Hacker News Reader

Comment by forevergreenyon | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why are such sayings NOT persecuted as libelous; then again I think they have bigger fish to fry now (i.e. bigger crimes to punish i.e. scihub)

but it makes sense that they should pursue such sayings because prestigious magazines are all about 'status' and 'signaling' and what people think; specially now that technology has made their former 'logistical' contributions redundant (referring to the printing of the stuff and getting it to where it's needed) and also how the actual peer reviews are essentially volunteer labor, again because they have their prestige.

View on HN

> I wonder why are such sayings NOT persecuted as libelous

Because studies of the replication crisis have actually borne this out. Journals with higher impact publish more results that fail replication than journals with less impact, because those results are counterintuitive and "sexy". Being first to publish such novel or unintuitive findings increases their profile/impact because they'll get cited more.

> I wonder why are such sayings NOT persecuted as libelous

Because it’s not a statement of fact but very clearly an opinion protected by the first amendment (at least in the United States).

Trying to bring a libel or defamation case would be an expensive and losing proposition.

Even if I published my statement (which I believe to be factual, not merely humorous), Nature would not sue me for libel. All that would do is bring more attention to the Nature racket.

Anyway I think there is a role for "sexy but wrong" journals- but that role is limited to extremely competent scientists working at the state of the art of their quantitative field. I don't think anybody should take what gets published in Nature and just sort of naively share it on social media with the claim it proves/doesn't prove something. The context required to evaluate a Nature paper on its merits is absolutely enormous.

> which I believe to be factual, not merely humorous

“Factual” and “humorous” aren’t opposites. I think “publishing in Nature is a strong signal that the results are wrong” is likely to be determined to be an opinion, regardless of whether you mean it serious or as a joke.

The basic dividing line the court has drawn between “factual claim” and “protected opinion” is whether the claim is objective and can be proven true or false.

In general it seems (to me, a non lawyer) that your signal claim isn’t an objective one. There’s no hard line about when a journal would be a “strong signal” vs a “weak signal” vs “no signal” about something being wrong. It’s not really a statement that can be proven to be true or proven to be false. Which is why I think it would be considered to be your opinion about Nature (even if a very serious opinion)

ah, I was thinking in terms of UK laws when I wrote that...

I suppose America is still chief imperial hegemon... imma go check myself in. bye

are you suggesting that scientists in UK can't say that Nature is a crap journal that publishes mostly errors? Or that Nature Publishing Group would sue an individual scientist for making such a statement?

Don't really see the point to invoke imperial hegemony in your criticism, it just makes you sound petty.

Since Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it feels reasonable to presume US law on this front.

I will say, I have a strong preference for US libel law, and aversion to UK libel law, but that’s probably mostly my cultural upbringing and familiarity speaking.

Seems to be similar in the UK as of Defamation Act 2013?

TIL "libel tourism" was a motivator for it, precisely because English libel law was too far-reaching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism

> On January 1st, 2014 the Defamation Act 2013 came into force, requiring plaintiffs who bring actions in the courts of England and Wales alleging libel by defendants who do not live in Europe to demonstrate that the court is the most appropriate place to bring the action. Serious harm to an individual's reputation or serious financial harm to a corporation must also be proven. Good faith belief that a disclosure was in the public interest was made a defense.

Also, a libel case does not work when the accusation is true. In this case, it depends on what a "strong" signal is. That it is a signal is quite obvious and has been shown (as a general principle) in meta-studies looking at replication.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com