Skepticism, said Carl Sagan, is "the lifeblood of science." What is true of science is true of everything, Sagan argued. Mistakes are inevitable, which is why it is urgent to allow space for “settled” conclusions to be challenged:
In public affairs, this sort of error-correction machinery in our society is institutionalized in the Constitution. It’s institutionalized, first of all, in the separation of powers, and secondly, in the civil liberties, especially in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution: the Bill of Rights.
The founding fathers mistrusted government power, and they had very good reason to, as do we. This is why they tried to institutionalize the separation of powers, the right to think, the right to speak, to be heard, to assemble, to complain to the government about its abuses, to be able to vote or impeach malefactors out of office. . . .
Despite our best efforts, some things we believe are probably wrong. We certainly are very keen on recognizing the errors of past times and other nations. Why should our nation, and why should our time, be different? If there are things that we believe, if there are institutions in our society that are in error, imperfectly conceived or executed, these are potential impediments to our survival. How do we find the errors? How do we correct them?
I maintain: with courage, the scientific method, and the Constitution.
At the intersection of science and public policy, nothing is more hazardous than dogmatism enforced through the squelching of dissenting attitudes. A generation before Sagan voiced his warning, an equally renowned scientist, the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, raised similar alarms. In a 1955 lecture to the National Academy of Sciences, Feynman — who a few years later would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics — addressed what he called “the value of science.” He ended with a warning, more desperately needed now than it was then, against closed-mindedness in science and against the urge to demonize those who challenge popular views. “If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar,” Feynman told his listeners.
In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are. If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming “This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!” we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.
It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed, and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.
Of all scientific values, Sagan and Feynman both knew, the most invaluable is the freedom to doubt. That freedom is no less indispensable to a healthy civic culture. In a universe of 300 sextillion stars, we will never know everything we don’t know. Even here, on the pale blue dot that is the only home humankind has ever known, there are so many unsolved dilemmas, so many questions with only uncertain answers. Those who demand that heterodox thoughts be censored — or self-censored — are playing with fire. For when skeptics aren’t safe, all of us are at risk.
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