Henry H. Bauer - Life and Work

Life and Work

Henry Bauer was born in Austria. As the Nazis came to power in German-speaking Europe, Bauer and his family emigrated to Australia. He attended Sydney Boys High School from 1943-44. Bauer received his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney in Australia in 1956. He conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Michigan, then taught at Sydney and in Michigan. In 1966, he moved to a faculty position at the University of Kentucky. Bauer became dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) in 1978, a position he held until 1986. Bauer was a professor of Science Studies and Chemistry at Virginia Tech until his retirement in 1999. Bauer has had short-term teaching assignments at the University of Southampton and with a program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science: at the University of Kyoto and in 1974 at Sophia University and Rikagaku Kenkyusho.

Although trained as a chemist, Bauer's interests shifted in the late 1960s from electrochemistry to "science studies," an interdisciplinary mix of history, philosophy, and sociology of science. His special interest is in what he calls "scientific unorthodoxies", like the Loch Ness Monster, Immanuel Velikovsky, and other topics. After retiring from Virginia Tech, Bauer became the editor of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a publication devoted to fringe and non-mainstream science. He also wrote a book and maintained a website claiming that HIV does not exist and does not cause AIDS (a position referred to as AIDS denialism).