Red Clover comments leave a bitter aftertaste

June 13th, 2007

Last week, Professor David Colquhoun’s excellent Improbable Science blog was taken off the UCL servers following a complaint from Alan Lakin, acting on behalf of his wife Ann Walker. Ann Walker sells herbal remedies from her website, New Vitality. Amongst other things, she claims that Red Clover is able to “cleanse” blood, a statement Colquhoun branded “gobbledegook”.

This didn’t go down well with Walker, and she unleashed a multi-pronged attack on Colquhoun and his website, accusing him of “incorrect, misleading and defamatory” comments, copyright infringement, breach of data protection guidelines, misuse of IT resources, office space and secretarial facilities. The copyright claim was due to Colquhoun reproducing the image of red clover from the New Vitality site. I’ve done the same thing, and I’m claiming Fair Use on it.
Subsequently, the Improbable Science page was moved off the UCL servers whilst the university scrambled to check the veracity of Lakin’s claims. This unleashed a second storm as acadmics the world over criticised the university for appearing to cave in to a disgruntled herb seller. As most saw it, the university had a duty to stand by academic freedom of discussion, not distance itself from Colquhoun.

Happily, after a meeting with lawyers, and a few small concessions by Colquhoun, the Improbable Science page is set to move back to UCL servers.

The lessons here are manifold - for academic writers, universities and alternative therapists. For the writers, we have to be sure that a robust criticism of pseudoscientific gobbledegook doesn’t overspill into libel, which can be surprisingly easy (as I found out). For universities, a greater attention to academic freedom and what is published on their servers is a high priority.

For alternative therapists, the lesson is clear. If you don’t like when someone points out that you’re selling magic beans, don’t debate their science. In fact, don’t even write to them directly - complain to their employers about a myriad of arbitrary matters in the hope nobody will notice that you haven’t refuted their claims of magic bean-selling. Hope that the cost of hiring a very expensive lawyer will be too much and the site will simply be closed down. But above all, don’t mention the magic beans.

It didn’t work for Ann Walker, but that doesn’t mean that it never does. Gillian McKeith attacked a satirical song about her using the same methods. Science won this time, but not everyone has an employer with deep pockets. Ironically for Ann Walker, an attempt to silence criticism of her herbal remedies has now made the comments better known than Professor Colquhoun ever could have achieved by himself.

As a result of this increased interest, there is likely to be a surge of sciencepunkery in dealing with Walker’s claims. In fact, it’s already begun.

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