bq. This is the (slightly edited) text of an email I’ve just sent to my MP, Simon Hughes (can I even mention his name? HT: Jenny)
Dear Simon
You are no doubt aware of the case that the British Chiropractic Association brought against Simon Singh, the popular science author. Singh criticized the BCA for making medical claims [potentially libellious bit redacted] that have no basis in fact. Rather than demonstrating that Singh was wrong, the BCA sued him for libel (see here and here among other places).
This is no way for a supposedly civilized society to behave. Our country has a long history of encouraging ideas, and furthermore of debating those ideas in the public sphere. It is how new ideas are forged and progress is made. We are not some totalitarian regime where those who ask difficult questions are arrested or otherwise silenced: we rejoice in our ability to poke fun at the establishment, to draw offensive cartoons, to get ideas into the open and give them a good seeing to.
Singh was not sued because he was actually libellious, but because of potential defamation. The BCA were, apparently (and I am no lawyer) quite within their rights under UK law to bring this action, which to me says that the law needs to be changed. I am informed that even mentioning someone by name in a blog post could result in legal action, for example).
And Singh is not the only one. I keep a weblog at Nature Network, which is run by Nature Publishing Group: the same company that publishes the world’s leading scientific journal. In the last week another blogger on the Network―a professor at Imperial College and a personal friend―had a blog post removed on legal advice by Nature Publishing Group’s lawyers. We are still a little bit in the dark about this, but it might be because he suggested that certain people―certain well-known and certainly richer peopler―don’t have a firm grasp of what ‘scientific authority’ means. This is potentially defamatory, and could lead to legal action? In what sane and free-thinking world is that the case?
I’ve taken the liberty of attaching a saved copy of the blog post to this email, so you can judge for yourself whether such opinion should be censored―or be the subject of a libel action.
My fellow writers at Nature Network are interested in communicating with other scientists as well as in engaging with the wider community: to share what science is (and is not), how science is done, why it’s important; its limitations as well as its strengths and maybe, just maybe, to help people make informed decisions about how they live their lives. But if every time someone writes something that criticizes an idea or an attitude, they are under threat of legal action, what is to become of this ideal?
Research councils and funding agencies are waking up to the necessity of scientific communication within the community, and are currently looking at ways of funding and encouraging active scientists to partake in this. If part of scientific communication is saying what is and what is not science, and explaining why certain ideas are wrong-headed, or not scientific, or mistaken, or just plain dumb, then how can we do that if we need a lawyer to check everything we write? How can we, as scientists, engage with the lay public if we’re afraid to do so?
(It might be argued that Nature Publishing Group, which, presumably, is concerned with the dissemination of ideas and which, over the last few years, has tried very hard to make scientific papers more accessible, should try a little harder to defend the people writing for it. That’s not really the point though: if their lawyers don’t think they could win this case before the threat of an action has even been made, there is something seriously wrong with the law.)
This is not about free speech. It is not about ‘rights’. It is about the responsibilities that scientists have towards the taxpayer, the people who pay their salaries and fund their research; scientists’ responsibility to engage each other in discussion; their responsibility to give back to the community the fruit of their research. This is about the culture of scientific debate―open, honest, robust debate―that has existed (until now) in this country and the wider scientific community. This culture is now under threat, and will remain so until the law catches up with the 21st Century.
Yours faithfully,
Richard Grant
PS I will be posting the content of this letter on my own weblog. Unless someone threatens to sue me first.
(x-posted)
Richard, I have found it useful when writing to MPs to be able to tell them about some other member of their own party who has taken a special interest in the relevant issue. Since Simon Hughes is a Lib Dem (as is my current MP), I would suggest you PS him and say that his parliamentary colleague Dr Evan Harris MP is taking a lead on this… and perhaps libel law reform should be a policy plank (cross party??!) for the next election blah blah.
Anyway, kudos for writing. I have always believed MPs don’t get enough letters from people OTHER than single-issue nutters and assorted loons. We should all do more pointing out to them of the issues we really care about. I have always got a considered response from mine (anecdotal sample of three letters/emails to two MPs of different parties), so hope you get similar from Simon Hughes.
Besides which, he will probably be grateful to get an email about anything except MPs’ expenses at the moment.
Thanks Austin. Apparently Simon does respond to emails, so I look forward to seeing what he has to say.
Yes, well done Richard (hat off). I will follow suit. You might also want to mention, if you are taking Austin’s advice, that Dr Harris spoke at the Singh meeting on the 18th May.
Ah, I think one PS is enough, but thanks. Maybe if Simon Hughes is bored he’ll read this?
In the interests of full disclosure, following an email from Stephen I’ve edited the letter here a bit more. The letter to Simon Hughes contains precisely what I think of the BCA’s claims, and although I am rather pissed off, I’d be even more pissed off if this post got taken down for the sake of a dozen words. Hence the bit in square brackets above.
Hughes answered one of my irate emails about plans to erect a fence across an informal right of way – i.e. something pretty trivial – and on gorgeous gilt letterhead! So I’m sure you’ll get a measured response. Thank you for taking a stand for all of us – and for bracketing that initially problematic sentence. I don’t want to be the last one standing!
Well done Richard. Keep fanning the flame.
Well put, Richard. I’ll write an email to my MP too.
This is what MPs are for. Use them, folks, even if you didn’t vote for them, they still represent you (I’m finding it quite amusing that neither Jenny nor I voted for Simon Hughes — because I was not in this constituency at the last election and Jenny doesn’t have the right (which is the subject of another rant—you’d have thought that the implications of a war over taxation without representation would be more far-reaching… but we can’t talk about that here (because of 3.2.vi) ) but we both seem to be making him work).
Is this my cue to chuck a few bags of PG Tips into Canada Water?
As long as you warm the pot first. And use boiling water.
In response to the main post:
As the famous rabble rouser Smokey Robinson once said:
I second that e-motion
Apart from that, can you add the milk before the boiling Canada Water?
Good show Grant. Good show!
I too take advantage of my rights and email my Representatives, Senators & President frequently. I’m a member of the Society for Neuroscience advocacy group and get frequent e-alter updates on pressing issues. My favourite, Congressman Cohen, always sends a letter back, or rather his office does. Sometimes the
baddiesRepublican Congressmen reply too. It’s always a form letter, but…better than nothing.Anyway, I take advantage of local bodies of water every election over here. In January it marked the 3rd time I have thrown a teabag into a the nearest major body of water (this time the Mississippi).
Just perusing the ToS that Richard links to above and thought 3.2.iii was funny, for a science site…
Blasphemy? Seriously!
Hey, that’s an interesting concept… for those muppets who maintain that science disproves God, a stick for beating. giggle
Back to another off-topic point, why shouldn’t you pay taxes somewhere and not get a vote? Ian, you’re still a legal alien, yeah? Do you get a vote? I’ve worked, paid tax, and not had a say even at the local level, where it might be argued it’s more important than national politics. That sucks.
Have now also written, in a similar vein, to my MP – Rt. Hon. Jacqui Lait. Gotta start somewhere.
Yay. Good man.
RE: voting: I voted by mail for the upcoming EU elections (a friend of mine is in the running and is VERY likely to make it in, so that’s exciting!) and I have voted for all national and European elections in Holland since I moved to Canada (and within Holland since I turned 18) but I am not allowed to vote in regional elections in Holland, because I don’t live in a voting region there. So, logically, you would think I would be allowed to vote in the local elections in the country where I do live, but that’s not allowed either. I think there have been some people in Toronto asking to be allowed to at least vote at the municipal level (to vote for the mayor) if you’re a resident of the city, but no luck yet.
Good for you.
Sadly I can’t help as I am semi-stateless and no longer eligible to vote anywhere.
I haven’t voted in the UK or Europe since I left in 2002. I have two main reasons:
1) I think it’s unfair for me to vote when I don’t have to live with the consequences, given that any party is likely to introduce changes that are unpopular with a good proportion of the people who actually live in the country (e.g. whichever party I vote for might raise taxes that I don’t have to pay); and
2) I was last registered in Glasgow, where I don’t really have any ties any more. I don’t think I can change my registration to, say, my parents’ constituency if I’m not actually living there.
Having voted in every single general / Scottish parliament / local / European election from when I turned 18 to when I left the UK, the last 7.5 voteless years have been frustrating, especially when certain Canadian friends told me they weren’t going to bother to vote. I missed voting in the Provincial election by precisely 17 days, which was particularly galling. Hopefully there’ll be another federal election along soon 😉
I agree that foreign nationals should be allowed to vote in city elections if they can prove they’ve lived in the city for a certain amount of time (to avoid the problem of, say, overseas property investors – who do pay property taxes – voting counter to the interests of their tenants and other locals). But I imagine that determining eligibility would become fiendishly difficult.
p.s. I shall have to think of something to write to my MP about, now that I actually can. Shouldn’t be too hard.
“2) I was last registered in Glasgow, where I don’t really have any ties any more.”
Oh, see, Holland doesn’t use the local MP system. Everyone in the entire country (or abroad) gets to vote for the same people.
Good job, Richard. I have to really get back into a more political life style myself, now that I can! Political activities of ‘green card’ holders in the US are quite regulated. (Note that you’re allowed to donate to political campaigns, although you can’t vote for the candidate…). Generally, I found the regulations so confusing that they tended to make me somewhat paranoid.
Cath and Eva: I’m somewhat halfway – I voted in national elections for a long time, but finally stopped after I thought I’d been away for too long (for the reasons Cath listed). By the way, just found an interesting, brief overview of different countries re immigration (sorry for going off-topic, Richard!).
Ok, so now all of us non-UK residents/citizens should draft those letters to our representatives for the EU parliament, so we can send those off once they’re elected…
Great letter.
Alas, the internet and international law gives rise to pretty inconvenient problems. I’m a Ph.D. student in the US, and I had an irritating problem writing about a less-than-credible “scientist” from Germany, who managed to file a defamation suit in a German court and get my blog post taken down from a web server in the US (when I criticized his position as “unscientific”). I have my doubts that any domestic laws in any country would truly protect speech on the internet from this sort of parochial intervention.
IN case you missed it at Stephen’s post, read all about it.
I commented over at your personal blog, but let me echo those sentiments here: good letter, well done.
Also, are journalists protected from this by law? How about journalists writing op-ed pieces? How about private citizens writing in to the editorial page of a newspaper? What about a news “paper” that is only electronic? One that has a blog? One that looks like a blog? A blog that is exclusively dedicated to commenting on the news?
I am also thinking that I’ve made a lot of comments on another web forum about certainly dodgy “science” by certain dodgy “scientists” that might get me trans-Atlantically sued, or arrested next time I’m back in blighty, or worse.
Dogs of war, let slip the, etc.
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Richard, you have my support …. !!