Is Free Speech the Enemy of Science?

In 1633, Galileo Galilei was brought before the Roman Inquisition. He was accused of defending a supposedly "dangerous idea" that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Since then, his trial has been a famous historical anecdote. But when we look deeper into it, it is more than just an incident or an anecdote. It symbolises a deeper epistemological conflict between authority and the spirit of inquiry. Science is philosophically defined as a way of iteratively performing correction over human errors. But when Galileo was silenced for performing this correction, science suffered. Nowadays, fake news floats around social media, and science suffers again. Free speech has different meanings in different contexts. According to Mill, social and scientific progress occurs through vigorous debate involving opposing points of view (Mill). To generate different points of view, people must have freedom of thought and speech. Progress cannot occur if the majority uses its power to suppress minority viewpoints. Thus, in the scientific context, and based on the AAAS Statement on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, scientific freedom is the freedom to engage in scientific inquiry, pursue and apply knowledge, and communicate openly ("Statement on Scientific Freedom"). In this context, we can establish that free speech in the scientific context is the freedom to engage in scientific inquiry and to criticise and ask questions. Science is better seen as organised scepticism, described as "a journey, over time, toward contingent understanding guided by experimental tests and sceptical questioning" (May). One of the main characteristics of science is fallibility. As Karl Popper argued, fallibility belongs to science as one of its best traits. Science has progressed because it assumes that statute and it is always open to checks, correction, and improvement. In this context, an enemy of science is an institutional authority that stops criticism or error correction of scientific theories. Science is dependent on organised scepticism, and any force that blocks this scepticism can be considered to be an enemy of science. However, these forces can also pose as an enemy if they do not regulate free speech. For example, fake news about scientific facts, such as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic against vaccines, can turn fatal and hinder scientific progress (Loomba et al.). Therefore, free speech is not inherently the enemy of science. The real enemy is either the suppression of free speech or the complete absence of any regulation of it.

Science was born out of organised scepticism and the rejection of enforced orthodoxy. The suppression of many voices that tried to go against authorities in the 17th century demonstrates this clearly. Galileo's trial is a prime example. Galileo was brought before the church authorities because he argued and discussed the idea of heliocentrism while the scriptures and church authorities had long posited the idea of geocentrism. Although many scientists had an idea that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, a lot of them refrained from challenging the scriptures out of fear of institutional and church authorities. Galileo was accused of heresy ("Galileo Goes on Trial for Heresy."), agreed not to teach the heresy anymore, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It took more than 300 years for the Church to admit that Galileo was right and to clear his name. This clearly shows how suppressing free speech can decelerate the progress of scientific ideas and how important it is for free speech to allow criticism and challenge of already established scientific ideas. Thomas Kuhn proposed a framework known as the structure of scientific revolutions (Kuhn). According to him, science operates within a paradigm for most of the time, in which scientists assume the paradigm is correct and focus on refining details rather than questioning the overall framework. However, over time scientists encounter anomalies and begin questioning the paradigm itself. Then comes the revolution, when a scientific field reaches a crisis and old ideas must make way for new ones, and a new paradigm is formed. An example of this is the Copernican revolution, in which Nicholas Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model challenging the already held views of the geocentric model. As per Kuhn, this structural breakdown triggers a necessary proliferation of theories (Kuhn), showing that the freedom to express contrasting and different ideas is required in order for science to progress. Karl Popper argues that science must begin with myths and then with a critical discussion about those myths. He posits that "The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific tradition in having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories, but it also passes on a critical attitude towards them. The theories are passed on, not as dogmas, but rather with the challenge to discuss them and improve upon them (Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations"). This improvement is only possible through free speech. Popper also proposes the theory of falsificationism, which directly requires free speech, because if science progresses by proposing bold conjectures and subjecting them to severe criticism, then suppressing any claim risks eliminating a potential falsifier of a dominant but wrong theory. John Stuart Mill similarly argues that if an opinion is true but is not openly debated or contrasted, it becomes "dead dogma" rather than a "living truth" (Mill). Together, these arguments show that free speech is foundational to scientific progress.

But free speech is not just a historical precondition for science. In our current world it is fundamental to how the scientific community operates day to day. Within the scientific community, free speech is the medium through which science corrects itself. From the plum pudding model to Bohr's atomic model of the atom, all theories have been debated upon their limitations, and each of these debates has led to the advent of a new theory that addresses the limitations of the old one. We can therefore visualise scientific debate as a self correcting mechanism. The process of peer review and productive disagreement is really important here. Robert Merton identified four norms that govern the scientific community, namely communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organised scepticism (Merton). The most important of these is organised scepticism. As per this norm, any scientist is allowed to challenge any claim as long as they use evidence to do so. This promotes free speech and is seen in practice in the form of peer review in our current world. Science, therefore, has a structured framework of free speech built into its very process. We can also see what happens when this framework breaks down by looking at the Soviet Union under Stalin. A scientist called Trofim Lysenko convinced Stalin that genetics were ideologically dangerous, and so geneticists were silenced and their findings were hidden and destroyed. As a consequence, Soviet farming science collapsed and crops failed miserably. The USSR fell behind in the field of agricultural science by decades (Joravsky). Therefore, free speech is embedded inside scientific communities by the very structure of how science operates and it is what holds the whole community together.

While we may decide to restrict speech to an extent, how do we decide to what extent we should restrict, who should restrict it, and what might be the consequences of restricting free speech? Karl Popper posits something known as the paradox of tolerance (Popper, The Open Society). As per this idea, a society that tolerates everything will be eventually destroyed by the intolerant. Popper was actually saying that society should protect the freedom to ask questions and debate about ideas, and that this freedom should be defended against anyone who tries to destroy it. We can apply this idea to two threats. The first one is misinformation, which stops people from finding the truth. The second one is a scientific establishment that uses its authority to silence questions that it feels are uncomfortable. Both of these things destroy open inquiry. And since science depends on open inquiry, both of them are enemies of science. The example of the second threat was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many scientists and social media platforms called the lab leak hypothesis misinformation and suppressed it. However, the lab leak hypothesis was a legitimate scientific question that should have been investigated. An investigation by Undark later found that efforts to control misinformation during COVID-19 may have been too much, overstepped the evidence, and silenced legitimate scientific debate (Schmidt). This is what Popper warned us against. Kuhn in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (Kuhn) explains that scientific communities often tend to resist changes in paradigm and try to stay with their old ideas while resisting the new ones. This means that even without government interference, scientific establishments can develop a habit of silencing uncomfortable questions. When this tendency is combined with the ability to limit speech, the effects on science can be very damaging. Therefore, restricting free speech in the name of science can be just as dangerous to science as misinformation itself.

Free speech is not the enemy of science. But this answer requires one more specification. Free speech without institutions to support evidence based debate can harm science, as in the case of the Covid 19 Infodemic. So the more specific answer is that free speech is naturally not the enemy of science and is instead like an ally, but only when the institutions or the scientific communities that give scientific knowledge its authority are strong enough and can function well. Thus, the enemy of science is not free speech, it is instead the absence of institutions that allow free speech to a certain extent that promotes science rather than harming it. We have now established two ideas that contradict each other. First, free speech is essential to science and restricting it damages scientific progress as seen in the case of Galileo, Lysenko and the lab leak hypothesis. Second, unrestricted free speech in the light of our current world can also damage science, as seen in the covid 19 infodemic wherein people from US and the UK showed a decline in vaccination intent owing to the false news spread through social media. So the question is not whether free speech is the enemy of science, the question is which type of framework best allows us to create a "free speech as an ally of science environment". Robert Post posits that academic freedom is not the same thing as free speech (Post). Free speech is more like a political right which implies that the state cannot silence you. Academic freedom is more of a norm or a standard in scientific communities that says you can challenge theories and their claims but only when you have concrete evidence supporting your arguments. Science should not have unlimited free speech and what it needs is academic freedom. The solution is not to restrict free speech but to rebuild institutions or communities that posit and run on the principles of science using evidence based debates and arguments. We can thus conclude that this is a problem of institutional design at the very core as our world has changed rapidly in the last few years.

Galileo teaches us that silencing or limiting free speech damages science. The Covid 19 infodemic teaches us that sometimes too much restriction on free speech can harm science. Both of these co-exist and are true at the same time. Science is born through questioning, it is improved through peer reviews, evidence based arguments and debates and it is threatened or hindered in two ways: first, through false opinions and second, through suppression of free speech. We conclude that free speech is not the enemy of science, instead it is the weakening of our epistemic institutions and scientific communities that need to be rebuilt in order to keep up with the ever changing world which contains social media, Artificial intelligence and many more changes than before. Free speech and science can be considered as allies by nature but what they both need and what must be protected is a society where open inquiry is promoted and is trusted more than false rumours and opinions.