[Houyhnhnms]

> not only can we show that anti-vax beliefs are wrong

But can you? The CDC was supposed to publish reports every 2 years on child vaccinations, since 1986, in 2018 it came out that they never had. An independent peer-reviewed study found that the health of unvaccinated children was better than those of vaccinated [1][2]. For freedom of speech, you could argue that the studies are wrong, but you could argue that _any_ study is wrong, that's science and healthy skepticism. But then we would need to do more studies, something the CDC doesn't appear to want to do. Opposition spurs us on to find out more, to study more; science dies in unopposed silence.

The main point is-- sometimes we assume things that we really _don't_ know. We assume the evidence is all there for our side and there is none for the other side. The truth is usually more nuanced, both sides are partially right and partially wrong. The danger is attempting to silence others, even when we haven't looked at _their_ evidence. What we should do is let all sides speak, find the nuances and fuse together what is wrong. If all sides are allowed to fairly argue in the public, then there is no shame when someone is eventually found to be wrong. Otherwise we risk becoming little dictators by silencing those we "know to be wrong", but later find out that we deceived both ourselves and others, and did it by force and coercion.

We then become morally liable for the harm we have done, because we have arrogantly silenced what is true.

[1] https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8674 [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2050312120925344