I hope that if this does go to court on defamation it gets summarily kicked out and used as example of how such cases will be treated in the future.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0706/07061303

Here is ad from his website:

Announcement 13 June 2007. UCL restores DC’s IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.

After taking legal advice, the provost and I have agreed a joint statememt. Read it on the UCL web site.

“ . . . the Provost and Professor Colquhoun have taken advice from a senior defamation Queen’s Counsel, and we are pleased to announce that Professor Colquhoun’s website – with some modifications effected by him on counsel’s advice – will shortly be restored to UCL’s servers.”

I am grateful to UCL for its legal support, and I’m very grateful too for the enormous support I’ve had from many people, especially since Ben Goldacre mentioned the site move. Now all I need is a bit of help to get it into a more convenient format. The page will stay at its present address until there is time to sort things out.

MY CONGRATULATIONS, DEAR DAVID!!!
BE HAPPY AND HEALTHY!!!

“Despite the overwhelming support of the Disarm UCL campaign, Grant refused to genuinely engage with the issue of divestment from Cobham. Instead he concentrated on criticizing students and suggested we were campaigning against UCL.”

It’s been a rough week for poor Grant, and it’s still only Wednesday…

Had a quick look through the AQU specification for physics:

http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA-5451-6451-W-SP-08.PDF.

Looked a bit mathematics light compared to my 1983 spec O’Level Physics and contained lots of fairly wobbly stuff that I thought would be better off in a general studies course. My brief peruse also spotted an amusingly crass ref. to the “circular motions of planets”.

Telegraph’s had a bit of a rant over dumbing down over the last few days but still managed to confuse Astrologers and Astronomers in their lead science article on “space aliens”.

Does anyone know where to get hold of old O’Level papers & mark schemes, I’d love to do a comparison with the modern equivalent.

Sigh………

Hey! Defenders of freedom and real Science! Or will this problem leave in the air? Will it exist further in present state?

That will never do, IMHO. It’s unscientifically, after all.
It is necessary right solution of this question.

“…

New specialist electronic library on complementary and alternative medicine (NeLCAM)

The RLHH recently won the contract to provide the NHS’ new specialist electronic library on complementary and alternative medicine (NeLCAM) in collaboration with the Research Council for Complementary Medicine (RCCM) and the University of Westminster’s School of Integrated Health. ..”

This is, of course, the same Univ of Westminster School of Integrated Health that DC has been chiding on his blog and in the pages of Nature for awarding BScs in antiscience, and which awards a “B.Sc. in Homeopathy” for which the External Examiner is (surprise surprise) a non-scientifically qualified homeopath.

The RLHH appeal is for money to fund their “open access CAM Information Centre”. Oh goody. They say this Centre will “work with other bodies within the world of complementary medicine, including the Research Council for Complementary Medicine, the British Homoeopathic Association, and The Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Integrated Health”.

Boosters all, of course. Now why doesn’t that leave me feeling reassured?

Could this actually have some bearing on the subject?

http://www.uclh.nhs.uk/New+developments/RLHH+redevelopment/

they need 1/4 million to house thier CAM library full of non evidence based periodicals of absolute bullshit.

Please give generously

The basic point still stand, though – if Univs are not about more than just money and business, they are not Univs.

I have read the words about Walker and Lakin and their product very carefully, first with my amateur barrack-room lawyer’s hat on, then as a scientist with an interest in the use of words, and finally as a “member of the public” – and I still can’t see anything that could not be construed as “DC’s sincerely held opinion”.

I would still hope that in an analogous situation in the future a (any?) University would have the stones to put up the justification defence when the statements could be easily argued to be true. The point of pubically taking a stand specifically on justification would be, as mentioned by many here,

“We stand by our guy and his right to try and inform the public about a matter of public interest, no matter what”.

If Universities don’t stand for stuff like this, then mch is right and they are just businesses. But when they admit that, they are on the slide, because their business is based at bottom on their academic REPUTATION, which is based on their not being “biddable” by financial considerations alone. That is why, in science, research from Univs is by and large more trusted than research from drug companies.

Stanford, though a private institution (and thus more of a “business” than UCL), seems to have understood this, judging by the tobacco company example the Stanford prof gave on DC’s blog:

http://www.dcscience.net/quack.html#move1

UCL has misjudged the same, IMHO.

What I sincerely HOPE is happening behind the scenes is UCL offering DC legal advice about how to avoid problems going forward with his now “privatised” blog. That would go some way to restoring my faith in my old alma mater.

UCL has an obligation to defend the freedom of its academics. If it doesn’t, then it reduces its role to that of a degree factory.

I don’t know what the situation is in the UK but the universities act in Ireland (quoted below) is clear on the issue, I presume you have similar principles and laws over there.

14.—(1) A university, in performing its functions shall—

( a ) have the right and responsibility to preserve and promote the traditional principles of academic freedom in the conduct of its internal and external affairs

…

(2) A member of the academic staff of a university shall have the freedom, within the law, in his or her teaching, research and any other activities either in or outside the university, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions

Ugh. IANAL, but have run into these issues a lot in the context of magazine writing. The standard advice: justification is a very risky defence, where you have to defend not only the literal truth of the claim, but also any inference or innuendo the plaintiff can successfully argue as readable into what you’ve said. And if the justification defence fails, you get saddled with more punitive damages because of the extra defamation arising via the claim’s repetition in your attempt to justify it. It’s a serious mistake to think libel cases work rationally or predictably.

Because the basic argument seems to be “a lawyer says this bad thing _may_ happen” or even “a lawyer says this bad thing cannot be said never to happen”. That’s exactly the argument that idiots use about wifi: “can you tell me it’s absolutely safe with no caveats? No? Then we should assume the worst”.

“libel law is abused as you correctly point out by the affluent. In this case the accusers are relatively wealthy.”

I may be mis-judging the finances of alternatives, but I seriously doubt that the people making the theats have pockets as deep as would be required. UCL could quite justifiably demand that measures be taken to ensure their costs are paid should they win: that’s where the rubber meets the road.

“I’m assuming that libel is the main legal argument being used against UCL because breaches of copyright rarely stand up in court if swiftly corrected and apology issued (which has been done in this case).”

The same’s true of libel, because…

“In this country the burden of proof in libel cases is on the defendant”

No, it isn’t. If the defendant opts to run a defence of justification, the burden is on them (albeit only to a civil, “balance of probabilities” standard). But the burden resides with the plaintiff to show that the words are capable of having a defamtory meaning (which might be _very_ difficult in this case) and that the plaintiff suffered harm to their repution. And there’s a whole stack of defences which might apply in this case (notably a Reynolds defence, see Reynolds vs Times Newspaper) for which the reverse burden doesn’t apply in the same way.

“UCL obviously think there is a reasonable possibility that they may be liable for such damages and have taken what they consider appropriate action while they review the facts.”

I don’t see where `reasonable’ comes from. I might just as (in)acurrately say `remote’ in the same place. A case in which a University was held to be vicariously liable for the public statements of a professor, writing in a field which is his exact speciality, requires a sequence of events all of which have a probability distinctly less than one (the writ being served, the case making it to court, the case being held to be answerable, the judge being prepared to join UCL to the case, the case making it past a jury, the case making it past an appeal, the case having damages greater than the hundred quid that UCL will have paid into the court).

If we don’t like it, then *we* should be prodding the lawmakers, so that UCL and others are not effectively forced by those threatening legal action rather than scientific debate.