Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Negative Book Reviews Can Get You Sued

Prof. P.J. Meyers (and Seed Magazine), of Pharyngula fame, is being sued by NY business man Stuart Pivar for publishing a negative review of Pivar's book "Lifecode: The Theory of Biological Self Organization". It seems the reviewers at Amazon aren't that crazy about the book either. Pivar, a close friend of Stephen Jay Gould, claims that Gould was not a "Darwinist" and did not accept natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism.

So here is the complaint in a nutshell. Pivar, a businessman with no scientific background, writes a book about development and sends it to developmental biologist expert P.Z. Meyers. Meyers gives the book a poor review and thus the lawsuit. Pivar has been involved with at least 25 other lawsuits but he wasn't the dry cleaner lawsuit guy.

No comments: