People Being Smart

[tealin]

'...But in today's politics, changing your mind in response to new evidence is seen as a weakness. When he was Vice-Chancellor at Warwick University, the biologist Sir Brian Follett remarked: "I don't like scientists on my committees. You don't know where they'll stand on any issue. Give them some more data, and they'll change their minds!"'

The Science of Discworld III, pg 299

Comments

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

No, but they may influence the people who elect the people writing the bills. And these people can denounce what they don't like, as long as their democracy at least pretends to recognise freedom of speech. Uncle Tom's Cabin took Abolitionism in the North from a fringe movement to the mainstream and was a significant force behind the Civil War. Orwell's 1984 is cited every time civil liberties are curtailed, and it's likely because he pointed out to us how easy it would be to become an authoritarian society that we keep checking ourselves.