- Hardcover: 185 pages
- Publisher: Praeger Publishers Inc (30 May 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0275996867
- ISBN-13: 978-0275996864
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.5 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,921,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Silenced!
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." . . the author passionately depicts a world where educators and researchers are under siege. Focusing much of the book on specific incidents and the laws and policies that impede education and research, the author has compiled a contemporary portrait of the dark side of academic freedom in America." -
Reference & User Services Quarterly
Product Description
This book is about people whose beliefs and affiliations have opposed powerful interests in the present-day United States. This eclectic group of people and controversial issues, from climate-change scientists who have been censored by the Bush administration to Muslims accused of terrorism, have one thing in common. All of them straddle the limits of what Noam Chomsky has called permissible debate as defined by dominant political and economic institutions and individuals. The central thesis is that restriction of free inquiry is harmful to our culture because it inhibits the search for knowledge. Johansen presents case studies in the borderlands of free speech in a Jeffersonian cast--an intellectual framework assuming that open debate--even of unpopular ideas--is essential to accurate perception of reality.
This book is about people whose ideological circumstances have found them opposing established beliefs in our times--scholars advocating the Palestinian cause in a very hostile intellectual environment, for example, as well as climate scientists defending themselves against the de-funding of their laboratories by defenders of fossil-fuel interests; opponents of creation science under assault for teaching what once was regarded as household-variety biology (a.k.a. Darwinism); Marxists in a political system dominated by neoconservatives. The central thesis that unites this diverse array of controversies is that shutting down free inquiry--most notably for points of view deemed unpopular--dumbs us all down by restraining the search for knowledge, which demands open inquiry.
We have been told when going to war, as in Iraq, that freedom isn't free, the unstated assumption being that our armed forces are fighting and dying to safeguard our civil rights at home and abroad. During recent years, however, freedom to inquire and debate without retribution has been under assault in the United States. This assault has been carried out under a distinctly Orwellian cast, under Newspeak titles such as the Patriot Act, parts of which might as well be described more honestly as the Restriction of Freedom of Inquiry Act. The information gathered here will interest (and probably anger) anyone who is concerned with protecting robust, free inquiry in a nation that takes seriously its freedom to speak out, and to define truth through open debate.
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5 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Appallingly bad
15 Jan 2008
Format:Hardcover
Silenced!: Academic Freedom, Scientific Inquiry, and the First Amendment under Siege in America sounded like it was about "Silenced!: Academic Freedom, Scientific Inquiry, and the First Amendment under Siege in America" but should be titled "Silenced!: Academic Freedom, Scientific Inquiry, and the First Amendment under Siege in America and it should be because we must keep these people silenced as they are a danger to all we hold dear including especially science!" I read only one chapter, the one on Intelligent Design, Chapter 2, but in view of the incorrect information in this chapter I do not know if I could trust the other chapters. Some examples. Johansen writes that "most-card carrying creationists have stretched the biblical six days of godly labor and one day of rest to 6,000 to 10,000 years- still a far cry from the 4.5 billion years many scientists now accept as the age of the earth..." I have to wonder where he gets such misinformation as no reference was cited. He then adds that that ID is part of "a general retreat from rationality in large sections of US culture" (page 23). After stating this "delusion enjoys a considerable constituency" he then discuses in the same breath the "Rapture" books by Tim LaHaye! What does this series of books have to do with ID? A study needs to be done on what ID advocates believe about such matters, and until then any comments about what most ID advocates believe, including my own, are just speculation, but I know many ID advocates and not one buys into Tim LaHaye's ideas on end times (and most do not accept a 6 day or even a 6 to 10 thousand year creation day either). Then after implying we need to shut these ID people up he bemoans surveys that find 46 percent of Americans think we have too much freedom of the press! (page 24). Johansen then argues against ID by such reasoning as, if the designer is so intelligent "why do women have hot flashes?" "and why did the designer give us ice cream?" Good point. I could add if the creator is so intelligent what did he not give us the ability to speak 10 languages from birth so my wife and I can travel around Europe to visit my kids with ease? I guess this all proves that no designer exists and we need to ban ID or expel them from the academy, as a new film staring Ben Stein documents. Needless to say, I was appalled with this book. At least it could be up front about its purpose and conclusions.
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