Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook – making things up

re: “Fabricated quotes and gross distortions”
The examples given in the post certainly seem damning. This could be clear-cut research misconduct, even assuming it may be unintentional. Butchering the record of online comments in order to create a convenient but fanciful straw man target would be research misconduct or worse (worse if it was intentional but still bad if accidental and careless).
You’re not allowed to (or not supposed to) do this with scientific data, historical documents, quotations from critics, etc. These online comments are the data and documents of the “Recursive Fury” paper. IF the misrepresentations are as serious as appears on a first look, this matter should be pursued.
I urge anyone with some time right now to pore over this material. I can’t right away, other commitments, sigh….

Wow.
Fabricate comments to suit their own thesis and make a research paper out of it.
How deep this sort of “science” has sunk, not even astrology goes so deep.
And who pays for this brilliant science? Well you guess

DirkH says:
March 9, 2013 at 9:53 am
“I don’t think any standards apply to sociology.”
In sociology they infact are bound by the scientific method… thus making them science. However sociology is rarely taught in college nowadays. You have now would be best called socialistology, the process where they spend the whole time running in circle thought to justitfy sociaist thought and making of fanasty excuses to explain away all of socialisms failures.

Speaking of making things up…
I’ve been banned from a website here in Canada for pointing out that a news organization has completely taken quotes out of context to glorify the environmental movement’s fight against climate change. The article is from the Guardian, “Canada’s environmental activists seen as ‘threat to national security'” by Stephen Leahy http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/14/canada-environmental-activism-threat The entire article is based on a Queens University PhD Candidate (admittedly knowledgable) and a Globe and Mail article about al Qaeda. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/domestic-terrorism-becoming-a-greater-concern-for-canadian-spy-agency/article8478299/ Every quote in the Guardian article outside of the student’s is about al Qaeda… not environmentalists. To show how this is further propagated, Canada’s largest circulated newspaper ‘The Toronto Star’ recently had a follow up article in which the Guardian title was further distorted and said to be “headlined “Canada’s spy chiefs target anti-frackers,” by Stephen Leahy” http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/03/05/hey_csis_farmers_are_not_terrorists.html
I’ll be honest, I expect people to think I’m lying and as such I make sure I can back up my claims. I just find it hard to believe that people, especially ‘professionals’ don’t have that same level of basic shame.

I believe the moon landing was real, that Oswald shot JFK, that terrorists flew planes into the WTC and that Princess Diana was killed by a drunk chauffeur while being chased by paparazzi.
I believe that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming has been highly exaggerated by most climate scientists.
I also believe Lewandowsky is a third rate psychologist whose paper, ‘NASA faked the moon landing Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science’, will never see the light of day (well, except on his own website of course).
I’m not sure if thinking that someone is a tool makes me a conspiracy theorist but I’m sure Lewandowky would try to make that link.

eric1skeptic says:
March 9, 2013 at 10:45 am
“Then I realized that my cat probably intentionally made me think those thoughts.”
You have the brain parasite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Possible_link_to_psychiatric_disorders

foxgoose says:
March 9, 2013 at 12:50 pm
“I don’t suppose I can sue them for defamation of my anonymous username ”
Don’t be so sure about that.
Clebs have tried to sue anonymous posters and had some starter success in the US. While I believe that all those cases were correctly overturned as free speech… Australia doesn’t have anywhere near the protection that US citizens are granted.
The fact that the quotes were published in an official science paper also opens up the door to go after the college, rag that published/pal reviewed the paper and probably a host of other people.
More so if you were required to register at the site in question. By registering and using e-mail to that site you are far less then “anonymous”. The site could easily leak your info which can be tracked back to your real life person, someone can break in said site, host of other things that could happen that result in your real life person being connected to username. Not to also include the fact you have a word.press account which surely makes it even easier to run down your info.
I don’t think its much of a question if you can win… its a question of how much it will cost you to win. If you can get a freebee like Dr Ball is getting now you could probably do a good bit of damage to lot of people involved in this bogus propaganda paper.

@foxgoose… go further, as the good lord Monckton did with UTas write to the vice chancellor with a clear accusation of academic fraud and demand a full investigation under the relevant code. Since you have wisely taken steps to protect your reputation, its unlikely you can claim libel. I dont think there is a conspiracy to libel offence available.
Lewandowski should be brought into conformance with academic standards, which includes not pedalling misthuths

There are plenty of serious issues with the latest Lewandowsky “Recursive” paper. Serious and legitimate questions about peer review are at the top of the list.
I have repeatedly asked questions of the authors at both the Frontiers journal page for the “Recursive” paper, and at Lewandowsky’s Shaping Tomorrows World blog page regarding this paper.
Most recently I posted the following direct request at Lewandowsky’s blog:
As the authors have not responded to any of the questions submitted regarding the “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation” and the underlying LOG12 papers …
I formally submit the following direct questions for Mr. Lewandowsky (and/or any of the authors of either paper).
1. You have repeatedly claimed, since approx. July 2012, that the “LOG12/Moon Landing is a Hoax” paper has been peer reviewed, accepted for publication by Psychological Science, and has been published. You repeat that claim in the current “Recursive” paper and again in your comments above. You have also cited the LOG12 paper as a reference in multiple subsequent papers, including the current “Recursive” paper. Yet to the best of my knowledge the paper has never been published, online or in print, nor has Psychological Science ever acknowledged acceptance of the paper for publishing.
Please provide:

(a.) … evidence that shows the LOG12 paper has been published, and/or;
(b.) … information which shows, or provides acknowledgement, that the LOG12 paper actually has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by Psychological Science.

2. You have also repeatedly claimed, including in [your Shaping Tomorrows World] blog, and again several times in the “Recursive” paper, that the online supplementary material for LOG12 contains the raw data, information and detailed methods necessary to review and validate the LOG12 findings.
Please provide:

(a.) … evidence this supplementary material has been peer reviewed, accepted for publication, and published, and/or;
(b.) … information on where this supplementary material may be accessed online as you have repeatedly claimed, and/or;
(c.) … how/where the supplementary material may be obtained from the authors?

3. Legitimate questions have been raised regarding the current “Recursive” paper as well. Here too you have claimed the paper was properly peer reviewed, accepted for publication, and has been published. In this current case, we at least know the paper has been published online by the Frontiers journal. However, there are a number questionable activities associated with the publishing of this paper as well.
Please provide a response:

(a.) It is well established that peer review must be completed prior to acceptance, and certainly prior to publication. Yet here the list of peer reviewers has undergone 3 significant changes in the weeks after publication – there have been 4 different iterations of listed peer reviewers in the course of a few weeks post publication.
The current listed peer reviewers include the Associate Editor of the paper, which seems highly suspect and of questionable ethics and professionalism – when we know other qualified reviewers were available.
The sole remaining independent reviewer is a graduate student injournalism, not Psychological Science, with a pretty clearly identifiable, highly sympathetic bias towards the authors positions, and a business relationship with the authors institution. Whether true or not, this creates a clear perception of “pal” not “peer” review of this work.
Question: How and why have the listed peer reviewers changed multiple times after publication, and why were apparently qualified reviewers removed, after being listed, and replaced by the Associate Editor in charge of the paper?
(b.) Upon publication a PDF was provided of the full paper. This PDF was included on the Frontiers page for the paper, and is referenced by Mr. Lewandowsky in the blog post above. In the days after publication, this PDF was removed from the Frontiers page. And several days later the link in the authors blog post above – which clearly states it is to the PDF of the paper – has been changed to point only to the abstract.

Question: Why was the PDF removed and when will it be replaced?

(c.) The authors of “Recursive” several times in the paper reference the supplementary material, and that it contains the additional detail information to support the claims and findings of the paper. Yet, as with the prior LOG12 paper, no supplementary has, by all appearances, been made available.

Question: How/where can the supplementary material be obtained from the authors?

4. In the Recursive paper the term “LOG12” appears 120 times. The LOG12 paper is cited by the authors as a reference. And in fact the LOG12 paper is the entire basis for the Recursive paper. Yet the LOG12 paper as we know has notappeared in print or online, has not been published in any form to date, and no independent public acknowledgement has been made that the work has been reviewed and accepted by a scholarly journal for publication.

Question: Please explain the professional, ethical and scholarly reasoning behind citing prior work as a reference in subsequent papers when this work; (a.) has drawn significant criticism (including from supporters of the authors), (b.) has not been published, and where (c.) the authors actions in withholding supplementary material – including raw data, methods and information which they note is critical to the papers findings – have resulted in the inability of outside reviewers to validate this work.

5. In the “Recursive” paper the authors note as one of their “recursive hypothesis”the conspiracy theory “Control data suppressed (6)” … regarding the authors failed attempt to collect a “control” sample for the LOG12 papers findings from the campus population. The authors attributed this conspiracy theory to “the pervasive belief that something must be wrong (NI, MbW)”.
In footnote “5” regarding the above comments, the authors note note they ”subsequently obtained a control sample via a professional survey firm in the U.S” and that “This representative sample of 1,000 respondents replicated the results involving conspiracist ideation reported by LOG12.”
The authors own actions here – that the criticism prompted the authors to admit their campus survey had failed (a fact they did not disclose in the LOG12 paper) – and that they subsequently obtained a professional “control” survey, show that something most definitely was wrong, and thus the criticism was valid and well founded.

Question: Please explain how you find well founded criticism – showing something indeed was wrong and the criticism was accurate – to be a “conspiracy theory” … an example of conspiracist ideation?
Please explain how when the authors directly react to, and upon, the criticism, how this finding is not demonstrably proven false by the authors own response to the criticism?
These are legitimate, reasoned, questions of the authors. They deserve a professional and honest response.

Regarding the peer review – excepts of a couple posts also made at Lewandowsky’s blog, that fill in details:
In the short period since this current paper was published online, the peer reviewer list has changed now at least 3 times:

Original:
Reviewed by: Michael J. Wood, University of Kent, United Kingdom
Elaine McKewon, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Rev. 1:
Reviewed by: Viren Swami, University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Elaine McKewon, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Rev. 2:
Reviewed by: Prathiba Natesan, University North Texas, USA
Viren Swami, University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Elaine McKewon, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Rev. 3:
Reviewed by: Viren Swami, University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Elaine McKewon, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

I agree peer review is very important. I also agree once an article is made publicly available, readers should be able to rely on the fact peer review has been satisfactorily and professionally completed.
And I most definitely agree with you that once a paper is made publicly available that the peer reviewers should not be changed or manipulated.
Yet despite the “Recursive” paper being published by a professional journal – with the authors and journal clearly indicating it was “rigorously” peer reviewed before publication – in a short period after publication the listed peer reviewers have changed from the original now 3 different times. At present there is one reviewer listed, plus the Editor has also stepped into the role of a peer reviewer.
A simple perusal of that one remaining reviewer’s CV shows her to be highly sympathetic to the authors and their point of view and positions. Her published papers include:

McKewon, Elaine (2012) ‘Talking Points Ammo: The use of neoliberal think tank fantasy themes to delegitimise scientific knowledge of climate change in Australian newspapers’, Journalism Studies 13(2), 277-297
McKewon, Elaine (2012) ‘Duelling Realities: Conspiracy theories vs climate science in regional newspaper coverage of Ian Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth’, Rural Society 21(2), 99–115
McKewon, E. (2009) ‘Resurrecting the war-by-media on climate science: Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth’,Proceedings of the National Conference of the Journalism Education Association of Australia, Perth WA.

Some will certainly say these make her a perfect reviewer. Others might find them a perfect example of “pal review.”
More advocate than scientist – considering the subject matter and position of her work, along with her journalism training and advocacy – and might recall at minimum the LOG12 authors appearance of manipulating the media through early release of the LOG12 paper and similar use of inflammatory and sensationalized commentary to gain media and public attention.
Regrettably, having an agenda, being an activist/advocate of, and taking a particular side in, the issue you “research” in itself does not necessarily disqualify today.
However, her CV also points out another issue – a direct business relationship with UWA, who publish two of her books. Which is a direct listed conflict of the journal.
I would note there is also no provision for the Editor to also be a peer reviewer, and while as I noted Dr. Swami would be considered well qualified as a reviewer, an Editor overseeing and reviewing their own work would seem to entirely defeat the purpose of independent peer review.
No conspiracy’s here. Everything I wrote above is based on plain and simple facts – including direct commentary from the authors.

What we appear to have is a Cook working to a recipe complied by a psychiatrist with a schizophrenic tendency.
Hallucination and indigestion being the designed take home experience.

foxgoose, I wouldn’t be so sure this was intentional. People with large biases are very good at misreading things. They’re also very good at forgetting inconvenient facts. Bias and incompetence can cause a great deal of apparently dishonest behavior.
In this case, I suspect someone saw your comment out of context and didn’t bother to look at the discussion around it. They jumped to a conclusion, liked what they thought they saw, and they decided to include it in the paper. Laziness, bias and incompetence explains things just fine.
It’s still a case of academic misconduct, but it most likely wasn’t intentional.

In light of the extremely unusual “music chairs” going on with the listed peer reviewers, a look at who these reviewers are would seem a logical exercise. Of course the authors would call that reasoned review yet another conspiracy theory – but lets go ahead anyway.
On the the “Recursive” paper’s title page of the original PDF is this prominently highlighted comment from the authors:

“This Provisional PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance, after rigorous peer-review.”

The authors clearly state the paper had undergone “rigorous peer review” prior to acceptance. Yet as we know, the listed peer reviewers have undergone 4 different iterations after publication – multiple different variations of listed peer reviewers.
This is highly unusual – and in my personal opinion high unprofessional. It goes directly against the entire premise of rigorous peer review. And it becomes worse when one of the remaining peer reviewers has every appearance of outright “pal review” … and the 2nd remaining reviewer listed when the music stopped, is the responsible editor of the paper.
So lets look at additional facts regarding the various peer reviewers listed and the Recursive and LOG12 papers themselves.

1. Each of the original two listed peer reviewers of the Recursive also received cites to their own work in the references for this paper. Not necessarily an issue in itself, however, when taken as part of the whole – it at least seems worth scrutiny.
2. It is highly unusual that a paper will see any changes to the listed peer reviewers after publication … a single change is rare, let alone 3 different changes with 4 different reviewers listed, in a short period. There is little logical or legitimate reason to have a change of listed peer reviewers after publication. Both because peer reviewers can not change once review is complete, and because the journals own rules provide that reviewers are not identified until the paper is complete, signed off on by Editor, and accepted by the journal for publication.
The only acceptable reason a listed reviewer might change after publication is to correct a simple error – that somehow the wrong individual was listed. We know that was not the case here, for several reasons. Both initial reviewers are listed as a reference in the paper, so we know both are involved. And we know it was not a simple mistake, as the listed reviewers have changed three different times.
3. After Michael Wood was removed (who seemed fairly well qualified) as a reviewer, and Mr. Viren Swami was added in his place, for a short period a 3rd peer reviewer – Ms. Prathiba Natesan, University North Texas was added to the reviewer list. As a teacher of psychological statistics Dr. Natesan appears to have been well qualified – especially to review the underlying LOG12 work for accuracy. A brief review shows no appearance of bias or strong advocacy.
Unfortunately Ms. Nateson was soon removed as well, leaving the one original reviewer – the highly sympathetic journalism student Ms. McKewon – and the Editor, Dr. Swami. While Dr. Swami would likely be well qualified as a peer reviewer, it seems highly problematic and unethical for an Editor to also be a peer reviewer on a paper they are responsible for Editorial control over.

The myriad of changes, post publication, of the listed peer reviewers is no simple mistake. This was clearly no mere typographical error. You don’t get the listed peer reviewers for a paper wrong three different times after publication.
Add the fact the PDF of the paper has been pulled from the journal and the authors websites.
Now take the inconsistencies and problems apparent with this current paper, and add the context of the issues with the LOG12 paper:

– The early release to mainstream media of a flawed paper with a highly sensationalized inflammatory title – a title attacked and vilified by even strong supporters of the authors
– A title that reflected a minor finding of the research, a finding barely supported by the data, and which all but disappeared when the suspect responses were removed
– The strong and relevant issues with the authors data collection practices and the resultant very small sample of alleged “skeptic” responses
– Despite repeated claims from the authors that the answers could be found in the Supplemental information – no SI has ever been provided and they continue to ignore all such requests
– Despite the authors continued claims – including cites in their subsequent papers – now 9 months after the authors initial claim, the LOG12 paper has still not, been published, and to my knowledge there has been no independent public confirmation or announcement that it has been accepted for publication

So we have one paper – LOG12 – which has serious questions about its data collection, data quality, statistical analysis and conclusions … and which has to date primarily been used for advocacy/attack thru its release to the media by the authors. A paper that has never been published, nor even acknowledged to be accepted for publication, despite repeated and continued claims by the authors it was “In Press.”
And now we have a new paper, which cites as a reference, and is directly based on, the unpublished and unverified LOG12 paper, with its serious and unaddressed questions as to quality and accuracy … and this new paper has similar issues, including outright false claims about other authors work. A paper where legitimate concerns have been raised as well – about peer review, falsely citing several references/sources, incorrectly stating conclusions etc..
These are fair and legitimate questions and criticisms – based on fact. Perhaps there are simple answers, however, as is now seemingly becoming a pattern with these authors and this line of work, there are no answers forthcoming.
There is no conspiracy theory, nor is one needed. They are valid, legitimate questions. The authors have refused to address them here, just as they refused to address questions about the LOG12 paper …
This is in my opinion not the mark of professional scholarly work and/or ethical and open authors. Their own actions lend support to the claims this is not scholarly work, but rather an extension of the authors practice of “Punitive Psychology” thru their extreme advocacy and activism in support of their “Cause”.
Last – It is not a ‘conspiracy’ to ask authors to respond to legitimate criticism and questions. It is not ‘conspiracy’ to expect authors to provide the necessary support and documentation to validate and verify their work. Nor is it ‘conspiracy’ to attempt to validate and verify their work and its review…

Brandon Shollenberger says:
March 9, 2013 at 5:07 pm
I don’t get why people would think this sort of thing is intentional. Why would Cook and Lewandowsky intentionally fabricate quotes in such an obvious way? Fabricating quotes only serves a purpose if people believe those quotes. If people reading this paper followed the links in it, they’d see the fabrications. It takes no special skills or in-depth research.

Brandon, do you think Mann’s abuse of statistics in so many of his paleo papers was unintentional? I think it more likely that Mann (along with Lew and Cook), wouldn’t expect anyone but Skeptics to object. Much like we saw in the CRU emails, the only objections by compatriots were in private. The know that the objections by skeptics would be ignored by the MSM, and therefore the public at large.
I don’t know if all of the LewCookian missteps were intentional, but you have to believe that some of them were.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about cognitive psychology than Stephan Lewandowsky has proved to be should write up an article or case study on this sordid affair, analyzing cognitive biases and failings in relation to such general concepts as:
Group think
Confirmation bias
Cognitive distortion
Noble cause corruption
Plus related more specific and technical terms in the psychology literature.

Jeff Alberts:

Brandon, do you think Mann’s abuse of statistics in so many of his paleo papers was unintentional?

Definitely. I don’t think he has the knowledge or skill for the work he tried to do. He has never done anything to indicate otherwise, and he’s done much to indicate it. I challenge anyone to find anything he has ever written that inspires confidence in his abilities.

A closer read will show Lewandowsky actually set up the current “Recursive” paper in a way that allows them to ignore the factual basis and/or truthfulness of any claim. Its not a conspiracy theory if its true – except in Lewndowskys world of activism and advocacy based ‘Punitive Psychology.’

Chris B says:
March 9, 2013 at 9:05 pm
This song reminds me of what Dr. Lew’s work is to science.
_______________________________________
The illuminati made me do it……….

Geoff, I believe it was Cook’s other pal Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (“Barrier Reef doomed”) who’d had a lot to do with that appointment…

Was waiting outside the GCI boardroom, the door opened, Ove came out and said, trying to lighten the mood, “come in for your execution”. Uh, thanks, Ove! So I started my PPT explaining what I hoped to do in the role. Was surprisingly relaxed (but still quite psyched about it all). I quoted a CSIRO scientist who at a communication workshop said “to get the climate message across, we need to make climate science cool… Like what skeptical science is doing”. This got a good reaction. Then to show an example of what I’d like to do, I handed out my iPad with The Elements app (with carbon as the selected element). You should’ve seen their eyes light up. Ove asked the name of the app and scribbled down the name in his notes. Then at one point, I also handed out my iPod with the SkS app (joking about all my props). I mentioned that Malcolm Turnbull had the SkS app (thanks James) which also lit up their eyes.
So the talk went well. Then they asked questions. One question was how I’d handle interdisciplinary matters with experts from different fields disagreeing about issues, how I’d resolve differences. I tried to think of examples in the SkS community where there were disputes but I couldn’t think of anything substantial. You lot just get on together too well!
They asked what would I consider successful in my job after 3 years. I said if Australia still had a price on carbon in 3 years, I’d consider that a success (that would require a major turning of public opinion about carbon pricing in this country, which will probably be my main purpose for the next year or two).
Ove also asked what my career plans were, where I hoped to be in 10 years. I had expected this kind of question but to be honest, I have no career plans – probably a huge faux pas in a job interview but I have no ambition other than making a difference. So maybe that was a bad answer (a bit sappy really, something you’d say in a Disney movie).
Anyway, they said they’d be deciding the position at the end of the day and I went home, pretty satisfied that I got through it without walking into any furniture or drooling down my chin.
At the end of the day, I got a phone call from GCI. They said they had 3 interviews. The other two applicants “were quite strong”. Then they offered me the job.

In fairness to JC when you glance over the job description he does seem to have it nailed. Why that position needs to exist is another debate to be had…

Hmmm …….. quite a lot to absorb over the day’s first espresso.
I’d like to thank Brandon & A Scott for the huge amount of work they’ve put in to deconstructing this paper. I must say though that I find the idea that the fraud was unintentional a bit hard to swallow.
To believe it, you’d have to accept that Lew & Cookie put less work and due diligence into their academic papers than we knuckle dragging denialists put into the average blog post.
Either way, whether through intentional fraud or cavalier incompetence, I would have thought Brandons’ revelations are enough to end both their academic careers quite soon – and to seriously damage the careers of those who have promoted their fraudulent garbage.
I have now written to the human research ethics manager at UWA, copied to their chairman and vice-chancellor, asking them to withdraw the paper or accept legal consequences.
If they don’t reply tomorrow, I may paste that email here for the record.

I wonder if humans will ever get out of the ‘I’m right and your mad’ methodology of passing ones time on earth.

Re intentional distortions of data versus unintentional:
I’m not sure how much it matters whether these academic failings are from gross incompetence or intention. Lewadowski and the rest clearly demonstrate themselves unfit to hold their positions. Period.
Last month the company I work for (oil and gas exploration) let go several employees that were not performing. No one asked them if they were underperforming intentionally! They were simply unfit and let go.
The minimum standards of performance at universities is clearly appalling.

Brandon, you are a ‘babe in the woods’ when you seek to explain that this was a whoopsie.
If it was a newbie, you just might (although I wouldn’t) proffer this excuse.
These people have been around for years and ought to understand the basics of citation. It was drummed into me long before I got my undergraduate degree. These guys are professors!
Not only that, when I spent time in the working world as a policy adviser to politicians, I and my colleagues busted our collective freckle to make sure that every word we put into our briefs was triple-checked from the source. (I am not claiming that all advisers adhered to this standard).
The point is, you are too innocent. You need to read some Miss Marple. She has a lot to say about young people who are very casual about manners and mores while completely missing the murderer in the room.
Neither my undergraduate supervisors nor my supervisors in providing briefs to Premiers and Prime Ministers would have put up with what you describe for a second.
This kind of stuff doesn’t happen in isolation. People at that level who jumble up, misattribute and make up quotes are not just making a ‘whoopsie’. And if they did, the usual thing would be to acknowledge that and move on. Nobody in academia loses points for that.
You need to understand that it is not about conspiracy theories on either side, but about malfeasance in this particular case. As Miss Marple said, “most unsatisfactory behaviour.”

I think Lewandowsky and Cook are alien fifth columnists sent here, along with Mann and friends, to trick the human race into dismantling their most efficient power generating tools and switching to wind and solar energy. Their battle fleet will then unfurl a giant sunshade which will blot out the sun. The resultant massive storms will then wreck all the wind turbines. With Earth unable to generate power, the aliens will then be able to creep up on us in the dark and take over.
There you are Dr Lew = my sceptic gift to you.
Do I really have to say /sarc?

The “Recursive fury” paper fails to consider an alternative hypothesis. If psychology expert L came along and said that you should not be listened to about subject A, (which you believe strongly about,) because:-
(a) Nearly all the “experts” disagree with you.
(b) Some fellow believers allegedly have political beliefs that the person L does not like.
(c) A higher proportion of your fellow believers than L’s group allegedly hold other beliefs that most people view as being “wierd”.
Then you would be somewhat upset – a normal, human, reaction. If you later found out that the claims about the experts were not true, the questions were biased and the statistical conclusions were contradicted by basic statistical analysis, you would be justifiably furious.
Like with people who attribute every extreme weather event to global warming, Lewandowsky bases his case for ignoring sceptical opinions on a distorted opinion of corrupted evidence. When it gets a very predictable response, he interprets this with a distorted opinion of corrupted evidence. The only recursive bit is in the methods Lewandowsky employs.

Over at Skeptical Science, Tom Curtis responded to this post by saying this post is a non-substantive response. All I have to say to that is… wow. It’s already been established the authors grossly misrepresented the views of Jeff Id in their paper, and now it’s been established they misquoted multiple people.
How much deception has to be shown before it matters?

Moderator at SkS cracks his whip at Brandon Shollenberger with the following,

Moderator Response: [JH] Given the repetitive and meandering nature of your posts, you are now skating on the thin ice of sloganeering. You are hereby advised to change course, or get off of the ice.

As if ‘sloganeering’ isn’t a vague enough offence already, Brandon is accused of indirect sloganeering based on alleged repetition and meandering. (isn’t a single instance of a ‘slogan’ in his post)
I hope you can live with yourself Brandon, you repetitious meanderer you.

Brandon,
Jo Nova contacted various people about whether they’d been contacted by Lewandowsky. I’ve obtained copies of the emails from Pielke, Morano and Spencer to Jo Nova. Other than Spencer, no one made categeorical statements that they’d not been contacted. For example, I said that I had no record of being contacted by Lewandowsky (which was true). I was aware that I might have received an email and deleted it and therefore expressed my answer carefully. So did Pielke and Morano.
Contrary to Lewandowsky’s claim, none of us made “public” statements that we had not been contacted. We responded privately to an enquiry to Jo Nova. her blog post reported our information in more categorical terms than I or the others had expressed. I wasn’t following her blog and didn’t notice this at the time. Lewandowsky made no attempt to verify what we had told her with us.

My mum always said that I was a bad lair, after awhile I realized what she meant by that.

By the way, I’ve decided to probably stop posting on that Skeptical Science thread due to their ridiculous moderation practices. There is no way to deny Tom Curtis has repeatedly accused me of dishonesty, but the moderators have refused to do anything about it. And when I tried to draw attention to the issue, they deleted my comment.
I’ve posted a comment asking them to enforce their rules. If they don’t, I’m done posting on that page. I’ve done enough to draw attention to the tactic they’re using. It’s practically the same as I highlighted before:

They allowed Tom Curtis to dispute my remarks with comments that flagrantly violate the site’s rules, but nobody actually associated with SkS challenged me. Two interpretations come to mind.
1) The people behind SkS are laundering their defense through Tom Curtis. If challenged as to why they didn’t address my criticism, they can point to his “rebuttal.” The explanation for their hypocritical moderation decisions is they “need” Tom Curtis to post his nonsense for plausible deniability.
2) The people behind SkS are aware of my criticisms, do not support what Tom Curtis has said, and they simply are remaining silent. They are intentionally allowing inaccuracies in several of their posts, knowing it will mislead their readers. The explanation for their hypocritical moderation decisions is simple and extreme bias.
Other interpretations may exist, but I don’t think any will be more favorable than those two, and I certainly don’t think any could show intellectual honesty. This doesn’t prove SkS is wrong about everything, or even much of what, they post, but it does severely damage their credibility.

Steve McIntyre:

Jo Nova contacted various people about whether they’d been contacted by Lewandowsky. I’ve obtained copies of the emails from Pielke, Morano and Spencer to Jo Nova. Other than Spencer, no one made categeorical statements that they’d not been contacted.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I didn’t have the information to show what you say, but I suspected it. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure I’d say Spencer’s statement was categorial. He said, “[I]t doesn’t look like I was contacted.” It can “look like” something didn’t happen even though it did. By hiding his involvement, Lewandowsky created room for that sort of confusion.

her blog post reported our information in more categorical terms than I or the others had expressed.

This possibility was obvious, and it was one I considered immediately upon reading her post. It is difficult to imagine how Lewandowsky et al could publish hearsay like this without realizing the risk.

As noted above, Geoff Chambers corresponded with John Cook about whether he had posted the Lew survey at SKS. Cook’s answer to Chambers at the time was a baldfaced lie (established by FOI materials that I plan to post up.)

Thanks for drawing my attention to that comment. I didn’t notice it when it first got posted, and I might have missed it all together if you hadn’t mentioned it. It’s crazy just what these people will do.

This is an amusing example of just how bad Tom Curtis proves to be at textual analysis, even though he seems to fantasize that he is some master of the art. Curtis butchers a simple sentence by Brandon, turning singular into plural and “much” into “at all” so that Curtis can tear down a straw figure of his own creation. What Brandon did NOT say is that all the quotes (plural) did not help the Cook/Lew argument at all. He said ONE quote singular did not help the case “much” relative to the risk undergone (risk of being exposed and have their entire argument discredited). Yet, using one bogus quote which didn’t help their case “much” was part of the risk taken by the bumbling Cook/Lewandowsky team to create a fatuous article which they hoped would serve its propaganda uses. That is what such propagandists do.
[emphasis added]

[Brandon]:
“The fabricated [sic] quote doesn’t even help their case much so why take the risk?”
[Tom Curtis]:
If the quotes do not help their case, then removing them does not weaken their case. Ergo, criticizing these quotes does not contribute to showing that the evidence presented overall is faulty; or that the conclusions drawn do not follow from the evidence.

foxgoose, good luck! Let me know if it reaches the point where the paper itself needs to be examined, not just how the authors handled your quote. There are many distortions in the paper that don’t (directly) involve quotations. I didn’t discuss them here because I was sticking with the most obvious problems, but if a thorough examination of the paper is necessary for your complaint, I could write up a much more detailed review.
As you would expect, the authors distort far more than quotes.

Brandon
I’ve had a look at the twittering over your comments at the SkS Tree House and noticed that Tom Curtis (once you’ve ploughed through all the pompous circumlocution) actually accepts your point that the quote involving me was a “misquote”.
Quote:-

What, however, of the alleged misquotes. In the first, a quote from Foxgoose is presented as alleging that no humans took the survey for Lewandowsky et al, 2012, whereas he actually alleged that no “skeptical” bloggers where(sic) contacted by Lewandowsky. This is actually a misquote. However, the meaning of Foxgoose is far from clear, even in context. Indeed, Shollenberger, having quoted Foxgoose in full, finds it necessary to refer to the original discussion for further context to show that it is a misquote. Even that further context, involving as it does a comment by Eli Rabbet, is far from clear. The most probable cause of the misquote is simple misunderstanding of Foxgoose’s intentions.

I can’t post there to defend myself, because my conspiratorial ideation has left me with the weird impression that my SkS login suddenly stopped working – in the middle of a discussion about Al Gore’s Climate Droppings last week.
Nevertheless, it’s cheering to know that good old Tom is on my side – and that he thinks two leading academics of the “Climate Psychology” cult made a teeny weensy slip up in their extensively peer reviewed, published academic paper – by misquoting me.
It seems to me that tenured academics publishing untruths in peer reviewed papers is about as trivial as a 747 captain making a teensy weensy slip up setting his 10kft altitude dial – but what do I know?