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Not that anyone should care about the attempt by New York businessman Stuart Pivar to sue prominent science blogger PZ Myers of Pharyngula anymore, since the suit was just dismissed, but I just noticed that two of the pro-Pivar comments* on the original post in which I broke the PZ/Pivar story were by a "Matthew Richards," who claims to be an attorney. But that's not his real name, or at least not the name he uses in his professional life. That's because his e-mail address reveals that he is in fact Matthew Rich, proprietor of PR agency the Matthew Rich Group / Planet PR, and writer of hilarious press releases for Pivar's book Life Code:
Prominent Scientists Reject Mainstream Genetics, Support New Theory of How the Human Body is FormedThat 'new theory' would be Pivar's unique Dunkin' Donuts theory of development. Which means that Matthew Rich has now joined the ranks of duplicitous PR flacks who have run afoul of the science blog mob. Allow me to introduce his colleagues: Eric Dezenhall The Orwellianly-names industry front group PRISM, which represents for-profit scientific journals terrified of open access efforts like PubMed and PLoS, was set up by Dezenhall in an effort to tar attempts to make publicly funded research publicly available as some sort of threat to the very foundations of reason. When Dezenhall, who has been described as the pit-bull of public relations, isn't declaring war on open-acces, he enjoys long walks on the beach, smooth jazz and getting the IRS to audit greenpeace on behalf of Exxon Mobil. Marc Morano Senator and noted global warming denialist James Inhofe employs Morano to write press releases that misrepresent the views and reporting of Scientific American reporters, among other offenses. George Deutsch This recent grad and appointee of the current administration did his best to limit reporters' access to James Hansen, one of NASA's top climate scientists (and purveyor of the view, then-unpopular with the administration, that the Earth is warming). Then science blogger Nick Anthis busted him. And he was forced to resign. Who says investigative journalism is dead? ------------------------------------------------------ *Here are the original comments: Matt Richards [Member] August 22, 2007 @ 1:22 pm writes: Pivar gripe seems legit. Even argumentative PZ Meyer can't libel someone as "crackpot" because you don't like their theory - which by the way seems interesting, at least, I visited www.annconvenienttruth.com and pursued part of Pivar's LifeCode theory. Matt Richards [Member] August 22, 2007 @ 2:14 pm writes: As an attorney I can tell you Pivar has every right to sue PZ Meyer and may well prevail. And by the way, shame on PZ for trying to censor an interesting, if unconventional theory, in science community. shows part of the book in question and it seems of interest to this non-scientist Atlegalbar
