>>In contrast, today, look at an article on ZDnet that mentions both Linux and Bill Gates and the "talk back" reveals hundreds of opinions that range all the way accross the board. While not all of it can be true, at least the ideas are freely expressed and searchable.
>
>While I am sure the situation has improved a lot, I have to think about the case of Immanuel Velikovsky, ca. 1950. Scientists (astronomers) didn't like his revolutionary ideas, and, instead of letting the public decide whether his ideas were ridiculous or not, did everything they could to quite him, acting similar to the Inquisition acted, in the past, against scientists. No larger editorial house dared to publish his book (Worlds in Collision), because leading astronomers threatened to boycott them.
>
>Hilmar.
This happened in the United States, but in other countries, the reaction of the "scientific community" was equally unscientific.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
