This post is a summary of a article published at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ on April,20 2012 with the title above. Was written by Shawn Lawrence Otto, co-founder of Sciencedebate.org, and the other text has the title of " Frequently asked questions on human rights." published at http://humanrights.gov.au/
The Chinese astrophysicist Fang Lizhi died on April, 6 2012, at the ageof 76. That a Chinese astrophysicist passing is noted in a prestigious American journal is a testament to how Fang crossed boundaries between the two cultures and was loved, in both. Fang was a frequent contributor to the NYtimes review of books, which also says a lot about the man. Most readers will not know who he was, but they will resonate with those ideas. They are important ideas. Fang wrote about science as a force for human rights. Like democracy, science is inherently antiauthoritarian, it opposes authoritarianism because it takes nothing on faith. It says "show me the evidence, and I will judge for myself." This tends to be politically inconvenient for kings, popes, dictators and ideologues, who want to assert their views without having to provide evidence. Science is always political, because creates new knowledge and new knowledge always challenges vested interests. That happened a lot in China during the called cultural revolution of Mao in the late 1960s. Mao liked to celebrate his peasant roots, much like some people celebrate their anti-intellectualism today. Mao was suspicious of scientists and academics, and viewed them as "dangerous and antirevolutionaries". They were banished to work camps to be reeducated, or they were jailed or shot. Mao closed the universities to all but a select few for decades. He ignored the advice of scientists and as a result, he brought on the worst famine in human history. Fang was one of those scientists and academics, he was persecuted and confined to a coal mine. Fang stood up against authoritarians in the Deng Xiaoping government that followed, he used satire to mock them in his physics classes. They fired him, after the Tiananmen Square student uprising in 1989, Fang and his wife took refuge in the U.S. embassy, where they stayed for more than a year, until go to U.S. and become a professor of physics at the University of Arizona.
Fang said something about science, tolerance and freedom in a essay at 1996. The words could be applied to antiscience authoritarians in America today. He said, "science begin with doubt. Science stresses independence of judgment, not conformity to the judgment of others. Science is egalitarian. Science need a free flow of information. Science truths, like human rights principles, are universal." Science is a humanitarian force, Fang lived it. His clarion voice will be missed.
In recent decades there has been a tremendous growth in how we think about and apply human rights ideas. This has had many positive results, knowledge can empower individuals and offer solutions. Putting human rights ideas into practice can helps us create the society we want to live in. When people better understand human rights it will be easier for them to promote justice and the well-being of society. Human rights of people can not be taken away. This does not mean that abuses and violations do not occur. However, they are essential legal principles. Many nations incorporated these principles into their own laws, this provide an opportunity for individuals to have a complaint settled by a court in their own country, may also be able to take a complaint of violations to a United Nations committee.
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