I made a point in this post inelegantly in a way that waseasy to misunderstand, so I’d like to clarify it.

I didn’t mean that we need to tolerate brilliant homophobicjerks in the lab so that we can have scientific progress. Although there are famous counterexamples, most of the best scientistsI’ve met are unusually nice, open-minded people.  Generally I expect that labs that don’ttolerate jerks will produce more impressive results than the ones that do, and choosing not to employ jerks is a good idea—jerks usuallyreduce the net output of organizations.

What I meant is simply that we need, as a society, totolerate controversial ideas.  Thebiggest new scientific ideas, and the most important changes to society, both startas extremely unpopular ideas.

It was literally heretical, not so long ago, to say that itwas ok to be gay—the Bible has a different viewpoint.  In a society where we don’t allow challengesto the orthodoxy, gay rights would not have happened.

We need to allow free speech because sometimes society iswrong—we needed people to be able to say “gay people are ok” at a time when“gay people are evil” was the consensus opinion.

It’s probably impossible to design a simple set of rulesthat will always allow the right speech and not the wrong speech (although I amsure that in this particular case, it is wrong that gay people in some placesstill fear for their safety.) 

So we agree as a society that people are allowed to saycontroversial things, and that free speech goes both ways.  Much of the time people use that privilege tobe jerks, and we can, should, and do point out why their bigotry is bad.  Sometimes they use it to say that peopledeserve more rights, or that the solar system works in a different way from what the church says—and sometimes we collectively listen. 

Over time, this system produces a more and more just world, which says something really good about people as a whole.

I wish we could figure out a way to just never allow hate,discrimination, and bigotry and always allow debate on controversial butimportant ideas.  If that were possible,I’d support it.  The distinction isusually clear, but the exceptions are sometimes critically important.  Figuring out exactly where to draw the line is really hard.

Generations before us believed a lot of things we nowbelieve (correctly, in my opinion) to be unethical or wrong.  Future generations will think a lot of thingswe believe today are unethical or wrong. 

For example, today it is pretty unpopular to say “anyone whoeats meat is unethical”.  But this iseasily a stance I could imagine being commonplace in 50 years, because ofevolving views on animal rights, impact on the planet, and availability oflab-grown replacements.  Perhaps even thearrival of AI makes us think differently about being ok eating other beingsjust because they’re much less smart/emotionally sophisticated than we are.

The last time I tried to discuss this withsomeone, he said something like: “Banning eating meat would be infringing on myrights, this is not up for discussion.” 

I expect the fact that we let people live inpoverty is also something that future generations will consider an absolute moral failing.  I could go on with a longlist of other ideas, and I’m sure I can’t even think of some of the mostimportant ones.

The point I most wanted to make is that is that it’sdangerous to just ban discussion of topics we find offensive, like whathappened yesterday.