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The Censoring of Science

by Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
9 November 2022 12:00 PM

A defrocked philosopher and bon viveur, Giordano Bruno committed a heinous crime: his philosophy did not agree with the official science embodied by the Catholic Church. Bruno thought the Earth rotated around other planets and the Universe was infinite: real heresy. After eight years of detention, unlike Galileo, he refused to recant and was burned at the stake in AD 1600.

Bruno’s end was extreme. Although it would not happen nowadays, the persecution principle is alive and kicking. It has been energised but also brought to the surface by the Covid pandemic.

A recent publication on censorship and suppression and its tactics and countertactics drew our attention. The study was based on interviews with established scientists “who were censored for their heterodox views on COVID-19”.

Participants reported 12 censorship and suppression tactics used by the medical establishment and the media due to their critical or unorthodox positions on COVID-19. Our analysis is that these fall into three broad categories:  Silencing and Censorship, Denigration and Discrediting of an individual and Complaints and Intimidation.

There are also other tactics coming to the fore that are context specific. Shadowbanning occurs when social media platform stops a user’s content from showing up without notifying the user.

The reactions of the victims were interesting. Intimidation did not seem to work. All those interviewed carried on articulating their work and thoughts. Some took legal actions and others formed support networks. Perhaps the most interesting reaction was the use of alternative means of communication. Coming under attack requires highly effective communication strategies to get your points across.

Silencing and Censorship can be addressed by finding alternative sources of communication (e.g. Substack) and media outlets that are better at dealing with and expressing uncertainties. Denigration and Discrediting require keeping calm and not responding in kind while sticking to an evidence-based approach – counter certainty with uncertainty. Complaints and Intimidation are perhaps the most pervasive strategies and most difficult to deal with. But take advice, confide in trusted sources and play the long game.

Daily Telegraph Associate Editor Camilla Tominey recently wrote:

Yet the only big question now being asked by young people is: why on earth was my school closed when I only ever had an infinitesimal chance of dying of Covid? Again, some of us were posing that very question at the time. But lockdown sceptics were vilified by people such as the Tory MP Neil O’Brien, with his COVID-19 FAQ website behaving as if it was the authority on all things pandemic.

This was a website which sought to humiliate scientists such as Sunetra Gupta, Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson for daring to challenge the SAGE groupthink. In general, journalists who questioned the wisdom of shutting down classrooms were treated like pariahs, accused of putting teachers’ lives at risk. Yet according to the Office for National Statistics, there were just 139 Covid deaths in teaching and educational professionals aged 20 to 64 years from March to December 2020 in England and Wales. Even after schools reopened, coronavirus-related deaths for this group were “statistically significantly lower” than the average.

Academic and Journalistic freedom requires individuals to pursue knowledge wherever it may lead without undue or unreasonable interference. The scientists and doctors in this present study did not refrain from expressing their points of view that others considered objectionable. The ability to overcome such self-censorship is fundamental to a democracy and its capacity to make decisions in the best interest of its citizens.

Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack page, which you can subscribe to here.

Tags: Carl HeneghanCensorshipCOVID-19LockdownLockdown harmsPropagandaSchool ClosuresSunetra GuptaThe Science

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17 Comments
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FerdIII
FerdIII
2 years ago

The Bruno opener is a lie and slander. He was no scientist. He never said anything about heliocentricity. He said there were many universes, worlds and the implication of that is to refute Church teachings on Christ and God. It is also anti-science and has no proof. When asked for proof he engaged in mindless babble. He also practiced black magic. It was stupid to burn the idiot, who is a precursor to Hawking whose great ‘insight’ was entropy in black holes (easy on the relevancy and testability stevie….). Hawking has much in common with the non-scientist Bruno.

Copernicus a Catholic discovered heliocentricity. But it was Kepler’s math, another Christian, which provided the necessary calculations.

The Church in Rome funded Galileo who offered no proof of heliocentricity (tides he said), Jesuit astronomers predating Galileo already knew about celestial moons and their orbits.

The greatest reaction against heliocentricity came from….the academics who were invested in Ptolemy’s universe.. Nothing much has changed.

Without the Church you wouldn’t be sitting there in your comfortable modern world.

Let’s not discuss the ‘Enlightenments’ torching of art, books, healers, and scientists now. It was the ‘age of reason’ after all – abiogenesis, the quacksine fraud….etc

Last edited 2 years ago by FerdIII
24
-36
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  FerdIII

Are you really saying that the Christian Church is the fount of all knowledge?

20
-7
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago
Reply to  FerdIII

A somewhat harsh comment a la Marin Mersenne, perhaps? Bruno was an inspired thinker: controversial, undisciplined, wayward and arrogant to be sure, but there’s no denying he was a deeply well-read philosopher – he was no idiot. And as philosophy and the modern concept of science share a lineage going back thousands of years (philosophy has been described as the ‘science of sciences’), the comparison in the article thus holds. Bruno’s views on God were resolutely theistic despite all attempts to prove otherwise, before or since – something he argued at his trial. As for heliocentricity, Kepler himself ‘…chided Galileo for not having acknowledged the contribution that others, including Bruno and himself’ had made to Galileo’s work Siderius Nuncius.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bruno/#UnivSoulUnivInteUnivMatt

10
-1
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago
Reply to  WyrdWoman

When I studied Physics at Aberdeen University the subject was called “Natural Philosophy”.

7
0
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago
Reply to  DevonBlueBoy

Precisely.

0
0
Roy Everett
Roy Everett
2 years ago

So it’s much the same phenomenon as occurred in the 2000s, when people who questioned or rejected the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis were metaphorically burnt at the stake. Different field; different experts; different Imaginary Hobgoblin; same Fear; same UN; same WEF.
The big difference is that the populace is waking up and scepticism is now “out of the closet” and practically mainstream.

79
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
2 years ago

Censoring science for covid climate lies

Yellow Freedom Boards – next event

Thursday 10th November 11am to 12pm 
Yellow Boards 
Junction B3408 London Rd &
John Nike Way, Binfield 
Bracknell RG42 4FZ  

Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane 

Wokingham 
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD   

Bracknell  
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA

photo_2022-11-09_15-01-25.jpg
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ebygum
ebygum
2 years ago

Were there 139 Covid deaths in teaching? Or 139 deaths within 28 days of a Covid test? I don’t think there was one death in schools in Sweden which stayed open pretty much all of the time, and at the very least, much longer than the UK..???

23
0
sophie123
sophie123
2 years ago
Reply to  ebygum

All schools for under 16s stayed open in Sweden.
I would say 139 deaths within 28 days of a covid test. You have to FOIA to get any more accurate information.

14
0
Roy Everett
Roy Everett
2 years ago

Our frontline warrior Maurice Snelling reports that as a licensee he dissented from the Lockdown Regime and daringly served mince pies in a postcode that was locked down. The neighbours snitched on him. He has now got six months on the naughty step, albeit for destroying the evidence and being “anti-establishment” rather than selling the pies. He may not survive.

18
0
amanuensis
amanuensis
2 years ago

You only mention the medical establishment and media for the censorship. The role of government in this needs to also be explored. In particular, did the government deploy personnel with experience/qualifications in psychological manipulation techniques to suppress dissent, both in terms of the original Covid response and for the vaccines?

32
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

Yes; the ‘Nudge Unit’

2
0
mariawarmth
mariawarmth
2 years ago

I thank these two doctors for the items professional wisdom throughout the pandemic and this article in the DS. I can see the intellectually considered reflection as to the numerous ways they and others were devalued, rubbished and censored.
However their polite mainstream reply to the horrible way they were treated will not rectify it as they need to consider taking some of these wolves to court. Polite and nice is NOT working .

14
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  mariawarmth

“Polite and nice is NOT working.”

Precisely. Which is why the Oster article in The Atlantic has to be rubbished for the egregious nonsense and in its way, gaslighting that it is.

And this long Substack piece previously linked to by FL makes abundantly very clear why “polite and nice” is definitely not appropriate.

Worth reading in full, as we say round here.

No, Let’s Not: Perpetrators of Pandemic Authoritarianism Cannot Be Forgiven

https://merionwest.com/2022/11/07/no-lets-not-perpetrators-of-pandemic-authoritarianism-cannot-be-forgiven/

Last edited 2 years ago by huxleypiggles
14
0
mariawarmth
mariawarmth
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Yes thank you will look at your link tomorrow.

2
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

Science is never settled. Anyone who claims otherwise is denying science.

The Covid Dogma is a faith imposed by Globalist Bio-Pharmacy with an Agenda. The only scientific experts who can reasonably be trusted to tell the truth about the virus/jabs/adverse effects etc are those who are outside the Globalist Bio-Pharmacy construct.

7
0
Bellacovidonia
Bellacovidonia
2 years ago

Thanks Carl and Tom. It’s a shame the first comment on your piece is some nutty obscurantism about Heliocentrism. in any case your professionalism and integrity has given me hope for the future. We need proper humanist physician/scientists like you , Kuldorff and Battarchaya in charge of public health not the totalitarian Pharma-serving Gauleiters we have currently. Well done for all your great work and I recommend all of us to subscribe to the Oxford “Trust the evidence podcast” on Substack.

6
0

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