Any chance of giving somebody the last word in this increasingly
sour and sterile exchange?
I nominate Orwell:
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make
four."
Of course, some will use freedom to say that two plus two make
five, but that is not Orwell's point.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
If that is granted, all else follows." (Nineteen Eighty-four, Ch.
7)
regards,
Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Spratt's Green House
Aylsham, Norfolk NR11 6TX
+44 (0) 1263 735670
http://www.hughalderseywilliams.com
On 29 Apr 2007, at 17:35, Bob Ward
wrote:
Sorry Alice, I don't
think it is quite that eaasy to reconcile the two points of view that
David and I have expressed. I am not only making a point about
misrepresentations of people's views, I am also reacting against the
assertion that people have the right to use the media to disseminate
falsehoods about scientific evidence.
Bob, surely this position is too
strong?
Of course, freedom of speech gives
people the right to disseminate falsehoods about scientific
evidence in the media - that's part of what free speech is all about,
namely saying what you think without fear of retribution from the
authorities.
People have an absolute right to say what
they believe the scientific evidence on any matter is, even if that
belief turns out to be false. The statement "I beleive that X "
is, after all, a statement about the speaker's state of mind as much
as about X. We have to take it on trust that statements about
someone's state of mind are true because this is often rather hard to
asses from externally avaliable evidence.
What people should not be doing is to
DELIBERATELY misrepresent or to selectively present scientific
evidence in support of an essentially political position, which is
what the Climate Change Deniers routinely do. However, if we believe
in free speech we should not be in the business of suppressing
maliciously false statements, but of exposing their mendacity through
our own freedom to speak.
Regards
Richard Ellam
L M Interactive
3 Winterfield Road
Paulton
BRISTOL
BS39 7RF
tel/fax 01761 412 797
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