anthony ((nospam))(at)((nospam)) scienceguardian.com

But I don’t know what that means!

Thanks, yello, interesting tempest in a teapot about Maher, who should be admired by all who genuinely think freely and independently. Here we have atheists as believers, after all , their new faith being establishment science, however irrational.

But we admire your fortitude. Why any intelligent person should read long into such threads is beyond us, having glanced at that 539 comment monster at RichardDawkins.net and some way into the Orac 109 comment thread. They offer virtually no information of any interest, and parade top of the head personal opinion and banal points up and down as if they were of interest to others, apparently as part of a process of forming “swarm intelligence”, as in

This isn’t about Richard Dawkins sitting around doing Google searches. The point is that with networked media, these things are not dependent on a single individual’s research. There is swarm intelligence. And within that swarm certain individuals could have voiced their concerns much more loudly. (Orac 36 by Colugo)

Swarm intelligence seems to be a very suitable and relevant concept, since it appears that what is happening is that crowds of partially informed but mostly uninformed posters sound off in some kind of effort to bring their opinions in line with others to provide them with (one assumes) psychological comfort and supposed influence eg on Dawkins, which I would hope is imaginary(the influence on Dawkins) but fear judging from the post signed “Richard” and offering a “Group hug. Bill Maher excepted, of course.”, that Dawkins is grateful for the group support.

It suggests exactly what is wrong about the process so many people follow today in forming judgments and opinions, so well exposed on the Web to the horror of any educated person, let alone genuine scientist or other truth seeker. They seek to join with groups flying in the same direction and once part of the swarm of starlings or bees they favor, fly in perfect formation despite sudden irrational twists and turns and all roost in the same tree or settle in the same hive.

It is disappointing to see that atheists include large numbers of people subject to that coordinating impulse when one would have thought they were by definition independent thinkers. But what seems to be happening in this case that they have decided that Science and Reason are their new Gods and that this equates with the established wisdom in any sphere, from religious philosophy to medicine. In other words, they are not independent thinkers at all, but conformists to a different ruling notion, that is all.

Why any intelligent thinking person should want to read through too many of their comments is beyond us, except to confirm that the world of Web comment is largely to be avoided. We encountered a fine example of the ability of the any Web thread to derail any constructive exchange and blunt any inclination one might have to enlighten others on the supposition that any such thing is possible with the recent two posts at The New Humanist, Was I conned by AIDS-denialists? and A week of humble pie, where one Caspar Melville, who may or may not be an editor or the editor of the New Humanist Magazine of the Rationalist Association in London (”promoting reason, debate and free thought since 1885″), reported on seeing House of Numbers at its recent Cambridge showing and participating in a panel there, and afterwards having lunch with Brent Leung, and others.

Seems Caspar was impressed with House of Numbers and its message that all is not well in the House of HIV?AIDS – on evidence mainly issuing from the mouths of the generals of the field, who spoke freely to Mr Leung on many points on which they proved to agree with the “denialists” they had always vilified, as noted in the next post – until he was (it appears) got at by the HIV defenders and brought into line, whereupon he ate humble pie for even briefly imagining that they were misleading the public.

Several stalwarts of the HIV dissident persuasion attempted to encourage Caspar in his briefly non-PC judgment since he appeared to be open minded at the start, as befits an atheist, but despite copious postings by one “criticnyc” and others expending their best reason and reframing explanation on this potential convert to rational thought in the tortured topic of HIV/AIDS, the HIV defense squad of “Snout” “Bennett” and others soon had the man back in the conformist fold.

Once again we were forced to the unwelcome conclusion that the percentage of people who are actually capable of examining their own premises if those premises were acquired by taking conventional wisdom for granted is very, very low, and few are to be found on Web comment threads, which are mainly venues for sheep to huddle and baa and asses to bray in unison with whomever they have chosen to shepherd them, such as Dawkins, or the fine fellows who lead HIV?AIDS patients down the garden path.

Thank God few of them turn up here for long. We have nothing but admiration for those who do think for themselves and are willing to take them on, a fool’s errand if there ever was one. We note that Robert Houston has succeeded in silencing De Shong with facts, though, for once. Congratulations, Bob!

We are referring to the last two Comments at the misleadingly titled DumbandDumbee post, Celia Farber, Thank You for Admitting You Can Make A Mistake:

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September 21, 2009 9:44 PM
jtdeshong said…
Oh, come on Houston, do you think I am stupid?
How can you say that “by asking her readers, Ms. Farber rapidly obtained useful answers with links to official sources”? If that is true, Ms. Farber would have had to tell you that, as she did not share this info on her site! You, Mr. Houston are the only one of her readers that sent in any link! Jeez, you’re getting to be as bad as she is what with the lying and all!!
As for the numbers I linked, I did so to show that in a matter of minutes I was able to obtain numbers that majorly contradicted hers.
Also, do not try and make me out as a liar on my own blog! I came right out and stated that the 600 figure I got was from 1999! I also found a number of 660 from 2001 and that is how I extrapolated that the number was increasing and therefore did not go down. Especially not down as low as 73. And the figure you got from WHO was for deaths of previously reported “AIDS cases”! If you do not understand the difference, perhaps you should re~read Snout’s post.
Go back to your denialist hole, Houston!
JTD

September 21, 2009 11:53 PM

Robert Houston said…

What I deny, JTD, are your claims that what Ms. Farber wrote in her recent piece “The Vanishing” was “invalid” or “lying.”

As I showed above, the figure she provided from Burd was correct for reported AIDS deaths in Germany and is confirmed by WHO. She even acknowledged estimates of “less than 1,000″ – higher than the 600 and 660 you found for earlier years.

Asking her readers brought useful answers and links – not only from me but from two others. The information is shared in the Comments for the article and validates what it stated.

September 30, 2009 9:26 PM
.
Robert Houston added…

P.S. “Snout’s post” on the previous thread concerned Canada, not Germany. You’re the one who’s failed to distinguish between estimated and reported cases, mistakenly using the former to deny the official tabulation of the latter.
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PS: Oh oh, sorry, we spoke too soon, after a silence it seems that the irrepressible De Shong, like the Knight in the Monty Python film whose four limbs are chopped off who still challenges his opponent to a fight, has managed another comeback, to equally null effect, as far as reason and evidence goes.

The point Celia Farber made and which Houston drove home despite De Shong’s amusing antics and insults is that HIV/AIDS deaths are down to negligible numbers in many countries such as Canada and Germany, presumably thanks to increasing drug non-compliance and doctors who increasingly take pity on their patients and let them have their drug holidays and reduce their doses, and give them rational immune boosters such as vitamins, minerals, and herbs, as well as the addition of antibiotics to HAART, the addition of drugs which reduce the uptake of AZT and elevate trace elements such as zinc and selenium, possibly stiffer immigration barriers, and so on.

But Alas, it is the character of this DumbandDumbee blogger and others of his ilk that confirms our aversion to treating their comment threads and others like them with respect. One can lop off the tail and the darn lizard grows another one, and another, and another!

Or perhaps a better analogy would be a crowd of zombies arisen from their graves in a horror movie that advance on the few remaining defenders of civilization who haven’t fled with horrid rotting flesh and unraveling bandages proving every scientifically and rationally reasoned blow ineffectual.

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? – Joseph Welch, Army-McCarthy Hearings, 9 June 1954

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/my_last_entry_on_the_maher_issue_probabl.php

Usual snide remarks on anti-vaccination,HIV?AIDS questioning and alternative medicine in general. Orac is also a bit ticked off at PZ for not totally excoriating Mr. Maher it seems.