This right here is actually the source of the problem. The current societal environment tells you "here are topics that you have to discuss with utmost sensitivity, even if you are completely confident you are right, and have all the evidence."

Your (and presumably, the google employee that got fired) response?

"Nah, I am right, so fuck your rules"

It doesn't work that way.

If you are a scientist, and publishing in a peer review journal, I think you are close to correct. If you are a dilettante coming to de novo conclusions about controversial topics, you probably aren't qualified to declare something as science.

There is a very long list of odious things you can claim "science" justifies; in fact, it's kind of hard to think of something you can't six-degrees-of-science your way to defending. This isn't the rhetorical kill-shot you think it is.

> There is a very long list of odious things you can claim "science" justifies;

Does the length of such a list invalidate the items in the list? I don't see your point.

> in fact, it's kind of hard to think of something you can't six-degrees-of-science your way to defending.

Just because something is not directly implied by something else, doesn't mean there is no correlation. If you are working on a mathematical proof, would you give up if you cannot reach the end in 6 (or any arbitrary small number) of steps? Would you declare the assertion wrong? If yes, you're just a bad scientist.

Again, my argument here is simple: it is hard to think of a horrible thing you could say that you couldn't justify using the logic you presented upthread, which makes your argument seem pretty unpersuasive.

> Scientific merit should be the only consideration

More likely value to shareholders, in his setting.