Carolina QuotesKary Mullis
North Carolina · born or raised South Carolina · connected1944–2019
American biochemist (1944–2019)
- Born in Lenoir
- Studied at Dreher High School source
biochemist, molecular biologist, chemist
Quotations with a citation
It’s not even probable, let alone scientifically proven, that HIV causes AIDS. If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There are no such documents.
People keep asking me, "You mean you don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS?" And I say, "Whether I believe it or not is irrelevant! I have no scientific evidence for it." I might believe in God, and He could have told me in a dream that HIV causes AIDS. But I wouldn’t stand up in front of scientists and say, "I believe HIV causes AIDS because God told me." I’d say, "I have papers here in hand and experiments that have been done that can be demonstrated to others." It’s not what somebody believes, it’s experimental proof that counts. And those guys don’t have that.
Years from now, people will find our acceptance of the HIV theory of AIDS as silly as we find those who excommunicated Galileo.
I once heard, and I think it is true, that only one man in the world—some Indian mathematician—understood the mathematics of string theory in eleven-dimensional space, and he dreamed it.