This’ll be brief. It’s late. Tonight Simon Singh returned to his undergraduate alma mater to speak to students and staff at Imperial College about his adventures in science and his battles with libel.
With good humour but serious intent he warned the audience – a full house in Blackettt Laboratory Lecture Theatre 1* – to be on their skeptical guard about nonsense in the world. Nonsense such as The Bible Code, debunking of which led to the revelation that predictions of the death of Princess Diana could be found encoded in the dense text of Melville’s Moby Dick!
Simon Singh speaking about libel chill – definitely not treatable with chiropractic
But the humour largely dissipated as he recounted the sorry tale of the libel suit brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association, facilitated by the slack and outdated libel laws of this country.
The audience, many of them hearing the story for the first time, was rapt, absorbed. At the end they probed and examined with serious questions – some evidently astounded at the over-reach of chiropractic, some by the cold grip of current libel legislation, and others testing his journalistic mettle.
He was sure to remind those present that more information can be found at the www.libelreform.org web-site, where I hope that not of few of them will be heading to sign the petition in support.
Naturally, I trust that many of you will follow suit.
*Thanks to Felix editor, Dan Wan, and RCSU president, Katya-yani Vyas, for organising such a great event.
The audience, many of them hearing the story for the first time
Where the heck have they been? I’m disheartened. It seemed to me to be everywhere I looked (or at least, the libel reform movement).
I obviously need to get out more. And we need to continue promoting rationality in all walks of life.
Perhaps I was being a tad unfair to the audience. Had they read the latest issue of the Imperial student newspaper (Felix) they would certainly have been au fait with the essential facts of the case.
Nevertheless it is true that although those breathing the rarefied gases of Nature Network may be well aware of the Singh Case and the campaign for libel reform, for many people outside it has not really registered. Last week’s re-launch of the campaign was a great fillip and has been covered pretty well in the mainstream press and on TV/radio (see here). But it didn’t make the main evening news, so there is still plenty to do to get the word out.
By the way, you are encouraged to “sign the petition”:http://www.libelreform.org/ even if you are not a UK citizen, since it is recognised that the libel laws of England and Wales presume to cover what foreign nationals write in English about other foreign nationals.
So you are all at risk of this awful legislation…
Stephen, I think I’ve lost track here – I’ve already signed a petition, but is this a new one?
Yes, it is new. Even if you have already signed the Sense about Science petition back in June, the libel reform campaign is asking you to sign the new petition which is specifically seeking support for Parliament to implement new laws. It has garnered quite a bit of publicity so far but they are aiming for at least 100,000 signatories to help press the case for change. Please sign if you can.
Done and done.
OK – done.
Excellent work guys – as you will have seen, it only takes seconds.
Despite being a non-UK citizen and non-native English speaker I write almost all of my professional output in English. Having a foreign system of law impose itself on me, strikes me as (a bit) odd. Ergo: I’ve signed.
Cheers Bart – let’s hope we can push through a change in the law so you can relax!