On Sun, 7 Feb 1999, rc-am wrote:
> ... logic and content, if you prefer. i should have added that chomsky
> thinks final validity rests with the former and values with the latter.
> this is the distinction he makes re the IQ debate: that it should be
> possible to claim validity for the former, that is to judge it as a
> vakid or otherwise form of science, without at the same time attaching
> any link to the substance of the arguments being made about IQ and race.
> it was a similar argument chomsky made about why he did the preface to
> that infamous book: that the research, the science could be judged
> separately from the substantive claims about the holocaust ...
Actually, I don't think Chomsky did make such a distinction in regard to Faurisson. He simply defended the right to free speech -- that speech should not be suppressed by law on the basis of its content, however erroneous or vicious it might be. As he said at the time, "I thought these things had been decided in the Enlightenment..." -- referring of course to the remark attributed to Voltaire.
--C. G. Estabrook