This is about government, free speech, and science. It is a complicated topic so please bear with me. I will start with some anecdotes that are relevant to the topic then I will fade into the role of government vs the role of (for lack of a better term) the Corporate Oligarchy in the maintaining of a free and open society. I will tell you that a play I watched at the Art Theater in Gdynia Poland In 1986 has turned out to be more prophetic than I could have imagined. I had poor knowledge of the Polish language so what I got from the play was from appearances, actions and gestures. Here's what I got. The scene was the United nations. There was the US delegation and the Russian (Soviet) delegation. Each had a leader. The Russian was a short stocky dark haired man and the Us had a tall blonde man. Each had an entourage that followed them around and seemed to be responding to commands all the time. I won't belabor this but the carry away message for me was that the two "super powers" were exactly alike. The Cold War is over now yet the comparison lives in my mind. My reason for being their was my first annual, then biannual requested appearances to teach in schools on "Membrane Biophysics" held for scientists all over the eastern Bloc. The schools were for practicing scientists, not students. What went on there is my anecdotal introduction. Read on below for that and then for the conclusions we can draw about how the USA today strongly resembles the USSR in those days with respect to its treatment of science and the open exchange of scientific ideas.
I attended my first school as an invited speaker in 1974. We prepared papers in advance and they were published in a local Journal associated with the school. My first clue came when I received that journal just before my departure to Poland. My Polish colleagues had done some fine work that was mutually supportive with mine. Then I read the stuff from the Russians. I was shocked at the shallow and irrelevant nature of what they wrote and especially shocked when it discredited the efforts of my Polish colleagues with no substantiation.
Then came the actual presentations. To make a very long story as short as possible I found that when the Russians spoke no one challenged the garbage they were putting forth. This was especially hurtful when they put down the fine work of my Polish colleagues. They also treated my work, mutually supportive of the Polish group, as if it did not exist. After the first day, we went for beer and vodka and I asked my Polish friends what this was all about. After glancing around with great caution they whispered to me that I must be very naive if I did not understand what was going on. These were their "rulers" and they had no choice.
The next chance I had I spoke out about what the Russians had presented and basically demolished it. That night the Russian group invited me to a party. They did not mix with the others. We avoided science and had vodka toast after vodka toast. They had caviar and all sorts of goodies not to be seen anywhere in the rest of the school. I am not a diplomat and they knew it so they helped keep from bringing up anything that would open up the topic of their treatment of the Poles. In the wee hours of the morning we were still toasting and guzzling but the vodka ran out. They would not resort to the many flavors of Polish vodka but opened wines and other things from their cache. By this time many were passed out and it was increasingly embarrassing for me.
From that point on our schools had the tone of scientific meetings. I was invited back about ten more times. I tell you this because, as usual, I see parallels between how the Russians dealt wit science and what is increasingly common in this country today. Yes there are also major differences too, but that is not the point. The point is that scientific credibility is a delicate matter. In the past the American corporate oligarchy seemed to realize that science of all kinds could be tolerated so that they could skim off the stuff they needed for technology which translated into huge profits.
Politics here have degenerated rapidly and now they need the religious faction. Now the pollution and Global Warming have begun to be too visible. Now the idea that medicine can be reduced to machines and drugs that reap huge profits has begun to join the others in being clearly unsustainable. Now the arguments supporting evolution have not been shouted down.
So what do we have? We have a coordinated campaign to destroy science as we have come to know it. Huge quantities of money have been invested in sham "scientific" organizations. Huge quantities of money are being spent to create and buy "news" agencies and other propaganda machines. The climate scientists and the agricultural scientists and so many others are being swept under by these massive campaigns.
Are there similarities with the Cold War USSR? Certainly. Are there differences? Certainly. But many of the differences are in the role the Corporate Oligarchy plays relative to government. It has a very strong hold on the scientific establishment. All it needs is to control government funding of science to silence their detractors and it will be complete. They make the Communists look like amateurs in the business of mind control.
Here we see lots of worry about their money taking over the political system. Compared to the snuffing out of science that may end up being a mere distraction. Once again, do you really need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing?