Major AIDS denialist figures like Christine Maggiore seemed to see themselves precisely as the anti-establishment rebels standing up against the power of corporate Big Pharma, and understanding this is, in my view, key to understanding how and why AIDS denial has taken such a hold.

To give just one example, here’s Caspar Schmidt seeking to explain AIDS as a ‘group fantasy’ among gay men triggered by the election of Ronald Reagan… http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/csfantasy.htm

There’s nothing wrong with questioning the consensus – the problem arises when people refuse to listen to the answers.

Does the magazine take the approach to facts when promoting global warming denialism?

Yes – see anything written by James Delingpole or melanie Phillips on the subject.

In a sane society people would simply back away from the publication and ignore it but I suppose that won’t happen.

Sorry, but Mbeki’s wingnuttery does not defeat the ovrwhelming point that it is vastly and overwhelmingly the political right which engages in mainstreaming aids and climate change denialism.

This is a very dangerous argument to make. For a start it is not true that it is the political right which mainstreams AIDS denial – much of the support is apolitical and comes from the alternative health movements and is a feature as much of the right as the left, in fact most alt therapists, in the UK at least, appear to have political sympathies which lie on the green/liberal/left side of the political spectrum. The Green Party in particular are a haven for these sorts of views.
The climate issue is more complex, but again is not strictly party political, you can find people on the left just as on the right who will dispute the science from a position of ignorance.

But this is all by the by. What is truly objectionable about your reasoning is that you are debasing the cold hard empiricism of science by discussing it at the level of politics, where rhetoric and ideology are used as weapons at the expense of evidence (e.g. see Unity’s recent post on Nick Davies report into the exaggeration of sex trafficking). I, and many others, believe that policy should be evidence based, this does not mean that politics has no role to play but it means that political discussion should be built on a bedrock of evidence. The political healthcare debate should be over the best method of providing drugs that work, the climate debate over the best ways to ameliorate the harmful effects of AGW, the AIDS debate over the best way to reduce the spread and develop effective preventative strategies, etc.
By resorting to party political taunts you cast aside evidence based arguments, antagonise and alienate those who while they may not agree with you on the political implications of evidence nevertheless respect its value and will condemn its misuse and you lower scientific debate to the level of street theatre.
You may be comfortable filtering reality through a political spectrum but that is not how science works. Just as gravity owes no allegiance to 17th century English politics, modern virology has no allegiance to a position on the political spectrum.

Frankly, it is attitudes like yours that are a barrier to a wider public understanding of science and until politicians and journalists realise that scientific evidence is superior to political rhetoric then we will continue to have problems like MMR, AIDS denial, climate denial, etc.

It is not exactly science she attacks, it is your actual sanity.

That is how low they go….

Mainstream science is ‘wrong’ about Nessie, therefore they are ‘wrong’ about HIV

http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/believing-and-disbelieving/

That’s the level of debate?

And the Tim Dinsdale book on Nessie was printed by children’s publisher Target, remembered mainly for their ‘Doctor Who’ novelisations. I read it when I was 6.

Does anyone know if they pay well?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2732069&id=40491054861#/photo.php?pid=2732069&id=40491054861

…and they’ve now got one commenter demanding that HIV scientists be imprisoned in a ‘human zoo’: http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5461313/questioning-the-aids-consensus.thtml

My theory is that Fraser Nelson is secretly in league with the Spectator’s arch-rival, the New Statesman, who have sent him in on a covert mission to completely destroy the magazine’s credibility…

From what read he seems pretty right wing, although it was Naomi Klein so who wouldn’t seem right-wing?

try contextualising for history and location, hmm?

Sorry, but Mbeki’s wingnuttery does not defeat the ovrwhelming point that it is vastly and overwhelmingly the political right which engages in mainstreaming aids and climate change denialism.

You whatabout if you want to, the left’s not for turning.

Speaking of which I had one (American) over at my place giving it the old ‘need more public funding for research line’ the other day.

Even left a link to an American review of the current ‘quality’ of Chiropractic research, which I must take proper look at, at some point – first time out I got as the word ‘subluxation’ and decided that I had better things to do with my time.

Shortly after that was posted I emailed Fraser Nelson expressing concern about the showing and I understand others have too, so he was forewarned.

PPS Aids denials isn’t unique to the right, more on that next week…

That’s an important observation Sunny. You know I disagree about bringing too much political stuff into the climate debate but in this case I don’t think it unreasonable to ask contributors to the Spectator, whether elected or not, to protest that this debate is even being considered (and for that matter the climate issue where Fraser Nelson has used similar arguments). It does suggest that an influential magazine of the right is run by a moron. Contrast Fraser Nelson’s stance on science with that of The Economist, whose science reporting is almost above reproach.

*shudder*