AIDS: Spreading Misinformation in the Digital Age

What do AIDS, Evolution, and dare I say - climate change - have in common?  They are all topics of great contention cluttered with misinformation presented by parties with little to no scientific knowledge of the subjects.  I've written a similar article on evolution, intelligent design, and the misrpresentation of scientific information here.

This story is the result of stumbling across the article, "HIV Denial in the Internet era" published in the open source, peer-reviewed academic journal PLoS Med (Smith TC, Novella SP (2007) HIV denial in the Internet era. PLoS Med 4(8): e256).

It presents a, " review [on] the current intellectual strategies used by the HIV denial movement.  Although other forms of science denial will not be specifically discussed, the characteristics described below apply to many other forms of popular denial, including denial of evolution, mental illness, and the Holocaust."



Here I present a number of excerpts from the publication - the author's have provided a wonderfully accesible article, so I will simply present to you their words.  Furthermore,  I have used the same headings as in the original article to guide the reader to the original article.

Conspiracy Theories and Selective Distrust of Scientific Authority
"That HIV is the primary cause of AIDS is the strongly held consensus opinion of the scientific community, based upon over two decades of robust research.  Deniers must therefore reject this consensus, either by denigrating the notion of scientific authority in general, or by arguing that the mainstream HIV community is intellectually compromised.  It is therefore not surprising that much of the newer denial literature reflects a basic distrust of authority and of the institutions of science and medicine."

Portraying Science as Faith and Consensus as Dogma
"Since the ideas proposed by deniers do not meet rigorous scientific standards, they cannot hope to compete against the mainstream theories. They cannot raise the level of their beliefs up to the standards of mainstream science; therefore they attempt to lower the status of the denied science down to the level of religious faith, characterizing scientific consensus as scientific dogma...

...They argue that when mainstream scientists speak out against the scientific “orthodoxy,” they are persecuted and dismissed."

Expert Opinion and the Promise of Forthcoming Scientific Acceptance
"These signatories do not, however, suggest who the “suitable independent” group should be, since, presumably, many scientists have already been “indoctrinated” into believing that HIV causes AIDS. (Indeed, many of the signatories to this statement lack any qualifications in virology, epidemiology, or even basic biology.) They also ignore thousands of epidemiological studies that have already been published in the scientific literature. And the signatories fail to provide a convincing case that there is widespread acceptance in the scientific community for their marginal position."

Pushing Back the Goalpost
"The strategy behind goalpost-moving is simple: always demand more evidence than can currently be provided. If the evidence is then provided at a later date, simply change the demand to require even more evidence, or refuse to accept the kind of evidence that is being offered."

My Reflection (My Opinion)
Upon finishing this article, I was intrigued to see similarities between a number of 'hot button' issues currently touted by the media, including the evolution vs. intelligent design pseudo-debate, and climate change.  What especially rang true in this respect was "Portraying Science as Faith and Consensus as Dogma".  Well founded, educated skepticism of scientific theory is fundamental to the progression of science.  However, all too often I come across statements referring to the current climate debate as "Al Gore's religion/cult", and referring sketics referring to themselves as "heretics" for not following climate change "dogma".