Paul Matthews writes:
Ruth Dixon and Jonathan Jones have had a comment published in Psychological Science criticising the LOG ‘Moon hoax’ paper (Psych Science) and LGO ‘Role of Conspiracist Ideation’ (PlosOne)
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/26/0956797614566469.full
“Reanalysis of the survey data sets of Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) and Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013) indicates that the conclusions of those articles—that conspiracist ideation predicts skepticism regarding the reality of anthropogenic climate change—are not supported by the data”.
As we all know, all you really need to do to show their claims are bogus is to plot their data, which is what D&J do in Fig 1 for LGO (for LOG, it’s in the supplementary information file).
The paper clearly suffered a bit from being edited down to 1000 words.
There’s more at Ruth’s blog on their findings
https://mygardenpond.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/commentary-in-psychological-science/
She writes:
Although Lewandowsky and colleagues were sent our Commentary to review in late 2014, Eric Eich, the editor of Psychological Science, did not agree with their opinion that our paper should be rejected. Their (non-anonymous) review made much the same points as their Reply which is published alongside our Commentary.
When accepting our paper, Eric Eich placed an embargo on all discussion until the Commentary and Reply were published.
and on the timeline and struggle they had to get it published
https://mygardenpond.wordpress.com/commentary-timeline/
There’s also a post at BH
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/3/27/lew-paper-shredded.html
Typo — Fianlly
[Thanks, fixed. ~mod.]
At last…
Not fixed on Facebook…..yet.
Typo — pal reviewed
Of course, you are referring to Lewandowsky, et al.
Of course. No one so objective as me would ever play favorites.
I’m told the moon landing was real. But how would I know? I wasn’t there and had no first hand evidence.
I am to just blindly believe everything that I am told? I guess its true, but unless I was there, I can’t be 100% sure. That’s just how MY mind operates.
I saw it on TV. Live TV. Walter Cronkite would lie to use about the moon walks.
Ruby shot Lee Harvey the TV proves he did, Homer Henderson 🙂
How do we know the Wright Brothers really flew some 600 feet at Kitty Hawk? How do we know those rovers are really scurrying around on Mars today? You can cast doubt on anything, if your mindset is to require first-hand proof of everything. Comparing the moon landing to the current AGW hoax is juvenile at best.
I’ll bet the Matrix films are your favourites.
I have been on planes and see them fly overhead daily. Whether they flew 600 ft or not doesn’t matter. I do not know if there are rovers on mars. I don’t doubt it, that’s not what I said. I may be convinced of it and have faith that it is true, but that does not make it so. I am not convinced that CO2 acts as a control knob for the earths temperature, but if I were to quantify my skepticism I would say that I am 75% certain that my belief is accurate. I wish that I could be 100% certain. No one here is. How many MDs were convinced that cholesterol was the main cause of heart attacks and strokes. Hey most naturopaths were not on the cholesterol bandwagon and they are considered the “Quacks”.
I don’t require first hand proof of everything unless it is required, but I can have varying levels of certainty.
Never seen a matrix film
brians356
March 27, 2015 at 9:41 am
” those rovers are really scurrying around on Mars today? You can cast doubt on anything, if your mindset is to require first-hand proof of everything”
————–
Ok, Good.
There is not even a single such rover on the Moon, scurrying it…!
Why not?
cheers.
There is not even a single such rover on the Moon, scurrying it…!
Why not?
=============
excellent question. why not rovers on the moon? why has NASA shown ZERO interest landing any sort of mission on the moon since that Apollo landings 42+ years ago?
this is actually a very serious question and it speak volumes about NASA. The moon is close, very close. there is evidence of water/ice at the poles, and its gravity is low. way easier than mars. so why no rovers?
Whiten and Ferdperple,
NASA sends no rovers to the moon because the moon is considered a sterile environment with no chance of harboring life. In some estimates, Mars is considered very likely to have, or have had, some sort of life. Finding life outside of Earth would be considered confirmation of speculation that life will arise naturally if conditions are suitable, and thus would be confirmation that life arose naturally on Earth.
SR
OOPS!….ferdberple
SR
Steve Reddish
March 27, 2015 at 9:03 pm
Whiten and Ferdperple,
NASA sends no rovers to the moon because the moon is considered a sterile environment with no chance of harboring life.
————————
Ok fair enough, you have a point there,,,, but never the less there was indeed a Moon landing program , a very successful one, about a half a century ago, with man landing in the Moon a few times, which we know to have been very important so to speak, for humanity, which was not driven by the need to find life or search for a life of any form there…..and is estimated that it broad back a wealth of information none the less….and some very contradictional one……..
The main interest in exploring the space is not only search for life. Of course the main push for Mars could be the search for life out there, at the moment, but that never seem to have being the case for the Moon…….and never the less there is the Moon landing……and there was the man in the orbit… and still there is man in the orbit as we speak probably…….hard for me to believe that the man in orbit is looking or searching for any life form there, or maybe that what is doing actually there.
Still no rovers there yet. :-)….sure there will be probably in the near future even there, probably when it happens will be like a mad race…………… we just simply arguing here, just for the sake of the arguing……. and at that point I can only say that the reason given by you could indeed be fair but not really convincing…
cheers
You are a true skeptic satirist sir. There must be very little that you believe. I’d like to shake your hand but I haven’t seen it so I don’t believe you have one; if your name really is “Mick” as you claim
Mick, please tell us you forgot the
/sarc
I lost both hands on a table saw and my name is Michael. I am called Mick by family members. Named after a cousin who was committed to an insane asylum before I was born.
You can prove absolutely nothing in this world including your own existence but I can’t prove that statement.
And brain surgery seems a little excessive to assure you you have a brain. Take it on faith.
You’re also told God exists. How would you know?
Romans 1 18-20: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse
I can believe and have faith, that is all.
Faith. No one knows except by faith. Fortunately for belief in God, faith does not require evidence.
For all things in our physical universe, rational belief in anything requires evidence.
Clay: Looks like the wrath of God is on back-order in the area of Climate Science.
“You’re also told God exists. How would you know?” — Nik
Maybe God doesn’t want us to know. What virtue would there be in behavior motivated by knowing God exists?
For all things in our physical universe, rational belief in anything requires evidence.
==========
do you believe in infinity?
Alx March 27, 2015 at 11:01 am
“Fortunately for belief in God, faith does not require evidence.”
Actually, God does not ask us to believe in his existence merely by faith. Clay Sanborn March 27, 2015 at 10:24 am gave us one example of that:
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made
The faith part is in trusting in his authority.
SR
“That’s just how MY mind operates.”
Too bad there’s no operation.. This would fall under the category known as common sense, which Ben Franklin, no doubt having your type in mind, wittily called the most uncommon sense of all. Or was it Frank Lloyd Wright?
Duh
Seems to me its possible that the moon landings can be real AND faked at the same time. Heck Nixon even had two speeches made up for the first moon landing, one for success and one for failure. It makes perfect sense to fake some moon photos and have them in the back pocket for national security reasons in case they needed it. If there was something extraordinary going on up there, who knows, obvious mineral resources or whatever, that they wanted to keep secret, they would go with the faked photos for as long as they could get away with it. Since there was nothing extraordinary going on, they went with the real photos.
I don’t BELIEVE that the moon landings were faked.
So you seriously believe NASA could NOT go to the Moon and forge all the evidence?
With what, alien technology?
simple-touriste
March 27, 2015 at 1:09 pm
So you seriously believe NASA could NOT go to the Moon and forge all the evidence?
With what, alien technology?
———————————————
Perhaps with the Hollywood technology…:-:)
The problem is that no any better and much more evolved technology, or perhaps even an alien technology, can not really replicate the NASA Moon landings,, especially and actually the success ratio of such landings…..:-)
That seems to be impossible to replicate today….after a half of about of a century..:-)
No replication sometimes means not real, for not saying that almost always means not real…..a hoax……:-)
cheers
“Perhaps with the Hollywood technology…:-:)”
Yes, Pixar’s technology could probably produce films which looks like they were filmed in a vacuum. So instead of going to the Moon, NASA invented a time machine to get films from Pixar.
(And Pixar cannot make Moon rocks.)
“That seems to be impossible to replicate today”
NASA today is not even capable of sending a man to the low orbit of the ISS. So it proves that NASA never had that capability, lol.
Do you realise how expensive this stuff is? Man in space = lots of life support stuff = very complex + heavy loads = more costly. Robots are cheaper.
Going to the Moon = far away from low orbit = more costly. Sending stuff to the ISS is cheaper.
Why would NASA send people back to the Moon today? Also, are YOU willing to PAY for it?
Also, are you willing to replicate the LHC in the US? cause you know, in continental Europe we hate you Americans, and we are probably feeding you incorrect data from the LHC. lol
Please don’t make me write lol again.
Schrodinger’s moon landing?
simple-touriste
March 27, 2015 at 6:13 pm
I think you misunderstood a point I was making, or trying to.
Let me clarify…………..what seems to be impossible to replicate today is the high success of the landings in the Moon, the way NASA did it, regardless what actually will land there, a robot, a drone, a rover, or a man……… a monkey or a mann..:-)
And of course granted that Pixar cannot make Moon rocks, but I wonder what can make fresh volcanic material on the Moon! Could Pixar do that?
Just wondering if Pixy could do it…….
cheers
simple-touriste
March 27, 2015 at 6:13 pm
““Perhaps with the Hollywood technology…:-:)”
Yes, Pixar’s technology could probably produce films which looks like they were filmed in a vacuum. So instead of going to the Moon, NASA invented a time machine to get films from Pixar.”
Lookout Mountain Labs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lookout_Mountain_Air_Force_Station
“Lookout Mountain Labs”
your point being … ?
Blind believing and 100% certainty are quite the extremes
Do you have absolute certainty the sun will rise tomorrow? You aren’t there tomorrow so I guess you’ll never know…until tomorrow that is. In the meantime do you use blind faith to plan your activities for tomorrow?
I don’t know why people get in such a tizz over people admitting they take some things on faith. Faith that the sun will rise tomorrow is based on solid evidence.
People have so much faith in the output of calculators that they have even forgotten how to do the sums themselves.
People have faith that no matter how outlandish the scheme, no country can be brought to bankruptcy by ‘green projects’ promoted by messages tainted by noble cause corruption because the flow of public money is literally endless.
Skeptics of AGW have faith that the truth will eventually be made widely known to the public and the miscreants punished for bilking the governments out of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Crispin in Waterloo,
1) Because they don’t like the other guy’s belief.
2) It reminds them of their own doubts and uncertainties.
are you being serious – or is there a missing “/sarc”
if you are serious – learn the methods to weigh the evidence before it’s too late – eg – methods used by unbiased scientists are very good at removing the blinders
i won’t say i’m 100% sure of the moon landing – but the accumulated evidence supports it – and the wacko quality of the dissenters militates against them – so my confidence in the moon landing is near 100%
living with a knowledgebase short of 100% certain is probably wise – living with it at 100% or 0% not so
JEyon, I was completely serious.
I am a Chemist. That is how I make a living. I have done real science everyday in the private sector for 18 years. I make a good living at it. If my scientific reasoning or methods were suspect I would have to go work in the government, probably for less money. They will hire anyone with qualifications, regardless of ability. The private sector is where you earn what you’re worth.
Your last two paragraphs sum what I was trying to say originally.
Thank you
There are also the points that
1. The Russians, Chinese definitely, and quite probably the French, Brithish, Japanese, Germans etc, would have had no incentive to play along with a supposed hoax- If they had picked up radio or telescope information that raised questions and put the US leadership in a bad light, they surely would have revealed that information.
2. What motive would anyone have had to fake the moon landings? What advantage would the US government gain by claiming they achieved a task which was so difficult that NOBODY had acheived it yet?
3. It’s a lot easier to accept claims when those making the allegations are not, unlike the CAGWers, telling us how to live our lives.
no incentive to play along with a supposed hoax
====================
i was a teenager, on summer holidays up in the Sushwap, watching the landing on a small tv. people who were not alive at the time might not understand the political climate of the day. it is easy to think things never happened. Brezhnev was one tough cookie. He would have given his left nut and two of his children to anyone that could have shown the US faked the landings. These were different times and different people.
Mick is a Troll, trying to look like a wacky moon landing skeptic to discredit this site and real skeptics.
Bullshit!
See what I wrote above. Nowhere did I say that the moon landings were fake.
I Believe. Doesn’t that sound better? No, I am convinced.
Convinced just sounds like someone talked me into it.
Belief sounds like Dogma.
Here to put your doubtful minds at ease is a satellite photo of a landing site with even the moon buggy and its tracks in it.
https://ca.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=B111CA662D20141029&p=Satellite+pictures+of+the+moon+landing+sites.
I know, I know, they probably foto shopped this as part of the conspiracy
I can understand your point, I think. I don’t know that the pyramids were built by Egyptians, either, but I can choose to believe it. I can believe you are a human being, even though I have no proof of that being true. My guess would be that at 95% or more of all you know you have no way of proving.
Obviously, everything that every happened before you were born, you have no first hand evidence. What you choose to believe “on faith” is what you choose. What you choose to disbelieve is what you choose. Your mind doesn’t work differently unless you choose to not believe anything that you have not seen, heard, or touched, and even those you have to accept “on faith” that what you have been told they are, is, in fact what they truly are.
Man oh man, maybe Lewandowski was accidentally right. A lot of the forgoing makes skepticism look like they don’t believe in the moon landings, etc. Even those who would consider error bars on the certainty they have a brain or not (which they have never seen). Signals from Mars rovers, moon, sputnik, etc are receivable from outside of government. I don’t know whether a sarc tag is required or not here.
Retro reflectors left on the moon are easily detectable from Earth.
Hush now – maybe its just shiny rocks
What about the French retro reflector?
(Proves nothing about man on the Moon.)
It’s not that the moon landings were actually faked, but that the government would have been fully and immorally capable of doing it if they had decided to. That knowledge makes it all too easy to believe many of the “supposedly” loony conspiracy theories because who really knows for sure…….
I always thought it was Capricorn One that started all this moon hoax nonsense.
I always thought it was Capricorn One that started all this moon hoax nonsense.
================
wasn’t it the Lew paper? “Climate Change Proves Moon Landing a Hoax.”
I have been told about a guy named Caius Iulius Caesar, can’t find its photo, or any video of him of YouTube, don’t even have his DNA sample…
I doubt a non-existent guy with no selfy on instagram or YT video could have ruled an empire. That’s just how MY mind operates.
Goofball ^^^^^
So you approach being a solipsist then?
Mick,
Why would you believe something just because you have first hand experience. The evidence of our senses lies to us all of the time. Magicians can make a good living demonstrating that fact. For example, in the graphic below, square A and square B are the same shade of gray.
The point is that ALL of the ideas that we believe are true, are more or less abstract inferences. None of them are infinitely certain. There is no logic behind a binary rule such as “First hand experience” versus “2nd hand experience”.
Science (and math for that matter) offer only improved approximations to the truth, not absolute certainties.
One of the better illusions around. I checked, both squares area displayed as #787878.
For example, in the graphic below, square A and square B are the same shade of gray.
=============
confirmed. I took the graphic and using mspaint cut out the two areas A and B. They are the exact same shade, regardless of what your eyes tell you!!! I had a second person confirm it as well, because on the surface you brain is screaming otherwise.
I even slide the two cut areas back over the originals to make sure. exact matches even though the cut pieces changed in shade before my eyes as they moved from A to B to A. my lying eyes.
I kid you not. the cut out pieces appear to change shade before my eyes as they moved between A and B,
http://oi58.tinypic.com/2880pk.jpg
Careful: many LCD screens have serious viewing angle issues!
I once had a laptop where I couldn’t read text rendered with classical gray smoothing (antialiasing with no sub-pixel rendering) at the top and bottom of the screen at the same time: I could either set the gamma correction appropriate for the top of the screen (from my POV) or appropriate for the bottom. Smoothed text was unreadable at the top or bottom of screen, unless I was at a distance of 3 m from the screen.
Unless you are far away from the screen, levels of gray can be altered on a LCD screen.
There is no way to set a different gamma for each line (and change it when your head moves).
Nobody really has to go through any trouble to verify that. Just squint down and look at it. You’ll see they’re the same shades. It’s an old artist technique to see light and dark values.
This is well known. It’s the green cylinder and the shadow it casts that make “B” look different. It’s why we have dark colours on floors, lighter colours on walls and even lighter colours on ceilings.
“You’ll see they’re the same shades.”
There aren’t on the typical LCD computer screen, where angle of vision makes a significant difference. Top of screen is darker.
Mick writes “I am to just blindly believe everything that I am told?”
The best we can do is to go with “on the balance of evidence”. The problem with the AGW debate is that far too many people count “evidence” as something they vaguely heard that scientists believe.
When one actually looks at the evidence and makes a proper effort to understand the arguments on both sides then its obvious that the evidence of some specific aspects such as “most of the observed warming”, “unprecedented”, “shown by proxies” and “catastrophic in nature” is very much lacking.
They left a reflector on the surface that you and anyone else can bounce a laser off and calculate time to return etc. Kind of hard to fake that.
No one (that I know of) claims the Moon reflectors (plural) are fake. No one (that I know of) claims that artificial objects are not on the Moon.
There is a French reflector on the Moon. Please name the person who put it there.
I saw the video of an astronaut dropping a feather and hammer, on the Moon. That’s not easy to fake.
Free fall of large objects is hard to fake except if you are Pixar. Dust is harder.
I was in my 20’s and on the inside during several of the later moon shots. What we and the Soviets did was real as can be. In addition, the state of special effects during that period precludes faking it altogether. It wasn’t until George Lucas came along and brought computers and superior matte technology to filming that there was any possibility of faking it. Even then the space shots looked like what was in my mind, not reality, and that made it all the more special. While I was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey I could tell it was fake even without reality to compare it to. It was also boring. Find and watch the Mythbusters episode about the supposed hoaxes.
What do you believe about the sinking of the Titanic? I think there is a difference between healthy scepticism and accepting something based upon a well informed judgement.
Eamon.
Actually….
It would be cheaper to land a rocket on the moon than it would be to fake it.
After all, in order to fake it, you would need to start with a very big rocket that looked
capable of going to the moon.
Mitchell & Webb sketch:
The astronauts left a laser retro-reflector on the moon. If you want to buy the equipment and set it all up you can reflect laser light off of it and detect it yourself. The light will be reflected from right where NASA said they landed. Subject closed.
“The light will be reflected from right where NASA said they landed. Subject closed.”
Not so fast.
Nobody is claiming there is no man made object on the Moon. (AFAIK)
It’s just that Buzz Aldrin faked the anthropological Moon landing (certainly with a soundstage on Mars) and then denied the anthropological Moon conspiracy and then denied anthropological global climate warming change (or something).
“Loo” paper?
Bumf.
‘Loo’ is polite term for sh1thouse’ loopaper is what one wipes ones ar5e problem with the paper is it can be used as it is already full of sh1t
Above should be cant be used.
Either way works.
A conspiracy is simply when two or more people get together to break (or plan to break) the law.
Any prosecutor’s case against two or more individuals, prior to the end of a trial, is a conspiracy theory.
Therefore, all prosecutors are climate skeptics.
QED
People can conspire to uphold the law as well.
You can conspire to have a surprise birthday party.
So any teacher who believe two students cheated on a test has “ideations” (I love this word so much) and doesn’t believe in AWG?
Carbo-phobia (the fear of carbon dioxide) is a real mental disorder. I think the victims of this disorder deserve our sympathy not our ridicule.
At first I thought you were just trying to be funny, but upon reflection I really have to agree with you.
I think a stronger statement can be made: teaching young children that carbon dioxide is a deadly poison is abject child abuse.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/orb_hammer.png
Umm, this is where that cartoon came from:
https://xkcd.com/1436/
Credit where credit is due.
You also get a “bonus” comment when you “mouse-over” the cartoon at its original link.
Just say’n.
I put this on the Bishop’s but no-one bit there (sorry mods, this going to take a while, I know):
Well, that’s one explanation of the bell curve. But here’s another.
1) In the US (which was surveyed) there is a political bias towards scepticism on the right and alarmism on the left.
2) Right-wingers believe in right-wing conspiracy theories – Common Purpose, for instance – and disbelieve in left-wing conspiracy theories.
3) Left-wingers believe in left-wing conspiracies – Big Oil, for instance – and disbelieve in right-wing conspiracy theories.
4) Those in the middle don’t trust anything and so believe in both sorts of conspiracy theories.
5) That makes a bell curve.
This is testable by comparing these results from the USA with results from Europe where the AGW meme is not rejected so strongly by right-wing parties.
M Courtney
Thanks – I’ll happily live in the middle, yet I basically disbelieve all conspiracy theories. Is that option 4A?
Possibly. But the paper was looking for people who didn’t reject conspiracy theories – not merely didn’t give them credence.
I reckon that the balance in the middle is not 50/50.
Maybe my hypothesis is similar to the main posts – but perhaps with a more sophisticated justification than just “folk who can’t decide about climate change must be a bit slow about everything”.
Most people haven’t worried about climate change or looked into it. But they may be experts on the fish population of the River Wye, for instance, or something else.
Yet most people do have a view on the left/right political spectrum and so use that (even without realising it) to bias themselves on novel ideas that are associated with the left or the right.
So you actually think 911 wasn’t a plan demolition?
Lew doesn’t even understand that people can be agnostic about stuff.
mark
Actually, Obama’s green jobs czar, Van Jones, was a ‘truther.’ He believed that the Bush administration was aware of 9/11 before the attacks but allowed them to happen as a pretext for war with Iraq. When Van Jones was outed early in the Obama administration they claimed that Van Jones (a lawyer) didn’t understand what he was signing when he signed the document seeking the ‘truth’ concerning the supposed Bush administration complicity. It’s difficult to believe the Obama administration (when one considers all the FBI background checks to vet candidates) was completely unaware of Van Jones beliefs. In any case the big ‘O’ had to cut Van Jones loose.
“4) Those in the middle don’t trust anything and so believe in both sorts of conspiracy theories.”
Or we just reject belief and base our lives on understanding. It is much easier for me to change my understanding of something than it is for someone to change their belief about it. I’m not mocking belief because if it gives people comfort then I’m happy for them. As long as it doesn’t interfere with my choice of understanding which all too often it does.
What is Common Purpose? Never heard of it.
I always bristle when people label entire groups of people as if they are all the same, or as if the person labeling them could possibly know what all those people actually and honestly believe.
SOME right wingers believe….SOME left wingers believe…extremists? Middlers? I think there are bell curves inside your bell curve that matter a great deal.
European version of Common Core on Steroids…..
Agreed. Some not all.
But I do think the tendencies are there. I am aware of them in myself.
And on average, a bell curve appears.
“What is Common Purpose? Never heard of it.”
Then why don’t you go their website.
It is BTW not Common Core. It is an organisation that trains people who want to make a career anywhere in the public sector. It infiltrates all parts of the states in Europe including the armies. Common Purpose members do not disclose their membership. It’s a kind of Scientology like organisation, without the weird SF pseudo regligion but the same infiltration goals. Just a secret society trying to gain control without democratic or constitutional legitimacy, and should be observed by intelligence services before it infiltrates them as well.
Be aware that Democrats in the US are to the right of the ‘right’ in Europe, so it is an apples and oranges comparison. Probably, the European study would look more like only one political group was selected from. The right in UK is not of the Thatcher right which would never have joined a coalition government with the left. Possibly combining the EU and the US in the survey would make two distinct groups. That likely accounts for the difference in the responses on either side of the ocean and this in itself would make an interesting study. However, I would want to see a rigorous sampling and analysis of such data in the hands of a disinterested party rather than essentially a self-fulfilling conspirator’s study.
Gary Pearse
March 27, 2015 at 10:15 am
“Be aware that Democrats in the US are to the right of the ‘right’ in Europe, so it is an apples and oranges comparison.”
Complete unmitigated BS. German SPD and American Democrats are both members of the Progressive Alliance. Both are socialist progressive parties.
In fact you indicated another real problem with the LGO paper. The data are collected from US sources, analyzed by Australian and Swiss social scientists, and generalize about an entire planetary population. That is an error first-year sociology students are baited into making so that professors can brutally explain just what they did wrong. It is also interesting that the Comment points out that LGO apparently selected an analytical technique that is specifically prone to confirmation bias. It might be useful if your theory was known to adequately match some real phenomena. I think your points 2 and 3 are very well taken.
Thank you Duster.
Sadly, I must concede that my hypothesis is purely theoretical.
Although I did suggest a means to begin testing it empirically.
Not sure where you are going with the bell curve. If the bell curve is belief in conspiracy than your points 1,2,3,4 all point to a flat line not a curve. Left believes the left, right believes the right, middle believes in everything.
There is a slice maybe too small to measure on a graph that are rational people who would not believe in left or right claims without compelling evidence.
Alx, the point is that identifying someone as being a “believer” need the question to hit on the “believer” point. There are twice as many potential hits for those in the middle than those on the edges. And the inclination to be a hit declines as one becomes more biased, moving towards the edges.
Therefore we get an observed bell curve. There is far more likelihood of getting a hit in the middle.
This post would be improved if it also included a link to Lewnadosky’s reply, published with the Dixon-Jones comment.
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskydj.html
Why is it always people like Lewandowski want to (re)shape everybodies world. What a pompous one man ‘ideation’. Such tend to be shallow losers who greatly underestimate others and grossly overestimate themselves. This is what this scary battle is really about!!
Gary,
It’s a psychological issue…which is why so many nutballs become psychologists…
Gary, psychology is one of the most difficult of sciences to use and even worse to understand. The observer is perpetually in the way of what is being observed. Consequently, quite often the “conclusions” reached in the more hapless studies are mere self portraits of the investigators. Consequently, one suspicion that comes to mind is that Lew and his cohort all believe in conspiracies themselves.
psychology is one of the most difficult of sciences
===========
perhaps it is not a science.
Lulu’s response is paywalled. Ruth’s blog link includes a link to Lulu’s public response on his blog.
Lulu’s response is paywalled.
===========
imagine if the critics actually had to pay for their tickets to attend on Broadway.
my2p
some of the difficulty seems to be that everybody loves the nature and the little creepy crawlies and so are agin anything that causes them harm or death.
There is a terrible problem of pollutants and garbage getting into the environment and messing up an established balance when there is no compelling reason for that to happen.
This anger towards the culprits may be causing death or deformity to living things which have taken millions of years to become attuned to their environment is understandable.
The problem tho’ is the lumping together of industrially released CO2 and general pollution.
Better to tame “industry that works” not to be polluters and share with the developing world rather than run away from it.
who may
The idea behind Lew’s paper was rubbish from day one , you only have to go to alarmists web site to see 101 claims of conspricy form ‘evil fossil fuel company’s ‘, 9/11 truthers and claims that the government is out to get them , to see which side really is addicted to conspiracies.
That in Lews’ paper it was actually AGW supporters who where more likely claim the moon landings where faked , comes has no surprise to any who have even see them talk amongst themselves.
The Lews’ paper was rubbish in content merely adds to that .
Does this mean I’m not nuts after all? Phew!
Yet to be determined. =P
does that mean I am now a ROUND EARTHER or simply someone who understands how science is supposed to work?
‘Round’ can still imply ‘flat’.
‘Spherical’ is the correct first approximation.
‘Oblate spheroid’ is the second approximation that is two orders of magnitude better than the first approximation.
‘Tangerine’ is the third approximation that is even sweeter than the first two.
orange you the funny one
It could be worse. Lew could be a co-pilot. Oh wait, we are all on board this ship and the pronouncements from the front section are still not encouraging.
not very funny is it ?
This paper was not about psychology. It was about taking a shot at those that don’t believe the same thing about climate change as Lewandosky does. It was about Lewandosky using his position to push his personal belief systems and trying to get others to adopt his personal belief system.
Rather unethical and, frankly, childish, like grade 4’s on the playground. This from a person with a PhD.
Good summary. Thanks
A humorous and interesting look at mental health professionals in Psychology Today:
Why shrinks have problems.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200909/why-shrinks-have-problems
Physician heal thy self.
The funny thing about Mick’s comments is that even if you are “there,” you STILL can’t be sure that what you have experienced is the truth. This comes out all the time in court testimony from witnesses to accidents. You have to be prepared to record and understand what you experience. (How many mountains must he climb before he can accept that they have already been climbed?)
And the funnier thing is that the pursuit of science is totally dependent on acceptance of the testimony of one’s peers, for it is impossible to recreate all the foundational experiments and observations to support a present-day line of inquiry. This is why the foundation of science is HONESTY. Without it, there is no progress. Progress toward what? A lie? CAGW!
well, if you reference Dylan (how many ? ) it might be possible that tunes vibrate in mentality differently in different times because the medium tunes move in changes with time and so humans react differently. Like fashion, not an inspiration but a reaction to a change, perhaps space that the Earth moves through contains songs that influence us.
perhaps the brain does not compose anything but is a receptacle for vibrations already there as we sail through the seas of space.
Dixon and Jones,
I think a follow-up study is merited. Since we strongly believe that AGW activists must believe in AGW and we know there isn’t any conclusive data to show that it is true , AGW belivers must believe for some non-rational reason, not connected with the science.
Lewandowsky, the creepy narcissist nut-job, fabricated a notion to slander we skeptics. His science is flawed but he didn’t do the science for science’s sake. He did it to torture science into supporting his beliefs.I believe that this is a common theme amongst AGW activists. They are a group with a belief, in search of a scientific theory.
see http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/03/27/why-climate-change-is-a-moral-crusade-in-search-of-a-scientific-theory/
I think we should conduct a proper study on people, that queries a series of attributes and demonstrate whether the irrational belief in AGW is shared by people who share other equally irrational beliefs.
Hypothesis:
AGW activism is common amongst groups of people who also believe in eugenics, wealth redistribution, atheism, pedophilia as a sex preference, the love of the color orange, or panspermia.
Did you forget the sarc/ ??
mmmm I’m not sure. I have to consult my Magic 8-Ball.
Yep, and as it trickles into the pocket for the win, it is best to keep your eyes on those holding the cues.
why orange ?
🙂 It is my least favored color, so therefore…
You are welcome to append any other variable as you see fit! eg frequent marijuana use, stamp collection, compulsive knuckle cracking etc…let the data yield the connections.
I disagree with the paper’s assertion that “blogs-survey data of Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) suggests that both respondents convinced of anthropogenic climate change and respondents skeptical about such change were less likely to accept conspiracy theories than were those who were less decided about climate change.” In fact the height of the LOESS bell curve is so small compared to the vertical variance in the CY data, it would be more accurate to state that “Conspiracy ideation (CY) has no significant predictive power with respect to climate scepticism (CLIM).”
One look at the scatter plot would make any reasonable researcher abandon the idea. These days, it seems if you can have an hypothesis it can be shown to be valid by adjusting your analysis method and culling out data samples until you get your result. Indeed, all of climate science presents positive results only, and don’t forget, Lew’s sidecook did a study of 13,000 climate papers (thirteen thousand!!) done over ten years that all were advances in the science. He didn’t look at all of them either having used a filter to select. There were probably 20,000, 2000 papers a year!!!, 10 papers a day if they worked a normal work year and this has been going on for 40 years! These facts, all by themselves, should make skeptics out of ever person who can string a strand of neuron connection signals together. Simply the dimensions of the beast make idiots out of those not skeptical of such an enterprise. What are we encouraging in this dismal science.
Ruth Dixon and Jonathan Jones,
The Lewandowsky et al ‘Moon Hoax’ paper (published in ‘Psych Science’) was the basis for the ‘Recursive Fury’ paper (Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook and Michael Hubble-Marriott) that was retracted by ‘Frontiers in Psychology’. ‘Recursive Fury’ was a crazed attack by its authors on critics of the ‘Moon Hoax’ paper.
With your commentary paper in ‘Psych Science’ it appears that LOG’s ‘Moon Hoax’ paper still stands but is now in a kind of intellectual quandary unless withdrawn and rewritten and resubmitted or retracted.
Ruth Dixon and Jonathan Jones, both of you are in a position to do a paper researching relations between a person’s fundamental philosophy of science concept versus their climate change consensus acceptance or their acceptance of a scientifically skeptical approach to climate science. I think that would be a valuable research project to do.
John
How can they possibly say the conclusions were not supported by the data? that data was made up specially.
ah, the Moon…
does seem a bit odd the no one’s ever gone back
it’s probably just the black obelisk
Until paper is actually withdrawn and Lew is Fired all of above is hand waving
With regards to the moon missions, and in partictular, man setting foot on the moon, it did happen, no question. Of course, the original transmission almost was not received in the US, if it were not for the dish in Parkes, NSW, Australia. There were two speaches prepared, one for a success, one for a failure. Even Stanly Cubrick, I think, was “consulted” at one point in case of a failure. There are some dodgy looking pictures, true, but man was sent to and landed on the moon. One experiment from Apollo 11 is still there and is still working. Those refecting “mirrors” which are still used today to measure how far the moon is drifing away from earth if you know where to point a laser.
With regards to the Mars rovers. It’s quite easy to determine the source of a radio signal. Voyager 1 and 2 and all the other man-made space devices are ALL off world.
I am all for space explorartion, but there is so much we don’t know about this 3rd rock from the sun we live on. I’d rather see hunger, greed, poverty, illness put to rest before we look at off-world explorartion but I am not too hopeful for that outcome!
I like how they took the data at face value, but still showed conclusion was wrong. Simplifies he argument to math.
Just suppose the world is, in fact awash with conspiracies.
Or as they prefer to call it, ‘marketing’
Prof Lewandowsky in his blog reply to Dixon & Jones admits to certain effects being small, but then says that even effects that explain less than 5% of variance can be non-trivial when expanded to global scale. For examples, he uses combat fatigue and the alleged link between exposure to Pb, lead, and the IQ of some exposed people. I shall deal only with lead. I was friendly with Dr Allen Christopheres and Pam da Silva, who were Australian scientists in occupational health, studying lead for some 30 years or more and recognised internationally as respectible and learned about Pb toxicity. The early work was on ingestion, hand to mouth, as in children eating soil or flaking paint with high Pb. However, estimates of the total weight of ingested material varied over 2 orders of magnitude as Pam noted in peer reviewed publication, so belief that Pb was a subtle poison was burned into the brains of some researchers based on false impressions of dose. Allen & Pam posed the reverse causation hypothesis, that children who had lower intelligence naturally, were more likely to ingest paint, soil, etc.
The reverse causation hypothesis was treated much the same way as global warming scepticism is being: treated today. A group of scientists headed by Dr Needleman developed an increasingly complex set of experiments on the forward hypothesis only, becoming similar to the IPCC. Argument from well-funded authority was used to convince legislators to demonise Pb, to have it removed from petrol, reduced the efficiency of petrol in cars at a huge social cost.
So far as I have researched, I cannot find that reverse causation has been busted.
For this thread, the conclusion is that an experimental variable that explains a tiny part of the variance might best be ignored.
It is not practical to prove everything to yourself.
“Choose carefully who you believe, and be prepared to change your mind.” – SW
It is a good point though… what evidence do YOU consider sufficient to convince you of a given fact? That’s a totally subjective thing.
Conspiracists ultimately can’t be convinced… no evidence is sufficient to make them change their mind.
Skeptics (in a general sense) want strong proof of something.
The gullible will accept anyone’s say-so. The appeal-to-authority argument is designed to sway the gullible and the lazy who can’t be bothered to investigate themselves.
The latter part of that is crucial I think. All of these scientific organizations that are endorsing CAGW are basically doing so off of the say-so of experts. They themselves would acknowledge that they’re not experts in this particular field, and they can’t be bothered to become experts, but if another expert says that it’s so, then it must be.
In summary, scientists seem to be MORE likely to accept testimony from other scientists as sufficient proof to convince them, than the general public, even if they have the same level of knowledge. Basically, it’s a matter of faith that other scientists are doing good science and therefore there’s no reason to question their analysis.
General observation:
Moon landings? Although they weren’t faked, it wouldn’t matter if they were. The fact is that we have all of the technology developed in order to perform a moon landing (and safe return), while we didn’t prior to 1969.
All of the computer tech, rocketry tech, guidance, materials, etc. that were developed during the incredibly productive (and shockingly analog) 1960s were created for Apollo, and are STILL paying dividends. Nobody can honestly say that the investment in technology was wasted, even if the underlying motive was improved ICBM technology and bragging rights.
Remember, we’re still right this second using technology that was developed in that era, flying on aircraft that were developed in that era, using fuel formulations, modern transistors (they existed before, but had to be dramatically improved to handle launches), integrated circuits (silicon wafers), television format, satellites… almost everything in modern society either was created during the 1960s, perfected during the 1960s, or derived from technology created during the 1960s. Heck, even I was created during the 1960s.
I’m an engineer, and I spent a lot of time reading all the Moon Hoax stuff some years back. I came to what I call a 55% doubt. In other words, if you could put numbers on belief and skepticism, I believe 45%, I doubt it 55%. And here is why.
The moon’s gravity is 1/6th that of earth. When the astronauts jumped, did they go six times as high? Their suit and pack weighed 78 pounds (earth). How high could an astronaut jump on earth with a 78 lb pack? Maybe 1.5 feet? On the moon that would be 9 feet high. I didn’t see anyone jump any higher than they could on earth. It would take 6 X as long for any falling object, like dirt thrown up from the Rover’s wheels, to fall back to the surface. Falling objects would fall in extreme slow motion. 1/6th speed is very noticeable. Even more interesting is that a vehicle depends on gravity for it’s ability to turn. Side and acceleration loads are developed by wheels held against the surface by weight. With 1/6th the weight, the Rover would not have been capable of maneuvering like on earth, it would have been like driving on snow especially with the loose lunar surface.
All that Hoax stuff about photos, flags, backgrounds, shadows, etc.is pretty non specific. Gravity and its effects are absolute and very predictable. I would suggest spending some time thinking about that, maybe do a few calculations on what would occur (like when Armstrong jumps off the ladder) and then watch some of the videos again. With an editing program you can slow video down and get an exact frame count and exact time for something to fall. Estimate the height and see if it is right. It’s an eye opener.
Aerodawg,
Have you noticed that movies filmed during the silent film days usually have people walking extremely fast when viewed using more modern technology? Are you sure the effects you describe (rate of fall calculated frame by frame) are not artifacts due to changes in video recording and playback technology? Did the conversion and copying processes used to format the video you examined preserve the individual frames, with original timing, sufficiently to enable accurate timing judgments of change in falling rates per frame? The total time for Neil to drop to the surface from the ladder was just over 1 second. How high off the ground would you have to be to take over 1 second to drop to the ground on Earth? Answer: over 16 feet!
As for the height people can jump – 1.5 feet (body, not feet) is high for an adult when not wearing a 78 lb. backpack, even with maximum effort. Bottom rung on LEM ladder was Approx. 2.5 feet (struts did not get compressed as far as expected). Try hopping up to a step that high on Earth, even without a backpack.
Also, Why would astronauts exert their maximum on every step? And, their efforts were directed laterally, not vertically. They certainly appeared to me to be flitting around much more light-footedly than would be possible on Earth, especially considering the load they were bearing. Did you see the incident where one astronaut fell on his face? He regained his feet merely by means of pushing against the ground with his hands. Imagine the possibility of doing that on Earth. Do you know anyone who can do a push-up so vigorously that they coast up on to their feet, even not wearing a 78 lb. pack?
Methinks you are judging the astronauts’ movements subjectively.
SR
I didn’t see anyone jump any higher than they could on earth.
I didn’t see anyone TRYING to jump higher than they could on earth.
Mike,
Right at the beginning of this video, it sure looks like an Astronaut trying. But maybe he wasn’t trying very hard. LOL
for what it is worth….. In my real life I know only one person who has told me the moon landings were faked and he also believes global warming might kill us all.