Litigious cranks
posted in Uncategorized |Remember the judge who sued the dry-cleaner for some $60 million because his pants were ruined? Thankfully, the end result was that it was ruled in the defendant’s favor. I had thought that Judge GimmeMoney had faded into the background (until he found a new victim), but it turns out he’s appealing the result. Picture OmegaMom rolling her eyes hard enough that they might fall out of her head.
I follow a science blogger named Pharyngula (PZ Myers, a professor of developmental biology at the University of Minnesota in Morris). Myers reminds me in many ways of my fuddy-duddy brother. He’s cranky, funny, interesting, writes about developmental biology and evolution, and carries on a long-standing (rather heavy-handed) harangue against organized religion of any kind.
A while back, in 2004, he wrote a review of a book called Lifecode, whose author, Stuart Pivar, claims that all embryos begin their organization based on spherical topology, and it’s the same process for every critter alive.
PZ wrote a review of the original book (reposted in July).
This year, Pivar revised his book and a new edition was published. PZ wrote a couple of new reviews which were pretty scathing.
Pivar is now suing PZ Myers and Seed Magazine for $15 million for libel for, among other things, calling him a “classic crackpot”. Luckily, almost all the legal commenters on the various posts scattered around the blogosphere related to this case have said that the case has no grounds and will likely be tossed out of court.
O Brave New World, that has such creatures in it!
(I have been quite remiss about responding to comments lately; I blame both undue stress and lack of broadband. And then I hang my head in shame. I do, I do like comments, and I will [I will!] respond more! Promise!)
