the spectator: no regrets (updated)

Ben Goldacre obligingly provides the cancellation email sent by The Spectator following the collapse of their AIDs denial event. Some high-grade weaselling to note:

I am writing to inform you that, with much regret, the event on “Aids – realism or denial” due to take place on Wednesday 28 October, has been cancelled due to several members of the panel having pulled out at the last minute, leaving us with an unbalanced panel which would not make for a rounded discussion on the film.

The implicit claim here is that the planned panel was "balanced," rather than primarily containing people who a) have no role in AIDs research or b) whose only qualification seems to be in the act of challenging the scientific consensus.

The notion that there can be a "rounded discussion" of the film also presumes that the film is not, at face value, "a globe-trotting pseudo-investigation that should raise the hackles of anyone with even a glancing knowledge of the basic rules of reasoning." Examining the lopsided makeup of the original panel, Richard Wilson observed:

Perhaps one reason for this imbalance is that the real “leading medical authorities” on AIDS will generally refuse to share a platform with AIDS denialists, or engage in debate with them, largely for the same sorts of reasons that evolutionary biologists avoid Creationists, and established historians refuse to debate the Holocaust with the likes of David Irving.

All of which puts the lie to the following lines of the Spectator email:

The purpose of the event which was to have a rational and balanced discussion in an area of science too often characterised by hysteria.

A nice bit of rhetorical re-direction: the people who are concerned about the very real threats to health posed by AIDS denialists are hysterical; the people promoting a film which engages in baseless speculation and misrepresents the views of those interviewed within it are rational and balanced. The email continues:

House of Numbers is a controversial film and we wanted it scrutinised by leading authorities and to follow its showing with real debate encompassing a wide spectrum of opinion. It has proved very difficult to put together a panel which could do this.

That would be because there is there no wide spectrum of opinion: only the overwhelming majority who understand that HIV causes AIDs, and a tiny number who - through fuzzy logic and selective argument - speculate otherwise. Genuine scrutiny by leading authorities would - and has - lead to the film's central questions being dismissed.

To make it very simple, and to quote aidstruth.org:

House of Numbers asks if there is really a scientific consensus about HIV/AIDS. The real answer is: YES. There is an overwhelming scientific consensus, based on incontrovertible evidence, that HIV exists and is the cause of AIDS.

Things are not so clear for The Spectator, who conclude:

We will look at staging this event at a later date with another, more dependable panel.

Apparently, the problem isn't the quality of the evidence but the quality of the panel - which tells you nearly eveything you need to know about those planning the event. So, while The Spectator might be quietly removing the public traces of the event it was forced to cancel, its private commitment to (frankly irresponsible) fringe science continues unabated, without regret.

UPDATE: Joseph Sonnabend - originally invited to join the panel - explains his reasoning for taking part, and voices his own stringent criticism of the film and AIDS denialists.