These examples of ignorance remind me of my own similar anecdote:
I attended a dinner, out of politeness, with my grandparents and their friends. A man staying with them saw me puffing on my personal vaporizer, cornered me, and proceeded to tell me that he was diagnosed with lung cancer after trying to switch to a PV himself.
"I smoked cigarettes for 30 years, never had a problem. Those electric things cause cancer!"
Now, I know there is no long term research into electronic cigarettes or their health effects. However, he was clear that he had only quit cigarettes for maybe 2 months before being diagnosed.
To suggest, with a straight face, that 30 years of cigarette smoke couldn't possibly be responsible for his lung cancer...I'm not sure how he came to such a conclusion other than misinformation.
Edit: hmm, unsure of that grammar. (Non native)
It ran from December 1992 until February 2001, ceasing publication because all the contributors had died of AIDS-defining clinical conditions.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread73547/pg1
yikes.
Take this article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/20/us/louisiana-climate-chang...
These fishermen seem just like my acquaintance who didn't want to know that his immune system was collapsing, until finally the signs were evident as bright red cancerous lesions on his face.
It's completely infuriating. I mean if I didn't know anything about HIV or medical research, that would sound completely plausible. I went in expecting to read batshit insane conspiracy theories. And I'm surprised how sane it sounds. That's scary.
This happened already in the early 2000s. For over a decade, he ignored his HIV status (not knowing either way) thanks to the "advice" from contrarian experts on the Internet. One day he finally had a flu that didn't seem to go away. A doctor took one look at the lesions on his face and told him the bad news.
He survived, and now he wants to warn everyone about the dangers of hopeful biases when combined with the immense amount of misinformation on the Internet. He's even appeared on national media here in Finland to tell his story, and I admire his courage.