PZ Myers wrote two posts tearing to shreds Stuart Pivar’s book, LifeCode: The Theory of Biological Self Organization as factually inaccurate. Now he reports on Boing-Boing that Pivar is suing him. (Boing Boing says that Pivar is suing for assault, but this isn’t true: for whatever reason, the district court groups “assault, libel, and slander” in the same category when classifying complaints, and the complaint is just for libel.)
The complaint focuses on Myers’s language calling Pivar “a classic crackpot.” And we all know that the way to prove that one is not a classic crackpot is to sue a blogger for $15 million over a bad book review in a complaint that misspells “its” and the defendant’s name and brags about the plaintiff’s affiliation with Andy Warhol and Prince Charles. Pivar’s attorney is Michael J. Little of New York.
Here is the complaint for your perusal.
Update: Jim Lippard comments, and also has a copy of the complaint. Also: Scientific American notes that Pivar has been a plaintiff 25 times in New York state court; Wired Science also comments.
3 Comments
Wow, the plaintiff’s signature alone says it all: egomaniac.
Mere statements of opinion do not count as libel.
Statements purported to be facts may constitute libel.
[…] That’s not to say that there aren’t repercussions for blogging and somebody taking affront to your comments. Take the story of biologist P.Z. Myers who wrote a negative review about a book called Lifecode: The Theory of Biological Self Organization. Author Stuart Pivar decided to sue Myers for calling him a “classic crackpot”. There’s a good overview with all the links at Overlawyered. […]