Richard Dawkins: Libel Laws Silence Scientists
It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world. Litigants are coming to England from another country to sue people who live in a third country over a book that was published in a fourth country – the excuse being that a handful of books were sold here too. A nice little round-the-world jaunt for lawyers it may be, but sensible or liberal it is not. Nor is it just.
Of course there must be redress if you are maliciously attacked in a way that damages you. But if such a law is cast too wide it has disastrous consequences on the public interest, not least in the area of science and medicine where the stakes are high, profits and reputations are guarded jealously, and the vulnerable need to be protected from unproven or fraudulent claims for cures, whether by “alternative” therapists or big pharmaceuticals.
As a scientist, and as Oxford’s inaugural Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, I have sometimes wondered why science itself cannot sue for libel. You can legally lie about the real world to your heart’s content, but until some human being is materially damaged, nobody will complain. Teachers can legally tell innocent children the palpable falsehood that the world is less than 10,000 years old (the true figure is more than 4.5 billion years). The world cannot sue you for lying about its age, because the world cannot prove that it has been damaged by the lie!
