I’m a bit of a latecomer to this affair, as Lucia and Jo Nova took an early lead on pointing out the many problems with the survey methodology (or lack thereof) with 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.
“Motivated” is the key word here, as it appears there were hidden motivations for this paper. It seems though, once you scratch the surface of Lewandowsky’s paper, that it is nothing more than a journal sanctioned smear of climate skeptics based on not only faulty data, but data gathered with a built in bias.
Besides what we already know about the flawed sampling method, the lack of follow up with skeptic blogs to make sure they got communications inviting them to post the survey, and the early release of results before the survey was complete, the most troubling new revelation appears to be that some climate skeptic blogs got different questionaires than their counterpart AGW advocate blogs. If true (and it appears to be based on the survey numbering system) this negates the study on the basis of inconsistent sampling, and I think it is time to ask Psychological Science editor Robert V. Kail to investigate this paper, and if he finds what the skeptics have, start a retraction. I’ve sent him a courtesy note advising him of this issues with this paper.
Here’s a summary of what has been going on the last couple of days.
Jo Nova has a great summary here, and writes about one Australian investigator who was invited to take the survey questions two years ago, kept screen shots of it, and did an analysis. She wrote:
Graham from OnlineOpinion was so struck by the study he’s written a post titled: Fish rot from the head Part 1.
Read it to get familiar with the survey questions.
Next there’s the who got what version of what survey problem, Jo notes this:
Leopard on the Bishop Hill thread has noted that Steve McIntyre is asking Lewandowsky why there are two or even three different forms of the survey? Why indeed?
Paul follows them up:
The Deltoid, Tamino, Mandia and Hot-Topic blogs were sent the survey number surveyID=HKMKNF_991e2415 on about August 29th. That survey is on the archive, and starts with 6 questions about free markets.
Bickmore and Few Things had the survey number surveyID=HKMKNG_ee191483 also about Aug 29, but this one doesn’t seem to be on the archive.
Steve Mc was sent survey number surveyID=HKMKNI_9a13984 on Sept 6th. This survey is on the archive, and it starts with 5 completely different questions! About how happy you are with life.
This right here should be enough for a retraction from the Journal. If different surveys were sent to different bloggers, and no mention of it was made in the paper or justified in the methodology, then this amounts to purposely biased data from the beginning. UWA may also find grounds for academic misconduct if Lewandowsky purposefully sent different sets of questions based on the type of blog he was inviting.
And then we have the fact that Lewandowsky was discussing preliminary results at a seminar, while the surveys were still open and he had not heard back from the skeptic blogs yet, such as the follow up invitation to Steve McIntyre. Having an open discussion of the survey is highly irregular, because attendees/viewers are free to take the survey, possibly biasing the results.
On the 23rd of September, 2010, Dr. Lewandowsky gave a presentation at Monash university which included the following slide:
Lewandowsky & Gignac (forthcoming)
•Internet survey (N=1100)
•Endorsement of climate conspiracy (“hoax by scientists to get grants”) linked to endorsement of other conspiracies (“NASA faked moon landing”)
•Conspiracy factor without climate item predicts rejection of climate science
So three days after (unsuccessfully) asking for cooperation in fieldwork, Lewandowsky is publicly announcing the preliminary results while the surveys are still open, and he hasn’t heard back from invited distributors. Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit notes that he received a follow up invitation on around Sept 20th. (which he didn’t notice until this story broke). Note the N=1100 value in the preliminary slide. The final paper cites an N<1200 value.
And it seems they are still at it, here’s a recent WUWT comment:
Anthony, there was recently another survey (longer, and with a 1-5 scale) put out by Lewandowsky’s research assistant, Charles Hanich, on June 4, 2012. It seems that the link for this survey was only posted on two blogs: Watching the Deniers and Skeptical Science. Charles Hanich was also responsible for creating Lewandowsky’s 2010 survey, as mentioned in the comments here.
Unfortunately, the link to the June 2012 survey is also unavailable. However, a skeptic called the “Manic Bean Counter” captured all the survey questions and dissected them on his/her blog, here. The following is Manic Bean Counter’s breakdown of the types of questions asked in the survey:
1. Climate Change – 5 questions
2. Genetically Modified Foods – 5 questions
3. Vaccines – Benefits and harms – 5 questions
4. Position of the Conservative / Liberal perspective (US definitions) – 7 questions
5. Select neutral (check of the software, or check for spam?) – 1 questions
6. Free market system v social justice / environment / sustainability – 5 questions
7. Conspiracy theories (political) – 6 questions
8. Conspiracy theories (scientific) – 6 questions
9. Personal Spirituality & Religion – 8 questions
10. Evolution – views upon – 7 questions
11. Corporations – 13 questions
12. Personal emotional outlook – 6 questions
The striking thing is that we have John Cook’s Skeptical Science blog listed as presenting both the original as well as the most recent survey. It as been discovered that Cook is a co-author with Levandowsky on a similar paper:
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C., Schwarz, N. & Cook, J. (in press). Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LewandowskyEcker.IP2012.PSPI.pdf
One wonders how much Cook contributed to the questions, based on his understanding of his readers likely responses. It is strange irony indeed that the paper discusses “debiasing”, when so many potential biases in Lewandowsky’s methods are clearly obvious to even the casual reader. Wikipedia even cites them for this paper in a section on “debunker”
Australian Professorial Fellow Stephan Lewandowsky[5] and John Cook, Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland (and author at SkepticalScience.com)[6] both warn about “backfire effects” in their Debunking Handbook.[2] Backfire effects occur when science communicators accidentally reinforce false beliefs by trying to correct them. For instance, a speaker about global warming may end up reinforcing the crowd’s beliefs that global warming is not happening.
Backfire indeed, this Lewandowsky “moon landing” paper is a full force backfire now.
Based on what I’ve seen so far, it is my opinion that Lewandowsky set out to create the survey data he wanted by manipulation of the survey system through multiple undocumented surveys, incomplete and non-representative sampling, biased survey questions, and essentially no quality control. There weren’t even significant safeguards in place to prevent individuals from taking the survey multiple times, appearing as other identities. There are so many things wrong with this paper that I can’t see it surviving intact.
I think what we have witenessed here is yet another example of noble cause corruption, where the end justifies the means in the minds of the players.
In reviewing Lewandowsky’s writings (here at The Conversation) over the past couple of years, it because painfully obvious that he sees climate skeptics as a scourge to be dealt with and that even crime can be justified:
Revealing to the public the active, vicious, and well-funded campaign of denial that seeks to delay action against climate change likely constitutes a classic public good.
It is a matter of personal moral judgment whether that public good justifies Gleick’s sting operation to obtain those revelations.
I believe that Dr. Lewandowsky set out to show the world that through a faulty, perhaps even fraudulent, smear campaign disguised as peer reviewed science, that climate skeptics were, as Jo Nova puts it, “nutters”. Worse, peer review failed to catch any of the problems now in the open thanks to the work of climate skeptics.
My best advice to Dr. Lewandowsky right now is: withdraw the paper. It has become a lighting rod for everything that is wrong with team climate science today, and multiple lines of investigation are now in progress including FOI requests and demands for academic misconduct reviews at your University of Western Australia.
I can’t see any of it ending well for you given your reticence to offer supporting data or explanations.
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Those questioning this research should do an foi on the ethics application
To perform this research at the uwa. These applications can contain a
Lot of detail and they HAVE to be held by the university.
Because this research involves human subjects, the NHMRC can become involved.
No university wants to be audited by NHMRC. References to misconduct
Should will be stronger if he is found to have violated his own undertakings
In an ethics application. The final arbiter here is not necessarily university,
It is NHMRC which has the authority to ban the university from doing any
Research involving human subjects.
Perhaps Gleick was a research adviser on this latest example of AGW promoter ethics. Mann could serve as damage control mentor.
Seeing as that Maus is repentant let’s rephrase this to, “Lewandowski winds up for the slam dunk and lands hard on his face in a complete miss!”
Rice Werne: “… your bar is not very high.”
Indeed. My bar is very low and tailored to working with those that have severe mental disabilities. And yet it is so high that what is obvious farce to those that lack the ability to exercise bodily functions voluntarily is, quite apparently, a common mode of rebuttal used by those that are non-skeptical. (I assume you would consider ‘gullible’ or ‘believer’ to cross the line of decorum.)
You may make of that what you will. I find it educational. And quite a bit more than a little frightening.
Maus says:
September 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm
> Rice Werne: “… your bar is not very high.”
How did you know my given name is Eric? 🙂 I often cut & paste names so I’m sure I have haven’t messed them up.
I’m not surprised. I think there are two effects going on, both coupled to rapidly skimming
hundreds of comments here. One is that I tend not to look at a comment all ways, and often
interpret comments as serious comments before realizing they were not.
The other is better known – in a medium like this all the little visual clues are absent, e.g. there’s no open hand gesture to brush away a teasing insult, no closed fist to say you’re serious. Try communicating with your patients through a 3rd party in a setting where they can’t see you. I suspect they’ll have a lot more trouble picking out the jokes.
Use </sarc>s, use smilies, provide an obvious clue to show when you’re winking.
Maus says:
September 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm
=================
Where do you take your game now?
It will be interesting to see, after this post.
You went from intentionally misunderstood, to an object of pity.
I can’t wait to see the next act, in your play.
Hey you guys! Stop attacking scientists! No sarc needed I’m afraid. Read what happens in Australia when science, “comes under attack”. The government gets really angry, and threatens funding cuts…….where it cuts the funding though, that’s another matter entirely!
lol
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/56912.html
Serious consequences.
Lewandowsky is scheduled for an event at the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences at University of California at Berkeley in November:
Seminar: 11/30 – Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Western Australia
11:00 to 12:30 PM at: 5101 Tolman Hall
Cognition and climate science
….A second, largely independent, variable that determines rejection of science is conspiracist ideation; e.g., the belief that NASA faked the moon landing is associated with rejection of scientific propositions. (d) Acceptance of climate science can be enhanced by underscoring the scientific consensus.
http://icbs.berkeley.edu/events/event.php?rid=164
To Charles Nelson above (September 5, 2012 at 3:37 pm),
If you think Perth is a Ghost Metropolis, you ain’t been here recently. This place has been a boom-town for the best part of the past decade despite the best efforts of a lousy left-green Federal Govt. (The boom is due to evil industries like oil, gas and mining). But yes, we have our share of charlatans and intellectual midgets, many of whom populate our once excellent universities. I am dismayed by the low level of integrity and rigour displayed by this study – yet another stab in the heart of science.
@jim:
“Is this “the less you know about something, the more likely it is that it will be worse than you think it is” thing applicable to dogs too?
(as dogs know nuthin ’bout physics or the other sciences for that matter …)”
Not sure about that 🙂
I discovered years ago that our Oz cattle-dog cross knew more about Bioclimatic Charts (DBT°C v RH%) than the CSIRO.
Enthusiasm for chasing a ball always fitted Olgyay’s “Comfort Zone”.
All of the links to Lewandowsky’s questionnaire do not provide any information as all give comments that the site is unavailable. This includes that from Jo Nova on Bishop Hill’s blog. Perhaps the best approach to this paper is, as Jo Nova has suggested, to write to the Secretary, Human Research Ethics Committee, Registrar’s Office, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009 (email hreo-research@uwa.edu.au)
Lewandowsky is scheduled for an event at the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences at University of California at Berkeley in November:
Seminar: 11/30 – Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Western Australia
11:00 to 12:30 PM at: 5101 Tolman Hall
Cognition and climate science
….A second, largely independent, variable that determines rejection of science is conspiracist ideation; e.g., the belief that NASA faked the moon landing is associated with rejection of scientific propositions. (d) Acceptance of climate science can be enhanced by underscoring the scientific consensus.
http://icbs.berkeley.edu/events/event.php?rid=164
cui bono LOL Of course we could be experiencing this in reality. All alarmists are waiting to adjust our atmosphere to accommodate a new species of humans? Infiltrated by some ET?
ROFLF!
Rather than recommend a withdrawal it is best to keep hammering the paper.
This will keep highlighting the unscientific manner with which climatology is often practised (at the alarmist level).
“I’m amazed at the multiple different surveys. ”
It’s a proven statistical trick that you can modify people’s answers to questions based on what they were doing/thinking about before asking the question. Seen several studies about it. If the intro questions varied between “type” of site, it would seem that he was trying to skew the responder to answer later questions in a particular way, no doubt to make the pro-AGW crowd seem healthy and well-adjusted, and the skeptic crowd seem nuts. (from the sounds of it, it didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.)
Dogs amongst whom I count my dearest and loyal canine friends, are aware of impending earthquakes and some are terrified by thunderstorms. But on a serious note, when you are talking about academics, I proved an historical point, and two people talking at an important Sydney venue, didn’t name me and others that disagreed with them, but we were considered conspiracy junkies, and because of my vocal stance on climate change, I was referred to a climate change denier, a JFK assassination doubter, and wait for it, holocaust denier? The latter absolutely floored me and I complained to the university. They didn’t do anything, but blog entries disappeared. So this proves if they can’t beat you on the science aspect, they will try to character assassinate you? Hack into your website. Jo Novas had ‘Forbidden’ when I tried to access it the other day, it was corrected, and others also had the same problem. They’re losing and know it.
The UE won’t adopt a 30% target as hoped. The new environment minister is halting all these green ineffective and costly wind and solar subsidies. So what will this do to carbon permits? Tory Aardvark website will keep you updated on what is happening in Europe.
How embarrassment for the University of Western Australia. How embarrassment for Australian science.
@Maus says: September 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Stop digging. It’s deep enough.
Playing nice and pointing out the fallacious nature of this will have no impact.
You fail to recognize that their purpose is to enter this idea into the public consciousness, and once there it remains. Just like the lies about the moon landing, no amount of debunking will remove it, there will still be many who believe it.
The AGW cult knows the power of propaganda and they are not interested in facts or science, only “science communication” wherein the science is actually irrelevant. Only the initial appearance of science is needed for this purpose, it is a means to an end, and it is only important for long enough to ensure the distribution of the message.
The AGW cult has been successful in marketing their beliefs. It will take much more than pointing out errors to move the public. Even many of my conservative friends, while they may be skeptical of the “solutions” proposed by green activists, still accept the AGW hypothesis as some sort of fact. While most of my liberal friends are just completely closed to hearing any countervailing information on this topic. Very few people have the interest to learn more about either the science or the corruption of it. We are up against both inertia and cognitive dissonance.
only 6.5% of australians ‘could be characterised as “climate change sceptics”‘ (not CAGW sceptics, naturally)! undoubtedly another govt-funded survey that needs some serious examination:
3 Sept: Griffith University, Australia: Australians adapting to climate change
Research from Griffith University and Cardiff University in Wales has found that Australians are accepting climate change and are taking adaptive action.
The two-year project involving nearly 7500 Australians and 1800 Britons found 90 per cent of Australian and 89 per cent of British respondents accepted human causal impact on climate change.
Though comparison findings showed striking similarities overall, Australian respondents viewed climate change as a more “immediate, proximal, and certain threat” than British respondents and were beginning to adapt to it through changes in their thinking, feelings and behaviours…
Australian project leader, Professor Joseph Reser from Griffith University’s School of Applied Psychology and the Griffith Climate Response Program, said only 6.5 per cent of Australian respondents could be characterised as “climate change sceptics”.
“There has been a continuing and widespread misreading of the Australian public’s acceptance of and often deeply felt responses to climate change,” he said…
71 per cent of Australian respondents reported that climate change was influencing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
“What also stands out, from a psychological perspective, is the finding that psychological adaptation to climate change appears to act as a powerful mediator between experienced psychological distress at the media coverage and implications of climate change and behavioural engagement.
“Most Australians are not paralysed by the debate, they’re taking action” Professor Reser said…
The research was funded by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency through the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility at Griffith University and the Griffith Climate Change Response Program and is ongoing.
To access the full report got to http://www.nccarf.edu.au/publications/public-risk-perceptions
http://poc-app.griffith.edu.au/news/2012/09/03/australians-adapting-to-climate-change/
I am sure you know, but did you know that during the Roman warm period, temps were sometimes 2 – 2-5C warmer than today. (250BC-AD 450). In the medieval warm period they sometimes were 3 C warmer allowing grape growing in Britain.
http;/www.co2science.org/subject/summaries/rwpeuropemed.pl I can’t read the last pl, but you will find it under Roman Warm Period (Europe- – Mediterranean) – – Summary.
Keep at ’em, Anthony.
What is the penalty for a pro-CO2-warming professor in publishing a fake completely unethical study?
– a new $1 million 5-year grant; or,
– a disciplinary hearing.
9 times out of 10, it is the new funding program. 1 time out of 10, it is a fake unethical disciplinary hearing followed by reinstatement and then the new funding program.
I have never heard of a single pro-AGW academic ever receiving a disciplinary action.
bushbunny says:
September 5, 2012 at 7:41 pm
cui bono LOL Of course we could be experiencing this in reality. All alarmists are waiting to adjust our atmosphere to accommodate a new species of humans? Infiltrated by some ET?
ROFLF!
This should be made into a movie
” Maus says:
September 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm
(snip)
You may make of that what you will. I find it educational. And quite a bit more than a little frightening.”
The response to your first post surprised me somewhat,though I have observed something similar in the past.
Bill Illis,
Lewandowsky wants polling data on skeptics. Knowing his agenda, does he:
1) Ask them honest questions, or
2) Sell his soul