Henry Bauer was born in Austria. As the Nazis came to power in German-speaking Europe, Bauer and his family emigrated to Australia.

Bauer earned his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney in Australia and was awarded the degree in 1956. He conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Michigan, then taught at Sydney and in Michigan. In 1966, he moved to a faculty position at the University of Kentucky. Bauer became dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Tech in 1978, a position he held until 1986. Bauer was a professor of Science Studies and Chemistry at Virginia Tech until his retirement in 1999.

Bauer has had short-term teaching assignments at the University of Southampton, and in Japan with a program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science: at the University of Kyoto and in 1974 at Sophia University and Rikagaku Kenkyusho.

Although trained as a chemist, Bauer's interests shifted in the late 1960s from electrochemistry to "science studies," an interdisciplinary mix of history, philosophy, and sociology of science; his special interest is in what he calls "scientific unorthodoxies", like the Loch Ness Monster, Immanuel Velikovsky, and other topics.

After retiring from Virginia Tech, Bauer became the editor of a fringe science publication, the Journal of Scientific Exploration. He also became an AIDS denialist, writing a book and maintaining a website arguing that HIV does not exist and does not cause AIDS.

From Chemistry to Science Studies

Bauer was trained as an electrochemist and reported his research in numerous publications during the 1950s and 60s. From the 1970s, although he remained a professor of chemistry in title, Bauer researched fringe science and pseudoscience topics. At Virginia Tech, Bauer was a founding member of a program for science studies, an interdisciplinary mix of history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Bauer's book on science studies, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method, was reviewed in Science and Nature. In his review in Public Understanding of Science, John Ziman called Bauer "a stalwart veteran" of science studies.

During his investigations of what constitutes pseudoscience, Bauer came to believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs and other "scientific unorthodoxies". He compares the lack of acceptance of pseudoscientific beliefs by the scientific community to the persecution his family suffered at the hands of the Nazis, stating, "I guess I am kind of naturally contrary....I think you can make a pretty good case that it's not worth just accepting whatever is the standard."

Loch Ness Monster

Bauer developed an interest in the Loch Ness Monster and based his belief in the Monster's existence on a film made by prominent “Nessie” enthusiast Tim Dinsdale. The film purportedly shows an object, commonly thought to be a boat, moving in the Scottish lake.

In the 1980s, Bauer researched and wrote a book on the Loch Ness Monster and the popular fascination with it. "The Enigma of Loch Ness" was reviewed favorably in The University of Chicago's Isis journal. Bauer maintains a website arguing that there is strong evidence for the Loch Ness Monster, which he says the media have conspired to trivialize by sensationalizing the story. During his tenure as professor at Virginia Tech, Bauer took over twenty trips to Loch Ness, searching for the Monster.

In a news interview, Bauer commented on his belief in the Loch Ness Monster and how it has influenced his career: "I've been quite open about it....if I had been a biologist instead of a chemist, I couldn't have gotten away with it. People could smile and say, 'Well, he's got his hobbyhorse.'"

Immanuel Velikovsky

In his book, Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy, Henry Bauer criticizes the research of Immanuel Velikovsky, author of the pseudoscientific and pseudohistoric New York Times bestseller Worlds in Collision (1950). Time refers to Bauer's book as "the definitive treatise debunking Immanuel Velikovsky." Bauer's book on Velikovsky was reviewed in Science, Nature, ISIS, and Journal for the History of Astronomy.

Opposition to affirmative action and diversity programs

Bauer says he left the Dean’s office at Virginia Tech "when political correctness arrived" in the 1980s. Bauer joined the anti-affirmative action conservative group called the National Association of Scholars, starting a newsletter for the group's Virginia branch. In "The Virginia Scholar," Bauer blames what he views as a decline in academic standards on the implementation of diversity programs, which he characterizes as promoting "feminoid sexists calling men sexist" and "racist black fanatics calling others racist."

Bauer opposed the formation of a police "Sensitive Crime Unit" meant to deal with sexual assault and hate crimes at Virginia Tech, suggesting that these issues were not a serious problem on campus and did not merit special attention. Bauer called the police unit a threat to free speech. He criticized Virginia Tech’s creation of a new administrative position for multicultural affairs in response to racial incidents at the university in the mid-1990s as a wasteful allocation of resources. Bauer found fault with Virginia Tech’s policy of excusing student absences for attending religious or ethnic observances. As black enrollment at Virginia Tech declined during the 1990s, Bauer stated that the University was already doing too much ("pulling out all the stops") to attract minority students and should instead concentrate on raising academic standards.

Views on homosexuality

Bauer also drew criticism for his denunciation of homosexuality. In his pseudonymously-written memoir, To Rise Above Principle: The Memoirs of an Unreconstructed Dean, Bauer writes, "I regard homosexuality as an aberration or illness, not as an ‘equally valid life-style’ or whatever the current euphemism is." In his book, Bauer attributes the perceived problem of homosexuality to genetic, hereditary, and environmental factors, and suggests that the free speech and other civil rights of homosexuals should be withdrawn to prevent what Bauer views as the negative effects of homosexuality from spreading. Bauer has since claimed to have retracted this view, stating on his website that he had been "wrong" about the issue and had, in particular, mistakenly relied on the "naturalistic" fallacy that reduced culture and ethics to biology. According to AIDSTruth.org, an AIDS information resource, however, Bauer posted the statement one day after an account of his views appeared on the AIDSTruth.org site.

AIDS denialism

Bauer became a proponent of AIDS denialism several years after retiring from Virginia Tech. He has asserted that there are "substantive grounds for doubting that HIV is the necessary and sufficient cause of AIDS and that antiretroviral treatment is unambiguously beneficial."

In his 2007 book, The Origins, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, Bauer questions whether HIV exists, claiming that HIV tests are not accurate and that AIDS death statistics are faked by a conspiracy of the media, scientists and pharmaceutical companies. Bauer claims that the higher HIV seroprevalence among African Americans could only be explained by proportionately higher rates of promiscuity and drug use if HIV were a sexually transmitted and blood borne infection. He argues that evidence is lacking for such behavioural differences generalizable to the African American community as a whole, and that therefore positive HIV tests cannot indicate such an infection (pp. 50-73). Instead, he hypothesises that African Americans are more likely to test HIV-positive because of supposed genetic mutations. Bauer ignores other factors that can result in a relatively higher seroprevalence such as levels of undiagnosed infection (with a greater probability of on-transmission) and the fact that infectious epidemics spread exponentially - very small and localised subepidemics within a community can spread to larger and more generalised ones over time, depending on the relative effectiveness of control efforts early on. He also ignores evidence that African Americans diagnosed with HIV progress to AIDS at the same rates as HIV positive people of other ethnicities.

As is the case for AIDS denialism in general, Bauer’s notions on HIV/AIDS and race are rejected by the mainstream scientific community, based upon decades of research and overhelming scientific consensus that HIV exists, is infectious, causes AIDS, and that HIV tests are accurate.

Social scientist Seth Kalichman, editor of AIDS and Behavior, reviewed Bauer's theories on HIV/AIDS and wrote that Bauer's arguments rest on flawed analytical methods and misuse of data sources. According to Kalichman, Bauer is not familiar with the HIV/AIDS literature and has performed no AIDS research. Kalichman also marveled that Bauer, a "leader in the world of the strange and unusual", seemed to expect that scientists would take his theories seriously; instead, his ideas have been presented only at conferences on fringe science.

Books

• Bauer HH (2007). The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory. McFarland ISBN 0-7864-3048-6
• Bauer HH (2001). Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies. University of Illinois Press ISBN 0-252-02601-2
• Bauer HH (2001). Fatal Attractions: The Troubles with Science. Paraview Press ISBN 1-931044-28-7
• Bauer HH (1992). Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method. University of Illinois Press ISBN 0-252-06436-4
• Bauer HH (1988). To Rise Above Principle: The Memoirs of an Unreconstructed Dean. University of Illinois Press (under nom-de-plume ‘Josef Martin’) ISBN 0-252-01507-X
• Bauer HH (1986). Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-01284-4
• Bauer, Henry H. (1984). Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy, Univ. of Illinois Press. ISBN 025201104X

Papers

• )