UPDATE: At first I was concerned about this poll and the language involved. Now from comments I’m seeing a number of people whom aren’t worried and see an opportunity to voice their opinion. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide if they wish to participate. – Anthony
Wow, just wow. Who would think we’d see this sort of language and lack of sound judgment from a science museum? In the Now playing at a museum near you, the “Day After Tomorrow Map” thread, something interesting was discovered.
Once you click the “count me out” button, you enter a netherworld of governmental lists. The London Science Museum might want to think about redoing this web feature. The images are below, here’s the link.
Okay…now look what happens when you click “COUNT ME OUT”. Yellow highlighter mine.
Not only is this insulting and threatening to the reader, it virtually ensures that all responses logged by the London Science Museum are “COUNT ME IN” if you originally chose to vote otherwise.
Future presentation of results to the government: “The results show overwhelmingly that people agree with us. Hardly anyone chose COUNT ME OUT.
Even with the caveat the list*, how many people would trust it? I wouldn’t. I doubt many people even get to the caveat. The main statement is just too worrisome.
Perhaps the “COUNT ME OUT” respondents get a visit from these chaps? 😉
To be fair, respondents get a similar message if they choose to be counted in.
However, one wonders how many people will respond at all once they see that language.
The Science Museum really ought to pull this feature or redo language in it in my opinion.
h/t to alert WUWT reader coddbotherer
UPDATE: 10/24 @11:30PM
It appears some robovoting hit this poll. Robert Phelan’s letter pretty well sums up my thinking on this issue.
Sirs:
By now you must be aware that your on-line Prove It poll was seriously compromised. I voted “count-me-out” once under my own name, but after the individual who corrupted your poll revealed himself, I tested your polling system with two consecutive “count-me-in” votes, which were both apparently accepted.
Leaving aside my distaste for your support of politicized, Lysenko-style “science”, as both a social scientist and computer systems consultant I respect data and am appalled by the shoddy manner in which your organization collected it. A few suggestions:
1. State clearly the purpose of your poll and exactly which data will be used for that purpose.
2. You stated that you would pass the results to the government:
a. if the results had fairly resulted in a “count-me-out” majority, would those results have been passed on?
b. it would be helpful top explain what you would do with the comments you requested from the “count-me-outs”;
c. since the results were to be passed, presumably, to the UK government, foreigners such as myself should have been excluded from the voting. Checking the IP location of voters should be easy.
3. No one, either inside the UK or outside received the follow up e-mail. The explanation provided about ensuring one vote per person, frankly, makes no sense.
4. Maintaining a confidential list of voter names, e-mail addresses and IP’s to verify non-duplication would be easy. Making the voting a two-step process, where the voter had to respond to a follow-on e-mail would be even more secure.
5. Maintaining a list of non-acceptable names for screening: Joseph Stalin, Lenin, Mao Tse-tung and Mickey Mouse all claimed to have voted no, as did Keith Briffa, Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen.
7. Create a display page where interested persons can view the names who have voted. Given the politicized nature of the topic, a unified alphabetical list would be appropriate.
8. Test the security of your poll before putting it on-line. Find a good hacker and pay him only if he succeeds in breaking into your system.
If you people can’t even run an on-line poll, why should anyone consider your opinions on climate? If this poll was so important that you needed two ministers of HMG to introduce it, why didn’t you get it done right?
I intend my suggestions to be helpful; if you find them so then I would be glad to be of further assistance. I am bitterly opposed to the position you have taken on “AGW” but I would not allow that to interfere with my professionalism.
Oh, one last suggestion. Don’t even try to salvage the results of this poll. Wipe them, make the changes I’ve suggested and start again.
Robert E. Phelan
Adjunct Instructor of Sociology
Business Systems and Automation Consultant
A commenter on our site, “lihard” has seemingly confessed to adding a thousand votes via a script. There was a period of about 15 minutes where the count jumped about 1000 votes. It appears “lihard” was at fault as he pre-announced it here in comments. Of course there was little anyone could do about it. I speak for myself and the moderation staff in saying we strongly object and are offended by his ballot stuffing and want to make clear that it is not condoned in any way. Whether or not the poll was put together with apparently no security in place does not justify any kind of dishonest activity.
However, since that burst (if indeed he, lihard, did one) the vote count has steadily risen, I believe those to be valid. If the Science Museum has any logs, they should be able to filter those ~1000 in question out. I hope they do.
I don’t condone ballot stuffing in any form. Unfortunately it can happen when polls like this one don’t appear to have the most basic simplistic security. The interesting thing here is that if anybody wanting to stuff the poll, no matter what side of the argument they are on, could easily have done so. No special skills are needed to boost the counter…just keep clicking the submit button. Any kid can do it.
Perhaps the Science Museum didn’t think of security for cyberspace like they do for their exhibits. The internet is a harsh place and prone to such things. The lack of due diligence for security is as troubling as the language they used which originally caught my attention.
The polls we do here at WUWT don’t suffer from these problems, as they have anti-ballot stuffing security built in courtesy of WordPress. I hope that the Science Museum will upgrade their poll security if they choose to continue with it. Also for the record, you’ll find me logged once in poll, shortly after posting this story on 11/23 approximately 9:30-10AM PST, with my full name and email address given. If anyone from the Science Museum (or the UK government) wishes to contact me, they can use that email address. – Anthony
There has been a small surge in “in” votes in the last 90 minutes. I suspect that someone has figured out a way to undermine the vote. At this point, some out of control CAGWers will probably want to discredit the poll completely. It is way to embarrassing for the powers that be.
“I still think that the better course would have been to simply reset and invite everyone to vote again. ”
Nah. That would be trying to close the stable door.
In the style of the Monty Python sketch: “this is a dead poll, DECEASED. IT IS NO LONGER”.
What kind of poll starts off by saying that the organiser is convinced by one of the options? The science museum is therefore not an independent poller, but is partisan.
And if that were not enough it actively seeks to helps one side with the “spread the word” link. Is that supposed to be honourable and fair?
There is no attempt to present both sides of the argument. By that, I don’t mean the science museum stating what it thinks the counter-arguments are (they cannot because they have already made up their minds). They should invited the sceptical side to put its case in a way that would have been respected by the “count me out” vote.
And the science museum gave no indication of what they considered to be acceptable conduct. This could have been a “horse race” or it could have been OPOV (we are simply not told).
It was only when things started to go wrong that they tried to patch it up with the sticking plaster of their own intervention. As the science museum is partisan, the votes cast have therefore been manipulated.
The poll is totally wrong on any number of measures. The better course would be for the science museum to ditch “Prove It” altogether. Do so with honour – say they got it wrong and express some regret. Anything else will just lead to more embarrassment.
Let it run, I say.
I know I’m a naive sort of bloke, but this seems like a real opportunity to me.
1. The Milibandwagon “Thought Police” sponsored this poll, right?
2. The Science Museum appears to be “playing it straight” at the moment, indicating some sort of scientific integrity (well -maybe).
3. If the voting carries on as it is now, the Government will have to figure out a way to disown the Science Museum on the basis of incompetence of some sort.
So, next time they say that the science is “crystal clear” (as Stern did yesterday on the BBC), or “We should just trust the scientists” as Mili has done on numerous occasions, this can be thrown back in their faces.
They won’t be able to claim that “the message hasn’t been got across properly”, because they think they have presented the facts that “PROVE IT”.
Only thing I can’t quite work out just at the moment is how to gain a suitable public platform from which to do the “throwing”.
Any ideas guys and girls?
“Let it run, I say.”
Why not. My last post was a suggestion to save the science museum any more blushes. I have no wish to see them letting themselves down any more than they have already.
“but this seems like a real opportunity to me”
Hmm – an opportunity like John Cleese banging the parrot on the counter to prove that it was dead. Was it any more dead as a result?
C’mon Steve – any one of the above reasons I gave above would have comprehensively invalidated any poll with serious intent. This will never be able to rise above the level of a shabby publicity stunt. Nothing of any value will come from it.
OK – perhaps that’s too pessimistic. It still holds out the prospect of giving us all a good laugh.
Steve Smith (13:10:36) :
Suggestions? Sure, get organized. Further up in this thread both Alec J and Geoff Chambers were talking about a UK Climate Sanity party to stand in the elections.
Find like-minded people locally and start meeting.
Start a letter campaign to your MP’s and the papers. Comment on blogs. Refer them back here.
People in the London area might want to organize tours to the Science Museum with a tour-leader versed in debunking the claims of the alarmists to ostentatiously critique the exhibit. If they get thrown off the premises, publicize it.
Hold protests in front of the offices of your MP’s and the Museum. Even two people with placards will draw attention. Distribute leaflets. Take out advertisements in the newspaper.
This is almost honest of them I guess. The Miliband metro London based sensibilities have convinced themselves that it would be a nice thing to have a couple of votes thrown their way by some pseudo democratic means.
So they asked some poor museum to comply, not realising they are amateurs. I am looking forward to the books I will read about this if I live to seventy!
Of course the Gov can forget it at a whim, as we all should anyway. But it is interesting watching how they do it today.
Jordan:
You are right that everything in this design biases this poll in favor of saying “in”. The staggering result is that the “outs” are out polling the “ins” 7 to 1. This is like a robust test of an hypothesis – we will set up the most negative set of conditions and see if people still say they don’t believe in CAGW. They did it accidentally – apocryphally like Fleming and Curie – but lets not through out some interesting data without an explanation of the counter-intuitive finding.
“The staggering result is that the “outs” are out polling the “ins” 7 to 1.”
Trust me Bernie, this is not a measure of anything worth paying attention to.
The only thing left to do is to warn the science museum against any false residual hopes they might have that this ill-conceived “Prove It” campaign will go down as anything other than shoddy marketing of AGW alarmism.
Do they really want to give us yet another “Hanno 2009” or “YAD061”? If so, the management and trustees of the science museum face the prospect of earning themselves a place in history alongside Lysenco.
Currently the vote goes as follows:
880 counted in so far
5851 counted out so far
StuartR (16:07:15) : “So they asked some poor museum to comply, not realising they are amateurs.”
Wise up! The museum may be behaving amateurishly, but can I refer you to the following article in Times Higher Education? http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=209274
Regards
S
Jordan, of course you’re right, this poll was never a true test of public opinion, but it has its merit as a test of how many obsessive bloggers like ourselves there are on each side of the fence. Robert Phelan is right to be surprised at the scores, given that green blogs and bloggers must outnumber us sceptics by a magnitude or two. My theory is that Greens just don’t frequent blogs which have “science” in the title, and that many of the sceptics are not WUWT fans, but museum regulars who like science and technology and the modern world that they have made possible. They’re not going to be the kind of people who like the “follow the green arrows and we’ll tell you what to think” approach.
Thanks to Dodgy Geezer who provided a list of those responsible for the exhibition – a bunch of marketing men and design consultants. e.g.:“VentureThree is a world-class firm of global brand consultants. Branding is a powerful business tool..” followed by 7 photos, two of the Miliband brothers and five of the “Prove It” logo.
Jordan, instead of sparing the museum blushes, we should be rubbing their faces in it. Robert Phelan has the right activist ideas, but he’s obviously not English.
geoffchambers (07:07:13) :
“…but he’s obviously not English…”
Awww, is it that obvious? Doesn’t matter, I aspire to have a musical written in my honor: “They seek him here, they seek him there, those Greenies seek him everywhere! He meddles with the Greenie Revolution….”
This Science Museum debacle is an excellent opportunity for meddling. One of the moderators on this blog once remarked “…I believe in the educational power of embarrassment…” This is one of those moments…. and that embarrassing tin can may also be tied to a Miliband tail as well as Chris Rapley’s. Poor museum indeed. Spread the word. Publicize that poll. It was INTENDED to present a different picture than the one now being displayed, so let them deal with the reality of it. The figures might well change in their favor, finally, but right now they raise all kinds of questions in inquiring minds. Encourage questions.
Robert Phelan
My remark that you were obviously not English was meant admiringly.
It would be highly suspicious if the figures changed now in favour of the warmists. Like you, I was astonished at the huge sceptical lead. I’m not convinced by my own tentative explanation above and would love to hear other theories, in particular as to why the warmists have not launched a counterattack. It would be easy to spread the word among the myriad green blogs and get a few thousand “yes” votes, thus saving Miliband’s face and providing a spurious “vote” in favour of the British government’s policy at Copenhagen. Why don’t they do this?
I don’t live in England and therefore may be missing something about the finer points of Green psychology. Have they already given up on Copenhagen and are planning some kind of direct action policy? Do they just not care about the weight of public opinion?
” Do they just not care about the weight of public opinion?”
You got it. Public opinion is fairly irrelevant when all parties are identical and will do as Brussels tells them anyway. Whether you take the Tory gravy-train to Brussels or the Labour train you certainly don’t need the public messing up a nice little earner.
@ur momisugly geoffchambers (13:30:47)
“Do they just not care about the weight of public opinion?”
I think the language is almost as intimidating for the C02 fundamentalists (after all, they believe that the government is in the hands of big, and pollution-friendly, businesses, and that they are fighting their fight from a minority position) as it is for the AGW skeptics.
geoffchambers (13:30:47) :
“My remark … was meant admiringly….”
I appreciate that, but the truth is that we Americans have been “dumbed down” over the last quarter century or so…. Frankly, I’d never heard of the Miliband Brothers until this museum flap blew up. Despite all the information sources at our disposal, we tend to be unaware of what is happening outside our immediate neighborhoods. At one time, a long time ago, I was aware of what was happening in UK politics… far less so, now. American media does not report on UK issues. Or Mexican Issues. Or Canadian Issues. I know more about Brittany’s choices in underwear than I know about….
I returned from the Orient in 1987, kicking and screaming, after 14 years there. Under a damn-near fascist dictatorship I got more world news than I got on my return to America. In Taiwan we had an international community that gathered for beery discussions about everything….
I got back from China, and all anyone wanted to kbnow was if I got the World Series results…..
geoffchambers and Robert E. Phelan
There is so much we agree with on various things discussed here.
“instead of sparing the museum blushes, we should be rubbing their faces in it”
With regret, I’ve got a feeling that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. I’ve said as much a couple of times on this thread.
But pouring ridicule on the science museum is a poor second prize. I’d much prefer to respect our scientific institutions because they have earned my respect. There is still an opportunity for them to withdraw the campaign and admit that it was a mistake.
“Prove It” could be remembered in the context of a modern example of Lysencoism. Right now, there is an outside chance that the management and trustees can be convinced that they are taking a risk with their reputations.
I’ve spent a little more time working on my Science Museum monitor program.
The URL I posted before with the raw data has changed to http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/proveitraw.html
The original URL, http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/proveit.html now displays a table, one line per day. Each line has the date, the total change during the day, and counts at two hour intervals. I might switch to 3 hour intervals to make the table narrower. The Museum says they’ll run the poll until Copenhagen, the table format should work okay until then.
At last count they were In: 911, Out: 5978.
Robert Phelan
I suppose you could sum up your Far East experience cynically by saying: you can have free speech, or intelligent discussion, but not both.
Jordan
Sorry if my language was excessively virulent. I imagine the Science Museum, like the BBC, or the Guardian, contains a number of thoughtful people who are unhappy to see their institution fall into the hands of a narrow-minded faction. When I write to the Chairman of the Trustees, I shall be quietly reasonable. Here, I allow myself a little rant.
I wondered aloud: where were the Greens? Why weren’t they using their undoubted numerical advantage to “win” this pseudo-poll for the consensus?
Maybe this is the answer to my question. Joseph D’Aleo at ICECAP reports: “Last week it was announced that George Soros pledged $1.1 billion to fund ‘Climate Change initiatives’”.
So a millon green webmasters are presumably too busy writing “Dear George” letters to worry about countering our foolish little attempt to express our opinions.
“excessively virulent”. It never came across to me as any more than an expression of your view.
Recognising your point about thoughtful people, I think there are a number of influential opinion formers in the UK who probably see Global Warming as a passive political game – fit in to get along. What’s in it for them to rock the boat?
That’s why I mentioned Lysenco and reputation. We need something to impress upon people that this isn’t OK for anything which wishes to call itself scientific. How do they want to be remembered?
Ed Milliband is defending the little girl bed-time story. We’re looking at a potential PM?
A couple of weeks ago I sent this:
“Sir/madam. Under the FOI I would like to know the costs
associated with the Science Museum’s “Prove It” campaign and website,
and the costs in creating its new associated exhibit in the museum,
scheduled for 2010. Furthermore, I would like a full breakdown as to the
souce of the funds to be allocated.”
Today I received this:
“The Prove-it exhibit and website cost £165,000…
… the climate change exhibtion and web site that will be delivered in June 2010, the total cost for this is £4,000,000. This will be funded as follows:
£2,000,000 from internal funds – National Museum of Science & Industry
£1,000,000 from a private individual
£1,000,000 from a corporate sponsor.”
I have made a futher FOI request to find out who the latter two are. UK readers are welcome to make your own:
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/nmsipages/foienquiryform.asp
“to find out who the latter two are”
Good luck – I regard it as a political donation.
And I see the ‘ins’ have finally broken 1000. Shame the ‘outs’ are over six times that!
@James Baldwin P
“Good luck – I regard it as a political donation.”
Indeed, that’s why I’m FOI-ing it… be interesting what (if anything) comes back.