Downvoting is the correct reaction to heresy. For every Darwin or Galileo there are many thousands of kooks. Downvoting doesn't silence people -- you can still see them at the bottom of the page in grey or worst case by turning showdead on.
If I understand brianlarsen correctly, the point is that if you downvote 10,000 heresies, one will be correct[1]. The others will just be cranks. And the one heresy that will be correct... well, this is HN, not the Royal Society. If the correct heretic is depending on not being downvoted on HN to get the word of the newly-discovered truth out, that's probably not an optimal publication strategy.
> If I understand brianlarsen correctly, the point is that if you downvote 10,000 heresies, one will be correct[1]. The others will just be cranks.
> [1] All numbers made up on the spot.
This is the (or a) problem, at least as I see it.
I'm not proposing that we entertain all sorts of crazy ideas, but I don't think it should be controversial that HN adopts a culture of not saying things that are not true. An example of this is the habitual posting of opinions (often axiomatic beliefs, but not always) in a manner that makes them appear as fact.
Reducing the frequency of this would indeed require some effort, but HN is unwilling to even include it in the guidelines. I find that interesting and more than a little ironic considering PG's essay on the matter.
