Guest post by A. Scott
There has been considerable discussion about the methodology and data regarding the recent paper “Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing – therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science” (copy here)
This allegedly peer reviewed paper claims their survey data show climate skeptics are supporters of wild conspiracy theories, such as “NASA faked the moon landing.” The author admits, however, no climate skeptic sites were involved in the survey, that essentially all survey results were obtained thru posting the survey on pro-global warming sites.
Due to the serious and legitimate questions raised, I have recreated the Lewendowsky Survey in an attempt to replicate and create a more robust set of replies, including from skeptic users.
Please click on the Lewandosky Survey Page above and you’ll be presented the survey. This survey replicates the questions, both the paper, and several sites have indicated were in the original survey, including those questions deleted from the survey results.
The only change was to use a 1 to 5 ranking vs. Lewandowsky’s 1 to 4, which several people with experience have noted should improve the overall responses.
Each visit to the survey is tracked. Access is password protected for an additional layer of tracking.
THE PASSWORD FOR THE SURVEY IS “REPLICATE” (case sensitive)
Please only complete and submit once. Also, please respond to each question with the answer that best reflects your position, even though the question may not be perfectly worded.
This survey is built on the Google Doc’s open access platform. Results are collected automatically. As no significant randomization or counterbalancing was performed on the original survey none is applied here. Data collected will be provided upon request.
A. Scott
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It’s a conspiracy against the biased and incompetent!
I would love to see a cumulative response vs time curve on this survey.
omg, what a leftist poll. Many questions lead to catch-22 answers. The questions refuse to acknowledge that environment can be valued in a free market system. The questions pit free market against environment, and involve Marxist social justice.
Submit button? What submit button?
Why are they asking us? – there’s a peer reviewed paper with the answer provided!
:rolleyes:
LOL
To see the SUBMIT button you need to move the scroll bar to move the text up.
En Passant says
It’s a conspiracy against the biased and incompetent!
-0–
So lewandowski launched it against himself?
Mann, I hope you grade on a curve…
I’ve completed the survey, but what is it supposed to prove? That we aren’t all nutters?
Why not put up the “When did you stop beating your wife” survey?
Can’t help feeling we’re playing so far in the crazy alarmist ballpark that we’ll get lost.
To replicate a study, you need to use the original (poorly designed) 1 through 4 choices, not 1 through 5. You have not replicated the study, you have improved on it.
However, you have made the same mistake the original author did, by not obtaining a random population sample. The original results, plus yours will be biased, thus making the results useless.
I added the following feedback…
Bad phrasing:
“An economic system based on free markets unrestrained by government interference automatically works best to meet human needs. *”
No not always automatically. If phrased as “tends to” then would get strong agreement from me. As is I disagree.
“4. The preservation of the free market system is more important than localized environmental concerns *”
Define “local”. We’re trashing the Amazon or an empty field at the edge of a city where frogs live?
“Smoking causes lung cancer *”
It doesn’t cause lung cancer, but it does increase the risk. You can smoke and not get lung cancer; you can not smoke and get lung cancer.
“Human CO2 emissions cause climate change *”
In sufficient quantity CAN, that doesn’t mean always will.
FWIW, I’ve submitted my response. But some of the questions are a bit nutty. Like what is my opinion of what is done at Area 51? It’s a top secret facility, I can have no agreement nor disagreement with any assertion of what is done there as I have no knowledge of the place. Or the “Kennedy lone gunman” question: There’s a load of evidence that L.H.Oswald was not alone; but that doesn’t make it a ‘grand conspiracy’. Again, an ‘unknowable’ answer on which I’m expected to have an opinion? How about “I don’t know and neither does just about everyone; so I reserve judgement.”? But other than the “have you stopped beating your wife” nature of some of the ‘nutty’ questions, it didn’t take long and isn’t very hard.
Yep. Done.
Lewandowsky gets a chance?
“The quality of mercy is not strain’d .. “
Did the original survey invite reposting the invitation? Should more be invited elsewhere?
Have to agree with Alvin. Wouldn’t play this sick game with a rather sick man (Lewandowsky) if I were you. Sick men make sick claims as he apparently has made of the science oriented minds that frequent this site. Just by making his claim on inadequate data he has proven he is no scientist, that’s for sure!
Absurdly biased set of questions. Did the authors of those questions believe they were writing unbiased questions? I would not call the authors of that survey “scientists” on a dare.
Anthony, I’ve been reading your site for some time now and finally decided I wanted to be involved in the discussions. It seems that anyone who is actually honest with themselves would answer ‘i don’t know’ for many of these questions. I realise it’s about opinions, but I really can’t form a worthwhile opinion about free market economies if I don’t know anything about free market economies. Seriously, any opinion I have is going to be coloured only by popular opinion and not from any real knowledge of whether something is good or bad.
I think far too many people in this debate (the climate science debate) seem to have lost the ability to simply say “I don’t know”.
Anyway, looking forward to being involved in future discussions.
Given this survey is now infamous, aren’t we going to get every troll making their way here to say they don’t believe in AGW but do believe the Illuminati run the world? Just for fun?
Let’s do another suvery.
Same questions. But the responses are:
1 – Great well phrased, meaningful question
2 – poorly phrased question but still useful.
3 – badly phrased question. Conflates issues. Could be saved with rephrasing.
4 – assumptions bad, results not usable.
5 – Hopeless bad question. Irredeamable.
Looks like climate scientists are using the Saul Alinsky method of data collection…
OY!
3. The free-market system may be efficient for resource allocation, but it is limited in its capacity to promote social justice
yep! got to hand it to them… this is your opinion and you will like it…
Mike … scroll down the page for more questions … the SUBMIT button is at the end
To the several that have commented on the questions themselves, this is a recreation of the original survey.
The questions in the survey here are as created by the original authors. Yes, many are poorly written, hard to understand, and/or otherwise flawed. However, for the purposes here retaining the original questions, warts and all, is important.
The test will prove, like thermometer sitings, that biased questions give biased results. No more, no less.
7. The Iraq War in 2003 was launched for reasons other than to remove WMD from Iraq.
Umm, It was launched for many reasons. One of them was to remove WMD. But there were others too. OTTOOMH: Hubris, completion (Bush), ‘legacy, doing the right thing’ (Blair), Do I strongly agree with the proposition because others existed as well? Or strongly disagree because WMD was indeed one of the causes?
Very badly phrased and ambiguous question..typical of many.
I already had severe doubts about the methodology of Lewandowsky’s paper. Now I have seen the very poor quality of the questions he asked, I have had those doubts confirmed (1 = strongly agree).
And if this is typical of the level of rigour of ‘work’ produced in climatology as well as in sociology, then the last 30 years of the climateers has all been pretty much a waste of time. Hardly rises above a science project by Lisa Simpson (age 8). And I may be doing a disservice to Lisa 🙁