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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Yes but I do think if a book is shown to be based on false data, that it should not be presented as a scholarly work.
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Perhaps not, but people who want to read it should still be allowed to do so, not have that decision made for them by others. I think
The Man Who Would Be Queen is a hack job with falsified data deliberately manipulated to fit an existing agenda. The man who wrote it lost his position at a highly regarding learning institution and much standing in the academic community. Sounds similar, doesn't it? Yet I'd defend the right of this book to be in a public library, while at the same time pointing people interested in the subject to
True Selves, a much, much better book on the same subject.
I view "creation science" as thinly veiled religious propaganda, but it has it's place in the library; it should be available to those who want to read about it.
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It at best belongs next to all the books by political pundits,
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Cool. I haven't read it, nor do I intend to, but that seems a reasonable solution to me. Put it with political opinion books.
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and I have no problem with people complaining about it being in a library.
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This is where you lose me. Censorship is good if we censor the right books?
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You wouldn't allow math books that are factually incorrect and expect people to look for other books which 'present a better argument'.
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Math and history are hardly equivilent, but yeah, if there were a math book with errors in it, I wouldn't campaign to have it removed, I'd simply recommend a better book. We don't discard older science books merely because they've been proven incorrect by newer methods. I think the bible has been disproven by science, but that's not a good reason to remove it.
The best way to counter a bad argument is with the truth, not by removing the right to present that argument.
Gilda