Greetings, my friends.

Many of my readers will have been following the course of the libel suit in the High Court brought against Dr Simon Singh, a writer on scientific matters. For those who have not, its progress may be briefly summarised as follows.

In April 2008, Dr Singh penned an article in the Guardian newspaper, in which he was critical of some of the more venturesome claims made for chiropractic, a therapeutic practice based upon the manipulation of the spinal column. (The article has since been removed from the Guardian’s website, but, for those who wish to peruse it in full, it may be found here. He allowed that the technique might sometimes be of value in treating disorders of the spine itself (although even there he expressed considerable reservations); but he was contemptuous of claims that it might assist in the treatment of a range of infantile ailments, including asthma, colic and ear infections.

In consequence, he was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association, a body representing practitioners in this field. The phrase which had caused greatest offence was Dr Singh’s assertion that the Association ‘happily promotes bogus treatments’.

The word ‘bogus’, I must confess, was hitherto unknown to me. It appears to be of American provenance, and to refer to counterfeit coin, or, in a broader sense, to all that is sham or spurious. In its remoter origins, it probably alludes to Bogey, an old country name for the Devil.

Dr Singh chose to defend his words in court, and a preliminary hearing was held on 7 May of this year. The case at first flush appeared to turn upon the matter of whether all the chiropractic treatments under consideration were in truth efficacious or not, a question which might have been rationally tested by reference to rigorous empirical studies. Here Dr Singh stood upon reasonably defensible ground, for, particularly in respect of the infantile disorders in question, such studies are few and far between. However, the lawyers for the Association chose to argue a somewhat different and more subtle point, viz: that, the Association’s officers being honestly persuaded in their own minds of the efficacy of their treatments—no matter what the views of others might be—they could not justly be accused of promoting what they knew to be ‘bogus’. The presiding Judge, Sir David Eady, accepted this argument, and found against Dr Singh.

The outcome has provoked outrage among proponents of scholarly freedom of speech. On 19 May a public rally against the court’s finding was held; and a statement in protestation has now been issued, signed by the Astronomer Royal, the Poet Laureate, and many other prominent men and women in the fields of science, the law, literature and even the stage. Last week, Dr Singh announced that he hopes to appeal against the finding. Further developments are chronicled here.

The point which has astonished me—and I am not alone—is the fallacy of the legal judgment, which appears to rest upon the grounds that, if one party adheres to a superstition in all sincerity, then, no matter what evidence may be adduced to the contrary, no other party may assert that superstition to be false. In future, it seems, none may aver the believer in ghosts, ogres and hobgoblins to be under a delusion, for fear of being hauled before the libel courts. I have long argued that the processes of the law are unduly complex, made so by the sinister interests of the lawyers themselves. In such a case as this, however, one can say only that the law is an ass.

Your ever laborious and devoted servant,

J.B.