Academic freedom is the great issue of our time, because it's not a one-way street.

Just as the GPL carries with it, as one of its "freedoms," the obligation to give back your finished tools under the GPL, so academic freedom also carries an obligation.

That obligation is to the scientific method. (The illustration is from a great discussion of bad science from Frankfurt, Germany. Use the link and then tell me who's pictured in the comments.)

The scientific method does not deal in truth, but in theories. All theories are constantly tested and adjusted by new observations or experiment. They are measured by whether they work, in engineering or in creating new lines of inquiry.

Academic review works similarly. Anyone who has done a dissertation knows the drill. You have to defend your work before people who understand it, and only after you withstand the scrutiny do you get the robe.

Politics exists in both science and academia, but politics doesn't control the whole process. The check on campus politics is the presence of other campuses, and the wider world of the discipline.

This is precisely what is under threat in our time.

By ignoring science in the crafting of policy, by allowing the non-science of "intelligent design" to be taught in science classes, and by using true-false tests rather than open-ended inquiry in grading students, the Bush Administration is undermining the scientific method.

Scientific truth is not a political process. Turning it into one is the rot at the core of our society. It's why China is in the process of burying us, because this politicization of science and education has been going on now for almost four decades.

All who have supported this, in thought, in word, or in deed, will have to answer to history.