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Monday, April 16, 2007
Duesberg in SciAm
So what do people think of Scientific American's decision to publish an article by Peter Duesberg, HIV/AIDS denialist extraordinaire?
The justification that they give, is that despite his completely wrong ideas about AIDS, he still has something to contribute in his original field - cancer. But is that enough of an excuse? They make it sound like if you don't have every possible human being working on a problem, somehow it will irreparably damage the scientific enterprise. I think it's a greater amount of harm to return any legitimacy to this crank and denialist. A lot of his crackpot ideas haven taken hold in Africa, and the results are deadly. Denial of the real causes of HIV, stigma over AIDS diagnoses, and BS cures from local cranks are responsible for nothing but misery and death, and Duesberg bears some responsibility for this. It's also, in my mind, like giving a podium to Hwang Woo Suk. When someone has shown that they simply can't be trusted in the scientific enterprise, it's time for them to be ignored, permanently. HIV/AIDS denialism has the same deceptive elements of all the other types of denialism, and people who promulgate it really should be banned from contributing to the literature. It's not just some cute iconoclasm or "funny ideas". They are liars who spread deadly ideas. And liars should not be trusted to do anything but contaminate the literature. I am disappointed in SciAm. Labels: HIV/AIDS denialism, Peter Duesberg |
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11 Comments:
Since I first heard of Duesberg over ten years ago, I've wondered why he doesn't do the perfect experiment. If he really thinks HIV is a benign virus that isn't linked to AIDS, why not do the H. pylori experiment (that is, inject yourself with the virus, and demonstrate that you never progress to AIDS).
Why not put his money where his mouth is?
April 16, 2007 12:21 PM,
Has Duesberg ever engaged in fraud within the peer-review system, though? To my mind, that's the crucial issue, and the one that separates him from Hwang Woo-Suk.
There's no doubt in my mind that he's wrong, and that his ideas are actively causing harm to world health -- but I don't think that should be allowed to taint his research, particularly his non-AIDS work. If he hasn't fabricated data or done some other fuckery, and if the present study appears to be above the board, it should be published. The instant he commits intellectual fraud in a scientific publication, then yes, he should be cast out and never allowed to publish again regarding any subject.
Punishing a scientist professionally for having unpopular ideas should not be allowed, even if he is circumventing the proper scientific channels to advance his drivel. It is, or should be, outside of the scientific community's purview to judge that. But if he's taking it to the political arena, then so should we (just as with the ID'ers) -- challenge it at every turn, be louder and more insistent than the deniers.
I do think the Factician is on to something, though: I like the idea of a "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" challenge in science. If some loudmouth insists on something for a certain length of time, he should make the effort to test it or shut up forever.
Make a reality series out of it: I'm thinking some sort of eliminationist contest ("Survivor" or "The Apprentice", etc.) crossed with "Mythbusters" and "Penn and Teller's Bullshit!" (minus the libertarian denialist dogma).
April 16, 2007 2:40 PM,
I remember one of the HIV docs here at UVa talking about Duesberg back in 99. I asked the same question that the factician did - why won't Duesberg just take a little shot of HIV?
His response was that, whenever asked, Duesberg would claim that he would be happy to be injected with the virus. However, he "knew" that whatever actually caused AIDS would be a 'contaminant' in the preparation. But - if you could come up with 'pure' virus, he'd be game.
April 16, 2007 3:21 PM,
I would say this entire document is a fraud.
True, he hasn't fabricated data. But such willful and continuous misrepresentation of data? The unwillingness to accept that viruses can go through latency after antibody formation? The man not only ignores HIV science, but research into Herpesvirus (all of them), Hepatitis B and C, etc.
How many lies can you tell and still not be considered a liar? Ignoring facts to present untruths isn't bad enough?
April 16, 2007 4:32 PM,
The big question, of course, is when his fraud *will* leak over to peer-reviewed matters. As I understand it, peer review can't spot anything; it assumes some level of honesty.
April 17, 2007 3:40 PM,
Peer review can spot a great deal. People who are familiar with techniques and assays can frequently spot problems.
After all, the guy who got busted falsifying at Bell labs was nailed when a researcher in his field noticed the noise in his figures was the same - every time. Maybe not peer review, but sharp eyed peer reviewers (which is hopefully what Duesberg would get) will be very careful with his stuff.
Not that I think they should accept it. When he says that there's no proof of viral latency in the presence of inactivating antibodies that proves he is just a liar. That and pretty much everything else in the linked paper. There is simply no excusing such willful ignorance.
April 17, 2007 3:49 PM,
I wouldn't be so hard on Scientific American. I haven't read all of his stuff on aneuploidy but it doesn't appear to have the same silly arguments that plague his HIV "work". There don't seem to be any "antibodies means immunity", "all infectious disease spread randomly" rhetorical nonsense.
The one thing that makes me supicious is his dogmatic insistence that aneuploidy is the single primary cause of all cancers. It seems unlikely that things are that simple and I do not get the impression that any other scientists research the aneuploidy-cancer link make this sort of categorical statement.
Duesberg's stuff on aneuploidy appears to be mostly going through regular scientific channels. He writes papers directed to his peers. He appears to be part of a real research program with other scientists although he seems to exaggerate his importance. There are other researchers doing work independently of Duesberg.
I think that being given a voice in Scientific American sends exactly the right message. Do serious work in the normal scientific process, present real evidence and people will have a serious look at the evidence. This is exactly what he failed to do with HIV and is why nobody took him seriously.
Of course some people will see this as evidence that Duesberg might be right about HIV too but this does not follow.
Dean Esmay is already celebrating the "vindication".
Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer--And Our Broken Peer Review System
I was amused by Dean's strained protestation that he is not promoting a conspiracy theory.
"It's not conspiracy. It's the bureaucracy, stupid."
Sure He's not a conspiracy theorist at all.
One his commenters Hank Barnes/D. David Steele seems to forget to be coy about the conspiracy thoery and tells it like it is.
Somebody made the logical point: "No, you've got it exactly wrong. There is a great financial incentive for the 1 person/firm to cure cancer, to reap the massive financial rewards to himself".
Barnes responds with "But, what about the rest of the hundreds of thousands of cancer researchers? They'd be stuck out in the cold with ---NOTHING.
So, its better -- collectively -- to toil away for years on all these fruitless, misguided, cancer paradigms (viruses, oncogenes, etc). That way, everybody gets a good share of the research pie."
OK. Lets get this straight. Esmay, Barnes and other "rethinkers" aren't conpiracy theorists. They just belive that cancer researchers all over the globe are all conspir... I mean collaborating together to suppress research that would possibly find a cure for AIDS just so they can continue to get their own fruitless work funded. No conspiracy theories at all!
Perhaps this deserves a separate post on conspiracy theories. HIV "rethinkers" mostly deny that they are conspiracy theorists but their arguments ultimately reduce to exactly this. If it look like a duck ...
Chris
April 18, 2007 4:12 AM,
Mark,
This might be the most embarrassing blog post I've ever read.
Do you have anything substantive to say about the claims in the Sci Am article? (ie, that no diploid tumors exist and the chromosomal derangement is the initiating factor of carcinogenesis)
April 25, 2007 12:36 PM,
Well based on the starting insult that basically misses the point of the entire post I doubt you'll be swayed by a response (you stink of Duesberg) but here goes.
Yes I have a problem with the Sci Am article too As does Orac. Orac's cancer credentials are far better than mine, but even with a fair understanding of the mechanisms of cancer Duesberg's characteristic simplistic and black and white thinking shines through.
He dismisses CML, ALL, Retinoblastoma, mutations in Akt, CLL etc., all very well characterized, all of which are more dependent on gene dysregulation rather than aneuploidy. This is not a very good article and seems to be a broad character flaw in how Duesberg synthesizes scientific results.
This post was about whether or not we should even trust a denialist to do science anymore. There's this funny idea that because cancer kills so much that every hand is useful. Well no. If a researcher has been found to be dishonest, or deceptive, or spends his/her time just spouting lies and BS, they aren't contributing in a meaningful way and retard scientific progress.
I regard Duesberg the same as Hwang Woo Suk. The scientific enterprise has no further use for liars, and to pretend he has something amazingly novel or exciting here is a bit much. His interpretation, which is extreme and unsupported by the totality of the data might be novel, but like most extreme hypotheses, it won't bear up under scrutiny.
Anyway, take that for what it's worth, based on your tone I suspect you're a crank, so there isn't much point.
April 25, 2007 2:34 PM,
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
April 25, 2007 3:17 PM,
I'm sorry we don't argue with cranks here.
April 25, 2007 4:08 PM,
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