>Mr Hearfield,
>What is a high risk category? Are these categories specified in terms of
>causally relevant knowledge to the explanandum fact of Aids? Is a risk
>factor simply a subwhole within which a random event (Aids) is more likely
>than it is for "most people"?
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that gay men are not a high risk group? I think it would be silly to stand on ceremony when the evidence is that on an average, they are a high risk group. As to what it tells us, that's something altogether different.
>You seem to be claiming that the information
>from creating classes of equivalence constituted by risk factors provides us
>with information useful for action.
Indeed there is information useful for action. Namely it is unnecessary to promote undue alarm and fear amongst straight people who are unlikely to get Aids.
In fact, Aids charities target their health campaigns at gay men. In terms of the places they advertise, and the content of their health message, the Terrence Higgins Trust and other Aids charities orient their campaigns to gay men. And rightly so.
What is unnecessarily alarmist, is the government health campaigns that seek to frighten young people out of sexual activity by threatening them with the unlikely prospect of contracting aids through heterosexual intercourse.
>Is this useful information or an invidious
>distinction?
Useful information, in my opinion.
Of course it could be used to reinforce invidious distinctions. But it would be a mistake to deny the facts because they can be twisted to malevolent purposes. That would leave bigots with a monopoly on the truth, and make open-minded people into closed-minded people.
Sincerely -- James Heartfield