UK: Keep the libel laws out of science

Subject: UK: Keep the libel laws out of science Sat Oct 03, 2009 4:18 am

The use of the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence discourages debate, denies the public access to the full picture and encourages use of the courts to silence critics. The British Chiropractic Association has sued Simon Singh for libel. The scientific community would have preferred that it had defended its position about chiropractic through an open discussion in the medical literature or mainstream media.

On 4th June 2009 Simon Singh announced that he was applying to appeal the judge's recent pre-trial ruling in this case, in conjunction with the launch of this support campaign to defend the right of the public to read the views of scientists and writers.

Join the campaign! In a statement published on 4th June 2009, over 100 people from the worlds of science, journalism, publishing, comedy, literature and law have joined together to express support for Simon and call for an urgent review of English law of libel. Supporters include Stephen Fry, Lord Rees of Ludlow, Ricky Gervais, Martin Amis, James Randi, Professor Richard Dawkins, Penn & Teller and Professor Sir David King, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government.

Please help us with this campaign, sign the statement and ask everyone you know to sign it. With every additional 1000 names we will be sending the statement again to Government until there is a commitment and a timetable from the parties for the necessary legislation.

Click here to read details of the launch of the campaign to Keep Libel Laws out of Science.

More: http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/333/

Subject: Re: UK: Keep the libel laws out of science Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:03 am

...the average cost of defending a libel case in England and Wales is 140 times greater than it is in most of the rest of Europe.

The problem the libel laws create is not so much that critical stories can’t be written, but that they won’t be. As the conversations I had this summer show, for many journalists and their employers the potential for a libel case is a powerful deterrent to criticism: the pieces aren’t worth the hassle. Singh has commented that “if I successfully defend my article, I will have had to have put my career on hold for probably two years, and it will cost me perhaps £25,000 [about $41,500] because I am unlikely to recover all my costs. And if I lose my case, then it will cost me roughly £500,000 [$800,000]. Fighting and winning is bad enough; fighting and losing is catastrophic.”

Most writers won’t take the risk. And who can blame them?

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/cracking-the-spine-of-libel/

UK: Keep the libel laws out of science

UK: Keep the libel laws out of science

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

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