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

[Richard Berkowitz]

Richard Hendlowitch, the best friend I ever had, died July 4, 1993 from what was then known as AZT-related, or AZT-induced lymphoma. I had Mike Callen, a hero to Rich, call and beg him not to go on AZT. But the peer pressure in the gay communitywas overwhelming. In less than a year, he was dead at 38 years old.

[McDonald]

Ms. Farber re you very valuable linguistic observation, allow me to contribute a more precise definition:

A sceptic (these days)is someone who worships the reality he observes so much he could not bear to see it changed.
By the same token he could never allow a different perspective on that reality, since perspective changes what it observes.

[Eric]

Aw, McDonald. You guys are so cute when you use scientific concepts and phrases to try to explain why This Time science is wrong about whatever your own personal bugaboo is.

The good thing is that science works no matter what anybody thinks about it, be it good or bad.

[Celia Farber]

Eric:

"Science" can't work or not work "no matter what anybody thinks about it." It contains and embodies models that "work" and others that don't, and everything within that journey is "science."

With your thuggish choice of words like "bugaboo" you seem to pledge allegience to that band of thugs that, (whom, which) have assaulted the once upon a time palace of the scientific esprit and reduced it to a vast slum where even curiosity and even exchange of FACTS is frowned upon.

Get the hell out of here and take your death cult with you.

The OED has a definition of the word "science" that runs a page and a half, but here's one definition that I wanted to share:

Science:(4:) In a more restricted sense: A branch of study which is concerned either with a connected body of demonstrated truths, or with observed facts systematically classified and more or less colligated by being brought under general laws, and which includes trustworthy methods for the discovery of new truth within its own domain.

[Celia Farber]

Greetings McDonald,

Yours is by contrast a mind that seems original and alive and it is my pelasure to make your acquaintance.

I agree wholeheartedly with your definition of the modern "sceptics."

They are at war with observation itself. They seem to abhor all questions. They seem, additionally, to think very highly of themselves for reasons never clarified. Only a thug would self-identify as a "sceptic" or "skeptic," as it bakes into the adjective a virtue that only one who lacks would think to pin on his or herself.

[Skeptico]

Celia:

You write to Eric:

With your thuggish choice of words like "bugaboo"

“Thuggish?”

Who wrote these:

”as anybody else noticed that wherever the root word "Skeptic" rears up, a violent, close-minded, angry person always comes attached?

”ONLY low rent riff raff like "Orac,"

And even lower down in the same post:

”Get the hell out of here and take your death cult with you.

That was you, Celia. ”Get the hell out of here”? Hard to think of much more “thuggish” language than that. Here’s another word for you: HYPOCRITE. That’s you.

[Celia Farber]

That was contempt. Anger. You people have done incalculable harm, destroyed so much. No matter how wrong your cherished notions prove to be, you continue to crow, brag, ridicule, and abuse others. You invert and contort reality, try to bend it to your will, and spit on the graves of the many who died from believing your "overwhelming" evidence. When you show up here and try to deny that AZT killed people, I cease to be my normal gracious self. You have no shame, no mercy, no decency. Maybe I am becoming a thug. You have a way of bringing that out in people.

[Skeptico]

Celia:

You people have done incalculable harm, destroyed so much. No matter how wrong your cherished notions prove to be, you continue to crow, brag, ridicule, and abuse others. You invert and contort reality, try to bend it to your will, and spit on the graves of the many who died from believing your "overwhelming" evidence. When you show up here and try to deny that HIV causes AIDS, I cease to be my normal gracious self. You have no shame, no mercy, no decency.

See how easy it is? Anyone can rant, but you people have it down to a fine art.

In two days there have been numerous comments, yet not one word to refute a single thing I wrote. Instead I see nothing from your side (apart from Noreen’s comments) but personal and childish insults. Lame. Really lame. But at least you have confirmed that my refutation of Hank’s original post was 100% valid. Not that we needed any more confirmation. If you want to learn how to do this in a civilized way you should read Noreen Martin’s comments on my blog.

[Lise]

Wow Eric,

If you feel like saying something really profound and useful like 'science works', why don't you just go right on ahead?

One small caveat though, the science in question was linguistics, and the topic a definition (even my dull husband understood that). Forgive me if I'm jumping to conclusions here but it just doesn't appear from your prose that you're expert at either.
But you could of course prove everybody wrong, dear boy (forgive me for assuming you're a lot younger than my husband), if you came back and gave us a good scientific definition of the 'bugaloo' YOU thought we were talking about.

Skeptico,

So was that your answer to Sims' question whether you had anything to say about HIV/AIDS, or only do this to pleasure yourself sexually? (Guess you're quite young too then) Don't be shy in answeringnow, I'm a grown woman, and I know what it can be like for you guys doing all your wonderful maths and logic all day with no other company than your computer.

[Skeptico]

Lise:

Re: So was that your answer to Sims' question whether you had anything to say about HIV/AIDS

As I wrote in my post:

In this post I’m not going to discuss specific evidence that shows HIV does or does not cause AIDS – I’m going to focus solely on Hank’s misuse of logical fallacies.

It was at the beginning of the post – fairly clear. Perhaps you have problems with reading comprehension?

Re: or only do this to pleasure yourself sexually?

False dilemma (since we’re on the subject of logical fallacies).

Re: (Guess you're quite young too then)

Haaaahaha – you’d guess wrong, but thanks.

Re: Don't be shy in answeringnow, I'm a grown woman, and I know what it can be like for you guys doing all your wonderful maths and logic all day with no other company than your computer.

And yet it’s you, not me, who feels the need to try and belittle the other person by trying to claim greater seniority and maturity. I guess if you have nothing of substance to add, that’s all you have left. Thanks for playing, anyway.

[Lise]

But Skeptico,

You have been answered: the whole thing was a joke - on you. You didn't get it, Hank's point proven. And if you still don't get, you can try to think of it as an example of the logical fallacy of the excluded middle.

PS sorry if I made you feel small

[Skeptico]

Oh yes, it was all a joke. Course it was Lise.

[JD]

"That was contempt. Anger. You people have done incalculable harm, destroyed so much. No matter how wrong your cherished notions prove to be, you continue to crow, brag, ridicule, and abuse others. You invert and contort reality, try to bend it to your will, and spit on the graves of the many who died from believing your "overwhelming" evidence. When you show up here and try to deny that AZT killed people, I cease to be my normal gracious self. You have no shame, no mercy, no decency. Maybe I am becoming a thug. You have a way of bringing that out in people."

Damn, who denied that AZT killed people? I missed that. I don't know much about it, but I'd be pretty hesitant to claim any medication hasn't killed people.

I like to think I'm a pretty reasonable person. And as someone with limited knowledge on the subject, I'm certainly open to possibilities. However, since I DO try to familiarize myself with bunk arguments and pseudosciences, I've got bells and whistles going off left and right here. I have yet to see one comment in here from someone who both disbelieves HIV causes AIDS, and is against at least a FEW of these incredibly irrational and ridiculous "fallacies" Hank has thrown out. You should learn to eat your own, and distance yourself from this madness if you wish to be taken seriously.

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

This is not something I would want people I'm associated with to think is a legitimate accusation. Will any of you admit the childish behavior of the main post?

[Lise]

Skep,

Perhaps you have a problem with your reading comprehension:

Skeptico,

New fallacy:

Appeal to Dilbertism.

"When HUMORLESS PEDANT, who knows little of the subject matter is enlisted by Orac for UNINTERESTING critique!"

'Uninteresting' means you don't make the rules on this blog, and those who do prefer to discuss HIV/AIDS issues.

I'm surprised you didn't understand this even when I put it in terms of the most basic Aristotelian logic. I thought logic was your strong point.

[Skeptico]

Yes Lise, I read it. And I understood the point he was trying to claim. I just don’t buy it, and the vitriolic comments on this blog prove me right. Don’t be disingenuous. It’s just lame to be caught out and then go “oh, I was only joking; you have no sense of humor”. Lame. Nice try, but lame.

[Claus]

"Will any of you admit the childish behavior of the main post?"

Hell why not? Ok I ADMIT IT!! There I've said it, and to tell the truth I feel much better for it. That post was childish, yes it was. It was childish and rightly enraged a lot of very logical peole. Thanks so much JD for giving me the scientific insight and courage to finally let rip. I'll proclaim again loud and clear from roof and mountain tops and the shallow bottoms of my denialist heart: THE MAIN POST IN THIS THREAD IS CHILDISH! and there's an end on't.

[Lise]

Skep,

I really despair of you men. Once again, no you didn't get it, not any of it, not even the most basic Aristotle.
But if you feel your point is proved, I'll just quote Claus and say you win and "there's an end on't". (I do that with my husband all the time anyway - quote Claus I mean).

[Celia Farber]

I have always said that condescension is a sin and I believe that and have tried to steer clear of it. I failed today. I apologize for being--yes--thuggish, cutting, accusatory etc. I have been subject to emotional torture for 22 years and so have many people I care about and respect. I believe we were fighting for something good and right and I believe we were and are innocent of the main charge, which is to have raised a question that our accusers believe to be a non question. If so, then why is all of this happening? It is happening because something is wrong. Something is wrong.

Who said: "Nothing comes of nothing?" (Lear?)

Something is terribly wrong here.
There is no other earthly explanation for such immense, decades long, international discord over the HIV-AIDS paradigm. I tried to cover, report from and on and through that discord, that dissonance, tried to resolve it by research, research, questions questions, talking, listening, arguing, getting beaten, getting knocked down, standing up again, starting over, etc.

I no longer believe that there is anything I can say or do or write or formulate that will assist in any way in resolving it. It will get resolved, in time. Everybody has to do what they think best at this point, given the information at hand. One has to allow for freedom of information, and believe, at least, in THAT. The truth will have to somehow, despite all the blockages, present itself. I hope I live long enough to see the rainbow and understand what it was all about, why it all happened.

In the meantime, I apologize for any instances in which I was less than fully civilized. And I know some people won't be heartbroken if I bow out, palms up, exhausted.

[Undergrad(XX/XY)]

Ms. Farber,

I really want to thank YOU for all that you have written here and I have to say I have not read you article in Harper's that started all this recent fuss that got so many people talking about it that even my biology prof. left her secret web site for a day or two to lecture us about how bad you were and of course that only made us Google you more. I have the article but I have not yet read it but I will especially now that my hacker roomie has fixed it so that the next time I comment on the blogs I can sign myself Recent Grad. (XX/XY). Do you have any opinion on whether Dr. Knobless is right when he thinks it is not fair the the guy who got the Prize for prions is "tall, and handsome and American"? And do you LOVE prions as much as me? Because from what you wrote above I think we are agreeing that HIV sure as shootin did come from outer space and on that Murchison meteorite thing which I am still trying to find out why Dr. Noble want to be like it according to what I read on the internet.

[jre]

Hank, let me urge you as strongly as possible to delete this comment, and to close this thread to further comments. The comment immediately preceding, by Undergrad(XX/XY), is ineffably perfect -- the Best Comment Ever on this subject. Coming as it does after Celia Farber's soul-exposing coda, it adds precisely the note that is needed to complete your symphony. Let it end here.

[Hank Barnes]

Ya know what jre?

You right!

Closed it is. But I retain your closing comment. :)