Christopher Hitchens Quotes
"Objective" means that, in a confrontation with the evidence, you would be willing to change your own mind.
Hitchens, Christopher. Letters to a Young Contrarian. Basic Books, 2001.
Most politicians would never do this. Ideologues rarely analyze their beliefs. Pragmatic politicians are fearful of being called a flip flopper with no core principles. However, some politicians follow this advice. For example, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were both among the rare politicians who would frequently change positions as they learned more. See John Maynard Keynes {619441} for a personal statement of this principle and {636175} for a modern view.
When a scientist is persuaded to change his position, he is acting in the great tradition of the best of scientists. When a politician does the same, he is a flip flopper, without any real principles and clearly not to be trusted. A scientist would not be trusted by his peers if he did not readily change is views.
Christopher Eric Hitchens was an English-American intellectual, polemicist, and socio-political critic, who expressed himself as an author, orator, essayist and columnist. He wrote, co-wrote, edited or co-edited over 30 books, including five of essays on culture, politics and literature. Having contributed to several publications, he is broadly regarded as one of the most influential atheists of all time.
