Academic Freedom is a non sequeter , every time I hear "Academic Freedom" I cringe .
These People are not lamenting their "Freedom" they are instead crying out for their lost "Credibility" , many People now regard them as "Spinners" who account for the Political situation "First".

When they do this they become "Liars" enabled with protection because they are Academics . That was the Past , as for the future , the "Dreaded Skeptics" will prevail possibly unfortunately .

PS I know 'sequeter' is a spelling mistake , I am sorry that the new Google spell checker cannot correct it .

There are enough examples of loss of academic and scientific freedoms when scientists involved with soil health and organic farming methods (or those who opposed GE) - failed to have their contracts renewed or lost their jobs.

Lets never lose the right for anyone including academics to voice an opinion - particuarly when it relates to issues of governance.

Thankfully most thinking people know if an academic gives his opinion it is just that, he or she is not representing the institution nor is it even implied. Never has been in my experience.

Perhaps we should start us a good old fashioned book burning too.

pelican: << Thankfully most thinking people know if an academic gives his opinion it is just that, he or she is not representing the institution nor is it even implied. >>

Pelican has it in a nutshell. Universities are not corporations (yet), and the principle of academic freedom is one of the key differences. It would be a sad day indeed for our society if ever academics are bound by the intellectual straitjackets that apply to employees of companies.

Poynter's attack on the open letter is a good example of why academic freedom should be defended. The unholy alliance between Tasmania's government and its forest industry is precisely the kind of issue that should be subject to criticism and examination from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

ac·a·dem·ic&#8194; &#8194;[ak-uh-dem-ik] Show IPA
–adjective
1.
of or pertaining to a college, academy, school, or other educational institution, esp. one for higher education: academic requirements.
2.
pertaining to areas of study that are not primarily vocational or applied, as the humanities or pure mathematics.
3.
theoretical or hypothetical; not practical, realistic, or directly useful: an academic question; an academic discussion of a matter already decided.
4.
learned or scholarly but lacking in worldliness, common sense, or practicality.
5.
conforming to set rules, standards, or traditions; conventional: academic painting.
6.
acquired by formal education, esp. at a college or university: academic preparation for the ministry.
7.
(initial capital letter) of or pertaining to Academe or to the Platonic school of philosophy.

That's the dictionary's description , I might be missing something here , Is 'Academic' a Qualification ? People calling themselves Academics are really only Teachers an honorable Profession but not one that would displace an Agronomist from his job eg; Organic Farming .

Mr Browne
Wow – I must have really hit a raw nerve to deserve a whole article! I could write a whole new article in response to yours, but it is a long weekend, so just a few points.

So, apparently I have attacked “academic freedom” and am intent on “silencing critics” – well, I guess you are following standard argumentative practice in exaggerating your opponent’s position to create the launch pad for your own argument. Perhaps though you should take your own advice and read my April 9th article a bit more closely.

You will see that I have in fact acknowledged the right of academics to say what they want. My major point was that by stepping outside their area of expertise and so trading on their credibility as academics to push what are then largely personal agendas, they run the risk of effectively silencing themselves by losing the respect of the community.

I think this danger is much more pronounced when they act (as this group did), in an overtly political way by timing their open letter for 4-days prior to an election. In my opinion, such an act has been viewed with great cynicism by a significant slice of the electorate who are probably already less than enamoured with academia.

I don’t believe this a good thing. Ultimately, our society is that much poorer when the general regard for academia as being thoughtful, objective and above politics is eroded by acts such as this. I am myself university-trained and so will be just as affected when academic qualifications lose their lustre in the public sphere.

Rowland, when I read articles such as yours, I have to ask myself, where does this fit in the grand scheme of things? Is it because your thoughts have been challenged somewhere and you see this as some sort of undemocratic restriction on your freedom of expression? Is this righteous indignation?

There exists today, in most democratic countries, a group think entity I describe as “the howling”. This entity and its key players also have an identifiable process.

The key players are sourced from academia, intelligencia, media, glitterati, compliant politicians, activist science and disproportionate representation from advocacy/NGO groups.

The process starts with a false premise, for example, that “we are all being denied rights and liberties”. This is followed by an extended and persistent “awareness” campaign by examples of violations. Next there is the advocacy by the key players and the proselytizing phase. This “converts” minority perspectives into a pseudo-majority view, establishes credibility by authority and creates an urgent imperative for action.

“The howling” is responsible for creating a “spectrum of popularity”, outside which our politicians perceive the risk of loss of voter support by venturing outside the policy exclusion zone created by “the howling”.

The net effect has been to polarize group think politics around this narrow spectrum of minority appeasement. This is squeezing political party policies into such a narrow band that they have become almost impossible to differentiate (political averaging), as result we see more hung or minority government. As we have seen in Tasmania, S.A. W.A and possibly will see in the UK. Not mention Obama’s landslide victory by 2.7%.

Under Turnbull it was difficult to distinguish between the main parties however, some discernable differentiation is now starting to emerge from Abbott. We will however, continue to be subjected to tokenistic/populist pronouncements, nanny state initiatives, 24/7 media spin, the precautionary principle, political averaging and the inevitable drone from “the howling”.

Even as part of “the howling” Rowland, you still have the right to an opinion, you don’t have the right to be right. More importantly, your academic freedom is no more sacrosanct that anyone else’s