> Nobody complains about legal-advice privilege creating "muzzled lawyers"
The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client. The purpose of all the traditional privileges is to allow the client/patient/parishioner to divulge a secret while seeking professional advice without having to worry that it will be published or used against them.
In the case of science, the secret the government wants to keep is not anything the government had to be encouraged to give the scientists. It's the result of the scientists' research.
And allowing politicians to choose which scientific research is published is catastrophic. It invalidates everything published by government scientists because the political filter biases the published results -- intentionally. It would be better that the research not be done at all than that it be published only if it aligns with the political goals of elected officials.
> And allowing politicians to choose which scientific research is published is catastrophic. It invalidates everything published by government scientists because the political filter biases the published results -- intentionally. It would be better that the research not be done at all than that it be published only if it aligns with the political goals of elected officials.
Indeed. There are already enough problems with publication bias -- adding further bias is not helpful.
The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client. The purpose of all the traditional privileges is to allow the client/patient/parishioner to divulge a secret while seeking professional advice without having to worry that it will be published or used against them.
In the case of science, the secret the government wants to keep is not anything the government had to be encouraged to give the scientists. It's the result of the scientists' research.
And allowing politicians to choose which scientific research is published is catastrophic. It invalidates everything published by government scientists because the political filter biases the published results -- intentionally. It would be better that the research not be done at all than that it be published only if it aligns with the political goals of elected officials.