Clickbait headline alert! As the article also states, this dumbf..k offered a bounty of 100k to anyone who could prove that the measles virus actually exists. He refused to pay, a doctor brought it to court, and he won. Still, negating the existence of measles or viruses in general doesn't cost a cent in Germany.

I guess the dream of a scientocratic society proactively punishing ignorance won't materialise. Denying evolution? 10 lashes!

Just a matter of vocabulary: "dismissal of scientific evidence" != "ignorance".

Evolution is indeed just a theory - the one every scientist sees as the most likely - but still a theory.

Edit (reply-limit): Thanks readerrr and cremno, valid points, will consider it in the future.

What I meant was, there have been theories before the current theory of evolution. For example Lamarck's one, which is long considered false but lately some aspects of it are reintroduced. If we would punish everyone for denying evolution we would be unable to advance it.

And of course this has nothing to do with teaching children biology. Of course children need to be taught evolution there.

You are using an incorrect definition of the word. Theory used in science[0] means:

a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena

and not:

a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact

We have a separate word for the latter: a hypothesis.

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Because science isn't about generating indisputable facts. If that's what you're doing, what you're doing isn't science. The epitome of good science is a predictive and well-supported theory like evolution.

Adding the word "just" implies a misunderstanding of how the scientific method works, because it doesn't get any better than a good theory.

I feel kind of bad mentioning it since everyone's bound to pile on, but evolution is a readily observed fact (e.g. breeding of dogs), while it's natural selection that's the theory...

The English word you're looking for is probably "denying".

> Still, negating the existence of measles or viruses in general doesn't cost a cent in Germany.

It shouldn't. Truth can't be found by forcing others to believe in your version of it. The acceptance of any given fact will naturally follow a normal distribution, and those on one side or the other of that curve aren't defective. They're actually necessary for intelligent and critical discourse.

Even this fool provided an opportunity for the public to learn how wrong he was.

>It shouldn't. Truth can't be found by forcing others to believe in your version of it. The acceptance of any given fact will naturally follow a normal distribution, and those on one side or the other of that curve aren't defective. They're actually necessary for intelligent and critical discourse.

I'm rather partial to imposing a tax on self-delusion and refusing to update beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence.

Also, the normal distribution part is plainly unjustified. The scientific consensus on various climate change topics is widely accepted to a high confidence by many, and widely denied with even higher confidence by many others. Bayesian belief networks are better models for individuals, and if we were to put belief in a given generic climate-change-related claim on a curve with 1:1 confidence in the middle and "certain true/false" at the extremes, you'd have a valley, not a normal. An asymmetrical valley, to boot.

> Also, the normal distribution part is plainly unjustified. The scientific consensus

That's a dumb thing to say.

"Scientific consensus"? Really?

I suppose the first time a person chants "scientific consensus" everyone down to the last person is supposed to instantaneously change their minds and accept it, right?

The truth of the matter is that some people are slower to accept such truths than others. This doesn't mean that they're unwilling to accept them forever, but maybe it takes them a few weeks/months/years to arrive at the same conclusion as the rest. There's no reason to punish them or "tax" them for this.

Even if you could somehow determine that they never will accept it (rather than just being slow), those people are still necessary to keep the consensus honest. Without them, there won't be any criticism left, and then it just becomes a game for jackasses to try to get people to chant "scientific consensus" enough that everyone else must accept it instantly or be punished for not doing so.

What you're talking about isn't "consensus" at all, it's groupthink.

And it's pretty fucking sad that you've confused one for the other.

> The English word you're looking for is probably "denying".

Thanks for the hint. Unfortunately, I no longer can edit my comment...

> It shouldn't.

I didn't mean to judge. But for my liking, the BBC headline suggests that this would be the case in Germany, while the reality is very far from that.

tl;dr

- Biologist offered €100,000 to anyone who could prove that measles is a virus.

- The biologist believes the illness is psychosomatic.

- The reward was later claimed by a doctor who gathered evidence from various medical studies.

- The court ruled that the proof was sufficient.

- Biologist has to pay up to the doctor.

I filed a complaint with the BBC over their use of the word “sceptic” in place of “denier”.

That seems like a bad idea - the last people I want in charge of The Official Story is newspapers, and of these the BBC in particular.

The biologist in question is Stefan Lanka, who's also an HIV-denier: http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/index/slanka.htm

How does that bounty work legally? Publicly( if a website counts as such ) declaring a reward for something isn't a legal contract.

It is, if upon written request, the terms are confirmed by the one offering the bounty. This has happened here. The originally reporting newspaper has this to say (translation by me):

"[...] The doctor had noted the biologist's 100.000-Euro-Offer on the internet. At the start of the trial, he stated that he had requested (and received) written confirmation of the bet. He sent the documents to the biologist - together with his account number. Still, he did not receive the money and proceeded to sue. [...]"

Original article here: http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.kurioser-masern...

Thank you, that makes it credible.

It's an offer, which can be accepted by someone complying with the terms. At that point it constitutes a contract.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1892/1.html CARLILL v. CARBOLIC SMOKE BALL COMPANY; admittedly that's English law rather than German, but the principle holds. That case also deals with rewards, diseases and pseudoscience.

There also seem to be a number of U.S. cases enforcing unilateral reward offers as contracts; a theme seems to be that they intended to get other people to do work and those people reasonably relied on the offer and did the requested work (most often going out and finding a missing person or item).

I believe the doctrine is called Promissory Estoppel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#Promissory_estoppel

Yeah, it looks like that's the theory.

In Germany, bounties are relatively strictly regulated by law in terms of what you may and may not do etc. Therefore, if the bounty itself was valid in the sense of the law, then - AFAIK - there's an obligation to pay up.

Absence of a legal contract for such cases exposes a website to abuse. I refuse to believe that a text posted publicly is subject to the same standards as a real contract.

As rostigerpudel stated, the biologist confirmed the bounty in writing.

Anyhow, while IANAL, bounties are regulated by German law in (among others) BGB §657-661a. Mostly §661 and §661a. You can find a translation of those paragraphs here: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb....

Thanks for pointing those out. I never noticed them before.

Perhaps it is in Germany?

The libertarian in me was about to be pissed off that they were fining him for skepticism.

But it looks like the dumbass actually offered $100,000 for someone to prove it, and the courts merely held him to his promise. Thanks German Court System for not being completely retarded this time.

"this time"?

Most of the things i see the german court system do are completely fine, especially in comparison to the american one. I'm curious why you'd specify "this time".

Probably for exactly the same reason you specified, "especially in comparison to the american one". Most court activity anywhere is banal and "completely fine", which never gets reported on.