Comments on: Liberty or Libel?

By: TGGP

TGGP — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:46:25 +0000

Neglected point is that if you read a statement of fact in a British newspaper, you can be reasonably sure it is true.
Funny, since they're so often considered untrustworthy.

By: Pithlord

Pithlord — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:36:34 +0000

Neglected point is that if you read a statement of fact in a British newspaper, you can be reasonably sure it is true. That doesn’t seem to stop them from being argumentative or scandal sheets, so maybe there is something to be said for British libel laws from the consumers point-of-view. Similar arguments apply to product liability lawsuits generally.

By: gene berman

gene berman — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:54:47 +0000

“litigious cunts,” Jason? Good’un!

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:28:39 +0000

So in addition to being quacks and liars the BCA are litigious cunts. The line between chiropracty and Scientology continues to blur.

By: Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:15:22 +0000

This just seems nutty. Is the brit tradition staving off some sort of nastiness that we are experiencing here in the states -- is there an actual trade-off here, and not just in theory but in reality?

What could be more fundamentally arguable than just this sort of topic? Everyone knows that disagreeing MDs and PhDs quite typically aim some serious invective at each other when their research disagrees, though usually in their own odd style. I just cant imagine carefully mincing words before daring to publish about this -- or wringing my hands for a year afterward. The sociology and psychology of this sort of bunk medicine -- why it still persists without evidence -- are essential topics in the market of ideas. I would expect that you would need to take on every facet of the the thing polemically if you actually wanted to change the minds of some of these alt-med patients who have, in logical rigor, as little instinct as training.

By: DavidB

DavidB — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:40:50 +0000

On the question of MSM coverage of the decision to allow an appeal, I have searched Google News Archive for the two weeks after the decision. As far as I can see, the only UK national newspaper to report the decision was the Guardian, here http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/14/simon-singh-chiropractors-appeal

The Guardian of course has a special interest in the case. Nevertheless, its initial report contained several gross errors (subsequently corrected online), including a classic 'Grauniad' misprint ('not a lot of evidence' instead of 'not a jot of evidence') so perhaps it is just as well that I did not see it at the time.

By: georgesdelatour

georgesdelatour — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:48:56 +0000

Imagine you’re about to undertake a course of chiropractic treatment. You read Singh’s article and decide not to proceed. Why? Because you realise the treatment won’t work. Does the chiropractor know it won’t work, or is he deluded? It doesn’t matter. What matters to you is, does the treatment work? If it doesn’t work you don’t want to pay for it.

Imagine the chiropractor is a con-man who believes his treatment won’t work, and he’s selling it cynically to make money. Unbeknown to him, super-new research has discovered conclusively that his treatment DOES work, and you’ve read that research. In that situation, you’d pay him for the treatment.

Ultimately, if you’re selling what you claim is a medical treatment, the ONLY REPUTATION you can have is a reputation for successful treatment. The idea that you can have a “reputation”, worthy of defence, for sincere but nonetheless total failure, makes no sense.

The problem with making “dishonesty” the benchmark test for this case is, maybe only future brain scans of chiropractors could ever settle the question. Supposing the chiropractic association commissions their own independent tests on the efficacy of their treatments. The tests come back, and they’re completely damning. They show no benefit whatsoever from their treatments. Even in that situation, couldn’t the chiropractors sincerely believe that the tests were somehow flawed, even if they have no idea how?

By: DavidB

DavidB — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:42:04 +0000

I have acknowledged Jack of Kent in an addition to my post, though all I have ‘lifted’ from his site are two quotations from a legal ruling. I did provide a link to Olivia Judson’s post, which in turn provided a link to Jack of Kent’s site and other sources. I thought this was quite sufficient for anyone interested in the subject to follow up. In my own posts I often quote at length from other authors, but I would not expect anyone else to ‘acknowledge’ me as a source merely because they had found a useful quotation in one of my posts.

The granting of leave to appeal is a significant development, but it does not affect the substance of my post, which is that Judge Eady’s ruling is neither as unreasonable nor as damaging to freedom of speech as many have claimed. As I have also pointed out in an addition to my post, people who claim that the ruling will stifle fair criticism of pseudo-science are in danger of making a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:14:29 +0000

A pox on Richard Epstein, possibly the least libertarian “libertarian” I’m aware of.

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:06:22 +0000

“On ‘forum shopping’, the Guardian newspaper is published in England, so England (not Scotland) is the appropriate jurisdiction.”

It’s distributed in Scotland so libel (“defamation” in Scotland) could have been sued for. England might have been chosen for convenience – it surely wouldn’t have been chosen for prompt or economical decision-making – but it’s hard not to suspect that the English law, or custom, are more favourable to the accuser in cases of libel that the Scottish courts. Similarly, if you had a choice you’d always favour England over Scotland in a divorce case if you were hoping to strip your spouse of most of his wealth.

By: Pithlord`

Pithlord` — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:07:33 +0000

Good post. I’d note that the correct libertarian line about whether there should be libel laws is unclear. Richard Epstein thinks New York Times v. Sullivan amounted to an uncompensated taking of property rights from public figures. While I don’t buy that, I do agree with Ian Ayres’ point that defamation laws would be unproblematic if you could contract out of them. On Ayres’ scheme, you could be free of defamation liability if you ran a disclaimer saying, “This paper/blog/etc. has opted out of defamation liability. Readers beware.” In that counter-factual regime, Singh would have no complaint if he or his publisher didn’t run the disclaimer, and he’d have to take the reputational hit if he did.

By: Jack of Kent

Jack of Kent — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:05:14 +0000

Dear DavidB

As mine is the only site that took the trouble to obtain and republish Eady's judgment, then it would have been mere politeness to have mentioned that.

My site is also a counterexample to your (odd) allegations that blogs are not properly covering Simon Singh's case, and so I can see why you chose not to link to it.

As for your hapless missing of the crucial fact that Simon Singh has successfully obtained leave to appeal, and in terms which criticised Eady's judgment, then it is a simple "fail" for you. It was covered in MSM. Indeed, the application hearing itself was also featured in MSM. Your inability to spot this tells us a great deal about your basic competence to write an informed blog.

This all wouldn't perhaps matter, apart from your generalised and ignorant dissing of the blogs following this important case. And so I am taking the time to demonstrate your shortcomings.

Your blogpost is bogus. No doubt you wrote it happily. Of course, I do not accuse you of dishonesty; but you really have no idea what you are doing.

Jack of Kent

By: DavidB

DavidB — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:20:09 +0000

On 'forum shopping', the Guardian newspaper is published in England, so England (not Scotland) is the appropriate jurisdiction.

To JackofKent: I am not aware of 'lifting' anything from your site other than Olivia Judson's link to your text of the judge's ruling. Presumably you do not claim credit for this! As for the Appeal, I was aware that Simon Singh had applied for leave to appeal, but not that leave to appeal had recently been granted. So I was ill-informed on that. In my defence, the new decision does not seem to have been widely or prominently reported in the Press; in a Google News search just now the only report I could find was in the Scotsman. The higher court has accepted that the case raises issues of public interest, which I would not dispute.

As for the standard of comment in the blogosphere, I stand by the main point of my post, which is that much of the public commentary has misunderstood or misrepresented the issues in a very one-sided way (as do some of the comments above). The BCA's complaint is that Singh, by implication, accused them of dishonesty. This would clearly be defamatory, and science writers cannot expect to have carte blanche to make such accusations.

To John Emerson: As I pointed out in my Note 1, English libel law is generally in line with other Common Law jurisdictions: it is the USA which has diverged. Also, in English law 'truth' would usually be a defence - the defence of 'justification'. This stage of procedure has not been reached in the Singh case, as I hoped I had made clear in my post. As to your astrology example, anyone who accused a named astrologer or astrological organisation of fraud would expose themselves to a libel action, and quite rightly so, because it would be an accusation of dishonesty, and not just error. There is no ambiguity about the word 'fraud', as there may be about the word 'bogus'. If we are to have libel laws at all (and that is a wider issue) accusations of dishonesty are bound to be within their scope.

To Ptah: I don't know all the details, but I believe that the BCA originally would have been satisfied with an apology for the (alleged) imputation of dishonesty, but Singh refused.

To Jon Hopkins: Judge Laws did not say that Judge Eady's ruling was 'legally erroneous'; he said that this was 'arguable' - in other words, it is a legitimate matter for appeal. Any appeal on a matter of law has to show that the previous ruling is 'legally erroneous': that is what appeals are about.

To John B: as I said in my post, I don't think Eady's interpretation is quite as clear cut as he presents it, but it is not as unreasonable as you and other commentators claim. Your Myra Hindley example is feeble: children are expected to be gullible, professional organisations are not.

But my main point is that, contrary to much of the hostile commentary, the key issue in the case so far is whether there was an implied accusation of dishonesty against the BCA, and not whether, in fact, chiropractic treatments are effective. This issue has been persistently ignored or misrepresented. I prepared my post a few weeks ago, but decided not to use it until I was provoked by an article in the Times today which misrepresents the issues in precisely this way.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:23:26 +0000

There are special problems with British libel laws, which are unusually punitive and which favor the plaintiff (e.g., truth is not necessarily a defense, and the burden of proof is on the defendant).

These laws are very doubtful indeed when discussions of scientific ideas is concerned. As far as I know, someone who asserts that astrology is fraudulent and lacking in any scientific basis could be sued, by anyone making their living by astrology.

By: Ptah

Ptah — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:00:00 +0000

To me it seems that the fact that the BCA chose to sue instead of provide evidence of their bogus claims actually proves that they did spread them knowingly.

So even if Singh didn’t actually meant to imply they knowingly advocated treatments they knew to be worthless, the BCA themselves have by their litigiousness and general cockishness shown that they indeed did.

By: Jon Hopkins

Jon Hopkins — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:34:54 +0000

Any particular reason you fail to mention the recent granting of an appeal to Simon Singh as to Eady's ruling on meaning?

It would seem pertinent to your analysis of whether the ruling was unreasonable, particularly as Justice Laws described the ruling as "legally erroneous".

Here for more details:

http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2009/11/bca-v-singh-court-of-appral-permission.html

By: john b

john b — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:45:35 +0000

"In the case of the BCA, the contrast that Singh himself makes is between the BCA's position as the 'respectable face' of a medical profession, and its willingness 'happily' to promote 'bogus' treatments for which there is 'not a jot of evidence'. It is difficult to regard this merely as an accusation of gullibility."

On the contrary, I think it's very easy - and indeed, the natural reading - to take Singh's point here to mean "the BCA presents itself as a respectable professional body, and yet at best is as naive and gullible as a religious sect that promotes exorcism".

Similarly, Eady's suggestion that "happily" rules out "naively or inncoently believing in their efficacy", rather than implying it is frankly surreal. See: "the child happily walked off with Myra Hindley", etc.

Singh's piece makes the point, based on the evidence, that the BCA are either naively promoting stuff that doesn't work, or are liars. It leaves it up to the reader to decide which.

Eady's interpretation of the piece was that it ruled out the possibility that they were idiots; this is obviously wrong, was rightly overturned, and I can't see how anyone could possibly defend it...

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:37:52 +0000

There was a wee bit of “forum shopping” – after all, they could have used the Scottish Courts.

By: Jack of Kent

Jack of Kent — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:30:16 +0000

“…much of the commentary has been ill-informed…”

Not only do you seem to have lifted a good deal from my site with out acknowledgement, you’ve also missed that Eady’s judgment is subject to appeal. In granting permission to appeal a senior appeal judge was critical of Eady’s judgment.

In fact, the standard of commentary on this case has been very high thoroughout the blogosphere.