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Canadian Climate Scientist Wins Defamation Suit Against National Post
Layzej writes A leading Canadian climate scientist has been awarded $50,000 in a defamation suit against The National Post newspaper. Andrew Weaver sued the Post over four articles published between December 2009 and February 2010. The articles contain "grossly irresponsible falsehoods that have gone viral on the Internet," and they "poison" the debate over climate change, Weaver asserted in a statement at the time the suit was filed. The judge agreed, concluding "the defendants have been careless or indifferent to the accuracy of the facts. As evident from the testimony of the defendants, they were more interested in espousing a particular view than assessing the accuracy of the facts."
This is the first of several law suits launched by climate scientists against journalists who have published alleged libels and falsehoods. Climate scientist Ben Santer suggests the following explanation for these types of defamations: "if you can't attack the underlying science, you go after the scientist."
This is the first of several law suits launched by climate scientists against journalists who have published alleged libels and falsehoods. Climate scientist Ben Santer suggests the following explanation for these types of defamations: "if you can't attack the underlying science, you go after the scientist."
idk, when you have partisan media spreading actual defamation of people rather than debating on facts, then lawsuits are basically the only way to rein them in. It's especially a problem when the same large corporations have a stake in ALL your countries media, it's rare that you will get the "basic facts" in the first place.
The government's pockets are so deep and grant money comes in such a torrent that when I left my job as a scientist funded by government grant money to work a similar job in private enterprise my salary only doubled.
Okay. So what do you do when you already have shown the opposing arguments to be false, and they keep making them. And then they resort to defaming your character, since they can't really counter your science. Some societies will go for a strict free speech approach that allows the liar to keep on lying and hopes that the effects won't be too bad. Other societies decide to put limits on how long you can keep spreading lies publicly. You may decide to think of this as censorship, but certainly there are degrees. Canada's certainly not coming down on the side of suppressing facts here... The US errs on the side of letting rich guys pay to spread lies. Which is the better approach?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
"I initiated the lawsuit in 2010 after the National Post refused to retract a number of articles that attributed to me statements I never made, accused me of things I never did, and attacked me for views I never held,"
That's is different than attacking someone's faulty science. (If you've looked at the hockey stick "science" you'd be laughing at it too.)
How can we have an open debate when one side censors the other, through lawsuits, censorship, or even making discussion outright illegal (see Holocaust denial)?
How can you have an open debate when one side uses lies and personal attacks instead of facts?
It doesn't matter how ridiculously wrong the other side is. Doesn't matter if they are NAMBLA, Neo-Nazis, ISIS, whoever. Let them speak their mind and let the people figure out that their arguments are largely full of shit and let the people reject them on merit. Or, if they choose to, accept them.
It DOES matter how ridiculously wrong one side is when their goal is not to win a debate but to DELAY ACTION. By manufacturing controversy where there is none, one side wins.
The National Post isn't an obscure paper though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The National Post is a Canadian paper based out of Toronto, and was the flagship paper of PostMedia, one of Canada's major media conglomerates. It is in direct competition with The Globe and Mail (the other major paper title). It used to be a major National title, but its readership dropped off about the same time it started doing strong "partisan" editorials on topics with strong pro-Israeli/anti-muslim content (including the 2006 Iran controversy). In the past decade, they have not been strangers to coloring their reporting, sometimes past the line of believability.