Author: Ophelia Benson

Very interesting. Panda’s Thumb comments on Pivar’s poxy lawsuit –

The suit has been discussed on several web sites already, including Scientific American, the Lippard Blog, Overlawyered and PT contributor Timothy Sandefur’s personal blog Positive Liberty. The consensus seems to be that the suit has no legs, but of course if this is a nuisance suit, ultimate success in front of a judge is not the goal.

And Peter Irons comments on the comment – Peter Irons, author of A People’s History of the Supreme Court from which I have derived material for comment here, I think possibly more than once.

Since this is all out in the open now, I thought I’d comment as a lawyer who specializes in First Amendment issues, including defamation. First, this is a patently frivolous lawsuit, and will not survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Rule 12(b)(6) is the death sentence for cases like this, which never come to trial. I’m sure the Seed lawyers are now drafting a motion to dismiss, which will almost certainly be granted…Yesterday, I had an interesting half-hour phone conversation with Pivar’s lawyer, Michael J. Little, who was quite candid with me…The bottom line is that, since Pivar’s lawyer himself has little (no pun intended) hope the case will survive a motion to dismiss, PZ has nothing to worry about…I have learned a lot more about Pivar, including his alleged “friendship” with Steve Gould (who was my close friend from our college days in the 1950s until he died in 2002), but I won’t post it here.

Well let’s hope Pivar has to pay large court costs, that’s all – in fact what the hell, let’s hope a pro bono lawyer or two persuades PZ to counter-sue and Pivar has to give him a very very very lot of money and also go on Oprah to apologize to the nation and the world.

This libel suit against PZ is terrifying – not just for people who write, but for people who read too. If suits like this are possible, then no one can say anything. Magazines of any substance will disappear, newspapers will become even more vacuous than they already are, books will become anorexic and very very dull. How can it be possible to sue someone for an unfavorable book review? Why wasn’t Stuart Pivar politely but firmly escorted out of the building and told not to return?

Note this bit from Blake Stacey:

Down in the comments, my Pharynguloid pals and I started noticing that the laudatory quotes Pivar had stuck on LifeCode couldn’t be traced back to their purported sources. In particular, an endorsement from Neil deGrasse Tyson turned out to be a chimera: the first part from an unrelated NOVA interview, and the second completely fabricated…PZ makes note of the puzzling endorsement situation. He says that he’s written several of the people whose names Pivar invoked, and Neil deGrasse Tyson had written back: “Tyson replied, and has said that part of the quote is an out of context reference to a completely different subject, and that another part is a fabrication. He has asked that Pivar remove his name from his website, which he has not done. Tyson’s name is also prominently used on the back cover of his book — I don’t see that going away, either.”

Isn’t that charming – and that’s the guy who’s suing someone for writing a critical review of his book. What’s the thinking here – that because Neil deGrasse Tyson ‘endorsed’ the book on Pivar’s website therefore a critical review must be not only libel but assault? That fabricating endorsements is okie dokie but saying a book is not good is libelous?

Tim Sandefur gives some legal analysis here.

Pivar (who appears to be a serial abuser of the courts) is demanding damages due to a book review Myers wrote in which he called Pivar a “classic crackpot.” Well, I’m here to say that Pivar is more than a crackpot. He’s a crackpot, an idiot, a moron, a fool, a bully, and an abuser of the legal system who deserves to be sanctioned for filing a frivolous and baseless case for no reason other than to infringe on PZ Myers’ constitutionally protected right of free speech.

He goes on to say that you can’t sue someone for libel for expressing an opinion (as in calling someone a fool) and that Pivar is a public figure and ‘a public figure cannot sue for libel except under very rare circumstances that are not present here. By publishing a book—especially a book with crackpot notions on scientific matters—Pivar has become a limited public figure at least, and has no grounds to file a lawsuit like this.’

Let’s hope the case gets thrown out before the ink is dry on the parking ticket and that it won’t cost either PZ or Seed a lousy rusty dime.

And while I’m at it, why don’t I just quarrel with Michael Shermer’s piece too. He doesn’t resort to the childish abuse of ‘the New Atheist Noise Machine,’ but there’s plenty to quarrel with all the same.

Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuberance…Anti-something movements by themselves will fail.

Oh really. Such as abolitionism for instance? Anti-war movements? Anti-imperialism movements? Some anti-something movements fail, others don’t. And the ‘new Atheists’ aren’t merely against something anyway, so it’s just more straw. (People do produce a remarkable amount of straw on this subject.)

Positive assertions are necessary. Champion science and reason, as Charles Darwin suggested.

But…they do. What’s he talking about? Of course they champion science and reason. Does he mean to the exclusion of criticizing religion? But what if they think (as they do) that religion competes with and/or damages science and reason? Are they forbidden to discuss that? If so, why? How can that possibly be justified? Especially when that’s not usually said about other ideas – champion birdwatching but don’t criticize destruction of habitat; champion feminism but don’t criticize sexism or subordination; champion education but don’t criticize ignorance. That’s childish; it’s self-helpish nonsense.

Promote freedom of belief and disbelief. A higher moral principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.

That’s the worst one of all, because it implies that criticism is incompatible with the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose – which is a stark contradiction, apart from anything else that’s wrong with it. But it’s also just damn silly, and an attempt at silencing or impeding free inquiry and criticism and thought. It is, frankly, deeply obnoxious to pretend that the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose somehow entails the silencing of people who think and believe differently and want to say so. It’s a completely inane thing to say, because it tells us to shut up so that other people can talk without hearing anything they don’t like. The logic is ridiculous, and the political import is revoltingly craven.

How nice – Matthew Nisbet has trotted out the old ‘atheists should be quiet’ number again, and nearly all the comments point out how absurd that is, and why. Good.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, echoes the very same warnings about the Dawkins-Hitchens PR campaign emphasized here at Framing Science…He argues against the irrational exuberance of the New Atheist Noise Machine…

No he doesn’t, because he doesn’t call it ‘the New Atheist Noise Machine’ – that bit of creepy snide namecalling is Nisbet’s contribution. It pisses me off, that kind of thing, because apart from anything else, what about the Theist Noise Machine? Eh? Why do Nisbet and Greg Epstein and the rest of the atheist-‘bashing’ hacks make such a (noisy?) fuss about atheism when the Theist Noise Machine has been deafening all of us for years?

Most importantly we alienate many moderately religious Americans who otherwise agree with us on most social and scientific topics.

There it is again – that horrible blinkered parochial miniaturized view of the world which sees everything as a matter of US electoral politics. What does he mean ‘most importantly’? Is he so provincial and so one-eyed that he fails to realize that some people are interested in things other than US politics? Can he fail to realize that some people find US politics itself so provincial and narrow and childishly personal as well as greasily pragmatic that they turn away from it in revulsion?

Well, yes, apparently. He replies to a series of unconvinced comments with an even more parochial bit of wisdom:

The New Atheist Noise machine risks alienating the swing voters, moderately religious Americans who otherwise agree with atheists on most issues.

Risks alienating the swing voters – there speaks the voice of truly infatuated narrowness of mind. What is he even talking about? Are ‘the new Atheists’ running for office? Are they working for Obama or Edwards? Are they even thinking about ‘the swing voters’? Of course they’re not, and why should they be? What do ‘the swing voters’ have to do with anything? And what is the logic of this way of thinking? That no idea should be discussed or advocated in a book if there is a chance that it might ‘alienate the swing voters’? (Alienate them from whom, anyway? What are they going to do, blame the Democratic Party for the books by four atheists? Why would they do that?) That all ideas and all books should be anodyne and empty because otherwise the ‘swing voters’ might be alienated? But if that’s the idea – then why bother? Why are we supposed to care who ‘wins’ if the price of ‘winning’ is that nobody ever expresses an idea that the swing voter might not like? What are we aiming for here, a thought-world that’s safe for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm?

Stephen Law asks a crucial question:

[M]y greatest concern is that the smoke generated by the battle over whether religious schools are a good idea has obscured a more fundamental question, a question about the kind of religious education schools offer: to what extent should schools be allowed to encourage deference to authority when it comes to moral and religious matters? To what extent should they be able to suppress independent, critical thought?

How about deference to authority and downright obedience of existing rules (no hitting, no knifing the teacher, no breaking windows – you know the kind of thing) in combination with no suppression at all of independent, critical thought about the rules? How does that sound? Obey the ones that are in place, and by all means think about them, discuss them, analyze them, along with other moral and religious matters. Sound reasonable?

Let me be clear that there are some excellent religious schools, schools that dare to educate rather than indoctrinate. But far too many, while officially liberal, are busy applying psychological techniques that, if not quite brainwashing, lie on the same scale. Some don’t even pretend to be liberal. The other day I heard the head of a British Islamic school agree that in any good Islamic school, “Islam is a given and never challenged”. Any school that insists its religion should be a given and never challenged should no longer be tolerated, let alone receive government funding.

Which suggests the idea that secularism and independent critical thought go together, and theocracy and authoritarianism do the same. That’s probably obvious enough, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

Authoritarian political schools would be a shocking new development. But there have always been authoritarian religious schools. Familiarity, and perhaps a sense of inevitability, has blunted the sense of outrage we might otherwise feel. I think it high time we got that sense of outrage back.

I’ve already got it.

Jeffrey at Silence and Voice tagged me a few days ago. You’re supposed to list eight random facts about yourself and then tag eight more people. Let’s see…

1) I was born in Manhattan. 2) I just went for a 2 1/2 hour walk. 3) I’m wearing jeans and a blue, green and white striped T shirt. 4) I don’t like talking about myself. 5) I have a low boredom threshold. 6) My face looks sullen or even furious when it’s merely neutral. 7) I hate wearing hats. I do it, when it’s sunny or raining, but I hate it and pull the hat off in the shade or under a roof or overhang. 8) I like elephants.

So, eight people…Chris Dillow. Shuggy. Rosie Bell. Cam. Jean Kazez. Potentilla. John. Maryam.