From the outset, I want to make clear that I take no position on the relationship between HIV and AIDS. I include this history because it provides an important case study illustrating how—some four hundred years after Galileo—politics and power continue to dictate “scientific consensus,” rather than empiricism, critical thinking, or the established steps of the scientific method. It is a hazard to both democracy and public health when a kind of religious faith in authoritative pronouncements supplants disciplined observation, rigorous proofs, and reproducible results as the source of “truth”
...more
