Why Freedom of Inquiry in Science and Politics is Inviolable
This article appeared in the Journal of Criminal Justice in May 2017.
In the 1990s I undertook an extensive analysis of the Holocaust and those who deny it that culminated in Denying History, a book I coauthored with Alex Grobman (Shermer & Grobman, 2000). Alex and I are both civil libertarians who believe strongly that the right to speak one’s mind is fundamental to a free society, so we were surprised to discover that Holocaust denial is primarily an American phenomenon for the simple reason that America is one of the few countries where it is legal to doubt the Holocaust. Legal? Where (and why) on Earth would it be illegal? In Canada, for starters, where there are “anti-hate” statutes and laws against spreading “false news” that have been applied to Holocaust deniers. In Austria it is a crime if a person “denies, grossly trivializes, approves or seeks to justify the national socialist genocide or other national socialist crimes against humanity.” In France it is illegal to challenge the existence of “crimes against humanity” as they were defined by the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg “or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.” The “Race Relations Act” in Great Britain forbids racially charged speech “not only when it is likely to lead to violence, but generally, on the grounds that members of minority races should be protected from racial insults.” Switzerland, Belgium, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, and Sweden have all passed similar laws (Douglas, 1996). In 1989 the New South Wales parliament in Australia passed the “Anti-Discrimination Act” that includes these chilling passages, Orwellian in their implications: (continue reading…)
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Imagine that it is the year 1900 and you are tasked with solving the following problems:
- To build and maintain roads adequate for use of conveyances, their operators, and passengers.
- To increase the average span of life by 30 years.
- To convey instantly the sound of a voice speaking at one place to any other point or any number of points around the world.
- To convey instantly the visual replica of an action, such as a presidential inauguration, to men and women in their living rooms all over America.
- To develop a medical preventive against death from pneumonia.
- To transport physically a person from Los Angeles to New York in less than four hours.
- To build a horseless carriage of the qualities and capabilities described in the latest advertising folder of any automobile manufacturer.
This thought experiment was proposed in 1954 — the year I was born — by an entrepreneur named John C. Sparks in a short essay entitled “If Men Were Free to Try.” Sparks noted that of these seven problems, the first one would have been the easiest to solve, since there were already roads on which to improve, while the other six would have seemed like the wildest of science fiction. (continue reading…)
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An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins,
Dennett, Harris and Hitchens
Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom: (1) attacks against evolution education and stem cell research; (2) breaks in the barrier separating church and state leading to political preferences for some faiths over others; and (3) fundamentalist terrorism here and abroad. Among many metrics available to track this skeptical movement is the ascension of four books (continue reading…)
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The 20th century philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, famously called herself a “radical for capitalism.” The libertarian writer and journalist Brian Doherty has borrowed the epithet for his remarkably engaging and encyclopedic history of the movement in “Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement” (Public Affairs, 768 pages, $35). (continue reading…)
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