by webmaster on May 28, 2010
Two things happened yesterday that reminded me of what it was like when as a child you hear about something that is wrong. As a child, certainly for me, I could never understand how something that’s wrong can be allowed to stand. For example, and not wishing to beat a dead drum on this one: the handball by Thierry Henry in the France versus Ireland World Cup play-off which led to France’s goal was clearly wrong; the evidence proves that it was wrong; yet it’s allowed to stand.
Okay, let’s get to the point. One of these two things I was talking about was the Libel Chill event in Dublin’s Science Gallery (http://sciencegallery.ie/); the other I can’t tell you about because it may be libellous itself (which I guess is a bit ironic).
It was when listening to the speakers at the Libel Chill event that something crystallised for me. I always thought that libel can’t be libel if what the person says or prints or blogs is true and this is what I mean by being reminded of being a child.
And of course this is correct. If I print something in this blog, like what I have said about that French football player, I can’t be sued for libel because it is true… well, of course I can be sued but the case clearly couldn’t win because what I said is true and provable. Thankfully, Thierry Henry is unlikely to sue for libel in any case.
So why then do organisations sue people like journalists or bloggers for amounts of money that they don’t have, and that the organisations don’t need, in libel cases where the evidence will show, when heard, that the libel cannot be proven – and in case any lawyers are sitting there with their fingers on some kind of litigation hair trigger, I am not referring to the cases discussed in the Libel Chill event, I am only speaking generally.
And I’m not going to conclude anything either. I am going to only pose a question, so please don’t sue me – trust me, I have nothing!
Is it that the only reason, and I may be wrong in this, for pursuing someone like a blogger or journalist through the courts in a libel case where what the blogger or journalist wrote or said is clearly true as proven by the available evidence, is to stop other bloggers and journalists from writing and saying similar things that will highlight to the public that the claims that organisations are making may not be as true as they would seem from the way in which the organisations say them? Isn’t that called bullying???
Was that vague enough? (I hope so)
by webmaster on May 20, 2010
by webmaster on May 10, 2010
For any of you readers who listened to the recent Science Chat podcast about the hacked e-mails in the Climate Research Unit in University of East Anglia, you will know of the significance of the requests being placed on the climate scientists for their data under the Freedom of Information (FOI) act.
While the concept of freedom of information itself is laudable, and while it is perhaps even more important that information such as that which is so hotly debated and so important for future policy (like climate data) should be freely available, I imagine those who first put the term FOI were unaware of what it would actually mean.
Now, the concept of e-mails is far more interesting I think. An e-mail has probably the opportunity to be the most important communication method of the twenty-first century – as far as we’ve got into it anyway. But this form of communication has an inherent problem too, and one which I’ve fallen foul of many times before, I’ll come back to that later.
Imagine what our forbears would think of a form of immediate communication that also provides you with the ability to write with great consideration like in the written letters of long ago. Now I’m not suggesting that the e-mails I receive are reminiscent of the written communications of yesteryear, but it does give the writer the chance to properly order their thoughts, select phrasing and language, and to compose thoughtfully structured messages. So it’s much better than the immediate communication of a phone call for instance.
But this is where e-mail really comes into its own – it is also immediate. Even though you can spend time composing the message, once you send it, it’s available for the recipient to open and read, and its this benefit over traditional letters that also provide it’s risk that I mentioned earlier. Once you send it, it cannot be recovered. Even back in the days when mail was delivered by man on horse, there was always the chance of overtaking it and stopping it being read – this can’t be done with an e-mail.
The other big problem is what if it falls into the wrong hands? And it can, as we know.
So (and in light of what I started this blog off with) maybe people should think twice before sending e-mails. Maybe we should hark back to olden times – maybe use pigeons? Then if we realise as soon as we send something that it was a bad idea – out with the musket and no more problem…
Back to freedom of information, and notwithstanding the dangers of providing data under FOI, it occurred to me today when reading the open letter in defence of climate research from members of the US National Academy of Science that for the purposes of controversial science such as this, maybe it would be better to give them what they ask for.
Sure, some of them could probably still misuse it if they wished, but by providing all the data – and I mean all the data: everything… – openly and freely available to anyone, it would be quite easy to see if anyone with vested interests was intentionally selecting or omitting data.
Anyone with any respect for the amount of data and knowledge behind climate research knows that human actions are the major cause of the climate changes that we are seeing now and have been seeing since the industrial revolution. But if the climate contradictors believe that it’s not caused by man, give them the data and allow them to join in the scientific process themselves.
Here are our claims; here is the data behind them; if you wish to contend that we are wrong – prove it!
by webmaster on May 6, 2010
Science Chat Episode 13 examines the ongoing controversy about the e-mails hacked from the servers of the Climate Research Unit in the University of East Anglia with Guardian columnist and the journalist responsible for the Guardian’s excellent 12 part special investigation into the story, Fred Pearce.
In it we talk about peer review and Freedom of Information, topics which I will be coming back to in future blogs. The podcast can be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes, and the Guardian special investigation can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/hacked-climate-science-emails/.
