UPDATE: After a cursory look at the percentages in the response to the Lewandowsky survey from the blogs he listed as participating, it seems the outcome doesn’t fit the title. See below.
====================================
From the “free the metadata” department, we have this gem. Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia’s Cognitive Science Department devised some sort of survey where he supposedly contacted skeptical climate blogs to ask we post a link to gather opinions for his survey. He says he contacted five and they all declined. Only one problem with that; none of the mainstream skeptical blogs appear to have any knowledge of being contacted. That includes WUWT and Climate Audit, among others.
I keep all my email, and I see no such contact or invitation. I’ve searched WUWT and found nothing in comments from him inviting to participate either. To be thorough, I also searched for any communications from his co-authors Klaus Oberauer and Gilles Gignac. I’ve found no invitation of any kind, but I did find that a commenter in the USA, PaulW left a note about it on WUWT here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/29/new-wuwt-sstenso-page-now-online/#comment-469869 But, he’s not affiliated with UWA or the authors, and it was purely a comment of curiosity. One of our moderators, D.B. Stealey took the survey (now deleted) after seeing the comment, and noted “Interesting questions.” but he didn’t note any invitation to post it on WUWT, nor did I.
Similar lack of confirmed invitations are being reported in other skeptical blogs, and the list is growing. But, for some reason, Dr. Lewandowsky refuses to divulge which skeptical blogs he contacted.
Jo Nova and Lucia Liljegren are asking some very pointed questions. Given the sheer lunacy on display in the paper…
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.. Psychological Science.
…I think Jo Nova nailed it with this line:
It’s as if Stephan did not want to know what real skeptics think?
Lucia asked Lewandowsky in a direct email about it and got this response:
Sorry, no, they likely replied to my requests under the presumption of privacy and I am therefore not releasing their names.
The blogs that did post the link (thereby publically identifying themselves, unlike those who declined) are:
%http://www.skepticalscience.com
%http://tamino.wordpress.com
%http://bbickmore.wordpress.com
%http://www.trunity.net/uuuno/blogs/
%http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/
%http://profmandia.wordpress.com/
%http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/
%http://hot-topic.co.nz/
“…they likely replied” That seems to me to be pretty weak data for a scientist. Either they replied requesting confidentiality or they didn’t, there’s no “likely” about it when gathering hard data.
Time to fess up, perfessor. Show the list and proof of contact and confirmation that they declined the invitation. You have my full and complete permission to release my name. Other skeptical bloggers have also granted permission on Lucia’s website, so there’s no reason to hold back now.
In comments at Lucia’s, Steve McIntyre notes:
The University of Western Australia has fairly standard academic misconduct policies.
http://www.research.uwa.edu.au…..guidelines
http://www.research.uwa.edu.au…..rch-policy
If Lewandowky’s claim about 5 skeptic blogs was fabricated, it appears to me that it would be misconduct under university policies. The person responsible for investigating complaints appears to be the Pro VIce Chancellor (Research) ,Robyn Owens, dvcr@uwa.edu.au.
She is in a position to get an answer, given Lewandowsky’s refusal to disclose the information.
In other news, the Lewandowsky survey data was put online at Bishop Hill. See it here.
Make of that data what you wish, but it seems to me that if you only ask questions of one side, as shown is the blog list above, you’ll get one-sided answers. That’s hardly science.
UPDATE: After looking at the survey data provided on the Bishop Hill blog here, it is beginning to look like the answers were skewed by participants at those blogs for what they think he wanted to hear, rather than a true sample.
For example: If you look at column R in the Excel spreadsheet, labeled CYMoon, which according to the paper in question:
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). : An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.. Psychological Science.
It says:
CYMoon The Apollo moon landings never happened and were
staged in a Hollywood studio. .742
That is the result of this question structure:
Unless otherwise noted, all items used a 4-point scale ranging from \Strongly Disagree’ (1) to \Strongly Agree” (4). Table section headings correspond to latent variable names in
Figure 2.
OK do a simple scan of the 1’s and 2’s in column R, which correspond to ‘Strongly Disagree’ and ‘Disagree’ and you get them as the majority, with a smattering of 3’s and 4’s. So I decided to use Excel’s function for counting occurances. =COUNTIF(R2:R1146,”1″, and =COUNTIF(R2:R1146,”2″ =COUNTIF(R2:R1146,”3″ =COUNTIF(R2:R1146,”4″
The (corrected, I had the 1 and 4 counts backwards originally, thanks Lucia) distribution of responses to the Moon Landing question are:
1067 Strongly Disagree
68 Disagree
4 Agree
6 Strongly agree
Total responses are 1145 (Rows R2 to R1146, top row R1 is title, so subtract 1 from 1146). Therefore 1067+68 = 1135 1135/1145 = 0.9912
Only 0.9% of respondents actually believe that the moon landings “never happened and were staged in a Hollywood film studio”. So what does that say about the title of the paper:
NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax
I see a retraction for this paper in the very near future.
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Tamino linked to it? He’s no fool, if it were completely off base I don’t think he would.
Let’s see what he says. Googling for |Lewandowsky site:tamino.wordpress.com| yields 8 hits, |Lewandowsky survey site:tamino.wordpress.com| yields 0 as does |”Cognitive Science Department” site:tamino.wordpress.com|.
Most of the 8 included a reference to http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/how-low-can-you-go/ which starts with Stephan Lewandowsky has posted a rather scathing critique of the paper by McLean, de Freitas, and Carter, a summary of the comment which decapitates it, and now McLean has replied.
No sign of the survey.
Other links included http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/comparing-temperature-data-sets/ , a dig at WUWT which includes:
and http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/much-ado-about-something/ which also has a comment that starts with:
My guess is that the metadata doesn’t support his claims.
I won’t have time to explore the other blogs.
I’m just beginning to get my head around the enormity of this man’s stupidity.
He does not say what method he used to select his list of blogs, nor does he actually list the blogs in his paper. He only produces that after he is challenged later. Number one on the list is SkepticalScience.com.
In the first paragraph of their homepage SkepticalScience.com makes it very clear where they’re coming from.
So by “pro-science science stance” Dr. Lewandowsky means strongly opinionated and critical of CAGW skeptics. And “a diverse audience” in Dr. Lewandowsky’s universe means any audience who share this same “pro-science science stance”.
Let’s abstract this:
1. There is an issue with two camps “Pro” and “Anti”.
2. In order to gauge the opinion of the Antis you post a survey on some Pro blogs.
3. The Pro readership of the blogs gleefully respond to the “Let’s make the Antis look stooooped” survey.
4. You assume the answers to be honest and that you can identify Antis by their answers in the survey, enabling you to make absurd, unfounded claims on the pattern “90% of Antis also believe X”.
All this from a man who claims to be an expert on mental processes. This is on a par with Gleick’s “I know its true because I received it anonymously in the post”.
Oh, and as an Anti (or CAGW skeptic), I confess, I am starting to entertain the possibility of some sort of conspiracy, particularly when I see garbage such as this getting past peer review.
Academic Fraud?
Let’s get Mikey Mann to investigate. He has a lot of experience dealing with fraud.
Looks like another Michael Bellesiles (Arming America) case–except Lewandowsky hasn’t got a Pulitzer (yet).
I also accept that:
Lady Diana died in a car crash.
HIV is real.
Smoking causes lung cancer.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Runaway Global Warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race.
If Lewandowsky was paying attention he will note the many comments and tributes to Neil Armstrong on WUWT recently. This does not appear to be a rejection of the Moon landing because it was precisely the Moon landing and his REAL foot print which has given him world renown.
I’m getting real mad now.
The left is eating itself, arse first.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
A bit of information showing how sad the state of science is, how far it is fallen. We each need to redouble our efforts in honesty and good science.
“FMNotEnvQual I support the free market system but not at the expense of the environmental quality (R) (omitted)”
I couldn’t stomach ready the paper so I don’t know why this was “omitted”. Anyone know the answer?
I run World Climate Report and was never contacted.
“…if you only ask questions of one side, as shown is the blog list above, you’ll get one-sided answers. That’s hardly science.”
Not science as we know it, but it’s science as practised by AGW believers. This proves once again the ethical, intellectual and scientific bankruptcy of the AGW movement.
Looks like out of 1164 respondents, 10 of them claimed to think the moon landing was fake (gave it either a 3 or 4 on the conspiracy 1-4 scale). Of these, 5 appear to be climate believers (respondents 48, 140, 301, and 627) and 5 appear to be climate deniers (134, 861, 870, 890 and 964). Obviously the vast majority of respondents were believers, so a larger percentage of claimed deniers disbelieve the moon landing giving it a “correlation” of a sort. But with such a tiny sample, how can you possibly justify THE TITLE OF THE ARTICLE outside of an obvious desire to denigrate and insult the intelligence of people who disagree with you?!
Furthermore, I facetiously ask the question, is it possible that anyone spoofed answers on this survey? Well, “probably not very many” the doctor would answer, but even 1 person did intentionally skew their answers, how does that affect the weighting in a sample of 10?
Look at respondent 134. He said 0 out of 100 climate scientists agree that CO2 causes warming. Seriously?
Look at respondent 861. He was the only person out of 1164 that answered every single question with a 4 or a 1, and ALWAYS in the “dumbest” direction right up until the conspiracy theory questions changed over to “does HIV cause AIDS?” Oops, he was in the habit of giving 4’s by then so he accidentally gave that one a 4 also, meaning he agreed that HIV does cause AIDS. Oh crap! Fixed it by the time he got to smoking/cancer and gave that a 1.
Look at respondent 890. 861 just went back and did the same but fixed their HIV/AIDS mistake.
I would say (obviously unscientifically) that at least 3 of the 5 deniers who claimed to disbelieve in the moon landing are spoofs. You can’t prove it, but that’s why you can’t make scientific claims based on samples this small!
I’m also curious why there’s such a high concentration of “deniers” right at the top of the data set. 16 in a row and after that it’s about 1 in 20 or so. Without any explanation, one might start to speculate that when the survey was winding down they might have said “oh crap, we’ve only got a sample of like 60 or so deniers here. What are we going to do about it?”
They should be ashamed.
How low can we stoop?
Guys, I rather like these papers out in circulation. It’s papers like these which are so easy to poke holes and and lambast the authors which give skepticism that extra boost! OTOH, exposing them as frauds scores big points with the public, as well. Maybe Lewandowsky can serve the skeptics in a dual capacity!
Anthony:
It is standard practice in climastrology ‘research’ to use the outputs of computer models (based on the modelers understandings) in preference to empirical data.
Therefore, it seems eminently reasonable when to doing ‘research’ about climastrology to use the outputs of computer models (based on the modelers understandings) in preference to empirical data.
Hence, it seems likely that the author of the paper generated a computer program (based on his understandings) which was run to reveal the results that would have been obtained if the the views of climate realists had been determined. And the paper reports those results.
WUWT?
Richard
PS Although this comment is ‘tongue in cheek’ it is based on fact; e.g.
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.”
Dr David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University
This ‘research’ is part of a pattern to paint AGW sceptics as not merely wrong but mad or bad , its an attempt to dehumanize them and so make it less likely people will believe them and as means to justify their silencing in the name of ‘the cause ‘
There playing very dirty becasue all things are justified for a ‘greater good ‘ , remember this guys are out to save the planet and in their minds you can’t get a greater good than that .
David L says:
September 1, 2012 at 4:06 am
“Would it be a surprise that a climate zealot lied to advance his cause? True scientists offer real data. I’ve noticed that a lot of the warmers spins anecdotes and lies in lieu of real data. Why is that?”
True. And also agree on the terminology, I think the distinction zealot/heretic is the best one which properly describes the current climate discussion.
See also Steven’s post and the Guardian:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/religion-and-heresy/
“He says he contacted five and they all declined. ”
Typical zealot procedure of trying to bypass or ignore the heretics. To maintain what they call “the science” (what we call lisenkoism), is science they try to find heretics who fit their world-view and then combat those. It is the strawman tactic again.
Trying to put heretics in boat with creationists and the kind is to try to discredit their ideas through ad-hominem attacks. Pretty low for an academic argument, but not really surprising.
Brandon Shollenberger says:
September 1, 2012 at 3:29 am
The thing that keeps baffling me is the paper is titled, “NASA faked the moon landing – Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax” despite the fact only *ten* people said they believed the moon landing was faked. And of those ten people, most were “believers.”
How do you smear skeptics like that based on less than 1% of your data?
David clearly highlighted above that his paper starts from a false premise:
David Ross says:
September 1, 2012 at 4:33 am
“Dr. Lewandowsky’s paper is based on a false premise.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/01/paging-dr-stephan-lewandowsky-show-your-invitation-list/#comment-1069154
I totally agree with the above and with:
“And without “global warming” nobody would even have heard of Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky, outside of his sad little pseudo-scientific clique.”
It is sad for the low-level of integrity we see in this climate/psychology paper and shows again the zealots careful not to engage the heretics in honest discussion, but to continue a smear and hate tirades.
If his claim to have contacted skeptics is proven a lie I expect to see clear consequences from the university. The whole work would be then a fabrication. Let s see how their standard academic misconduct policies are applied in practice.
It looks like he lied.
I am so surprised…………….
Another ‘intellectual’ proving that you don’t have to be intelligent to be classed as an intellectual.
Sooooo according to Lewandowsky , these guys think the moon landing was faked .
[img]http://oi52.tinypic.com/35c4ojm.jpg[/img]
There , there , Mr Lewandowsky , just keep on taking Your medication
I can predict an academic’s position on Climate Change simply by examining the quality of sentence structuring on their web pages. It would make a great thesis.
I was running scottishsceptic blog at the time and latterly Scottish Climate & Energy Forum website, neither of which were approached.
Nor was I approached on The lords.org.uk
Ric Werme says:
September 1, 2012 at 6:50 am
Oops – not only does it appear Tamino linked to it without attribution, JoAnne Nova has links to all the blog posts at her page, http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/lewandowsky-shows-skeptics-are-nutters-by-asking-alarmists-to-fill-out-survey/ I thought the links were just to the home pages of the blogs.
The Tamino link is http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/
You can fill out surveys at that site using anonymous proxies like “hide my ass”. Suppose 1% of survey respondents did so. That’s ~1000/100= 10 respondents. Given the rather small number of people who claimed to believe the moon landing was fake, this is easily enough to overwhelm Lewandowski’s statistics in a way that entirely vitiates his major findings.
Great caution is required when interpreting online surveys. If you want the survey to be scientific, you need to take pains to verify the systems is at least slightly difficult to game. Kwiksurveys is not difficult to game. A commenter at Deltoid mentioned this at the time the survey was posted– and he was right. You would think that if Lewandowsky hoped to turn the results of his survey into a scientific survey he might ask that commenter why he thought it was easy to game and learn what steps he might take to create a more secure survey.
It seems he didn’t do this. Moreover, the peer reviewers must have absolutely no clue what is involved in making an online survey secure from gaming. ‘Cuz… kwiksurvey is not remotely useful for scientific experiments. (Well possibly other than one where we invite bots to bet and the “winner” gets accolades for creating the auto-bot that submits the most answers.)
Science is not a survey, a survey is not science. But where integrity is inversely proportional to topic, as per this wretched episode, we can convert the proportionality to an equation by introducing a constant factor K; to wit, AGW Catastrophism = K / Integrity, that is, K = Integrity / AGW Catastrophism.
Whatever value one assigns to K, increasing AGW Catastrophism must thereby reduce Integrity. Quite like a Hockey Stick, as one might say.