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Science Blogger Sued for Unfavorable Book Review
tigerhawkvok writes "Recently, new author Stuart Privar provided Professor PZ Meyers of Pharyngula a copy of his book, Lifecode, for review. Over the course of the review itself and a few follow-ups, it became evident that the content was nonsense (including, among other things, ten-legged spiders and other phenomena strongly at odds with developmental biology). However, the common threat of lawsuits finally became a reality, and now Privar is suing Myers for $15 million. Can calling someone a 'classic crackpot' in the face of such incorrect data have any chance at making it to court, or even winning the suit?"
Contrary to this "this is the first time this has happened!" tone of this article, religious nutballs (as this Picar guy appears to be), frauds, and crackpots actually have a long history of suing when someone challenges them. The Church of Scientology has sued many people. Uri Gellar sued James Randi and others. Crackpots sue all the time (that part of what makes them crackpots). Some, like this Pivar guy apparently, have the financial resources to use their lawsuits to harass (like the aforementioned Scientologists). It's just a sad reality, here in the U.S. anyway (where we have no "loser pays" lawsuit system).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Of course it could, probably will, and will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
If someone can be sued for their opinions... then Slashdot users will have to start a collection for a community lawyer pool, because some or all of us are going to get sued at some point.
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Which now begs the question: if you go on Amazon, but the book, then review it and tell him he's a crackpot, are you going to be sued to? Can an Amazon review be held against you?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
As Niels Bohr said, "Your idea is crazy, but not crazy enough to be true."
As one article points out, the bar for libel is pretty high in the US, especially for public or semi-public figures. The author of the book has put themselves in the public view multiple times, for many different things. I'd expect it never makes it to court.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
(Before I drop into my string theory rant, I want to point out that there is a difference between having no evidence and MAKING UP evidence.)
String theory is an interesting bit of physically-motivated mathematics that has been WAY oversold as a description of nature. It is the theorist's job to invent new mathematical descriptions of unexplained phenomenon, and to extrapolate from what we know to what we could potentially discover. It takes a while to get there, though. Lots of nice ideas which are wrong get generated along the way.
Somewhere in the process the string theory PR machine got out of hand, and it started being sold to the general public as more than just a crazy conjecture. In the process, I think it has done a lot of damage to the credibility of high energy physics. There's a lot of argument within the field about string theory as well. I would suggest checking out The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of a String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next.
This is why you should put "in my opinion" in front of opinion based statements. Even if you put a general declaratory statement of "this is opinion not fact" at the bottom of of the page it is, in my experience, it's good practice to preface such statements just to be clear.
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As Carl Sagan said, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
the security of a contract?
Since when does one need the security of a contract to read a book and tell people what you thought of it?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
As a biologist, I certainly regard string theory as science, because it is not abstract but rather directed toward describing physical reality. Whether it will turn out to be a useful theory in inspiring informative experiments (which is more important for science than rather a theory is actually correct) remains to be seen. The math is clearly very difficult, but it took many years to figure out how to test many of the predictions of relativity and quantum theory. A
If you read the reviews, you will find that the reviewer tore apart the contents of the book, not the reputation of the Stuart Pivar.
If you dig a little further, you will find that Stuart Pivar seems to have a good reputation in the chemical engineering world and the art world.
A scan for Stuart Pivar in Google uncovers some patents he seems to be associated with regarding molding hollow plastic articles. (For some reason a Stewart Pivar is also associated with these patents. Are they the same person?) I can see where these patents could have made him a fair amount of cash if handled properly.
The same scan uncovers the fact that he was closely tied to Andy Warhol and was a cofounder of New York Academy of Art. He seems to have a reasonably good reputation in those circles. I especially liked an article where he rescued a Roman bronze from being broken into parts because it had been misclassified as a later sculpture.
You'll note that the reviewer didn't touch on those areas. Instead, the reviewer focused on his area of expertise, biology, and methodically tore apart the arguments that Pivar put forth. Since Pivar lacks a peer-reviewed scientific reputation in biology and related topics, you can't really say Pivar's reputation as a scientist was destroyed.
If Pivar truly wants to protect his 'reputation' as a scientist, then he will do it with hard facts backed up by peer-reviewed science and not a lawsuit.
Note that the comment about 'Destroying the reputation of those with disagree with' also applies to Stuart Pivar. Just because he has the money to take such a thing to court doesn't mean that he should. If anything, Pivar is in the process of destroying his own reputation as an elderly but budding scientist.