| I find these conversations extremely frustrating. I would like to ask you a question and I hope you can answer it honestly: do you believe in the notion that there is a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law? I believe there is, and I think it is in part the problem all of western society is suffering from in these conversations. My core belief, I guess, is that all is not well in the scientific community. I genuinely believe there is substantial peer pressure applied to any scientist who does not toe the line. It is plausible that speaking out could literally end your career. That there are relatively few people complaining is not necessarily proof that there is no problem, that could simply be the effect of the silencing. Is this true? I don't know for sure, but there are signs. If it is true, even partially, I think it is a big deal. I would hope HN would be a place where we could discuss such things in good faith. My perception is, that's not happening. My perception is that any point I raise is dismissed on a technicality. Take for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13386058 "And climate scientists are responsible for Donald Trump getting elected how exactly?" Of course no single person or group is responsible. So take that same logic and go through all of the speculated causes, and each of those you can say "<x> is responsible for Donald Trump getting elected how exactly? And your end result is, you have discarded every single one of those theories, when the reality is, it was likely some combination of many of them. I think I'll leave it at that, you can choose how you'd like to react to this. |
So once again, please define what you mean by "not allowed to speak", and list the names of scientists who were not allowed to speak, by that definition.