Emotionally unsatisfying facts?

I just learned that the human AIDS virus is nearly a century old:

A genetic analysis of thousands of individual viruses has confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that HIV first emerged in Kinshasa, the capital of the Belgian Congo, in about 1920 from where it spread via the colonial railway network to other parts of central Africa.

Scientists believe the findings have finally nailed the origin of the Aids pandemic to a single source, a colonial-era city then called Leopoldville which had become the biggest urban centre in Central Africa and a bustling focus for trade, including a market in wild “bush meat” captured from the nearby forests.

The study, based on analysing the subtle genetic differences between various subtypes of HIV, found the human virus had evolved from a simian virus infecting chimps which were hunted for food by people who had probably carried HIV with them into Kinshasa.

Interesting that they have traced it that far back. I knew that it was found in old blood samples from Congolese patients dating back at least as far as the 1950s — a fact which made me become very irritated when intelligent people I knew would scream and howl over how AIDS was invented by the US military in government labs such as Ft. Detrick, Maryland.

But it’s pointless arguing with people who have found an emotionally satisfying theory…