Are Banned Topics Hindering Scientific Discourse?

[Infinitarian]

You have some topics banned on this forum because they cause flaming. If you want to deal with flaming, ban the flamers. The only real problem with flaming is that it keep discourse from happening in the first place, which is exactly what it is meant to do: it's meant to punish people for bringing up topics they don't want others to hear. By banning those topics you give the flamers exactly what they want.

It makes you no better than them, or then the fundamentalists who prevented discourse of science over the centuries, because censorship of discourse that is also the only problem with fundamentalism. It just goes to show that after all, science isn't that much better than fundamentalism. It's still made up of the same kind of fragmented, closed communities, and this forum is contributing to that fragmentation in much the same way as the Vatican once did.

 

[micromass]

Did you join this forum just to post that?
Do you also go eat in a vegetarian restaurant just to complain that you can't eat meat??

Yes, there is censorship on this forum. Some topics are forbidden to be talked about. That is because we promote mainstream science. If we would start to allow everything, then many of our knowledgeable posters would be gone very quickly. So we have to choose between quality and allowing each topic.

Your comparison to the Vatican in the middle-ages fails. Why? Because we don't torture people and burn people at the stake for having their own opinion. We just ban them.

You think it's wrong to ban people for spouting crackpottery? Well, this is a privately owned website, so we can do whatever we want to. If somebody comes into your house and doesn't obey the rules of your home, then you have the right to kick him out.

 

[n10Newton]

May be he is motivated by the Idea "Change the World" and he is starting it from the PF.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Thanks for your comments Infinitarian.