Apparently Stuart Pivar, author of the book Lifecode is suing PZ Myers (of Pharyngula) and ScienceBlogs. Imagine that – being sued for a negative book review (or, well, several of them). I always knew the academic publishing world was cut-throat, but seriously? (Not that Pivar’s book is actually an academic publication. As a novice blogger, of course this worries me. While I tend to be careful about what I say, I would never have seen PZ’s reviews as “actionable” in any way. As Christopher Mims said:
It’s too bad this couldn’t have been worked out some other way. I sincerely hope it doesn’t have a chilling effect on the cantankerous dialog that is constantly swirling through the science blogging community… you know, that place where restraint is in short supply and you never have to guess what someone actually thinks of you, your work, your parentage or your politics.
Brent Rasmussen on Unscrewing the Inscrutable.
Christopher Mims on the Scientific American blog (includes a comment from PZ).
Update at The Lippard Blog and the Friendly Atheist. As usual, Jim Lippard is very thorough, and adds a lot of perspective. There’s a good post by Brandon Keim at Wired as well.
Filed under: censorship, intelligent design, Science communication, Science education |
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