David Burchell

Given that The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell threatens to sue Julia Posetti, alleging that he has been defamed, you'd think they'd want to avoid defaming scientists, but the law on defamation is really only useful to the rich and powerful. In a column entitled Radicals get rich while truth begs, regular columnist for The Australian, David Burchell defames two scientists, Phil Jones and Riyadh Lafta. He first accuses Jones of professional misconduct: Last week the journal Nature interviewed professor Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the…