The human eye sees only one million colours, whilst tetrachromats, like some birds, bees, and fish, can see more than 100 million. Colour blindness affects 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women (God is sexist, we know). Two individuals can look at the same object and see two different things. So?
J.S. Mill in On Liberty said “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” Any discussion on the validity of information must begin with the acknowledgment that as humans, we are inherently fallible, both on account of our senses and the shortcomings of the mind which interprets them.
Deductions from agreed-upon data can vary as much as the data itself, and history shows that what was believed to be true for millennia became false overnight despite ‘scientific’ consensus. Galileo is the Rolls Royce of examples. Bloodletting, a pillar of Galenism, and still practiced today, was for centuries the eminent treatment for a vast diaspora of disease, despite weakening the patient in every case.
Socrates, the philosophical bedrock of Western Civilisation, was tried and executed for impiety. The WHO believed Covid-19 incapable of human-to-human transmission. Almost nothing is always true, not even gravity.
Were we not able to question Newtonian principles, the field of quantum mechanics and the study of black holes would be infantile. New information often limits or nullifies previously unassailable facts, and as we’re all liable to error, the scientific method is only religious dogma when it outlaws re-examination of consensus truth.
Climate Change is the modern-day barometer for stress-testing the devoutness of the Scientific Community to open inquiry. The allegation of ‘Climate Change Denier,’ has taken on such a fervent and venomous tone, it smacks more of ‘witchcraft,’ or a violation of The 39 Articles than of scientific ignorance.
The media portrayal of Greta Thunberg and Climate Change activists is thinly veiled hagiography, a study of the life of Saintly Youth pursuing the establishment’s cause. It allows no room for analysis of the science itself or the policies for rectification. Becoming a meme, The Guardian has updated it’s ‘style guide’ on ways in which to describe Climate Change;
“Instead of ‘climate change’ the preferred terms are ‘climate emergency, crisis or breakdown and ‘global heating’ is favoured over ‘global warming’, although the original terms are not banned.”
Perhaps the best bit;
“Other terms that have been updated, including the use of ‘wildlife’ rather than ‘biodiversity’, ‘fish populations’ instead of ‘fish stocks’ and ‘climate science denier’ rather than ‘climate sceptic’. In September, the BBC accepted it gets coverage of climate change ‘wrong too often’ and told staff: ‘You do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate.'”
Interesting. Subjective language in the description of settled science would indicate anything other than consensus. And a balanced debate not requiring both sides? Sound a bit religious? We’re asked to trust the Science? Science was built on scepticism, not trust or belief.
Now with the mainstream media and Big-Tech pursuing a jihad against ‘misinformation’ (whatever that means,) we should examine the historical record on the means of policing misinformation, censorship. Censorship is the historical trademark of ideological vulnerability and intellectual infirmity, for truth can only be reinforced via further examination.
Those who are most confident in their conclusions, as J.S Mill said, “listen to all that could be said against him.” But aren’t these the institutions and journalists who proliferated a ‘salacious and unverified’ dossier as proof that Trump was a Russian agent for four years, and now refuse to cover Hunter Biden’s pay-for-play scheme? Aren’t they the same scientists who backpedaled on lockdowns as the best contagion prevention? Didn’t they say Saddam had WMDs?
To benchmark, let’s examine the treatment of a pure publisher, someone who releases unredacted government documents. That’s right, they want to extradite him, lock him up for 175 years, or in Hillary Clinton’s poetic prose “drone this guy.” Julian Assange is a hostage litmus test for all ascribed purveyors of truth and free inquiry.
Yet these are the people we should trust to determine what constitutes ‘misinformation’? The same people who made Alex Jones a radioactive conspiracy theorist, despite his being right for years about an elite paedophile ring?
In fact, if any of this means anything, the conspiracy theorists are correct more often than the ‘experts.’ There is no greater evil then, and no more egregious an ‘own goal’ than to allow special interest groups to determine what constitutes truth on our own behalf. Censorship, by its own nature is antithetical to Science as a process, and any true Scientist should be in the trenches defending free speech and the need for divergent opinions. Any true Journalist should be right there with them.
If our own perceptions and history have shown us anything, what is once true is not always so, and whilst as individuals we are entitled to our own opinion, and benefit or suffer to the degree we are correct, we are not permitted to forcibly restrict access to information deemed by consensus to be untrue.
The establishment therefore should come to the commoners for a dose of ‘misinformation’; it may bring you closer to the true essence of things than you would expect.
