If someone were to advocate a geocentric universe, I have no doubt that the responses arguing against would be rapid and loud. As they should be. That's the chief virtue of free speech: it allows people to speak, and to disagree with the speech of others.

The skinhead, besides feeling compelled to justify his behavior as "academic interest", also had a spectacular opportunity to look like an idiot in front of some 25 or 30 middle and high schoolers who were on the floor because of an early dismissal that day. (I'm almost positive that was their perception because of the expressions on their faces and their body language.) They all know now what goes on between his ears, whereas without the opportunity to speak he would have continued to be a spectacularly tattooed loner clad in black, a somewhat romantic figure to young people. "Hoist by his own petard" comes to mind.

Our friend Mr. Seed, above, similarly got to display petulance and ignorance on the subject of biology, though to a less impressionable, and less impressed, audience. I'm happy to let him do so. He didn't yell "fire" in a crowded theater.

I'm glad you won't cave in to viewpoints you know are not right. Free speech works best when everyone exercises it. I don't regard moderation as an opportunity to pass judgment on viewpoints that are not right by removing them from public view. I've dealt with enough book challenges, in which the challenger attempts to take something he doesn't like out of the hands of every library customer, to know that I would be acting the same as those who seek to censor in other areas.

I believe that silence has fostered more evil that talk. If the skinhead were the only voice allowed, or the only voice heard, of course he would be harmful. But he's not, and as long as people can talk back and will talk back, I have confidence that views such as his will be discredited. The problem in Germany was not just the many people who agreed with Hitler, but the many more who disagreed and didn't speak up.

If you think about it, the people like Carraway are not interested in debate on scientific merits, but want a forum which allows them to tell other people to shut up, because their beliefs are just as good as anyone else's (and of course, in their minds, better). Our mistake in that case is having allowed them to reframe the debate as a matter of belief and "equal time", rather than as a matter of proof, which is what science responds to. The sooner this semantic problem is corrected, the better. Placing non-science on the OT board is one way to do just that.