Yes, pretty much, we would say you are putting your finger on the key implication of the remark, which is that it amounts to an admission of the lack of other good reasons to think that HIV causes AIDS. This is what drives them to land on this association as a rather belated resolution of a puzzle which otherwise never had any better solution, which is the slack of proof that HIV causes AIDS.

That is definitely what is implied, as far as we can see, by making this statement. We’ve always thought so. Final proof finally arrived, at last – but what a weak proof.

Should correct the above Comment: the thing really isn’t post hoc ergo propter hoc, it is just the mistake of imagining without any proof that the beneficial effect of a poison shows it is acting against the putative cause of an illness, when it is really more likely just a temporary cure for some of its symptoms.

Don’t read on unless you are prepared for strong stuff:

The digestive problems of AIDS victims stem from the parasites which gather in the absence of a good immune response, which interfere with the absorption of nutrients which supply the body’s defenses and weaken them further. Some rather persuasively suggest that the parasites invoved are mostly fungal rather than bacterial, especially since PCP turned out to be fungal. So if you take the poison of toxic drugs that will kill off the candidiasis and possibly the PCP and you will feel very much better for that reason. Here the literature has to be checked to see if this is true, but it makes sense, particularly since it is not well known, as a distinguished contributor to this site has recently informed us, that gays in particular used to cleanse their relevant body parts with such vigor that they lost most of their protective flora and fauna. In other words, their passion for cleanliness led to their physical downfall, since they then became more susceptible to invaders rather than less. Poison might be the short run antidote in this case.

The drugs work, so it must be HIV that causes AIDS.

This of course is arguing post hoc ergo propter hoc or whatever the Latin is for After this, therefore on account of this and not a scientific argument until the study showing it is controlled for other factors.

Also, it’s a question of which “drugs”. Surely, these tools aren’t arguing that “AZT works, so therefore HIV causes AIDS”

They are impliedly arguing that “HAART works, therefore HIV must cause AIDS.”

But, HAART was introduced in 1996 or so. Are they arguing that in the pre-HAART era of 1981-1995, the cause of AIDS was still an open question?

To think otherwise is to ask whether Einstein, Newton, Ernst, Duesberg, Fauci or Gallo were or are gay or not, and think that it must be found out before we assess their scientific claims. Of course, motivations for sticking to false claims is another matter. There, being gay may well be relevant to why some people stick to HIV being the sole cause or even a cause of immune dysfunction, since it lets them off the hook of being accused of behavior some may find reprehensible, which is equally unscientific an opinion.

But motivation for belief is not a scientific consideration in assessing whether the belief is false or not. Of course, money, power, position, politics, friendship, ignorance, gayhate, nationality, education, all the human motivations in the dictionary can affect the existence of the belief in the HIV∫AIDS paradigm in any one person. The truly scientifically minded enquirer ignores all of it, however. We simply ask, does the claim match the scientific literature, and the answer to that question has long been plainly No to anyone who examines the belief without bias.

But wait. Of course, then one has to deal with the question, does the scientific literature all make sense, and were all the studies it reports done well?

In the case of HIV∫AIDS, it seems that the paradigm is supported by a huge literature which uses it as a premise, and occasionally warps the research knowingly or not to fit the preconception. This literature has to be set aside.

The important point is that the undisputed results in the literature all say No, the paradigm is a non starter, and there is a complete absence of results which confirm it.

This is what results in the absurd situation where intelligent outsiders who go along with the paradigm, like Jim Watson or Bill Clinton, are reduced to saying, The drugs work, so it must be HIV that causes AIDS.

This of course is arguing post hoc ergo propter hoc or whatever the Latin is for After this, therefore on account of this and not a scientific argument until the study showing it is controlled for other factors. The wonderful thing about drug studies in AIDS research, as we have pointed out in posts, is that they dispensed with controls long, long ago.

But anyway the literature shows otherwise. The drugs do not work to save lives in the long run, in fact they help keep the number of deaths up, and their perceived beneficial short term effects are explicable by papers in the scientific and medical literature which show the same effects arising from other causes, as we have noted in posts.

Of course, if you follow the money, you begin to realize that all of it is on the side of the paradigm, like many other very strong motivations, including the political and funding advantage for the gays. But that is unscientific, so it has nothing to say about which side is right or wrong. We accuse no one of such bias, because there is no scientific evidence for it.

Bottom line however is that, stripped of politics and human motivations, and setting incorrect interpretations of the literature aside, there is nothing in the peer reviewed literature to prove the paradigm, or even to support it. In answer to the question, where is the beef? the answer has to be, this is a bun with no hamburger.

If this is the case, is there any real difference between the salesmen of HIV∫AIDS and the salesmen of Florida land parcels located in crocodile infested marshland?

That is not a scientific question, so we cannot answer it.

If one were to take what has been written here literally, one would guess that everyone who posts here is an intimate of mine, so confident is everyone in their conclusions. But no one here is an intimate of mine. That I, for reasons not entirely clear, have become some sort of lightning rod for gays and straights alike to project assumptions and generalities upon, is clear.

Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to attempt to correct these projections through this virtual medium? It wouldn’t be possible. So, I just point the phenomenon out instead. Carry on with my best wishes — sincerely. But perhaps keep in mind how measly our knowledge is of one another, and therefore, how easy it is to build an image of another that feels consistent with one’s own beliefs. I am what you believe I am in this medium. If we actually knew each other, that might be different. For now though, I’m simply what you decide to make me, all deadly paradigms (and there are in fact, many) aside.