Hong Kong universities must uphold the absolute principle of academic freedom

The notion of academic freedom has been receiving a lot of attention lately. In modern scholarly circles and universities, academic freedom is the most sacred of all principles. It protects scholars and scientists from persecution when they ask questions or pursue studies on subjects that are not politically correct, contrary to popular belief, or against community standards. This Western concept developed after hundreds of years of political and religious oppression in Europe, from which we finally escaped in the mid-20th century.

The most famous historical case is probably the persecution of Galileo Galilei by the Vatican in 1633. Galileo was a strong supporter of Copernicus' heliocentric (sun-centred) theory, which posited that the earth and five planets revolve around the sun. In 1632, Galileo published the book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican, in which he used imaginary conversations between Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus to argue that the heliocentric theory better explained observational facts than the geocentric theory that the sun and planets revolve around the earth.

Because of this book, Galileo was brought to the Vatican in 1633 to face charges. He was put under inquisition and threatened with torture. Galileo recanted and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Only in 1992, 350 years after Galileo's death, did Pope John Paul II formally acknowledge the church's error.

Galileo's case was not the worst example of persecution. Giordano Bruno was tried for heresy in 1593 and burned at the stake in 1600 for promoting the belief that the sun was just a nearby star and that there might be other planets revolving around distant stars. We now know that these ideas are correct. But at that time, they countered the church's doctrine that the sun was unique and existed for the benefit of humans, a special people created by God.

Whether the earth revolves around the sun or vice versa may seem like an academic issue, but the heliocentric theory implies that humans do not occupy a special place in the universe. It also disrupts the theological structure that the earth occupies a special place between hell and heaven, which is supposed to lie beyond the sphere of fixed stars. As the theological foundation weakens, society's hierarchical structure is also cast into doubt.

The originator of the heliocentric theory, Nicolaus Copernicus, was very conscious of the church's possible reaction to his own ideas. He hesitated to publish his findings. When his work Six Books on the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was finally published in 1543, the year that he died, he took care to dedicate the book to Pope Paul III and included a supporting letter from Cardinal Schönberg in the preface. Thanks partly to these precautions, Copernicus' book avoided controversy until 1616, when it was banned by the Vatican.

Science, by its nature, is about exploring the unknown, and such pursuits often lead to unexpected conclusions. Many theories, when first proposed, were highly controversial. The theory of evolution, now regarded as the backbone of modern biology, was unpopular because it was viewed as contrary to the Bible, which states that God created all living things.