"No Valid Scientific Theory Has Ever Required the Use of Police Powers to Prevail
Says Robert Zubrin in his insightful column, "The Assault on Science," in last week's National Review.
The recent subpoenas issued to companies and individuals by the global warming clique make a travesty of the First Amendment. Zebrin goes on to say,
Science is not a collection of facts; it is a process of discovery. Science, alongside its sister, conscience, is based on the signature Western individualist belief that there is a fundamental property of the human mind that, when presented with sufficient information, is able to distinguish right from wrong, justice from injustice, truth from untruth. Matters of science must therefore be determined by reason, not by force. To attempt to prevail in a scientific dispute through the use of force is equivalent to the use of a gun to prevail in a courtroom, or, for that matter, of rape to prevail in courtship. It is nothing less than a criminal rejection of a basic principle of our civilization.
It is also prima facie evidence that the case requiring such enforcement is severely defective. No valid scientific theory has ever required the use of police powers to prevail. No Ptolemaist was ever burned at the stake by Copernicans, nor did the relativity theorists ever find the need to round up the hard-core Newtonians or Etherite dead-enders. Even such counterintuitive theories as quantum mechanics and the Big Bang have done just fine without the assistance of Gestapo raids directed against their detractors. In the courtroom of science, if you have the facts on your side, you don’t need a gun — and juries would be well advised to distrust the case of those parties who choose to use weapons to silence adversarial witnesses.
I would close by saying the propagandists who continue to push the catastrophic global warming hypothesis should be ashamed of themselves -- but, they lack a sense of shame.
Besides, it would disturb the hot-house flowers the make up the world's universities.
The recent subpoenas issued to companies and individuals by the global warming clique make a travesty of the First Amendment. Zebrin goes on to say,
Science is not a collection of facts; it is a process of discovery. Science, alongside its sister, conscience, is based on the signature Western individualist belief that there is a fundamental property of the human mind that, when presented with sufficient information, is able to distinguish right from wrong, justice from injustice, truth from untruth. Matters of science must therefore be determined by reason, not by force. To attempt to prevail in a scientific dispute through the use of force is equivalent to the use of a gun to prevail in a courtroom, or, for that matter, of rape to prevail in courtship. It is nothing less than a criminal rejection of a basic principle of our civilization.
It is also prima facie evidence that the case requiring such enforcement is severely defective. No valid scientific theory has ever required the use of police powers to prevail. No Ptolemaist was ever burned at the stake by Copernicans, nor did the relativity theorists ever find the need to round up the hard-core Newtonians or Etherite dead-enders. Even such counterintuitive theories as quantum mechanics and the Big Bang have done just fine without the assistance of Gestapo raids directed against their detractors. In the courtroom of science, if you have the facts on your side, you don’t need a gun — and juries would be well advised to distrust the case of those parties who choose to use weapons to silence adversarial witnesses.
I would close by saying the propagandists who continue to push the catastrophic global warming hypothesis should be ashamed of themselves -- but, they lack a sense of shame.
Besides, it would disturb the hot-house flowers the make up the world's universities.
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