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Ill
will: The science and politics of AIDS dissent controversy.
Cailean
Andrew Todd
ESRC
INNOGEN Centre/The Centre for African Studies -
Edinburgh
University
United
Kingdom
This paper considers the growing profile of AIDS
dissent stemming from the work of Duesberg and Papadopulos-Eleopulos and
widely publicised in the controversy surrounding remarks made by South
African president Thabo Mbeki. Although not insignificant, the question of
Mbeki’s specific position on this matter is judged to be less
instructive than the responses it provoked.
The charges directed against Mbeki reveal common
assumptions concerning the nature of scientific knowledge, practice, and
progress; as well as the sovereign position often assumed of scientific
expertise in contemporary society. Whilst neither seeking to support nor
deny the validity of any particular counter-thesis on HIV/AIDS it is first
asked whether Mbeki’s stance was a wholly negative one when considered
in terms of scientific “best practice“ (where “best practice” is
understood to refer to the conditions under which ‘progresses’ is most
likely to be made).
In attempting to approach this question no insight
is claimed into the particular model of science President Mbeki may hold
and, as such, it is not suggested that Mbeki’s policies were motivated
by any clearly defined theory of science. Rather, by considering the work
of Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and, in particular, Feyerabend, it is argued that
at least one general theory of scientific practice can be said to fall in
Mbeki’s favour. However, the paper then goes on to consider the extent
to which issues raised by the Mbeki controversy cannot be reduced solely
to questions of scientific practice. Thus, we are prompted to situate the
previous analysis within a wider range of, sometimes conflicting, social
concerns. These themes are then brought together under a final question:
in light of what Isaiah Berlin termed the “moral and political
immaturity” of absolutism , what would be the necessary characteristics
of a ‘mature’ cosmopolitan science? |
