Something Colbert should have read

Frank Sulloway, author of Born to Rebel was at Colbert Report recently- Colbert could have brought up the following comments of the Sulloway, quoted by Alex at MR.

Born to Sue?

...I intend to file charges of misconduct against one of your faculty members, Gary R. Johnson....these allegations include, but are not necessarily limited to: defamation/libel, false light invasion of privacy, fraud, promissory estoppel, and breach of fiduciary duty...I will also be blowing the whistle by filing formal charges of scientific misconduct against Gary Johnson with the American Political Science Association, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, members of Congress who have shown a concern about science fraud, and all other professional organizations with which Professor Johnson or his journal....are affiliated.

See also Judith Hariss', Why Do People Believe that Birth Order Has
Important Effects on Personality?

See the September edition of Politics and Life Sciences

If you don't have time read the entire issue, please have a look at the editorial by Gary R. Johnson, Science, Sulloway, and Birth Order: An Ordeal and an Assessment- quotes from the conclusion below;

In closing, I would like to discuss a more general issue. The virtual terror that Sulloway’s legal threats have prompted in some of those associated—directly or indirectly— with the events described in this editorial suggests to me that contemporary science must adapt to a changed socio-legal environment if the capacity for open dialogue and critical exchange that is the lifeblood of science and scholarship is to be protected. Scholars, scientists, and publishers cannot focus properly on what should be their principal concerns if the threat of catastrophic legal costs hangs over them and their organizations and journals. One way to reduce the level of threat that individuals and small organizations face would be to establish a multidisciplinary legal defense fund supported by a large number of scientific and scholarly organizations. The existence of such a fund, administered by a multidisciplinary board, might reduce the likelihood that important research, analysis, or criticism will not be carried out or will remain unpublished because of potential legal complications.

Progress in science requires creativity, bold leaps of imagination, and oftentimes a stubborn determination by individual scientists to pursue an idea in the face of ridicule and a lack of professional and financial support. But science is also a collective enterprise that requires open and critical interchange within the scientific community. For that reason, that which threatens our capacity to engage in such open and critical interchange also threatens scientific progress.