Thatâs a fairly significant difference.
EDIT: I see itâs been corrected underfoot.
Indeed, Christ what as asshole!
Now if only someone could isolate the source of stupidâŚ
We know for certain that it is a congenital, sexually transmitted diseaseâŚ
People won. Wacko nil.
The blog post the OP linked to is a new blogging of an old event from 2011. http://www.thelocal.de/20150312/doctor-proves-measles-virus
The blog post even used spell check to mess up the city name itâs Regensburg not Ravensburg the picture on the blog post is even a shopped image from the article, not even close to 7 degrees of separation.
I guess I can excuse the error, seeing as the BBC Time, and even the Daily Mail messed up the city name.
Iâd like to know where this âbiologistâ got his diploma, because sure as hell he wouldnât have passed the exams.
Is it? It appears to be a case -from- 2011 and just recently a decision was made final, in 2015.
Iâm not sure how to address the rest of your points, perhaps they are best addressed at that sites comment section?
I donât know about âstupid.â
But this guy has raised willful ignorance to an art form.
I know a college-level biology teacher who doesnât believe in âgerm theory,â but they also have some more general sanity problems.
The trial was this week in Ravensburg (Thatâs where the jigsaw puzzles are from)
So had this anti-vaxxer offered up some detailed legal contract spelling out the precise terms for the payout, or can you be legally held responsible for any statements of the form âI will pay X amount of money to anyone who can do Yâ that you make on a website?
Wat. Thatâs like an astronomer not believing in heliocentricity. Is this a bible-âcollegeâ or what?
I donât know about Germany, but here in the United States, if you state that you will do X if someone did Y, as long as the X or Y are legal, itâs possible to form a valid contract. There are usually dollar limits to the amount you can claim if the contract is oral, but in this case, it was in writing.
No, to my knowledge the college doesnât believe her nonsense, just her. And her explanation isnât to deny that germs exist, but that they are symptoms of the ailment. So like, if you have a cold, you sneeze, have a runny nose, produce germs. And you have the cold because of poor diet/exercise. Itâs kind of a pair of crazy things - she thinks getting sick is a moral/personal failing - only bad/unhealthy people get sick. Hence, illness canât be caused by germs because that would have nothing to do with your morality. So instead, theyâre a symptom, and thus proof that youâve failed in some way. (if youâd tried harder, you wouldnât have the germs). I wasnât kidding about the insanity.
I enjoy the idea of a wingnut getting hosed in court, but my lawyer brain doubts that the decision sets a good precedent. Of course they probably think about things a little differently in Germany, but in the US it would be very questionable whether an enforceable contract was formed.
A similar problem arose in the âPepsi Pointsâ case - a kid tried to âacceptâ Pepsiâs âofferâ of a Harrier jet to anyone who redeemed 700k points. Just look up Leonard v PepsiCo. Tl;dr - putative offers are subject to an analysis of whether a reasonable person would understand a statement as a binding offer. In the wingnutâs defense, Iâd argue that a reasonable person would understand this guy was making a dramatic statement in furtherance of promoting his medical opinions - not actually putting real money.
Obviously a question upon which reasonable people might disagree, including the judges.
But are you certain that this applies equally to a case where you tell a particular person âI will pay X if you do Yâ and to a case where you make a general public statement âI will pay X to anyone who can do Yâ, regardless of whether it was intended in a serious way or just a sort of rhetorical tactic? Do you know of any specific cases like this?
Or maybe it could be understood as one of the numerous challenge awards, just with somewhat lower-hanging fruit.
My reading of the post and the linked article is that the statement was public, rather than to a specific person. The doctor just âsaw profitâ as well as lunacy in the statement.
Off the top of my head Iâd say if it were interpreted as a challenge prize offer, the only qualified recipient would be the estate of John F Enders, who first isolated the virus and developed the vaccine. Some other scientist pointing out he work of others shouldnât be eligible to claim the award
But again, would any reasonable person believe his statement was the offer of a prize? I donât think so, maybe others might.
