Scientists now are recommending extreme measures to deal with people who refuse to do exactly as they say. Here are three examples:
1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/punishing-climate-change-skeptics-1458772173
2. https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/zdoggmd/75915 (punish anti-vaxxers)
3. https://www.defendevropa.com/2017/news/drug-europeans-accept-migrants/
No scientific theory or social policy is absolute, nor do they represent truth to all people for all time.
And all the above issues can be resolved without punishing dissenters or the public at large. As Thomas Jefferson put it so eloquently in his "Tree of Liberty" letter:
The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them.
And NO, I am not promoting violence on the part of the people or the government. Those who promote such views on climate change, vaccination, and immigration must win their arguments in the court of public opinion, not through coercion and violence.
Sad that scientists don't understand that.
Here is discussion of a related issue:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.unz.com/article/the-rise-of-tech-totalitarianism/
By the way, I'm currently reading "Google Archipelago" and it's a slow go. Solzhenitsyn's version was infinitely more enjoyable.