Yet another weird SF fan


I'm a mathematician, a libertarian, and a science-fiction fan. Common sense? What's that?

Go to first entry


 

Archives

<< current
 
E-mail address:
jhertzli AT ix DOT netcom DOT com


My Earthlink/Netcom Site

My Tweets

My other blogs
Small Sample Watch
XBM Graphics


The Former Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse:
Someone who used to be sane (formerly War)
Someone who used to be serious (formerly Plague)
Rally 'round the President (formerly Famine)
Dr. Yes (formerly Death)

Interesting weblogs:
Back Off Government!
Bad Science
Blogblivion
Boing Boing
Debunkers Discussion Forum
Deep Space Bombardment
Depleted Cranium
Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine.
EconLog
Foreign Dispatches
Good Math, Bad Math
Greenie Watch
The Hand Of Munger
Howard Lovy's NanoBot
Hyscience
Liberty's Torch
The Long View
My sister's blog
Neo Warmonger
Next Big Future
Out of Step Jew
Overcoming Bias
The Passing Parade
Peter Watts Newscrawl
Physics Geek
Pictures of Math
Poor Medical Student
Prolifeguy's take
The Raving Theist
RealityCarnival
Respectful Insolence
Sedenion
Seriously Science
Shtetl-Optimized
Slate Star Codex
The Speculist
The Technoptimist
TJIC
Tools of Renewal
XBM Graphics
Zoe Brain

Other interesting web sites:
Aspies For Freedom
Crank Dot Net
Day By Day
Dihydrogen Monoxide - DHMO Homepage
Fourmilab
Jewish Pro-Life Foundation
Libertarians for Life
The Mad Revisionist
Piled Higher and Deeper
Science, Pseudoscience, and Irrationalism
Sustainability of Human Progress


























Yet another weird SF fan
 

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Do We Want Juries Involved?

A flame war on the Info Theory (start at the bottom and scroll up) and Bitch PhD weblogs has been escalating. (There's a summary here.) Apparently, Paul Deignan, a grad student who writes the Info Theory weblog put some comments on the Bitch PhD weblog that were regarded as objectionable. This caused a third party to e-mail Deignan's advisor complaining about allegedly unprofessional behavior. This, in turn, caused Deignan to threaten a libel lawsuit.

I was on Paul's side up to the lawsuit threat. Can we trust juries to make sense of this? If there is a lawsuit, we can expect the Other Side to use that weapon next time (accompanied by calling anybody who objects a “hypocrite”) and there is a strong possibility we might get a jury as dumb as the first Merck jury.

3 Comments:

Blogger Milhouse said...

Your objection applies equally to any legal action, for any civil or criminal case. Do we want juries determining whether someone has libelled another? I don't know, but if you don't then you should propose a better system. Someone has to decide these things.

Paul Deignan claims to have been libelled, by being falsely accused of sending threatening emails, of spoofing IP addresses, and of sexual harrassment. These are serious accusations, which could have repercussions for his career down the line. The traditional remedy for such libels is indeed the law suit, and it is common and reasonable for someone to ask "if it wasn't true, why didn't you sue?".

12:39 AM  
Blogger Paul Deignan said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

1:18 PM  
Blogger Paul Deignan said...

Unfortunately, without the possibility of a lawsuit, there would be no recourse except flame wars (which are horribly destructive to all).

Lawsuits provide a framework for resolution. I am pleased to announce that Hettle has settled short of a lawsuit being filed. Others actually make money in these ventures and so are more immune to painless resolutions.

Also, the lawsuit must be mentioned up front if immediate calls for retractions fail. The other option is mentioning latter at which point it seems like escalation for a losing proposition. If Hettle had not made a point of contacting the advisors, it is likely that this incident might have been ignored. Since it was put on record, it must now be sorted out.

(As I see the situation).

1:22 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

 
Profiles
My Blogger Profile
eXTReMe Tracker X-treme Tracker


The Atom Feed This page is powered by Blogger.