To protest or to ignore? a scientist's alternatives in reacting to the persecution of his colleagues

Abstract

AbstractThe important issues raised in Professor Minker's [1] article are about participation by scientists in the fight for human rights (in particular the rights of their colleagues in the Soviet Union), the relation between science and politics, solidarity between scientists, and how they can affect the fate of scientists subjected to unjust reprisals. We know for sure that the facts presented in Minker's article are true, that the mechanism of enslaving scientists that he describes actually operates in the USSR, and that in several cases foreign scientists have helped win concessions from the authorities in the sphere of honoring the rights of scientists. In response to Editor Charles Meadow's appeal, I have decided to voice my ideas on the issues raised in Minker's article, since it seems to me that along with opinions from the outside, a look from the inside at the system in which enslaving scientists and the misuse of science have become the law can also be of interest. I feel it is timely and of vital importance for scientists to discuss these questions on the pages of a scientific journal.