Scientists Need Open Free Societies

. Historically, the brightest minds have migrated to open societies. and once there have made discoveries and created works that enriched and advanced those societies. A classic example is the intellectual flight from fascist Europe in the years leading up to World War 11. Persecution, particularly of Jews and homosexuals, spurred emigration that turned America into an intellectual mecca. America offered scientists and artists freedom, tolerance, egalitarianism, opportunity, and support for their work, and it had the military strength to protect those ideals. In return, the new immigrants gave America breakthroughs in chemistry, iology, and physics and an expanded Hollywood liberal narrative culture, America's chief cultural export.

But scientific leadership proceeds from not only openness but also the degree of opportunity available to citizens. By making education free and accessible to all, by stimulating cross-pollination and creativity with diversity of views and support for research and the arts, and by leveling the economic playing field to provide equal opportunity and freedom of inquiry, democratic societies have broadcast the intellectual fertilizer that helps talent develop wherever it may be.

Combined, these two factors have had a powerful effect: Even more than empowering individuals, they empower ideas. It is this mix of freedom, tolerance, creativity, talent, and diversity in science, in art, and in the social and intellectual interplay between art and science that has historically spawned the great breakthrough cultures that produce bumper crops of new ideas and fresh insights.

Historically, they have migrated to such societies and generated improvements in the quality of life.