demands it.

Good Sunday, Sir!

HB

[George]

Hank,

Wasn't it P. T. Barnum who said "There's a sucker born every minute", and W.C. who advised to "Never give a sucker an even break"?

It seems to me that the pharma Armani-Ferrari exxxecutives, who are among the primary beneficiaries of AIDS, Inc.'s largesse, took both of those sayings to their deepest and blackest of corporate hearts quite a while ago.

Now "ole Abe" was hardly a blameless dude hisself, and if his hopeful expression was all we had to peg the future on, I can only say with my blessed bubbah Yetta, Oy vey.

Thanks gods for Hank's Handy Guide.

[Lise]

And there, dear George, I think you have the answer to Pharma B's surprising addition at the top of the previous thread. Like all sales(wo)men, PR people, politicians and other confidence tricksters, the Big Pharma rap sheet is simply boasting points for those who take pride in their work working the suckers.

[Gene semon]

Good job Hank!

One you left out was HAART works, therefore HIV causes AIDS.

Didn't Watson say that? And he's one of those great scientists.

Also, let's not forget those wonderful metaphors - AIDS INC is good for something, after all - the wily virus with nine heads, that insidiously hijacks, etc.

[George]

And here's another one Hank, that Mr. Semon just reminded me of.

It is actually a favorite saying of one of my favorite George's, Mr. Gurdjieff.

AIDS, Inc. is most adept at a chief activity of manipulators of all sorts, especially those that depend on "scientific expertise":

"Pouring from the Empty into the Void"

[Jennifer]

Also: "We've spent hundreds of billions on research, therefore HIV HAS TO cause AIDS." (translation: We're f***ed if it doesn't)

[Hank B.]

Lise and Jennifer,

Welcome and well done! We like sassy dames here:)

HB

[Lise]

I beg your pardon, Hankie?

This is hardly the first time I have posted here, thank you so much for noticing.

And thank you O so much for your combination of grotesque self-inflation and, I really don't know what to call them, idioms.

Me and my husband like smart ass lawyers who go after the pharma sharks even if they sometimes behave on the net as though Mongo still uglified this now really sweet homepage. :)

[Claus]

Aww come on Lise, coulda been worse. Hank coulda put pictures of Lindsay Lohan looking for her lost bag next to your posts the way some bloggers like to decorate their pages.

Hank's cutsie, tongue-in-cheek" "sexism" well, it's cutsie.

[Skeptico]

Hank:

I think you’ve called out some incorrect fallacies there. Also, some of the positions you’ve assigned to the AIDS bunglers as you call them are in fact Straw Man versions of the HIV/AIDS theory.

See A Straw Man gets AIDS for a more detailed explanation.

[HankBarnes]

Skeptico,

New fallacy:

Appeal to Dilbertism.

"When humorless pedant who knows little of the subject matter is enlisted by Orac for uninteresting critique!"

Barnes

[Sims]

Yo Skepticon,

I read your blog. Did you actually have anything to say about hiv and aids, or was that just a wank-off session for you and your posse? Even your pseudonymn is a logical fallacy. You're not skeptical, you're a true-believer.

[noreen martin]

* Your viral load is non-detectable therefore the drugs are working.

* Your viral load is greater than 100,000 therfore you must take toxic drugs or die.

* Your blood levels and liver enzymes are abnormal but this is normal for someone with your disease.

* We don't know when, but the virus will mutate and you will become resistant to the drugs.

* Why are you taking alternative treatments, if you continue these, we cannot treat you.

* You must stay on these toxic drugs all your life, even though you have no clinical symptoms.

[noreen martin]

* You want to take Low dose naltrexone, we've never heard of it and its not an anti-viral.

* Your CD4's are under 200, we're going to put you on an antiboitic long term, don't worry about it wiping out the good bacteria.

* We're going to give you 2 flu shots and 2 pneumonia shots in 1 year even though, you can only have 2 pneumonia shots in a lifetime. Oh, you had 2 separate reactions to the shots, don't worry about that, we will give you another antibiotic to go along with the first, it's lonely, it must need company.

* We never question you about diet, supplements and your life-style habits, run like hell!

[Celia Farber]

I just want to make an elemental linguistic point that has been on my mind for some time. Has anybody else noticed that wherever the root word "Skeptic" rears up, a violent, close-minded, angry person always comes attached? Other words that immediately spell doom for open-minded, humanist critics of the Modern Medical-Pharma Dystopic Era include: "Quack," "Straw Man," and "Logical Fallacy."

ONLY low rent riff raff like "Orac," use terminology like that. Incredibly conformist Libertarians and the like. They are hoping for Inclusion in the Mainstream.

They hope to achieve this by using flogging words like "quack," to show the MAN that they aint no pinkos.

[Sims]

"Debunk" too. Whenever somebody claims to be debunking something, it always means that somebody revealed an uncomfortable truth and now they've got to stuff it back in the bottle.

[JD]

Has anyone else noticed that when a bunch of folks repeatedly use words like 'pharma' and capitalize words like 'Mainstream', it's usually a bunch of pretentious dopey know-it-alls slapping each other on the back for fighting the maaaaan?

"Other words that immediately spell doom for open-minded, humanist critics of the Modern Medical-Pharma Dystopic Era include: "Quack," "Straw Man," and "Logical Fallacy.""

Did you really just criticize the use of the words "Logical Fallacy" in a blog post....about logical fallacies? Bonus points for "modern medical-pharma distopic era" though.

"Did you actually have anything to say about hiv and aids, or was that just a wank-off session for you and your posse?"

Well if the arguments this post puts forward are just plain wrong, then why should he need to? Say something substantial instead of childishly mocking the other side. Childish mockery never made a scientific advancement.

"Even your pseudonymn is a logical fallacy. You're not skeptical, you're a true-believer."

Hey look, another denier throwing around those "logical fallacy" words again! Which logical fallacy exactly, I'm not sure. But I am quite sure that being skeptical doesn't mean denying everything the Man(capped for coolness factor!) has to say. It means accepting claims as strongly as the evidence backing it. Evidence. That thing AIDS deniers have yet to bring forward. That thing that, when plentiful, new theories must account for to be accepted.

I mean really, look at this:

"Non Sequitur:
HIV causes AIDS, because if not, that means we've been lying to people all these years."

Are you serious?

"Slippery Slope:
If you don't accept that HIV causes AIDS, you will do poorly in class, drop out of school, commit crimes, go to prison, and die of AIDS."

These are things you really believe people say?

"Well, we’d like to note that "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" is itself an extraordinary claim."

THIS is a reasonable argument? These are the things you come to the table with? It's disgraceful. It's completely irrelevant to the discussion. There's nothing factual, nothing honest about it. Nobody needs to know anything about the subject to know how ridiculous this is.

So please, keep it up. It's much more entertaining.

[Undergrad(XX/XY)]

JD

That's the spirit and I couldn't have said it better myself even if I understood excactly everything it was that you wrote which maybe I didn't because my biology prof. has scheduled a quiz tomorrow and I'm trying to find her secret web site to crib the answers the same way she cribs her lectures. Do you know the url? The server is someplace in Idaho, but that's all I can find out. And are prions really so hot as to be worth a Nobel Prize? And what exactly is a Murchison meteorite and why is it so famous that Dr. Noble wants to be just like it? I think you must know all the answers because you know so much, and have no sense of humor at all. Maybe you be the Man?

[Undergrad(XX/XY)]

O and JD just one thing from the dorms before we crash prof's site. If it's DATA you want why not make some heavy duty dude comment on the Lancet's new cover? I like it because it will match most of by book bags.

[JD]

Never once did I point out anything aside from errors in thinkings. Never did I claim to have the answers. A bad argument is a bad argument, whether you're talking about AIDS denial, creationism, or homeopathy. Might I suggest some Carl Sagan?

[Knobless Oblige]

Undergrad (gal/guy),

Allow me, in my usual helpful way, to explain to you why the denialist rot in that post is simply more of their creationist sameness with ad hominem attacks on the authors and insinuations about the referees instead of dealing with the data -- even if JD is not up to the task.

I am so tired of these fools wasting my time by making me have to explain to you what should be obvious to anyone who is not mentally challenged.

This study was designed to investigate the benefits of giving purified factor viii to hemophiliacs. It had nothing to do with AZT. So why should AZT even be in the table? Well that was a mistake, sure. But a small one. The point is even if it is there what difference could it possibly make to the important conclusion of the study. Highly purified factor and ordinary purity factor are equal so foreign proteins cannot be the cause of the hemophiliac's AIDS and it must be HIV and Duesberg is wrong again. So once again we have some denialist straw man that is intended to impress upon us how sloppy (or something) AIDS scientists and believers in the HIV/AIDS (whether from outer space via the Murch or by chimps from Africa is not important) are.

More stuff and the usual nonsense from these blowhards. Show me some data. Then we can talk.

[Undergrad(XX/XY)]

Dr. Knowbless,

Gee thanks. But really I wanted to know about the Murchison meteorite. I can't find anything on Google about it that makes any sense or says anything about HIV maybe creating it or evolving from it or why Dr. Noble would want to be just like it. And you didn't tell me if the color scheme worked for you.

But don't bother answering because one of my roomates just found the backdoor to the university main server and in a few minutes we will all graduate last June! Ain't that a trip, so I don't have to take the biology quiz tomorrow even though I got a crib sheet for the answers. Pretty easy too. HIV the virus that causes AIDS is the answer to every single question only it has to be exactly in that form otherwise points get taken away.