Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. --George Orwell, 1984

We are only now emerging from a century nearly consumed by totalitarian fires. Nazism, Communism, and their spin-offs have made this century uglier even than the brutal millennia which preceded it. Both ideologies waged war not only against the human body, but against the mind and soul, expunging and implanting emotions and ideas in the name of a future utopia.

But the desire of authorities for total control of their subjects' innermost thoughts did not begin in this century, or even in the modern era. Ancient pharaohs deified themselves to increase their control over the Egyptian population, as did Roman Emperors, who also conducted ruthless purges of their opponents. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church attained such a dominant position in West European intellectual life that unorthodox ideas were largely squelched. The close of the medieval world and the dawn of the modern age was symbolized by an explosion of new ideas and approaches. Ancient and Arab texts were consulted and discussed, while new artistic modes flourished. It is evidence both of the conservatism of the new age and its dependence on ancient sources that it was praised not for its newness, but instead was called the Renaissance, or rebirth. The most important development of this period was that intellectuals made extensive use of observation in tandem with deductive logic and inductive insights to ascertain scientific truths. To do so, though, required a willingness to doubt Church teachings and call into question traditional modes of thought.

Questioning theologians frequently found their ideas and themselves under assault from Rome; those who persisted in their heresy founded the various sects of the Protestant faith. Equally hazardous to the Vatican's monopoly on intellectual life, however, were those individuals, utterly without theological pretensions, who dared to investigate scientific matters. An all-encompassing worldview, such as that of the medieval Church, could not allow doubt to contaminate any aspect of that view, for fear that disbelief would then taint the doctrine as a whole. As with all autocracies, the medieval Church carried out its most brutal reign of terror when its exclusive control was strongly menaced from within. The Inquisition was launched to extirpate heresy, attacking not only Protestants and Catholic dissenters but also Jewish and Muslim communities in Catholic lands. Among its victims was one of the greatest scientists in human history.

Galileo Galilei, who used his telescope to observe the heavens, found that the weight of evidence favored the Copernican theory of planetary motion. That is, the Earth was not the immobile center of the universe, but orbited the sun, as did the other planets. The Ptolemaic system had imagined that planets traveled in epicycles and complicated orbs, all the while attached to an invisible firmament which kept them at their appropriate distance from Earth. How much simpler, argued advocates of the Copernican theory, if the planets, Earth included, simply traced out circles around the sun. Their view was, of course, not accurate by modern standards; planets move in imperfect ellipses, influenced by external forces, including one another. What the Copernicans had in common with modern scientists was a willingness to accept observation and logic as the guiding principles for their study, the center of their intellectual universe.

Galileo's discovery of moons orbiting Jupiter literally shattered the idea of a heavenly firmament, arousing the Inquisitors' suspicions. The ruler of Florence then permitted its most famous scientist to be taken to Rome in the custody of the Inquisition. Galileo was not tortured, but was shown the instruments whereby he would be if he did not retract his views. "Signor Galilei understands machinery," said the Inquisitor in a play about the story, Bertolt Brecht's Galileo. And, in the real world, Galileo did, of course, recant his belief in the Copernican system. Legend has it that after agreeing that the Earth was the immobile center of the universe, he whispered "And yet it moves," but this story is likely apocryphal.

Brecht's play indicts Galileo as an unsophisticated coward; the lack of character development and the gross oversimplification of issues are part of the reason that I found this work singularly disappointing. Another reason is this: Brecht, a German anti-Nazi, was safely ensconced in 1930s Paris when he wrote the play. He felt that he had a right to chastise a man who had publicly renounced his beliefs when imprisoned and threatened with torture. I find it reprehensible for those who enjoy liberty and security to criticize the "cowardice" of those who do not. While some may wish that Galileo had been willing to be martyred for freedom of thought, it is not for us to judge him. Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident, has a right to be critical of Galileo's retraction; he came to that conclusion while he was imprisoned in Siberia for his beliefs. But few should be accorded that right.

Galileo's experiences have great relevance to the twentieth century. Scientists in Nazi Germany found themselves forced to betray not only their colleagues, but also the scientific enterprise: the theory of relativity was condemned as "Jewish science" and the like. More recently, Soviet scientists faced an Inquisition not only for their political views, but also for disagreeing with the scientific ideas of T.D. Lysenko, whose views on biology became Party dogma. The Soviet government's brutal attempts to impose Lysenko's doctrines onto its scientists turned many of them away from the regime, which weakened Soviet scientific prowess from the 1960s onwards. There is some poetic justice in the fact that states which persecute their scientists and engineers reap fewer technical advances than their neighbors, but this scarcely diminishes the privation of those who must endure such regimes.

The advent of Lysenkoism also created a class of well-educated dissidents, led by the previously apolitical Andrei Sakharov. The man who had been extolled as a patriot for developing the Soviet hydrogen bomb found himself drawn into opposition because of government intrusion into the scientific world, and only through this activism did he become involved in the human-rights work which won him the Nobel Peace Prize. Similar issues have arisen in the People's Republic of China. Fang Lizhi, a leading physicist, first expressed discontent with the Communist system when his textbooks, citing Lenin, termed a specific model of the atom as "bourgeois." His papers on cosmology, which asserted that the universe was "finite but unbounded," were considered anti-Marxist by the Party. Gradually, his opposition to the r�gime became focused on freedom of thought and human rights; his speeches and writings helped to inspire generations of students who were dissatisfied with Communism. At the time of the present writing, he is in exile in the United States, where his prominence as a physicist and as a dissident make him an enduring challenge to the leadership in Beijing.

Not all latter-day Galileos are scientists, or even true-to-life. There are clearly elements of the Galileo story embedded in the character of 1984's protagonist, Winston Smith. Winston holds that the essence of freedom is being able to hold onto the validity of external experience, despite what the Party said. Smith tries to uphold his belief in the power of observation despite the opposition of his torturer. The latter holds up four fingers and tells Winston to perceive five; in the end, despite his spirited resistance, Winston not only says there are five, but begins to believe it. He repeats to himself that sanity is not statistical, but is finally broken to the point that he thinks it is.

Part of 1984's brilliance is that the reader develops strong empathy for Winston, and tries to resist in parallel to him the totalitarian brutality he experiences. The reader hopes that he will be able to sustain his core beliefs�a belief in a truth external to the human mind, his refusal to accept the authority of Party dictates, and his genuine love for another human being. All three are gradually destroyed. But unlike Brecht, who condemns the capitulation of his protagonist as craven and weak, Orwell shows us that to capitulate is human, and that we would have done the same.

All deaths and sufferings at the hands of totalitarian regimes are tragic, and the victims' memories, whatever their backgrounds, deserve to be honored. Many scientists have been persecuted by these tyrannies, not as scientists, but because of their ethnic or class origins, political or religious beliefs, and the like. Scientists as a class, though, represent a special threat to tyrants: their search for objective scientific truth often puts them at odds with official dogmas. Their enlightened skepticism introduces doubt in societies whose rulers prefer to govern by fiat.

The rational concern of authoritarian regimes about the possible repercussions of scientific thought confirms that science and technology are not isolated fields, which have little to do with issues raised by the humanities and social sciences. In fact, the sciences' basis in experiment and logic make them difficult to refute objectively, and thus a firm foundation on which to construct intellectual visions, including those opposed to dictatorial orders. The sciences are not dead, abstruse disciplines, but rather living, vibrant challenges to those who would cage the human mind and spirit.

Give me a firm place on which to stand, and I will move the Earth. ---Archimedes