Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Is Steve McIntyre trying to have a NASA scientist silenced?

Or is he just whining?

From Jennifer Marohasy via Benny Peiser:

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
--John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
On the same day, Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre concerning the propriety of a NASA scientist voicing a public opinion:
Although NASA employees are not permitted to do private work for their bosses off-hours (a currying favor prohibition, I suppose) - for example, secretaries are not supposed to do typing, over at realclimate, Gavin Schmidt, in his “private time”, which flexibly includes 9 to 5, has provided bulldog services on behalf of his boss, James Hansen, on a number of occasions.
It makes you wonder.