A new paper by Stephan Lewandowsky once again projects his own conspiracy ideation onto skeptics
Extract:
One known element of conspiratorial thinking is its ‘self-sealing’ quality (Keeley 1999, Bale 2007, Sunstein and Vermeule 2009), whereby evidence against a conspiratorial belief is re-interpreted as evidence for that belief. In the case of ‘climategate’, this self-sealing nature of conspiratorial belief became evident after the scientists in question were exonerated by nine investigations in two countries (including various parliamentary and government committees in the U.S. and U.K.; see table 1), when those exonerations were re-branded as a ‘whitewash.’ This ‘whitewash’ response can be illustrated by U.S. Representative Sensenbrennerʼs published response to the EPAʼs endangerment finding.
The paper:
Conspiratory fascination versus public interest: the case of ‘climategate‘
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/11/111004/article …
Basically, the gist of it is that being interested in Climategate, makes you a conspiracy theorist.
What a wackadoodle.
h/t to Barry Wood.
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Gordon Bennet.
Why are you insulting James Gordon Bennett?
Good point. I apoligise. I think Mr Bennet has lost his job now. In future I’ll be exclaiming: :Stephan Lewandowsky”.
It’s British expletive and he was a “bit of a lad” as we say.
The expletive Gordon Bennett appears to be a minced oath. It is a version of Gor blimey, which is itself a euphemistic version of God blind me. That, combined with Bennett’s famously outrageous lifestyle and newsworthy stunts, is sufficient to explain why his name was picked out.
What a crock. It isn’t a case of evidence of a conspiratorial **belief** that matters, it’s evidence of the conspiracy itself. In the case of climategate, there were no independent or disinterested investigations, just parties either invested with stakes in the outcome or on record as having held the same position of the warmistas.
Conspiracy hypothesis or hypochondria?
The problem with conspiracy theories, as with hypochondria and paranoia, is that occasionally you are right.
In the U.S., more than occasionally.
Though calling the (C)AGW meme a conspiracy would imply that it isn’t business as usual.
What about the “skeptics are funded by Big-Oil” conspiracy theory. What does Lew have say about that one?
Disclaimer: I’d rather stick red-hot needles in my eyes than actually read the paper.
Save your eyes for Lew’s groundbreaking work on irony.
Leave the poor guy alone. He is trying to make a living. There are plenty of Lew-nies out there.
All very well, but it’s my taxes paying for this moron.
Actually, there are not.
How many “psychologist” are chasing down imaginary “denier conspiracies” by abusing their access to academic journals?
The level of irrational vile in Lew’s work is so conspicuous (except to the man himself) that it prevents even sycophantic acolytes like Cook to follow on his steps.
And they understand logic. Global warming = snow storms.
Good point!
People don’t trust “internal” police investigations because of the obvious conflict of interest. That’s why police are usually investigated by special and separate branches of the police, or in some cases anti-corruption special judicial appointments.
The issue needs to be correctly framed. Not, that ‘conspiracy’ or more correctly, ‘self interest’ is impossible or highly unlikely, but rather, with any group behaviour, can one expect it to NOT operate? It seems like a rather absurd proposition. It’s rather self evident that conflict of interest is normative in any field of human endeavour.
you are very gracious and charitable. I read the climate gate emails differently…I saw a bunch of guys coordinating their activities to advance a common goal…a conspiracy.
now, I think oswald killed kennedy…i believe that we landed on the moon, and I also believe that these guys got together to restrict access to getting published, and actively worked together to squelch opposing views.
you are too kind.
No I don’t think I’m being particularly nice. There are endless examples of bad behaviour engaged in by groups and I’m pointing out that this is quite normative. If anything, I’m pointing out that humans don’t behave very well a lot of the time, if they think they can get away with it. Consider the history of the tonsillectomy. Millions of completely unnecessary operations performed by doctors on the basis of no credible evidence whatsoever, especially in the 60’s and 70’s. It’s a fairly rare procedure today. If I point out that doctors were not behaving ethically, and hundreds of thousands of them were involved in the bad behaviour, I am not being a ‘conspiracy nut’ because that’s exactly what happened. All you have to do is look at the research on the history of this procedure. However, that doesn’t make me a ‘medical science denier.’ It tends to be the Lewandowsky’s of this world who try to frame such discussions in simplistic ways.
Not all rubbish…
A quote from the paper..
“raises the possibility that peopleʼs attitudes are disproportionately shaped by a small but very vocal minority”
This is well recognised by numerous NGOs / lobby groups
The squeaky hinge gets the oil
“raises the possibility that peopleʼs attitudes are disproportionately shaped by a small but very vocal minority”
I assume that must refer to the IPCC.
As shown by Mann’s bullying of the junior who copied him in on a response to Steve Mc & Amman’s response to Steve Mc’s offer to write a joint paper discussing their differences.
Raises the possibility? – I think that was identified about the same time women realised that men would pay for sex.
I’m sure that the unshakeable integrity of Dr. Lewandowsky will lead to a review of his earlier claims.
The article below shows that the ‘consensus’ among scientists that mankind has been primarily responsible for global warming is just above 50%.
Look for a retraction – you can count on it!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/12/study-farmers-and-scientists-divided-over-climate-change/
As a ‘rule-of-thumb’ this will occur around the time that this belief falls to 37%.
Speaking of conspircies, Christopher Keating is still offering a [fake] $10,000 reward to anyone proving that AGW is not real:
http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#comment-1663780003
I personally think AGW exists. But as a commenter asks, where is the evidence?
Keating has the Scientific Method backward. The onus is on him to show that man-made global warming exists, it is not up to skeptics toprove a negative.
But it doesn’t matter anyway. Keating would welch on his bogus offer if Rajendra Pachauri gave him a notarized statement that he was wrong.
Something these people refuse to acknowledge is that AGW is not the issue. The issue is CAGW.
Very good point!
Disagree. The issue is GW. Everyone agrees that there is GW or Climate Change. The question is whether the A or the C apply
We’ve now moved on to another letter – it’s now “irreversible” according to the doomsayers – so; ICAGW. That should impress everyone.
No, it’s not ICAGW it’s ICACA
I-rreversible
C-atastrophic
A-nthropogenic
C-limate
A-larm-ism
Just sayin!
How about just plain old CACA?
@DonK31:
I, for one, do not agree that Global Warming is happening.
We have a series of cycles of various lengths, some up to 1500 years and a probable one at 5000 years, on top of a 120,000 or so year cycle. “Warming” and “Cooling” depend on which cycle you are talking about.
On the 120,000 year glaciation cycle, we are now cooling. Have been since the Holocene Optimum.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/8-2-kiloyear-event-and-you/
On the 1500 year cycle we have been warming, but are right now most likely at an infection point and it does a rapid infect to a cold spike. We will know in a decade if this is Bond Event Zero or not…
We are warming out of The Little Ice Age (that, IMHO, is about a 750 year 1/2 Bond Event cycle).
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/intermediate-period-half-bond-events/
On the 60 ish year PDO cycle we were warming, and are now cooling.
On the AMO cycle we are inflecting to cooling, but not there yet.
On the 11 year solar cycle we are at a local warming peak, but a very low one, inflecting into a cold turn.
So are we “warming” or “cooling”? The answer is “yes”! (but with more cycles headed to cooling than warming and several of them mid-swap to cooling). Overall, we are entering the next glacial. It just takes a few thousand years to notice…. (ice advances about 800 FEET per year, on average, but with much larger decadal and century scale oscillations).
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/d-o-ride-my-see-saw-mr-bond/
Overall, IMHO, we are in a natural cooling trend. Just some local ‘wobbles’ that look like recent warming due to the astoundingly short time scale of the human life when compared to geological time…
So please don’t say “we ALL agree it is warming”… some of us have a much longer time horizon…
Oh good. Some witch doctor climbs out from under the psychology rock to defame a community attempting to conduct a legitimate science discussion.
He easily demonstrates a firm grasp on bovine excrement, but how much math & physics does he understand?
Again Lewandowsky is right on the money.
Siberian_Husky 2014/11/12 at 7:00
Yes. He has earned his continuing very high levels of CAGW grant money, his continuing very high-paid secure government salary, and his secure retirement money based on his fraud and continued deceptions and exaggerations on behalf of the government’s desire for 1.3 trillion in extra tax revenue each year.
Much like you, eh?
He sounds like a very successful and well respected man pursuing a cause that he and the overwhelming majority of scientists agree in.
I do wonder if you were a little bit more effectual in your own life you might be a little less anti-taxation. Personally I’m quite happy to be taxed at the top rate if it ensures the well being of others less fortunate than me.
The vast majority of libertarians I’ve met just aren’t very successful people and I wonder whether their views are a function of dubious social skills and difficulty relating to others or just merely selfishness/bitter pills at their own lack of success.
Maybe a combination of both.
Siberian_Husky
November 12, 2014 at 9:35 pm
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
“Personally I’m quite happy to be taxed at the top rate if it ensures the well being of others less fortunate than me.”
The stench of your lies is cloying. You have never been “taxed at the top rate”, everyone can smell it. You are a burden on free society, you always have been and you always will be. Others, like me, pay so you can keep breathing.
Out of your depth on a wet pavement? You are so far out of your depth the fish have lights on their noses!
You thought your fabian long march would work? Grow up! Individuals now have comparable kilotonnes per air burst than than the collective armed forces of the world. You sought control of what is now emasculated. You failed.
You wanna see what happens when Atlas shrugs this time? Bwahahaha!
He had a paper retracted because it was unprofessional. I would have described the paper as using an academic journal to bitch about someone like a thirteen year old girl but you might see it differently.
‘does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects’ and ‘categorises the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics’.
@Siberian Huskey:
An existence proof you are wrong. Me.
Libertarian by nature. Credentialed. Nice house in Silicon Valley. 2 Kids, both honors graduates. Income well above the average (though I still complain about it 😉 and at various times have sat on the Board Of Directors of a medical non-profit and worked at the executive level in publicly traded companies.
Oh, and having made significant income while living in California I’ve been taxed at the top levels. It is not a good thing. It is destructive of incentive. (Which is a large part of why I have moved to Florida and decided not to make as much wages so have more time for me, and less wasted on paying taxes. Can you say “Gone Galt”?…)
Your assertions are flat out error.
This is why you need to stop hanging around drug addicts who call themselves “libertarians” simply because they want to get high legally.
“Right on the money”? Well yes, the fool does seem quite happy gorging on tax dollars to further his vile attempts to pathologise dissent.
But as a fool he has not looked too far into the future. There is a little problem, AGW is a physical impossibility. The evidence that climastrologists went and treated the oceans as a “near blackbody” not an extreme “SW selective surface” cannot be hidden or erased. This means no “warming but less than we thought” soft landing for the hoax or any of it’s fellow travellers. For Lewandowsky the future only holds catastrophic head implosion.
Gee no psychopathology there
Let him be right on his own money.
Siberian Husky:
” … overwhelming majority of scientists agree … .
Please give proof.
Siberian Husky, that their was evidence of a conspiracy is irrefutable The emails were leaked. The purpose of the conspiracy was to defend the careers of a small group of Climatologists who called themselves “the Team”.
In the process of this conspiracy they attacked journals and respected fellow scientists. And to complete the definition, they did so in secret – behind the scenes.
They claimed that their view was the only legitimate view and denied that any alterative view deserved to be published. To pursue their covert agenda they set about trying to starve a journal of support ion order ot pressurise the publisher. Siberian Husky, if you support the scientific process you cannot support the people who committed the Climategate scandals.
This is a reply to: Siberian_Husky November 12, 2014 at 9:35 pm
If you really think extra tax money will do anything to affect the climate, I don’t think any state in the world will turn down a voluntary contribution.
Please let us know when you pay more tax than is mandated.
LOL. I read this and thought you were being ironic and sarcastic and I laughed pretty hard. Then I read your follow up and realized that you were actually serious. Then I laughed even harder.
I would liketo tell you to go away, like I do flies, but everyone has a right to express their opinoin here.
This does not change the fact you seem extraoridinarily adept at looking foolish in support of a paper that is rediculous in it’s hypothesis, methodology, and conclusion.
“The vast majority of libertarians I’ve met just aren’t very successful people”
No doubt. To be “successful” (rich, famous) one must manipulate large numbers of other people in sometimes unethical ways — that is why Lew is successful and libertarians, minding their own business, are not.
I am a bit curious why you believe “libertarian” has any relevance in a discussion of climate?
He is trolling, as he believes most climate skeptics are libertarians and in his mind libertarians are selfish. Thus using lew logic – only selfish individuals can be skeptics. Everyone that is responding to him is taking the bait.
I consider myself Libertarian leaning, which means basically I’m distrustful of the 3 Bigs, Big Government, Big Religion and Big Business and in that order. I feel in the absence a of truly compelling evidence Government should stay out of the way. These views don’t align with the Watermelon’s desire to have a large central government poking there noses into everybody’s lives to fight some ill defined warming which may only be slightly influenced by human activity.
Mr. Lew’s continued behavior speaks to psychological issues of his own. I am not a psychologist, but I married one. I have viewed this type of behavior through studies helping my better half get that credential. Just sayin, fixation through facination can lead to strange things. Perhaps one of our credentialed viewers could comment further, but he seems to have a serious internal problem with no known way out of it now. A plateau has been reached in more ways than one for him.
Unfortunately, psychology, as a study, suffers from a pretty unscientific base, as will credentialed viewers’ further comments.
I wouldn’t want to fall into the same trap Lewandowski repeatedly leaps into: that is, to attempt to psychoanalyse people he has never met, let alone examined. So I have no idea what makes him do what he does, but I do know that if his profession had any sense of pride he would be hounded out for gross misconduct. Offering so-called professional opinions on the mental state of complete strangers has to be a gross breach of professional ethics.
David S,
Exactly. Where is the self-regulation of the professional organization(s) that Lew belongs to? Will not even one colleague make a formal complaint?
It’s worth noting how in every Lewandowsky Paper, no matter the path set out on, all roads lead to Rome.
The bloke is obsessed!
Yes, strange isn’t it? Every time complete foamer Lewandowsky goes to write another of his turgid psychology papers, he keeps coming back to his own crazed conspiracy ideation about sceptics. It’s like a dog returning to its vomit.
I fear there is no hope for a “physician heal thyself” solution. For Lewandowsky it may be time for the quiet clinic in the country where all the nurses speak softly, the furnishings are padded and all the utensils are plastic…
All roads lead to Rom.
Nope!
Always paid all my taxes.
Still didn’t get any sort of decent road.
Used the dirt sidetrack when I could instead of the gravel road to save wear and tear on my farm vehicles
No money left over for rural roads after Council swimming pools, performing arts centres, art galleries, football clubs, lawns and gardens, tree plantings, roundabouts and etc and etc.
ROM
It’s all he has. Evidence he is Intellectually bankrupt.
Stephan Lewandowsky School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU, UK.
Preparation of this paper was facilitated by a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society to the author.
=====================
Thankfully Mr Lewandowsky’s obsession is no longer funded by the Australian taxpayer.
British taxpayers, he’s all yours.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/money/royal-society-funding.png
I love the percentage of “Fellows Contributions”…ZERO.
Serious compulsive/obsessive disorder, it would seem.
All roads lead back up La Lewny’s fundament if you ask me.
Lewansowsky is he for real or is he a conspiracy theory amongst his own multiple personalities?
think about how horrible it must be to share his last name….
I once met a kid at summer camp, whose name was Walt Disney.
My wife was a middle school Principal and had a couple of east Indian kids named Happy Banger and Baby Banger, and an Afro girl named LaTrina. Better than Loo I suppose.
I’m getting a ‘Page not found’ error. Are IOPScience having second thoughts?
See http://iopscience.iop.org/nsearch?terms=lewandowsky&searchType=yourSearch&navsubmit=Search for crazy Lew’s trips into obsession.
Nine inquiries now?
That number seems to be growing faster than the consensus.
Reminds me a bit of the bloke who used to go to job interviews with a letter from the local police to state quite clearly and unambiguously that they were not currently seeking this guy in connection with any crime.
Frankly, being called a conspiracy theorist should become a badge of honor, especially, if the theory has reasonable grounds for inquiry.
E.g. LIBOR, or any number of legitimate attempts to thwart the law or just scrutiny.
You could call Police conspiracy theorists, specifically in the organised crime department, where they have to at least abstract motive from observations.
You could even call the NSA a collective of conspiracy theorists, since they’re looking for malfeasance planned by both individuals and groups, and at some point, a sound theory can help connect the dots.
Set them on Congress, they’ll have to hire more staff just to keep up.
Lew is using an old and silly Marxist method, to shame people into silence, demean your opponents with insults and shout loudly at them, call them crazy until the public believe you.
I think that’s on page one of the communist play book. I guess that’s what peer review in Psyche has become.
Perhaps we can rename the slur as “Skeptical Theorist”, without skepticism, we’re feeble minded goat herders cowering before imagined ghosts in rancid caves. (fer ***k sake take the goats outside to poop.)
Just sayin’
Basically, the gist of it is that being interested in Climategate, makes you a conspiracy theorist.
So does that make Monbiot a conspiracy theorist?
for CAGW theorists/believers, evidence against their theory/belief is re-interpreted as evidence for that theory/belief.
I’m not sure if CAGW is a conspiracy or not but conspiracies do exist.
There’s the definition in the dictionary and there are laws on the books specifically against them.
Even Mikey Mann recognizes conspiracies.
He believes Climategate was made up by Lord Monckton conspiring with Anthony Watts who is in the pay of the Koch brothers or some such stupid conspiracy.
Therefore he must also believe they faked the moon landing and 9/11 was an inside job.
Mikey never fully explained how he came to his conspiracy.
This psychology stuff is easy. No wonder Lew likes it.
Conspiracies were given a bad name when Sen. Joe McCarthy said there was a Communist conspiracy in the government. He was right, but when he was caught waving around a laundry list and claiming it was a list of the names of communists, the (always left-of-center) press made a big deal out of his “conspiracy theory”. Lew calls it conspiracy ideation, but same-same.
Ever since then, conspiracies have been ridiculed. But conspiracies exist, there is no doubt. As Adam Smith wrote, ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.
The primary purpose of these ‘investigations’ was to exonerate the scientists. This point is completely lost on most people.
Definiton of conspiracy
a) A secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal.
b) The act of secretly planning to do something that is harmful or illegal.
So yes, the Climategate conspirators conspired to harm our economy and us. So, being interested in Climtegate makes me a conspiracy theorist, so what (sarc). I will do my damnedest to help expose those who are involved in destroying our way of life.
Regards
Climate Heretic
It is not being a “conspiracy theorist” when the conspiracy is documented. It is being a “conspiracy realist”…
That they did conspire is a fact.
“…evidence against a conspiratorial belief is re-interpreted as evidence for that belief.”
If that is an element of “conspiratorial thinking,” what do you call it when evidence FOR a conspiratorial belief is re-interpreted as evidence against that belief? Isn’t that what Lewandowsky has done with the evidence revealed through climategate? There were emails that clearly outlined a conspiracy among certain climate scientists to control the peer-review process and act as gate keepers to publication. Lewandowsky chooses to completely ignore that evidence in favor of touting the outcomes of rigged investigations. How can you even have an investigation when only friends of the accused are present, and opponents are not allowed to present any evidence or ask any questions? That is the very definition of a “whitewash.”
When listing investigations, not including the Wegman Report is cherry picking.
Mark Steyn has comprehensively debunked the “nine inquiries” meme, and can’t wait to get into court to discuss it at length, and in detail. Unfortunately, his opponents are dragging their feet, for some reason.
Lewandowsky’s “arguments” are just tautologies, which would have got him failed as a first-year undergraduate when I was at university. Obviously, things have changed since then.
Are you possibly mixing up Mark Steyn with the work done by Steve McIntyre in relation to these inquiries ‘exonerating’ Michael Mann? If not, could you provide a link to what Steyn wrote?
Will, the search engine on Steyn’s site is hopeless, so no, I can’t provide links. But I was following the issue avidly at the time. Steyn (or Steyn’s lawyers) were working roughly in parallel with McIntyre on this issue, and Steyn published frequent posts knocking down the strawmen one by one. He acknowledged McIntyre’s work where applicable.
Neither of them did all the work on every instance first, but my point is that Steyn let his millions of readers know what a crock it all is a long time ago.
Brother Steyn quotes from McIntyre, Christie, and others regarding the various enquiries to debunk them. A few examples:
Lord Oxburgh – http://www.steynonline.com/6102/the-unexonorated-mann
Muir Russell/Penn State – http://www.steynonline.com/6111/rigor-mortis
OK but what you wrote is then not correct. Steyn did not “debunk the “nine inquiries” meme”. The claim by Mann that there were nine inquiries that exonerated him, were debunked. That’s all.
johanna
November 12, 2014 at 10:26 pm
“Will, the search engine on Steyn’s site is hopeless, so no, I can’t provide links.”
You can let google do it for you, just enter
your search terms @blabla.com
to search the site blabla.com
I believe Mark is primarily the voice and the face with the intestinal fortitude to tell Mikey to pack sand but a lot of the info comes from Steve as well as some others.