You gotta fight for your right to blog

You should be scared. Very, very scared. Here's why:

Internet bullies are trying to force a popular blogger to divulge her financial records and every piece of correspondence she has had with the people on her blogroll. It's a sad day for free speech and internet freedom and it is something we who blog should take very seriously.

I am writing about the recent subpoena of Kathleen Seidel of neurodiversity.com. Ms. Seidel has been a tireless champion of science and reason and a beacon in the hysteria that surrounds what scientists and science lovers call "woo woo," or "woo" for short. Specifically, Ms. Seidel has made her website a clearinghouse for true scientific research and thought on the treatment and purported causes of autism. You know what I'm talking about! The people who claim that autism is caused by mercury or vaccines or the cycles of the moon despite the fact that there is scientific evidence that this is not the case. (the cycles of the moon was sarcasm in case anyone was confused) The bullying that is taking place in the name of this woo is astounding.

The parties who have issued the subpoena are suing Bayer and Glaxo SmithKline for $20,000,000 for damage to their child. Aside from the fact that the case is legally inane and utterly unsupported by actual science, the subpoena of Ms. Seidel is nothing more than an intimidation tactic and an attempt to silence the dissent to their cause. It is fascistic and moronic and terribly frightening. It isn't frightening because they are going to get anywhere with this subpoena or case; it is frightening because there are people out there who are so invested in the lies they've told themselves and others that they can't stand to have the truth available for all to see to contradict them. Hell, even if they didn't believe it was the truth, they can't stand to have a differing opinion out there to such an extant that they are willing to violate the privacy of a U.S. citizen and compromise the sanctity of free speech.

If the fact that the proponents of woo (and this is not isolated) are willing to go to such lengths to silence science isn't enough to put you off of snake oil in general, consider this: if so called alternative therapies work, why can't they be scientifically proven to work? Why would people need to subpoena bloggers to prove their point that their child was somehow poisoned by companies that have no relation to the bloggers in question? Why has there never been a study published in a peer reviewed scientific journal that shows anything other than the ineffectiveness of homeopathic, naturopathic, etc. treatments?

I know people believe that these treatments work because they worked for them or for someone they know or know of. Hey, more power to you. I am a firm believer in convincing ourselves of things that may or may not be true, even altering our perception of pain if we believe it fervently. People are impressionable, to be sure. I think people could do the same thing with "western" medicine. The difference, though, is that western medicine has science behind it to prove its efficacy. Don't believe in science, you say? Jump off the world... right now, try it. Still here? darn those laws of physics! Belief and science are not the same thing.

If you value your rights as a citizen of the United States, speak out now. This kind of extreme bullying must be stopped in its tracks or it will continue and grow. Will you be next?

Reading: