BBC Article This is fantastic news, and a blow against peddlers of pseudo science who use libel laws to obfscate the issue and hide from criticism. Good though this is, it still cost Singh £200,000 to defend the case, so I sicerely doubt that such cases shall cease to be brought to court, as most will be unable to defend themselves at that price. A reform of the libel laws is still needed.
This is indeed brilliant news. It's a shame it cost him so much, but then fighting rich quackocracies is going to be expensive, and few people are going to have the guts to take them on properly. Hopefully now chiropractic and homeopathy et al. can be exposed and derided as the rubbish they are.
When realistic about what it is (really just a form of physiotherapy and orthopaedics) chiropractic actually does work --it is just not very well regulated and hence opens the doors to anything from quacks to self-deluded prophets (the psychotherapies had that too but are now much better regulated). But anyway: it is all about how you tackle the problem. Simon Singh made the mistake of attacking the lack of scientific basis of chiropractic claims rather than critically examining them. You don't have to call a quack a quack; all you have to do is invite a quack to demonstrate the science behind their practice and examine that publicly within the scientific framework. In the end they unmask themselves. Allowing yourself to be manoeuvred into expression of opinions and name calling is to join them in their game (and consequently to get yourself check-mated by libel lawsuits). A scientist does not play that game.
