Science is mostly known for groundbreaking discoveries, quirky characters, and complicated theories. But there is another tradition which has long been part of the field — scientists being incredibly mean to each other.
Few professions are as inherently competitive as science, where one researcher can completely invalidate the work of another. The resulting rivalries are fierce and emotions often run high. One botanist named foul-smelling weeds after a rival who called his work “loathsome harlotry.” Another storied dispute gave rise to the epithet “disgusting old fart neoliberal hypocrite.”
These arguments are usually settled with a witty reply or more research, but a misguided decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals is now prompting scientists to file lawsuits instead. If not corrected, this mistake will pose a serious threat to scientific inquiry, free speech, and the status of the nation’s capital as a place where open debate is protected.
The problem started with a D.C. court decision last December. A blog post had criticized the work of Michael Mann, a controversial Penn State climate change researcher, saying he engaged in “data manipulation” and questioning whether a university investigation clearing him of misconduct was inherently biased due to the millions of dollars the university received for his research.
The post was indeed harsh, including references to Penn State covering up child sex abuse by a former football coach. But the comparison was not spurious, given that the same Penn State administration oversaw both investigations and the author also discussed why he felt the research itself was invalid.
In theory, a lawsuit over differing opinions on data analysis should be quickly dismissed. D.C. has a “SLAPP” law designed to prevent using expensive legal battles to silence those with dissenting opinions, and my organization filed an amicus brief on behalf of a prominent climate scientist arguing that this lawsuit is exactly what SLAPP laws exist to prevent. Yet the court decided the mere use of words like “manipulation” in the blog post was enough to justify a trial.
It didn’t take a Ph.D. to deduce that this decision was going to attract more unnecessary lawsuits, and now it has. A Stanford professor who is unhappy about a study contradicting his work has filed a lawsuit in D.C. demanding $10 million and the retraction of the opposing research.
This lawsuit may be even more dangerous than the previous one. It attacks peer-reviewed research published in the flagship journal of the National Academy of Sciences, and it is largely based on a dispute over the phrase “modeling errors,” a concept even more arcane than “manipulation.”
It is highly dangerous for a court to decide that public debate over such broad terms involves the kind of “provably false facts” that justify a defamation lawsuit. Does the court think it can decide what is “provable” regarding climate change models — a bewilderingly complex field that involves tracking every single thing affecting the weather?
And who gets to define “manipulation” or “misconduct”? These subjective terms extend far beyond science, and virtually any use of information can be deemed “manipulative” by someone critical of the model chosen. Disputes over the accuracy of a scientific conclusion are as old as science itself. Researchers have shown for millennia that they can handle these disputes without the “help” of expensive and repressive legal battles.
It isn’t a coincidence that a professor living 2,400 miles from Washington, D.C., chose to file a lawsuit here. But it is sad that our nation’s capital is quickly becoming the place to go to silence scientific rivals. Will the next researcher with new conclusions to publish have to stop and calculate the legal bills that may result from criticizing previous orthodoxy? What will happen when politicians realize they can sue anyone using the word “misconduct” and, at a minimum, drag them through a costly trial?
The legal environment is sometimes much easier to predict than the natural one, and the damage from lawsuits like these is increasingly clear. If the first case wasn’t enough to make the D.C. courts understand the threat, this latest case ought to be.
John McGlothlin is counsel at Cause of Action Institute, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit oversight group advocating for economic freedom and individual opportunity.
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