In 1795, when considering a new university in his home state of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson pronounced freedom to be “the first-born daughter of science.”
Donald Trump is currently attacking freedom by censoring scientists.
As the New York Times reported in October, scientists in the Environmental Protection Agency were forbidden to speak about climate change at a conference where they were expected to discuss the issue.
It gets worse.
As the Sun Journal reported Sunday, Dec. 17, other members of the Trump administration are strongly discouraging officials at the Centers for Disease Control from using a host of words and phrases, including “science-based” and “evidence-based.”
Trump is welcome to promote his ideas and his policies. He can even unilaterally declare, as he did recently, that climate change is no longer a threat to this country. But if he wants to convince anyone that what he is doing is warranted, he needs evidence that people can debate. To silence those who speak truths you dislike is neither science nor is it debate. Instead, it is an attack on freedom.
I call on my elected representatives to condemn these acts. I applaud everyone who resists them. Freedom of the people depends on both.
Jefferson said it best: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be.”
Joseph Hall, Auburn
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