Steve McIntyre writes:
Lewandowsky Ghost-wrote Conclusions of UWA Ethics Investigation into “Hoax”
Following the retraction of Lewandowsky’s Fury, the validity of University of Western Australia ethics “investigations” is again in the news. At present, we have negligible information on the University’s investigation into Fury, but we do have considerable (previously unanalysed) information on their earlier and illusory “investigation” into prior complaints about the ethics application for Moon Landing Hoax (“Hoax”).
This earlier “investigation” (recently cited at desmog here and Hot Whopper here) supposedly found that the issues that I had raised in October 2012 were “baseless” and that the research in Hoax was “conducted in compliance with all applicable ethical guidelines”.
However, these conclusions were not written by a university investigation or university official but by Lewandowsky himself and simply transferred to university letterhead by UWA Deputy Vice Chancellor Robyn Owens within minutes after Lewandowsky had sent her language that was acceptable to him.
In today’s post, I’ll set out a detailed chronology of these remarkable events.
The Ethics Application for Hoax
Simon Turnill originally discovered and reported the machinations of Lewandowsky’s ethics application for Lewandowsky’s Hoax (noted up at CA here).
Hoax was published under the supposed authority of the University’s ethics permit RA/4/1/4007, a permit which had been originally issued for an entirely unrelated project under which pedestrians in Perth were interviewed about their “understanding of statistical trends in time series data”. The original ethics application included an ethics checklist, which, according to Australian policy, included the following question whether the research involved any deception or concealment: “Does the research involve active concealment of information from participants and/or planned deception of participants”. To which Lewandowsky answered “NO”.
By August 2010, Lewandowsky had become bored with the time series project and instead wanted to show that skeptics were conspiracy theorists. Instead of interviewing pedestrians in downtown Perth about trends, Lewandowsky wanted to do an internet survey about conspiracy theories.
Lewandowsky’s new project was so different from the existing approval that many important sections of the existing application ceased to apply (even the purpose of the study as stated in the original application no longer applied.) But instead of filing a new ethics approval for the entirely different project, Lewandowsky chose instead to pass off the new project as merely an amendment to his existing project, falsely assuring the ethics administrator in an amendment request that the survey would only be “modified slightly”:
read more: http://climateaudit.org/2014/03/24/lewandowsky-ghost-wrote-conclusions-of-uwa-ethics-investigation-into-hoax/
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The greenie beenies would do well to remember the old sayings when it comes to Steve Mc. You know, like “let sleeping dogs lie, Don’t poke the bear, light the blue touch paper and run for cover”. You have to admire SteveMc. There is no-one like him on the blogs or in academia.
Hands up anyone that is surprised?
Makes you wonder how settled , ‘settled science’ has to come before such smoke ,mirrors and BS are not needed.
I just finished reading the remainder at Climate Audit. Disgusting but not surprising. What can anyone add?
Maybe what Reagan said—after provoking “audible gasps” of assembled Washington press corps by accurately describing the Soviet Union’s Marxist-Leninist approach to morality. At the end of his 1981 press conference he asked Richard Allen, his National Security Advisor:
“But Dick, the Soviets do lie and steal and cheat, don’t they?”
“Yes sir, they do,” Allen replied. Reagan smiled and said, “I thought so.”
Pal review at work. Wackademia at work. A view into a sewer from a glass-bottomed boat.
I guess they will get away with it in the short term, just as Mann has. But in the long run, how many people seek to emulate Lysenko?
Scratch that. Apparently many do – in climate science and University ethics apparently (the new oxymoron – University Ethics).
I wonder if anyone at Bristol University is reading this!
rogerknights says:
March 24, 2014 at 12:34 pm
Heh. A theme for a Josh cartoon? Skipper Steve McIntyre in a HazMat suit navigating his boat through the stench-filled University of Western Australia?
It does of course make complete sense in the modern world.
An ethics department that knows nothing about ethics.
Too funny. No wonder these guys think we-all are conspiring against them. Projection much? #B^)
Yet it must be nice to have a tame ethics committee at your disposal. In these litigious times, you never know when you may need one. Anyone know where I can pick one up? Ebay, maybe?
take a look at how arstechnica is spinning the papers retraction: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/03/journal-pulls-paper-due-to-legal-context-created-by-climate-contrarians/
Morals…the set of principles in me that tells me it is not all right to have an affair with my son’s wife.
Ethics….the set of man-made principles that say it is not all right to have an affair with my son’s wife if there is a chance of getting caught.
Bristol University must be wondering what the hell it has done……………………..
As I noted over at CA…. To paraphrase the late, great, Leona Helmsley… “Ethics are for the little people”. Perhaps UWA needs a new motto….
Justthinkin says:
March 24, 2014 at 1:20 pm
From reading the UWA paper trail it’s more like it is
notall right to have an affair with my son’s wife if I can ghost-write a letter for my son to sign stating that he’s fine with me having an affair with her because he previously agreed that I can take her and the kids to an amusement park and this is all well within the scope of the original approval.Or something like that. Not being a real UWA ethicist I’m just making it up as I go.
What makes Lewandowsky’s approach any different than his friends in silk jackets? Moral decay is the killer of ethics.
Lew’s silly effort reeks of ad hominem, irregardless of everything else.
“Too funny. No wonder these guys think we-all are conspiring against them. Projection much?”
****
Comment of the day. Too funny indeed.
… oh, and keeping in mind the university’s broader interdependencies I will also work with my son to make sure that his boyfriend’s mother doesn’t find out about any of this and stop financially supporting our family’s drug use.
Doug UK s Bristol University must be wondering what the hell it has done…
yes but can you imagine how easy a life his students have , the rubbish they must get away with in their work in their attempts to keep up with his ‘standards ‘
“However, these conclusions were not written by a university investigation or university official but by Lewandowsky himself and simply transferred to university letterhead by UWA Deputy Vice Chancellor Robyn Owens within minutes after Lewandowsky had sent her language that was acceptable to him.”
So, Owens lied on behalf of Lewandowsky or he lied to her and the result appeared on a formal document issued by the university. Strikes me as a pretty serious matter.
A Marxist conspiracy
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
Groucho Marx
Now we see the true nature of the Lewny’s ethics, his honestry, his obsession. He is not just a garden variety fraud IMO but can bow be classified under the recently devolved species of fundamentalist nut job, an “ecoli-er” which seems to be to academia what golden staph is to hospitals.
Seems as if Loo ( sorry, Lew) is on a bit of a paper roll at the moment.
(Sorry Josh.)
I have several friends who are academics and have given me vivid accounts of the sycophancy, treachery, bullying, gossiping and backstabbing that characterise the social setting of most university departments.
Although he’s not the sharpest tool in the box, deep down Lew knows that everyone in his academic circle is feasting on the detail in Steve’s pieces. They’re reading about the poor quality of the work, his little tricks and deceptions….discussing it amongst themselves smiling benignly and saying nothing when they meet Lew’s gaze.
Imagine being Lew.
I’m betting that right now he wishes that he’d never met Cookie.
rogerknights says:
March 24, 2014 at 12:34 pm
“A view into a [ an ivory towered, academic ] sewer from a glass-bottomed boat”.
____________________
What a very apt metaphor for what is increasingly being seen by the public who are forced to pay for the contents of the academic sewer as now being the norm for much of ivory towered academia and climate science today.
My complete contempt for what was once one of the most respected institutions of our world of the past, those great University centres of learning and knowledge is rapidly being reinforced by an increasing number of revelations of quite marked academic corruption and power wielding by the new emerging phenomena of a powerful, increasingly corrupt and manipulative academic Mafiosa, secure in their carefully protected havens of the ivory towered universities.
Those newly emerged academic Mafiosa have all the traits of the real world mafiosa with their control of so much of the science of the universities, the ruthless elimination and neutering of any alternatives or opposition at any level to their agendas, the quite deliberate manipulation of the political system, the quite marked and arrogantly open grasping of as much of the tax payer’s wealth as they can achieve, the endless pursuit for ever more power and influence and the total contempt for the little people out there on the streets and factories and farms who they have come to believe are merely there to do their bidding and to endlessly pay for the ivory tower protected academic Mafiosa’s agenda’s and salubrious life styles.