AIDS Denialism
In 1991, Wells and his mentor Phillip E. Johnson signed a petition which said in full:
It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group of diseases called AIDS. Many biochemical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken.
Wells and Johnson have been criticized, along with others, for their questioning of the scientific and medical consensus that HIV causes AIDS. In the Washington University Law Quarterly, critics Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey faulted Wells, Johnson, and others for denying the HIV/AIDS connection and promoting denialism via a petition designed to garner publicity but without any scientific support.
Read more about this topic: Jonathan Wells (intelligent Design Advocate)
Famous quotes containing the word aids:
“This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)