Simple public records products
"You should be banned from the airwaves"
The headline above is a direct quote from one of the many senior scientists
who complained after NBC broadcast Mysterious
Origins of Man. Few of his colleagues would be so rash as to say the
words out loud, but many of them privately think them. Sadly, some of
those individuals have not just thought the words but have appointed themselves
censors of what the public can be told about science.
To suggest that scientific censorship occurs in television broadcasting and
the print media in Britain or the Unites States sounds like the stuff of
conspiracy theory.
Yet consider these recent examples.
In 1995, a TV film was shown on both sides of the Atlantic entitled Too
Close to the Sun, dealing with the highly controversial subject of cold
fusion. The film was admirably balanced and included interviews with
both experimenters and 'skeptics'.
Halfway through, the film showed an interview subject who is a distinguished
senior American physicist from an equally distinguished American research
institution. There's nothing unusual about such an appearance -- except
that this scientist appeared in silhouette, his identity disguised.
Remember, this was not "60 Minutes" but a science programme, and he
was no Cosa Nostra bag man but a professional scientist. He was concerned
that if his institution discovered he had been spending research funds on a
forbidden subject like cold fusion, then his research grant, or even his tenure,
might be in jeopardy.
Sadly, as explained in these pages, his fears have been fully justified by
recent events:-
