It's time for the Popehat Signal, in which I request help for people whose speech is threatened by bogus and censorious lawsuits.

Pepijn van Erp blogs about science and pseudoscience from the Netherlands. He praises good science and skewers and critiques the bad. Wait a minute. Is that the Jaws theme playing? Yes. Yes it is — because blogging about junk science is a great way to get threatened or sued. In my experience, purveyors of "non-mainstream" science are unusually litigious and sensitive to criticism. You've seen it here at Popehat with "atavistic" cancer theorists and vaccine truthers and naturopaths and fans of questionable cancer remedies and AIDS deniers. I blame the crystals.

Pepijn wrote about a guy named Ruggero Santilli. I see that Wikipedia, which has a four thousand word article about Bigfoot, notes that some scientists view Santilli as a "fringe scientist."

Why is he viewed that way? Well, you can read Pepijn's post about Santilli's claim that he discovered a new type of gas from specially distilled water. Or you could read Pepijn's post about Santilli's claim that antimatter produces "antimatter-light" that can be focused using concave (NOT convex. NEVER convex.) lenses.1 Santilli, unhappy, threatened to sue over the posts, claiming that Peijin van Erp has not only defamed Santilli, HE'S DEFAMED ANTIMATTER:

[Why have scientists not accepted Santilli's theory of magic gas and anti-light? According to one of his supporters it's because of Jews.]

Pepijin's letter in response is everything you could hope for, pointing out that Santilli was threatening the wrong people by targeting his associates, that Santilli's threats of Dutch criminal charges were bumptious, that he had explained the factual basis for his opinions (which were framed as opinions), and that one of the articles was three years old and past the statute of limitations according to a helpful article on the threatening lawyer's own web site.

Santilli was not satisfied and has now filed suit in Florida, as one does. The lawsuit — which you can find here — is odd. Santilli has sued Pepijn van Erp, naturally. He's also frivolously sued van Erp's blog host, Hosting2Go, even though Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act plainly makes the host immune from defamation suits over the content supplied by a blogger. He's also sued Frank Israel, head of the Dutch Skeptics Foundation, apparently because van Erp is a member of that foundation. (Flailing at skeptic foundations associated with skeptic bloggers is classic censorious-junk-scientist behavior).

The arrogant, entitled, malicious, censorious, and frivolous-to-the-point-of-sanctionable nature of the lawsuit is best captured by this paragraph:

It is recognized in the scientific community that when one disagrees with the scientific findings of another, the proper forum for challenging the science is through respectful debate, research and publication of peer reviewed articles based on inconsistent scientific findings and is not customarily attacked through blogs without peer review.

Yeah, peons. You're not allowed to question antimatter-light on your blogs.

Anyway, through his attorney Joseph E. Parish, Santilli is suing over the terms "fringe scientist", "mad professor", and "cunning scam artist". In my view, van Erp's posts very clearly establish these as opinions based on stated facts. Moreover, the inclusion of the host is simply vexatious, and the inclusion of Israel is inexplicable. This is thuggish harassment of criticism of junk science.

Van Erp (and possibly Israel) could use help. Even though the case is rather patently meritless, it could cost a ruinous amount of money to defend. I do not understand that skepticism makes people rich, and very few people can afford modern litigation, even when they are completely in the right. I understand that they can contribute to their defense but that they are hoping that an attorney admitted in Florida will accept the case at a price point bearing in mind the First Amendment issues involved.

As always, your freedom to speak — and mine — depend upon lawyers standing up against vexatious and unethical censorship-by-litigation like this. If you are a Florida attorney and would like to help, please contact me at ken at popehat etc.

Let me end with this: what kind of "scientist" responds to criticism of their scientific theories with litigation rather than proof?

Last 5 posts by Ken White