Last week an author named Stuart Pivar threatened science blogger PZ Myers, and the entire Seed Media/ScienceBlogs organization, with a potentially expensive lawsuit over an honest review of the writer’s rather, shall we say, unorthodox book on evolutionary biology– and unorthodox is saying it kindly. As best I could discern, the cornerstone of Pivar's latest manifesto is that toroidal shapes are the absolute, base developmental engine driving evolution along with all or most biological structures: We're all just a bunch of evolved, meaty doughnuts. Ed Brayton smacks down Mr. Pivar good and hard:
Stuart Pivar has withdrawn his libel suit against PZ Myers, which finally frees me up to say what I have been dying to say since the first moment this complaint was filed. Stuart Pivar is not only a crackpot, he's a fraud and a bully. There are few things I despise more than someone who uses the legal system as a weapon against those who criticize them. ... And while I'm at it, a few words need to be said about the attorney who filed this suit, Michael Little. This suit wasn't just frivolous, it was outrageously frivolous. There wasn't a chance in hell that it was going to survive a motion to dismiss. ... read on ...
And lest anyone think this was an isolated affair, SciAm reports that "A quick search of the database of the New York state court system reveals that since 1986, Stuart Pivar has been named as a plaintiff in 25 different cases filed with the New York State Unified Court System." Pivar is an eccentric millionaire who can, if he so chooses, afford to pursue what might be construed as trivial and frivilous lawsuits merely for badly needed publicity and/or to stroke his ego – one unconfirmed report relayed to me from insiders in the traditional publishing business suggested that Pivar’s dough-nutty book had sold precisely three copies. Or perhaps the motive was a more vindictive one: giving critics a legal and financial black-eye.
Regardless, the legal fees incurred by any unfortunate recipient of such action could easily wreck the lives and possibly even the careers of any blogger, especially those millions of self-publishing authors writing on smaller, more specialized venues. That combination of 'dough' and 'nuttery' should send a chill throughout the entire people-powered medium.
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