Lewandowsky thinks failure to get or find email is conspiracy theory

The choice of Hoggan’s DesmogBlog, fierce defender of Peter Gleick must be a coincidence…

Er, why does he have to beg permission to release emails that HE sent??? That sounds a bit odd. Plus I don’t know how much stock I’d put into whatever format he used to try to prove that sent them… though maybe that’s more foolproof than I’d expect. Heh, given the number of spoofed emails I’ve gotten supposedly from “myself” trying to sell me weight loss products (I weigh 115 soaking wet) over the years I don’t have a lot of faith in what the headers say.
– MJM

“People jump to conclusions on the basis of no evidence. I would love to be able to release those emails if given permission, because it means four more people will have egg on their faces. ”
Lewandowsky is playing a game. He’s asserting that any responses he received are in confidence, and so he cannot release them without permission of the authors. That’s just a clever ploy to distract everyone’s attention from the fact that he needs no such permission to release HIS emails which he claims he or an assistant sent. The replies are not the evidence we seek, it is the existance of the original request that is being challenged.
All Lewandowsky need do to set the record straight is release his original requests. As they are his, and his alone, they contain no confidential information (other than email addresses perhaps) that he has any moral, ethical, or legal duty to protect.
Fess up Lewandowsky. Who did you send the supposed emails to, date, time, and what did they say? It is up to those you accuse to decide if they wish to keep their responses private or not. You have no say in the matter. All you need do it show us the evidence that you sent what you say you sent. The burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate that you send the emails in the first place. In this case, absence of evidence is, in fact, evidence of absence.

I use Kwiksurvey and generally it is a good and cheap survey instrument, but this summer its site was hacked and a lot of data was lost on surveys in progress. They did a really good job of restoring what they could (and I got the survey data I needed back, but in a limited form which made it difficult to analyze).
However I question why a university would use this site – I just it because it is FREE. But a university??? Really???

I’m not holding my breath for a response by Prof. Lewandowsky.
Speaking of responses, I saw an interesting one on RPjr’s site yesterday from David Arpell. Now I am hesitant to sound critical of David here, knowing how tight he and Anthony are, but in this instance I will risk it. In a responce to another commenter who stated that China’s CO2 production now exceeded that of the US and Europe combined, David provided the actual figures to show how wrong the original commentor was. China produced only 8.5 gigatons verses the 8.9 combined number of Europe and the US. Huge difference, not even close really. Well, yeah I guess it is rather close. Close enough for it to be a fair bet that it will only be another couple of years before China has overtaken both regions combined. It certainly is close enough for the original poster’s point to stand – that efforts to reduce US and European emissions will have no effect on CO2 induced climate change.
The more interesting comment by David was something to the effect that per capita, China’s output was only 37% that of the US. I am curious as to the point David was trying to make with this statistic. The only point I can take away from it is that he believes Americans should live at the level of the average Chinese peasant. Now if David Arpell wants to crap in an outdoor toilet and then shovel it into his organic garden, more power to him. I’m going to stick with flush toilets and shopping at Safeway.

Looks like someone’s painted himself into a corner and is counting on belligerence and bluster to win the day. After Dr. Gleick’s spectacular implosion, you’d think people would be a little more careful about this sort of thing.

Lewandowsky is just following Gleick’s example for what to do when caught lying.

* further

Has anyone suggested that Dr. Lewandowsky’s poor scholarship and inadequate methods were proposed to him or aided by other parties? Other than a conspiracy of one (inadequate approach) and doubtful abilities to formulate an argument, I have yet to see any conspiratorial thinking or evidence. OTOH, a method to try to “devaluate” the sceptical position by getting a rise and inordinate (hyserical) feedback from the blogosphere to prove a point about the targets of his invective (I am hesitant to use the d-word.)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/07/recursive_denail_fury/
It is now deleted from my favourites, shame really it use to be a good site.

Lewandowsky, Gleick, and others seem to resemble characters in old Roger Corman B-flicks such as The Little Shop of Horrors and Bucket of Blood, wherein a nerdy misfit’s inept attempt to rise within a subculture and get a girl meets with improbably wild success– for awhile– only to be turned into a period of bloody cover-ups and a final horrific revelation as the artifice unravels. More popcorn!

Alexwade – I agree that accusation without proof is very wrong. Do you think that applies here too? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/13/friday-funny-dr-michael-mann-keeps-interesting-company/#comment-1032509
REPLY: And when asked, the troll known as caerbannog666 refuses to answer the question. If it isn’t true, why the reticence to answer? Lousise you really need to get up to speed, as you keep striking out here. – Anthony

Well if someone REALLY wanted to turn the tables on him….
We’ve got copies of the questions? The survey site is free? Science is about reproducibility right?

“I would love to be able to release those emails if given permission”
Has he asked for permission? You’d think if he’d really “love” to release them, he would have at least asked for permission. And if he did ask for permission and was denied, you’d think he’d be all too happy to say he asked but was denied.

I’m anxiously waiting the permission to release this crucial information because it helps to identify people who engage in conspiratorial thinking rather than just searching their inboxes.
Desmogblog (http://s.tt/1mwBG)
Yeah, sure he is. /sarc/
Dr. Lewandowsky must know that he is in a serious jam. His blustering response will not help him out of it.

“If Lewandowsky sent an email, it likely ended up in SPAM. ”
Hi Anthony. Just to cover all bases, if your your email app has a SPAM filter log have you checked that log for processing the “missing” emails?
REPLY: it does have a SPAM log, and all quarantined emails are saved, but I routinely delete it. So there’s no record back to 2010 unfortunately. For example in just this past week, I deleted ~20,000 spam emails. As I’ve said many times, my email is a firehose. – Anthony

I wanted to survey some teamsters, so I had a friend of mine leave the surveys on the windshields of some trucks. I also went to my local university bookstore coffee shop and left some surveys there. I now have several survey responses and can write up an accurate paper describing what teamsters think.

This is getting silly. We have an expression here in Ireland, ‘If you find yourself in a hole, STOP digging’. Someone pass that along to Mr.Lewandowsky please.

manicbeancounter also reviewed the data that Lewandowsky collected (the version that was made public at least).
This is where the real contraversy is. His data does not even come close to supporting the claims made (let alone the fact that the collection method was salted). It should be withdrawn on this basis alone.
For example, of the 6 people who believed Nasa faked the moon landing, 4 of the 6 were strong/moderate believers in climate change theory. Same with most of the other conspiracy issues. The only correct claim is that skeptics are more likely to be free-market supporters (and believers are more likely to hold left-wing economic philosophies).
http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/09/01/lewandowsky-et-al-2012-motivated-rejection-of-science-part-3-data-analysis-of-the-conspiracy-theory-element/
Parts 1 through 5 of the review linked on the right side of manicbeancounters website.

The dog ate your email?

timg56 comments that

“The more interesting comment by David [Arpell] was something to the effect that per capita, China’s output was only 37% that of the US. I am curious as to the point David was trying to make with this statistic. The only point I can take away from it is that he believes Americans should live at the level of the average Chinese peasant.”

The bad news, Tim, is that Gina Rinehart in Australia, for one, certainly seems to feel just that way about us “wealthy” (though not nearly as wealthy as her) Westerners. The idea is not as unspeakable as it should be.
As for Lewandowsky, even “bizarre” hardly seems to cover it. I’m all agog for the next instalment.

F. Ross;
And even this is not foolproof as many systems do not offer a “Return Receipt” option [or so I have been informed].
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You’ve been informed correctly. Plus, even for systems that have that feature, it can be turned off at the administrator and the user level. I have my personal settings turned off, so read receipt requests are ignored by default.

darkgreendevils says:
September 7, 2012 at 8:29 am
“DeSmogBlog is the creation of James Hoggan and his PR company and Hoggan sits on David Suzuki’s board. …”
But keep following that line back: ThinkProgress’ Joe Romm said, “Ross Gelbspan, whose defining books Boiling Point and The Heat is On were a big part of the inspiration for starting the DeSmogBlog….” ( http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2008/01/07/202254/kudos-to-desmogblog/?mobile=nc )
David Suzuki’s web page on “Climate change deniers” links straight to Gelbspan’s site when speaking of the ‘fossil fuel industry guilt’ for skeptic scientists (4th paragraph http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/climate-change-basics/climate-change-deniers/ ).
In the references section of Lewandowsky’s paper are other ‘analysts’ who have papers, presentations, etc in which they make assertions that skeptic climate scientists are corrupted by fossil fuel industry money – Boykoff, Dunlap, Freudenburg, Lahsen, McCright, Mooney, Oreskes, Stephen Schneider. Each in turn cites a single source in their own writings and speeches to say skeptic climate scientists are paid by ‘big coal & oil’ to manufacture doubt about global warming: Ross Gelbspan.
And regarding the “Gleick” coincidence that commenter TomRude (September 7, 2012 at 8:29 am) suggested, I pointed out the Desmogblog/Gelbspan/Gleick/Gore associations back in February: “Fakegate Opens a Door: More than meets the eye in the Heartland controversy” http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/fakegate_opens_a_door.html
Funny thing about AGW promoters suggesting conspiracies on the part of skeptics, when what we have instead appears to be 20 solid years of efforts by enviro-activists to manufacture doubt about the credibility of the skeptics.

The way I see it, Lewandowsky is showing a perfect, perfect illustration of duck and weave.

So let’s get this figured out.
“Denier” spam boxes filter out the survey, but the “believers” spam filters let it through?
Sounds fishy !!!

F. Ross says:
September 7, 2012 at 12:02 pm

.. ask for a “Delivery Status Notification” AND a “Return Receipt”. And even this is not foolproof

—-
Your right about that. I never automatically acknowledge receipt. That just informs the sending bot that it’s a live E-mail addy that someone actually reads and asks for a magnitude increase in the amount of SPAM sent to it.

Not being original here, but our Stefan’s modus operandi reminds me of:

“But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”
“Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”
“But the plans were on display …”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”

” Steve C says:
September 7, 2012 at 12:30 pm
timg56 comments that
……………………………………….
The bad news, Tim, is that Gina Rinehart in Australia, for one, certainly seems to feel just that way about us “wealthy” (though not nearly as wealthy as her) Westerners. The idea is not as unspeakable as it should be.”
Steve C, are you in the pay of UWA?

As I posted on another thread (but highly relevant on this one too), Lewandowsky reveals himself to be a deeply biased proponent of one side in the climate wars:
Stephan Lewandowsky reviews Mann’s book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”
His “motivated reasoning” does not exactly help him to be a trustworthy judge of survey questions and data, scientific study of “climate skeptics” etc. when he is so fervently, uncritically allied to Michael Mann.
Lewandowsky is behaving as a highly partisan activist, not as a scientist.

How desperate are these people!
Sickos! Lewandowski Glick Mann Cook Redfern Romm vtf is wrong with these people? Lying fanatics and at the same time so obvious stupid that Mr Bean reflects as Einstein in compearance..

Watts Up With That has currently around 125 million hits.
It is a major forum for anyone interested in Climate.
Any study of the beliefs of CAGW Skeptics must surely be diminished if WUWT is not included.
Stephan Lewandowsky claims to have sent WUWT, ONE email asking for collaboration on his project.
An email which he is unwilling to publish, so that its validity, date, content etc can be confirmed.
1. Shouldn’t he have tried just a little harder?
2. Shouldn’t he publish the request, just to prove he tried at all?

Lewandowsky tries to discredit skeptics partly by pointing out that blogs are a primary medium through which skeptics publish their perspectives, saying “By definition, denial is difficult to practice in the peer-reviewed literature….The internet, by contrast, provides opportunity for individuals who reject a scientific consensus to feed ‘each other’s feelings of persecution by a corrupt elite’ (McKee & Diethelm, 2010, pp. 1310–1311). Accordingly, climate ‘skeptic’ blogs have become a major staging post for denial..”
It’s terribly unfair for him to say that, but we need to understand that this demeaning attitude towards blogs is pervasive. Accordingly, I believe WUWT and other skeptical blogs need to be STRIKINGLY different from the typical online blog. That means no more Hitler-parody videos or anything like that. It needs to be IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUS to anyone who ever visits this website that this is a serious place for serious discourse.

In 2010 John Cook of the notorious (and unreliable) SKepticalScience blog described working with a U. Western Australia cognitive scientist (it would appear to be Lewandowsky?) on cognition experiments about skepticism on climate change:
Cook and Lewandowksy collaborated on psych experiments in cognition?
(read the last few comments of the the thread)
A BH commentator guesses that the project may have been dropped and that Lewandowsky may have had pangs of scientific conscience, but that seems to be only guesswork. Did these experiments go forward, and did they involve Lewandowsky? It is well worth trying to determine if this project/experiment went further, or if it morphed into Lewandowsky’s later (very different) survey approach.
The Cook/SkS project involved having SkS regulars fabricate fake “skeptic” quotes on the blog for use in the experiment! They wanted to study cognition with and without exposure to various statements. One wonders if this went very far, and why they could not find real skeptic quotes to use.
Did Lewandowsky know of and endorse creating fake skeptic quotes which were publicly posted on the blog?? (were they ever posted or not?)
Psych experimenters might legitimately create statements within a study which are well vetted and controlled for, to study how people respond, but if fake “skeptics” were created on the public blog that might be a different kettle of fish.
It all sounds amateurish, unscientifice, and of dubious research ethics.

Lewandowski is the apocryphal ‘Egyptian fisherman’, with wet feet and a good view of the pyramids….
He is in de Nile, and it’s high time to wake up and smell the guacamole.
}:o(

Mann, Cook and frenzied followers must be about ready to throw Loosky under the bus.

Lewandowsky, when discussing the squalid Gleick affair (with numerous mis-statements of fact about Heartland, Gleick’s behavior, climate science, etc.), showed that he is a vehement radical unconstrained by facts and actual research:
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-morality-of-unmasking-heartland-5494

Lewandowsky thinks that because people claim to have not received their emails, that there’s some conspiracy going on. Complete hypocritical moron.

Gunga Din says:
September 7, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Lewandowsky: “People jump to conclusions on the basis of no evidence.”
Isn’t that how got “The Hockey Stick” in the first palce?
******************************************************************************
Not quite. The Hockey Stick was never a conclusion, it was the original intention, and data was chosen/altered to obtain a stick
Steve T

In Canada we had what was called in the media the “robo-calls” scandal. It was reported in the media that it was a big part of the reason the Conservative (our republican) party won the election. Someone was using an automated system to steer voters to the wrong polling stations. It was very quietly reported (not at all IMHO) that when the perpetrator was found, it turned out the source was a Liberal (democrat) constituency office. The mindset is appalling. Right in line with the Gleicks of the world. Win at any cost. Stick to the truth and you win the long game every time.

Ian Weiss says:
September 7, 2012 at 5:42 pm
“….
It’s terribly unfair for him to say that, but we need to understand that this demeaning attitude towards blogs is pervasive. Accordingly, I believe WUWT and other skeptical blogs need to be STRIKINGLY different from the typical online blog. ”
Ian, things are on the move and irrelevant how “pal-review” goes and irrelevant how deep they dug their heads in the sand when a blog review is putting the finger where it pains, with logic, data and quality review there is no way for them as to retract or to try to fix -as we have seen again and again.
Ignoring the blog will only postpone the inevitable and make the matter worst.
I love the example with NASA and rrresearch as it is not climate related.
Who ever heard of rrresearch? Certainly less people then the ones who heard of NASA. But in one blog review the red haired lady put the NASA paper – which proudly announced arsen to replace phosphor in living bacteria – to its place: the trash bin.
http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html
There are many good quality, skilled people out there who do not have the time or the vanity or the resources to put a paper through peer-review and publish, but they can read and point out the errors of many such papers within hours if they take the time to do so.
This is why blog review is becoming so relevant and this is why the warmista try now to spin “what to do with the contrarians”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/01/wuwt-is-the-focus-of-a-seminar-at-the-university-of-colorado/
WUWT has a great deal of such good quality people who know much about climate and hard sciences (physics, chemistry) this is why people like hanging around and reading through the comments, and this is why low quality papers once taken into focus get busted within days.
Similar communities gathered at climate audit, Jo Nova and some other.
They cannot silence the blogs, they cannot control them and they cannot ignore them.
Well, they try. This is why the demeaning attitude and comments.
But as “they” silenced discussion on “their” blogs, as they practice “pal-review” and “keep those papers out with any price” (or something like this), the result is they made blogs be great, because it is the only place where scientific conversation continues.