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Simon Singh To Appeal In UK Court Today
TACD writes "Simon Singh, author, television presenter and known critic of pseudoscience, is in court today appealing the decision made against him last May over his use of the term 'bogus' to describe the methods used by the British Chiropractic Association. Today's decision could have far-reaching implications for the movement to reform Britain's horrifically outdated libel laws (that even America is making moves to protect its citizens against), and to begin taking steps to elevate Britain above the likes of China when it comes to open debate and freedom of speech."
So I so we let him off!
Simon Singh is the author of VERY COOL books:
Fermat's Last Theorem
and
The Code Book
(those are the ones I read, at least)
how long until
the fact that on first glance, the former means what you expanded it to, whereas the latter is more commonly used as a generic insult.
FGD 135
There are a few conditions a Chiropractic practitioner is good for, e.g. pinched nerves. However, their contention that manipulating the spine can fix virtually any condition is, er, properly described as "bogus".
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
for the newspapers it's called 'filling the pages with guff about reality TV', for The Eye, it's 'having good lawyers yourself'.
Also, most of us aren't sailors.
FGD 135
My family used chiropractors for years; the industry is so good as passing itself off as mainstream medicine, that I actually had to see the Simon Singh case to realize that chiropractice is woo-woo alternative medicine.
Just look for peer-reviewed studies that show it does anything. If I recall, James Randi's $1,000,000 prize is open to Chiropractors who can show they can do anything other than help some minor back pain.
Trolling is a art,
"Simon Singh, author, television presenter and known critic of pseudoscience, is in court today...
Well, given that it is now approaching 9PM in the UK, it is more correct to say Simon Singh was in court today. And so far things look promising – Lord Judge is less than impressed by BCA's case. See http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/02/simon-singh-chiropractic-bca-libel-appeal
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
They are very much helped in this by the fact that some of them are basically just a combination of physical therapist/hardcore masseuse, so(as long as they stick to addressing assorted aches and pains), there isn't anything especially quacky about them.
The ones who think that they can treat ear infections just by twisting your spine, though? Haha not so much. Unfortunately, as the Singh libel case demonstrated, they tend to stick together when somebody questions the quack side of the house.
I suppose that depends on what your Chiropractor is claiming to fix.
For example, my girlfriend visits a chiropractor because one of her spinal discs pinches a nerve in her upper back and that causes backpain and headaches.
She says it helps - and I take her word for it that someone cracking the back is helping the issues aligned with her spine.
In cadaver studies the whole pinched nerve thing was shown to be bogus. The amount a spine would have to be manipulated would cripple the subject.
They now resort to "subluxations" which, again, have been shown to be bogus. In experiments with n subjects, some with and some without diagnosed "subluxations" were examined by n chiropractors.
EVERY subject was diagnosed with a "subluxation" and rarely in the same spot.
Bullshit all around.
Fair enough. I'm in the UK too. However, I would like to say the following: homoeopathy is fraud. I work in the science section of a large bookshop in Edinburgh, I should be easy enough to find and will identify myself if asked.
Bring on the lawyers. I could intentionally produce a fraudulent, counterfeit, fake homoeopathic remedy (ie a small phial of water), but it would be indistinguishable from a "real" one. I would welcome a court's attention to the matter.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
1. The libel stuff is fairly new - probably only the last 5 years or so. We always used to consider the USA the place for that, but it seems to have moved here recently.
A lot of it come from one single judge as well: Mr Justice Eady.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
acupunctute [...] has been tested and found effective.
I think Randi's $1M prize is open to acupuncture. Also doing a quick check of PubMed, I don't see any studies showing benefit. Granted this was a quick search.
Trolling is a art,
I remembered this article in which a few studies had found that poking people with needles could relieve pain, but there was no difference between traditional locations and random locations.
This isn't Uk libel law it's English and welsh libel law Scotland and Northern Ireland have a different legal system.
Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.
"When it comes to censoring publications and blocking online content, it is arguable that Britain has an even worse record than China." - Simon Singh, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7294539/Simon-Singh-it-is-too-late-for-me-but-libel-laws-must-change-for-the-public-good.html
But yes, there may have been a trace of hyperbole in my post, on the internet. Gold star!
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Britain's senior judges have been begging parliament for reform in the libel and defamation laws due to their stupidity. The three judge appeal panel has Britian's two most senior judes on it, they have specifically requested this case for two reason's
1) To smack down Eady and deliver a sternly worded "No" to him while clipping his nose with a rolled up newspaper.
2) A spot of judicial activism because the politicians are dragging their feet something rotten
Puzzle Daze is now my job
The placebo effect isn't that powerful.
The placebo effect works for low grade pain, but anything that Tylenol can't handle, the placebo effect won't.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
No. Just read Simon's work and you'll find it well-researched and rock solid. The reason he has to face trial is not because he was careless, but a) because the law is incredibly strict, so strict that it causes people to apply self censorship, so strict that it makes the UK the #1 libel tourism resort and b) because he had the ill fortune of having to face Eady, a judge who is known to read the laws in the strictest possible manner and who interprets the things people say in the most slanderous manner possible and then stretches the truth a little bit further just to be sure. According to some, Eady is "clearly diagnosable".