#106: Perfect Freedom to Impugn

“It follows that before a [scientific] theory can be considered true, it is virtually indispensable that there be perfect freedom to impugn it. Any limitation, even indirect and however remote, imposed on anyone choosing to contradict it is enough to cast suspicion upon it. Hence freedom to express one’s thought, even counter to the opinion of the majority or of all, even when it offends the sentiments of the few or of the many, even when it is generally reputed absurd or criminal, always proves favorable to the discovery of objective truth.”*

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*Vilfredo Pareto as quoted in Burnham, James. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (pp. 247-248). Lume Books. Kindle Edition. (Bold emphasis added.)

Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto[3] (... born Wilfried Fritz Pareto; 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italian civil engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term "elite" in social analysis.
He introduced the concept of Pareto efficiency and helped develop the field of microeconomics. He was also the first to discover that income follows a Pareto distribution, which is a power law probability distribution. The Pareto principle was named after him, and it was built on observations of his such as that 80% of the wealth in Italy belonged to about 20% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto