How censorship may bring down a superpower

Recently [1], one of our cabinet ministers, in response to yet another complaint about press restrictions in Singapore, said even in America, there is no complete freedom of speech. Political correctness being such, there are things that just can’t be aired.

He has a point, except that the difference – and it’s an important one – is that in the US, the institutions of government have a duty to protect freedom of expression. In Singapore, it plays quite the opposite role.

In both places however, one of the major impulses to constrain others’ freedom of expression is a moralistic one, especially when it comes to things sexual. Roger Mitton, writing for the Straits Times, 3 Feb 2005, said,

It is always a shock to newcomers to America to discover how political and cultural liberty can be circumscribed, often in ways that may seem petty but which reflect deep-rooted restrictions on freedom of expression.

He then went on to give the example of the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast.

At last year’s [Super Bowl] game, which was watched by 90 million viewers, Jackson took part in a half-time show during which her left breast was briefly exposed when she performed with singer Justin Timberlake.

America was stunned.

In terms of media coverage, Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” shoved Iraq, Afghanistan and the US presidential election into the background.

By Mitton’s observation, it wasn’t an unusual reaction. Rather, he said, "it reflected an illiberal prudery that is increasingly prevalent."

Recall, for example, the action of outgoing Attorney-General John Ashcroft. He got so irked by the bare bosom of the Spirit of Justice, a Renaissance-style sculpture in the Hall of Justice, that he spent thousands of dollars on curtains to hide the statue.

Now, some will no doubt say, what’s all this got to do with freedom of expression? This is all about indecency and sex. Surely the principle can’t be extended to expression that has no merit?

But then that’s where the problem begins. Once we start judging whether this has merit or that has no merit, we start to say this kind of expression is legitimate while that is illegitimate, and before long, we begin to connive in state censorship.

Much of the attempt to smother speech carries with it a sense of righteousness. These people feel they are helping to banish evil from this earth, and the mission isn’t going to stop at speech. If bad speech should be suppressed, why not bad activities?

One casualty of that is stem cell research in America. Tampering with life! Playing God! Murder! Scream the guardians of (biblical) morality.

If this goes on for much longer, don’t be surprised that some countries in Asia, such as Japan, Korea and even China, soon pull far ahead of the US in this field.

In the same issue of the Straits Times (3 Feb 2005), was a report from AFP:

Scientists in emerging biotechnology power China have started clinical trials of stem-cell based therapies for leukaemia, state media said yesterday.

The experiments are meant to pave the way for commercializing stem cell-based medical products, the China Daily reported, citing Professor Zhao Chunhua from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

"If everything goes well, we will summarise the experiments and march towards the second and third clinical trials, hopefully in a year," Prof Zhao said.

Scientists in China are also working hard on ways to apply stem cell-based therapies to pre-clinical trials for treating coronary disease, diabetes and liver failure, the paper said.

Some Americans find it hard to conceive of other countries overtaking their country. Of course there is no basis for such complacency, after all the Japanese automobile industry has been trouncing Detroit for 30 years.

A novel excuse was this one I heard from an American a few months ago: he said it didn’t matter if others developed stem cell technology, no one could commercialise it for the American market without FDA approval, and there was no way the FDA would approve therapies based on foreign stem cells with "suspect origins", referring by that to the high number of abortions in China. Without the large American market, commercial prospects would be much reduced for any research.

I have the sneaky feeling he’s still too complacent. Firstly, we shouldn’t underestimate the size of the Indian or Chinese market, especially as the US Dollar is on the cusp of a devaluation, which will reshuffle the relative sizes of these economies. Secondly, even if the stem cell-based treatments can’t get to America because of the FDA, not much is going to prevent patients from going to China.

The shocking thing is that it may not be just stem cell research alone. The whole gamut of bio-sciences, in the long run, may be in danger because the teaching of biology in US schools is being undercut by fundamentalist Christianity and its insistence on Creationism.

They may not be winning many battles to get Creationism into the textbooks, but they are succeeding in banishing evolution. Without a grasp of evolution, it’s hard to see how any schoolkid comes out with much of a grounding in biology.

A recent New York Times story looked closely at the dire situation in American schools. In ‘Evolution takes a backseat in US classes’ (1 Feb 2005), Cornelia Dean wrote:

In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue.

Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities.

Further down the article,

"You're not going to hear about it," he said. "And for political reasons nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school children and parents to ask just what is being taught in science classes."

But he [2] said he believed the practice of avoiding the topic was widespread, particularly in districts where many people adhere to fundamentalist faiths.

And more….

Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said she heard "all the time" from teachers who did not teach evolution "because it's just too much trouble."

"Or their principals tell them, 'We just don't have time to teach everything so let's leave out the things that will cause us problems,' " she said.

Sometimes, Dr. Scott said, parents will ask that their children be allowed to "opt out" of any discussion of evolution and principals lean on teachers to agree.

The problem may go deeper than that. The writer reported that many biology teachers themselves didn’t accept evolution.

Dr. Gerald D. Skoog, a former dean of the College of Education at Texas Tech University and a former president of the science teachers' organization, said that in some classrooms, the teaching of evolution was hampered by the beliefs of the teachers themselves, who are creationists or supporters of the teaching of creationism.

Data from various studies in various states over an extended period of time indicate that about one-third of biology teachers support the teaching of creationism or 'intelligent design,' " Dr. Skoog said.

In a way, this shouldn’t be surprising in a country where,

.... in a 2001 survey, the National Science Foundation found that only 53 percent of Americans agreed with the statement "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

This stands in stark contrast to other developed countries, where the great majority of people have no problem with the idea of evolution, and most of the remainder simply don’t feel any need for an opinion. Creationism, outside the United States, is considered a loony idea.

Now, it is reported, the biblical literalists are taking aim at physics and geology. The theory of the big bang is being attacked as running counter to the Creation story. That land is formed and continents reshaped by the movement of tectonic plates is also to be suppressed.

The best American universities may remain very good for a while yet, but for the majority of schoolchildren, the standard of science teaching is crumbling. The same tide of biblical conservatism is also making it ever harder to get funding for biological research, when more and more, people want to avoid controversy. You can trace that to censorship.

The US became the leading nation today because for the last two centuries, it has been the most open society, with the broadest extent of freedom for its citizens to push boundaries and experiment with new ideas. Its economic strength, technological prowess and cultural attractiveness are unparalleled.

But censorship will kill cultural vibrancy and dull technological advance. Together, these will sap economic vitality.

It is hard to imagine how the US can remain a superpower in the long run, if Americans are turning their backs on broad swathes of well-established scientific knowledge, let alone cutting-edge technologies like stem-cell research. And what next, astrophysics, which cannot but take into account the Big Bang theory?

It would be supremely ironic if the superpower’s descent began with the closing of the American mind.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

1. Alas I didn't archive the quote. At that time, it didn't strike me as important.
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2. Dr. Frandsen, former chairman of the committee on science and public policy of the Alabama Academy of Science (named in an earlier part of the New York Times article).
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