{"id":118,"date":"2010-02-23T20:58:30","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T20:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/02\/23\/simon_singh_vs_the_chiropractors_today_in_court\/"},"modified":"2010-12-22T11:57:02","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T11:57:02","slug":"simon_singh_vs_the_chiropractors_today_in_court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/02\/23\/simon_singh_vs_the_chiropractors_today_in_court\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Singh vs. the chiropractors: today in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noted British science writer Simon Singh<\/a> was in the High Court today<\/span> for an Appeal Hearing, the latest stage of his long-running legal battle with the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). The hearing today was before a very senior panel of three English High Court Judges, including the Lord Chief Justice. For those unfamiliar with the case, \u201cSceptical Lawyer\u201d and occasional NN<\/em> visitor David Allen Green discussed the specific legal issues at this hearing on his Jack of Kent<\/em> blog<\/a> over the weekend, and again today prior to the hearing in The Lawyer:<\/em><\/p>\n

Simon Singh\u2019s Bogus Journey<\/a><\/p>\n

(this latter article is a good introduction to the case, as it gives a brief summary of the history and background as well as covering the specifically legal issues)<\/p>\n

NN<\/em> blogger Stephen Curry<\/a> attended the morning part of the hearing where Singh\u2019s lawyers presented their case, so I imagine we will hear about that from him in due course. In the afternoon, the BCA\u2019s lawyers made their presentation. The afternoon\u2019s events \u2013 notably the questioning of the BCA\u2019s legal team by the Justices \u2013 has already received some attention both in the Twitterverse and in some of the online forums (see e.g. here<\/a>). David Allen Green, who was in court, characterised the afternoon as the BCA\u2019s lawyers being given \u201ca deliciously hard time\u201d<\/span> by the Judges. Their Lordships have \u201creserved judgement\u201d<\/span>, as the saying is, so we do not know precisely when their (written) ruling will appear, though 6-8 weeks time is typical.<\/p>\n

David Allen Green has promised an article on today\u2019s events on his blog<\/a> later today or perhaps tomorrow, which will be a must-read for anyone following the case. In the meantime, here are his Tweeted thoughts from outside the court following the hearing:<\/p>\n

\u201cLord Chief Justice \u201cbaffled\u201d why case has got this far, \u201csurprised\u201d BCA did not take Right of Reply\u201d1<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLord Chief Justice asked why, if BCA\u2019s evidence existed, didn\u2019t they just publish it?\u201d2<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll three appeal judges very sharp on need for scientific debate and nature of scientific evidence\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The final comment is a heartening one for scientists everywhere: though particularly for those facing possible ruin in libel actions for having given their professional view of scientific or medical evidence, like cardiologist Peter Wilmshurst.<\/a><\/p>\n

Thus the early signs from today are promising, though it must be stressed \u2013 as Simon Singh himself does here<\/a> \u2013 that there is a long way to go. However, it is clear that the question of how English (malign?) libel laws impact on scientific debate is in the minds of England\u2019s senior judiciary, and indeed some of its politicians.<\/a> The hope is that this is \u201cA Good Thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there is something you can do personally, if you haven\u2019t already \u2013 you can sign the petition for reform of the English Libel Law.<\/a> A push today, in solidarity with Singh\u2019s appearance in court, got signatures over the 35,000 mark. I persuaded one of my colleagues to sign, and I am setting myself the target of one a day for the rest of this week. So please visit the site, read, and sign if you want to support the campaign.<\/p>\n

And if you do want to support it, send your friends there too.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By signing you will help send a message, particularly to politicians, that scientists, and others who value the role of scientific evidence in debates and decision-making, are not going to let this issue go away.<\/p>\n

PS Another good article on the case, written before today\u2019s hearing, is this one<\/a> from The Times<\/em> by doctor, writer and philosopher Raymond Tallis.\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014—————<\/p>\n

1. The BCA were offered an instant right of reply in the Guardian<\/em> \u2013 500 words was mentioned \u2013 when they complained about Singh\u2019s original article. They turned it down and chose instead to sue Singh personally.<\/p>\n

2. The BCA referred many times in the early stages of the case to all the evidence they had for their assertions about the treatments of various childhood ailments with chiropractic, most famously stating that there was \u201ca plethora of evidence\u201d<\/span>. They did not, however, publish<\/em> this evidence until very late in the day, and after much goading from the Sceptical Blogosphere. When the \u201cplethora\u201d appeared it was rapidly taken apart by bloggers,as you can read here<\/a>. A summary deconstruction by Professor Edzard Ernst<\/a> appeared in the British Medical Journal.<\/em> This prompted an editorial by BMJ<\/em> editor Fiona Godlee, who stated that:<\/p>\n

\u201d[Ernst\u2019s] demolition of the 18 references is, to my mind, complete.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noted British science writer Simon Singh was in the High Court today for an Appeal Hearing, the latest stage of his long-running legal battle with the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). The hearing today was before a very senior panel of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pseudoscience","category-public-engagement","category-science-policy","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}