Even Quacks should have free speech
An interesting, intelligent and courageous post here at "Spiked" magazine by Doctor Michael Fitzpatrick called "Even quacks must have free speech" argues strongly against the attempt to persuade retailers not to stock the magazine "What Doctor's Don't Tell You" (nicknamed WDDTY.)
He regards this "fundamentally silly magazine" as being full of ignorant, pseudo-scientific claptrap but thinks that trying to suppress it by persuading retailers not to stock it is a fundamentally wrong-headed way to go about trying to defeat the ridiculous ideas it espouses.
I agree with him.
There are three problems with defeating ideas by trying to stop people hearing about them, rather than by defeating them in open debate, which are
1) It's a tactic which can be used against unpopular ideas which happen to be right as easily as against untrue ideas
2) Consequently it sets a dangerous precedent. In this particular case the medical establishment is right to regard WDDTY as a silly magazine full of nonsense. But if you believe in and understand the scientific method, and if you recognise that human beings are not perfect and make mistakes, you have to accept that at various stages on the future there are very likely to be issues where the medical establishment gets something wrong.
And if in the meantime we've established the principle that it is "socially responsible" for retailers refuse to stock magazines which the medical establishment, or indeed any other part of the establishment, tell them is produced by fruitcakes and nutters and publishing nonsense, what would happen on the occasion when the establishment is wrong and the people accused of being "fruitakes and nutters" turn out to be right?
I'll tell you what would happen: the establishment view would succeed in suppressing the truth for far longer than would be possible given open debate, and a lot more harm will be done in the meantime.
3) If the people who have lost confidence in the establishment see them suppressing alternative views not by argument but by preventing those views from being communicated, they will become all the more convinced that those alternative views are right, will be all the more alienated, and that much less amendable to reasoned argument.
He regards this "fundamentally silly magazine" as being full of ignorant, pseudo-scientific claptrap but thinks that trying to suppress it by persuading retailers not to stock it is a fundamentally wrong-headed way to go about trying to defeat the ridiculous ideas it espouses.
I agree with him.
There are three problems with defeating ideas by trying to stop people hearing about them, rather than by defeating them in open debate, which are
1) It's a tactic which can be used against unpopular ideas which happen to be right as easily as against untrue ideas
2) Consequently it sets a dangerous precedent. In this particular case the medical establishment is right to regard WDDTY as a silly magazine full of nonsense. But if you believe in and understand the scientific method, and if you recognise that human beings are not perfect and make mistakes, you have to accept that at various stages on the future there are very likely to be issues where the medical establishment gets something wrong.
And if in the meantime we've established the principle that it is "socially responsible" for retailers refuse to stock magazines which the medical establishment, or indeed any other part of the establishment, tell them is produced by fruitcakes and nutters and publishing nonsense, what would happen on the occasion when the establishment is wrong and the people accused of being "fruitakes and nutters" turn out to be right?
I'll tell you what would happen: the establishment view would succeed in suppressing the truth for far longer than would be possible given open debate, and a lot more harm will be done in the meantime.
3) If the people who have lost confidence in the establishment see them suppressing alternative views not by argument but by preventing those views from being communicated, they will become all the more convinced that those alternative views are right, will be all the more alienated, and that much less amendable to reasoned argument.
Comments