“CONSPIRACISTS”, “DENIERS”, AND OTHER LABELS
200 YEARS OF PERSECUTIONS AND LIES AGAINST SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM BY THE SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT
If we asked all the scientists in the world about the most important good in their activity, no doubt most of them would indicate scientific freedom on top of the list.
Scientific freedom is the quintessence of scientific activity, in the same way as water is the most important element for fishes. It is also a “corollary” of science itself, because no new scientific discovery can be made, without the possibility to freely study and investigate (freedom of thought) and then discuss, compare, disclose and publish scientific results (freedom of the press). 
In 1958 the Hungarian (then naturalized British and member of the Royal Society) scientist Michael Polanyi, became famous with his book: “Personal Knowledge”, in which he refuted the common view that scientific method is something “objective” and “neutral”, on the contrary he pointed out that scientists are normally following personal passions before deciding which problems and scientific facts deserve to be investigated.
Therefore – Polanyi argued – just a liberal system which can guarantee total freedom “to pursue science for its own sake” (as opposed to a conception in which science should be instrumental to pursue “social needs”, i.e. contaminated by political evaluations) can be suggested as a way to allow total and real scientific freedom.
However, scientific freedom today, in a world dominated by powerful government, business, media and lobby groups, is far from having been reached.
Although today it is not so common as in the past that a scientist is subject to physical violence (as Ignac Semmelweis was in XIX century), there are many ways by which today the scientific establishment can silence and marginalize inconvenient scientists.
One of the commonest ways – as we shall see – is the method of labeling (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory ) as derived by the sociological theories of Becker, Lemert, Mead, Goffman, etc., i.e. put a negative label, as a sort of “stigma” of deviance on some groups or categories by dominant groups, so that to prevent other persons from following them, or marginalize
Whereas in the past 100 years typical and common negative labels in social life were: “adultery”, “Jew”, “criminal”, “homosexual”, “mental ill”, “negro”, etc., now in the scientific establishment two negative labels seem to dominate:
1. “Conspiracists”
( a negative label meaning that someone or some groups are “foolishly” believing that 2 or more persons are behind some resounding facts such as murders, great events of history, or similar)
2.” Deniers “
(another negative and offensive label meaning that some scientific groups would “deny” an alleged “evident” scientific opinion, in the same way as filo-nazi historians denied the historical truth of the holocaust).
What follows is a short analysis of some of the most famous persecutions and/or falsifications against the scientific freedom in the last 200 years.
1. Ignaz Semmelweis
Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 – 1865) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis is considered the father and founder of the modern asepsy , i.e. all the technics for cleaning and disinfection in surgery, and medical procedures, and he is also gratefully remembered all over the world as the “savior of mothers”.
He discovered that the high incidence of puerperal fevers in obstetrical departments of hospitals was linked to the bad habit of many doctors to visit poor mothers after childbirths, after performing dissections of corpses in the morgue, without cleaning their hands and thereby transmitting infections.
Semmelweis suggested some very simple procedures of hand cleaning with solutions of chlorinate, to kill bacteria, and his suggestions and publications led to a drastic drop of mortality in obstetrical departments.
However some idiotic (although ”important”) members of the scientific community in Wien resented and felt “offended” by Semmelweis’ suggestions, and started to boycott him. Then Semmelweis was fired and started to suffer various nervous diseases, after such a bad treatment. At the end he was hospitalized in an asylum, and died just 14 days after commitment, when he was just 47 year old, after having been violently beaten by the guards.
20 years later the great Louis Pasteur defended and gave full scientific support to the Semmelweis theory of asepsy, unfortunately Semmelweis could not get any reward for his discovery.
Semmelweis’ case is probably considered the most shameful and blatant example of scientific persecution by the stupidity and arrogance of the scientific establishment, in the last 2 centuries.
And now we will examine more modern cases, in which the scientific establishment tried/is trying to put hindrances to the scientific freedom, through the constant use of labels such as “deniers”, or “conspiracists”
2. CO2, GHE, and CFC (clorofluorocarbons)
As we all know, “deniers” is the commonest negative label which is being used against us, by the upholders of scientific “consensus” in climate science. Deniers simply means – in their distorted vision of science – that in climate science everything is “settled” (a term coined by Nicholas Stern in his report of 2006), and no further discussion should be admitted other than global temperatures are rising, and that should occur just for CO2 human emissions. And that’s the reason why important scientific magazines such as “Nature”, and “Science” in the last years simply refuse to publish articles not complying with the “pseudoscience” of global warming, as the Nobel prize-winner Ivar Giaever (who resigned from the American Physical Society for this reason) named it.
However, it would be too long to discuss here why GW is a pseudoscience, Readers can find dozen articles here at Principia Scientific International (PSI).
What it is interesting to notice, is that PSI has several times made a clear distinction between some unscientific and untenable positions of IPCC, such as those regarding GW, and other correct and scientifically serious statements, as those regarding the danger of CFC (chlorofluorocarbons) for our atmosphere and environment.
In other words: IPCC and GW supporters are wrong when trying to persuade people that CO2 can heat the atmosphere, and Greenhouse Effect Theory is correct, because both theories have no serious scientific ground, but they are correct in denouncing the danger for the atmosphere and our Ozone layer in stratosphere, by the use of CFC, because CFC really destroy the Ozone layer (filtering UV radiations) causing a bigger heating.
Our Readers can find several articles here in PSI showing the danger of CFC for our Ozone layer (last article: “Geoengineering is destroying the Ozone layer, by Dane Wigington, August 2, 2013).
Thus, it is blatantly false the accusation of scientific “denialism” toward us, as we have no problem in recognizing IPCC’s correctness where a phenomenon is scientifically proved.
CFC’s danger for Ozone layer is proved, CO2 and GHE “warmism” have no scientific basis, and we cannot but clearly say it.
3. JFK Assassination
The murder of President Kennedy is another example of scientific misuse of the label “conspiracists”.
In recent years those who believe that Kennedy was killed by an organized plot (nearly 80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of Americans) are constantly named “conspiracists”, meaning that the only correct historical and scientific reconstruction of JFK murder should be that of the Warren Commission, namely that of the “lonely gunman” (i.e. Lee H. Oswald).
Yet, this approach is false and misleading, and omits to consider that:
a) Official reports of the Government (such as the “House Select Committee on Assassination” in 1978-1979) have already been released saying that “President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”, thus it is totally wrong, both historically and scientifically, to go on repeating that those who don’t believe the Warren Commission’s conclusions of 1964 (clearly influenced by the political worries of that time to avoid international frictions with the Soviet Union, or finding involvements in the murder of other powerful organizations: mafia, CIA, oilmen, etc.) now became “conspiracists”.
b) Those who support the old, official conclusions of the Warren Commission about the “lonely gunman”, tried many times to arrange ballistic and “scientific” reconstructions to uphold those conclusions, but are always unable to explain some plain FACTS, such as:
1) At least 40 persons saw puff of smoke, or heard shots coming from the stockade fence of the grassy knoll
2) The version of Governor John Connally, who always said that he turned back and saw Kennedy keeping his hands on his throat, BEFORE another shot hit him on his chest rib. Connally repeated this version many times, and he never changed it.
http://article.wn.com/view/2013/10/02/John_Connally_debunkedJFK_singlebullet_theory/#/video
This is clearly a total debunk of the “magic bullet” theory, purporting that the same bullet could hit both Kennedy and Connally.
Thus, at least 4 shots were surely fired in just 5.6” and even the Warren Commission admitted that no more than 3 shots could have been fired by that Mannlicher-Carcano in a so short span of time.
However, the main point is that a total freedom of scientific and historical research should be allowed for this crucial historical event, and negative labels such as “conspiracists” should be banned once forever.
4. Moon landings
The word “conspiracists” is often being used also to describe the ultra-skeptical “theory”, maybe fostered by fantasy movies like “Capricorn One” (1978), or by the fact that after 1972 no new human landing on the Moon was performed, according to which the 6 Apollo missions that brought man on the Moon were a colossal “hoax”, and Moon landings were just an accurately organized staged fake, with the help – some argued – of famous film directors as Stanley Kubrick, and it seems (from several polls), that a percentage between 6-20{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of Americans is skeptical regarding the actual landing of mankind on the Moon.
It is important to analyze this misuse of the word “conspiracists” in this situation, because this is a clear example of how unreliable and generalized is the use of the same word, to describe totally different situations.
It is clear that Moon landings were true, historical and scientific facts, and better than “conspiracists”, it would be necessary to use the word “ignorants”, to name those who believe that Moon landings never happened.
There are at least 4 compelling reasons, providing full evidence that Moon landings really happened: age of samples of Moon rocks, laser retroreflectors, non-Nasa observers of lunar missions (USSR, Australia, Spain) recent photographs (2012) of lunar Apollo artifacts, including shadows of FLAGS planted by Apollo’s astronauts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings)
But the most evident proof of the human landings on the Moon is provided by simple common good sense reasoning: it would have been humanely impossible to organize such a huge “hoax”, persuading many different astronauts, hundreds technicians, etc., both to organize and to keep the secret for decades on such a foolish hoax.
This is another clear example of the ideological misuse of the word “conspiracists”.
5. September 11, 2001
And finally, it seems necessary to analyze another incorrect and ideological misuse of the word “conspiracists”, with reference to those who are unsatisfied about the official version by the government of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the Twin Towers, Pentagon, and by another flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, and are therefore requesting more investigations, to find the truth.
First of all, it makes no sense to name “conspiracists” those who are asking for more investigations, because the 9/11 attacks were by definition a conspiracy, in which many hijackers acted simultaneously, and they were supported by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.
Moreover, it is not true that the refusal to consider “satisfying” the official version of 9/11 terrorist attacks, would necessarily mean to agree with some radicals theories such as those from Michael Moore (in the movie: “Fahreneith 9/11) , hinting close relationships of the US past governments, Bush family and Bin Laden family, and even suggesting therefore an indirect/direct involvement of government agencies/members in the 9/11 attacks.
Probably the most persuading appeal to go on with scientific investigations on 9/11 Twin Towers collapse (especially) was the one coming from 2,000 American Architects and Engineers (http://www.ae911truth.org/) who deeply and technically analyzed the Twin Towers collapse, and suspected a “controlled demolition”, i.e. the use of thermite explosive in key points of steel structures, as the crashes of the hijacked airplanes, and the subsequent fires on top of the buildings were not sufficient to produce a total and quick (when it took place) collapse of the Twin Towers.
The only comment can be: let scientific investigations freely go on here too, with no fear to discover new things, and without labels and censorships that could make hindrance to the scientific truth and freedom.
Alberto Miatello
March 19, 2014
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