Crushing of dissent
I was having a little Twitter tiff with Leo Hickman over the Guardian's attacks on the editor of the Spectator for publishing an article by Nils Axel Morner - an expert on sea level rises who has been fiercely critical of the IPCC's predictions. As I explained to Leo, I have no particular horse in this race - I know little about the science of sea levels - but I do have libertarian concerns over attempts to silence dissenting voices by attacking anyone who publishes them or other by other underhand methods.
I listed a few examples for Leo's benefit:
- Attempts to have Pat Michaels' PhD rescinded.
- The smear campaign against Irene Meichsner
- Attempts to stop Sonia Boehmer-Christiansen using her university affiilation
- The campaigns against journal editors
To which Jonathan Jones added
- the idea of complaining to his head of department because he made an FOI request.
Can readers here think of other examples of attempts to silence dissent?
Reader Comments (151)
Marion I am a fair-minded person. That is why I'm opposed to people gaining a personal advantage by dumping their business costs on others. That's what I mean by "externalising their business costs". External cost is a very simple economic concept that even people who can't tell the difference between "its"and "it's" should be able to understand.
A simple explanation at
http://hspm.sph.sc.edu/courses/ECON/Externality/index.html
or a few million other pages.