Free Speech – and right of criticism – Under Assault! (There’s a catchy title, eh?)

This is an appalling development, which was brought to my attention via Richarddawkins.net (but ultimately came from Boing Boing)

PZ Myers sued for a negative review in a blog post
by Boing Boing

PZ Myers, Ph.D., Division of Science & Math, University of Minnesota, Morris, says: I’m in an interesting situation. I wrote a very negative review of two versions of a book [Lifecode: The Theory of Biological Self Organization] by Stuart Pivar here and here. He claims to have a revolutionary idea for how evolution works, but his ideas have no connection to reality, and these lovely elaborate drawings he made look nothing at all like actual embryos. The bottom line is that I said his work was more about the evolution of balloon animals than biology.

His response is to sue Seed Media and Paul Z. Myers for “Assault, Libel, and Slander.”

You can read the reviews and see that this suit needs to be laughed out of the court, and the plaintiff given a good, swift kick in the ass if for nothing else than wasting the court’s time. The guy wrote a book, and a qualified professional didn’t like his premise: deal with it. (It wouldn’t matter if he was an unqualified reviewer, it’s his opinion and he’s both entitled to it and has the right to expound it.)

What concerns me here is that, it would appear that Prof. Myers might have to expend money before this even reaches the ridiculousness test phase. That is clearly injustice.

PZ Myers maintains the Pharyngula blog.

Reviews and docket:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/lifecode_from_egg_to_embryo_by.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/lifecode.php
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-nysdce/case_no-1:2007cv07334/case_id-311649/%3E

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