Freedom and Science

Since it is only two days past ID4 and in light of recent events, I dedicate these quotes to myself.

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Freedom [is] the first-born daughter of science.
--Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.

Feynman on freedom:

So I have just one wish for you -- the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.'
-- Richard Feynman, from a Caltech commencement address given in 1974

No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

-- "The Uncertainty of Values" (in the collection "The Meaning of it All")

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May the spirit of independence guide your inquiries, and may you pass it on to your children.

-- Howard Lovy, July 4, 2006