Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15732

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Harris E.
Science in court
BMJ 2009 Jun 3; 338:b2254:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/jun03_1/b2254

Abstract:

Professor Sir Muir Gray, in his book Evidence-based Healthcare1 tells the old joke about the epidemiologist up in court on a serious charge. “How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?” asks the judge. “I don’t know: I haven’t heard the evidence yet.”

Recent events bring comedy, evidence, and law together as Ricky Gervais, Richard Dawkins, and Sir Iain Chalmers join together in a campaign that weds scientific rigour to free expression. On Wednesday of this week, leading academics, publishers, journalists, performers, clinicians, and scientists issued a public statement2 backing science writer Simon Singh in his application to appeal against a libel judgment in the High Court. They fear that this judgment-if upheld-would have major implications for the ability of scientists, researchers, and other commentators freely to engage in robust criticism of scientific, and indeed purportedly scientific, work.

Singh, well-known for his books on Fermat’s last theorem and the big . . .