Guest post by A. Scott
There has been considerable discussion about the methodology and data regarding the recent 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” (copy here)
This allegedly peer reviewed paper claims their survey data show climate skeptics are supporters of wild conspiracy theories, such as “NASA faked the moon landing.” The author admits, however, no climate skeptic sites were involved in the survey, that essentially all survey results were obtained thru posting the survey on pro-global warming sites.
Due to the serious and legitimate questions raised, I have recreated the Lewendowsky Survey in an attempt to replicate and create a more robust set of replies, including from skeptic users.
Please click on the Lewandosky Survey Page above and you’ll be presented the survey. This survey replicates the questions, both the paper, and several sites have indicated were in the original survey, including those questions deleted from the survey results.
The only change was to use a 1 to 5 ranking vs. Lewandowsky’s 1 to 4, which several people with experience have noted should improve the overall responses.
Each visit to the survey is tracked. Access is password protected for an additional layer of tracking.
THE PASSWORD FOR THE SURVEY IS “REPLICATE” (case sensitive)
Please only complete and submit once. Also, please respond to each question with the answer that best reflects your position, even though the question may not be perfectly worded.
This survey is built on the Google Doc’s open access platform. Results are collected automatically. As no significant randomization or counterbalancing was performed on the original survey none is applied here. Data collected will be provided upon request.
A. Scott
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@A. Scott The response, in numbers and apparent quality, has been gratifying,
I have to ask, what is your basis of “quality of response”, apparent or otherwise?
I would take the survey, but every time I glance over at Elvis he shakes his head “no”.
I went back on my answers before NOT completing!
Some it seems to have changed!
DaveE.
Lewandowsky blogs today:
– ” I have several phone conversations scheduled for tomorrow, Monday, W.A. time, with the ethics committee at my university. I will report on the outcome as soon as a decision has been finalized.”
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySouljah.html
ethics committee? decision?
“””””……Researchers in history
and sociology frequently cite the \manufacture of doubt” by vested interests and political
groups as a factor (Jacques, Dunlap, & Freeman, 2008; McCright & Dunlap, 2003, 2010;
Mooney, 2007; Oreskes & Conway, 2010; Stocking & Holstein, 2009). For example, over
90% of environmentally sceptical books published since 1972 have been demonstrably
sponsored by conservative think tanks (Jacques et al., 2008). Oreskes…..”””””
I wonder if researchers in history and sociology frequently cite the \manufacture of doubt” by vested interests, such as academic /climate scientists” whose sole source of income rests on keeping the manmadeglobalwarmingclimatechange idea supplying them with grant money to continue “research” into issues that will never decide the issue; but continue to foment public fears.
What percentage of public climate scare articles, are demonstrably sponsored by business interests, who seek to profit, from “alternative energies” and other anti- energy interests often subsidized by taxpayer funding.
It seems that Jacques and Dunlap at least are showing a clear bias in their social studies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/31/1?INTCMP=SRCH
Poll of 1,000 British adults, by film company 20th Century Fox, in 2008
· 1 Area 51 exists to investigate aliens (48%)
· 2 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government (38%)
· 3 Apollo landing was a hoax (35%)
· 4 Diana and Dodi were murdered (32%)
· 5 The Illuminati secret society and masons are trying to take over the world (25%)
· 6 Scientologists rule Hollywood (17% )
· 7 Barcodes are really intended to control people (7%)
· 8 Microsoft sends messages via Wingdings (6%)
· 9 US let Pearl Harbour happen (5%)
· 10 The world is run by dinosaur-like reptiles (3%)
By far the biggest conspiracy is that someone can call themselves a “scientist in the School of Psychology”.
Psychologist are not scientist because psychology is not a science. It never has been, and that psychology, in all its many forms, entertains the ideas of being a science is just wrong.
There are many generalized ideas about the psychology of man but virtually no tried and tested, verified laws. Psychologists often employ only empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Additionally others may sometimes rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques. So much of it, especially in the last few years, has proved itself as just hokum dressed in a pseudo-scientific language.
The best that can be said is that psychology is just one of the lesser arts of the human consciousness, and occasionally it stumbles across techniques that benefits some individuals.
Rod … sorry you feel you wasted your time, but I tried to make it very clearly identified that leaving comments and providing contact info is entirely optional and voluntary (emphasis added):
Interestingly the optional, voluntary information respondents have left may be some of the more valuable benefits of the survey.
“””””…..climate deniers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to
exaggerate warming (e.g., Condon, 2009). In all those cases, the conspiracy theory serves
to explain away overwhelming scienti c evidence……”””””
Well i’m NOT a climate “denier”, and I don’t recall if the authors gave a formal definition of that term to match their “ideation” definition, and I DO believe that Temperature records have been adjusted; I’ve seen the blink comparator demonstration of James Hansen’s GISSTemp graphs, where decades old records were inexplicably lowered to create the illusion of a greater warming since. I’ll let the authors choose to describe that as illegitimate. I personally regard ANY alteration of already publicly published and presumably peer reviewed scientific data records, as fraudulent.
But I personally know of no conspiracy to fraudulently alter those records; but it IS a fact that the records WERE altered. As to that final sentence; I have no idea how a conspiracy theory can serve to explain away overwhelming scientific evidence. A more pertinent comment would be: Overwhelming scientific evidence of WHAT ??
That is the point; there IS no overwhelming scientific evidence that greenhouse gases are overheating planet earth. No quarrel with a statement that GHGs do lead to warming the atmosphere by intercepting a portion of the surface emitted long wave EM radiation, and also by intercepting a portion of incoming solar spectrum EM radiation, lead to cooling of the surface.
The vast majority of the “overwhelming scientific evidence” the authors are talking about, is unfortunately not provably related to manmadeglobalwarmingclimatechange; however interesting it might be to other disciplines of scientific knowledge.
The roundup of strawmen, the authors appeal to, to try and make their thesis, is simply a pitiful effort to make argument where none exists.
Whoever described this paper as crap, was right on target; and if in fact nobody, made that observation; then allow me to be the first to do so.
The question about burning fossil fuels causing global warming failed to mention that would be instead of abtaining the same amount of total global energy as fossil fuels deliver from PRESENTLY AVAILABLE alternative energy sources. It has not been proven that existing available alternative energy sources are less environmentally problematic, than burning fossil fuels.
Many so-called alternative energy sources, have not even been shown to be energy sources, rather than energy consuming schemes.
This is a new documentary that’s being aired by PBS
http://video.pbs.org/video/2270078138
It’s supposedly one of the most watched documentaries on PBS in recent weeks.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/332051
It’s not so easy to dismiss because the many, many professionals being interviewed are all practicing engineers in fields pertinent to the issue at hand, physicists, chemists, architects etc. None of them look deranged to me. In fact they all look quite sane AND qualified.
Also viewable on youtube:
uk(us): “Ever wonder why a crediable threat was never given to the U.S.
Smoking holes tell their own story.”
I’m not sure what you mean. Please elaborate.
As to the questions about the reason for declaring war on Iraq and Afghanistan, the real reason is that in both cases the Congress of the United States, which is Constitutionally charged with the authority to declare war, did so by majority votes in both houses of the Congress. Those votes followed an earlier vote to authorize the President to do whatever was necessary and appropriate to curb international terrorism. That vote was carried by a vote of 529 to 1 with five senators not voting (absent ?) The lone no vote by Communist Barbara Lee of Oakland who is educationally challenged, and doesn’t understand that a vote to not do that which is NECESSARY, is a fairly good definition of insanity. Nobody questioned her right to argue her view as to what might be necessary.
And yes the Constitution does NOT specify the required wording for a declaration of war; it doesn’t specify the wording of anything else the Congress can vote on either’ only that they alone have that authority.
These questions have to be some of the most poorly written imaginable. Some of the questions are based on events which have multiple official explanations. For example, the M.L. King assassination had two trials, one criminal trial and one later civil trial. It is a fact that the two trials reached differing conclusions. The criminal trial ruled against conspiracy, the civil in favor. Similarly the Kennedy assassination had two major governmental investigations, the original Warren Commission and the later 1979 (1980?) Congressional investigation. One said lone gunman, the other said multiple shooters. If the aim of the study is to somehow give a value judgement of the ability of survey responders to find the truth, then the reasonable assumption would be that the two assassinations were both conspiracies, since the later investigations (which presumably had access to more data since they were both done after more investigation than the first reports) both found for conspiracy. Does that mean that non-conspiracy believers refuse to update outmoded opinions?
The best reason, among a dozen or so reasons, was Saddam’s repeated violation of the terms of the 1992 Cease Fire agreement. ‘Nuff said.
Unable to respond intelligently to criticism, Lewandowsky continues on his contemptible path with a bizarre ranting post about cabals and “Sister Souljah” moments:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySouljah.html
Rather than address any substantive issues about his Psychological Science article and survey, he behaves like a squid squirting ink, trying desperately to obscure the waters. He thinks smearing critics is a way for him to avoid the reckoning. It is not working, Professor.
Tom Curtis joins in with comments, apparently trying to recoup his standing with the charlatans of SkS by allying himself with Lewandowsky in the new smears of evil “deniers”. I notice that John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli are among the fellow authors at the pitiful blog “ShapingTomorrowsWord” for which Lewandowsky is a co-Principal:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/authors.htm
This is a sad, pathetic band of wannabes clustered around the University of Western Australia. Lewandowsky thought he could propel his little clique of green groupies into the big time; instead, he will end by discrediting and humiliating all who do not rapidly distance themselves from his babblings.
oops, typo, “ShapingTomorrowsWorld” is the name of that blog
Anthony and Willis, two people I respect, have endorsed this survey. So depite the reservations I expressed in an earlier comment, I tried to answer it. However, after entering the password the page refreshes with no change. I’ve tried switching off add-blockers and such but to no avail. Any ideas?
Lewandowsky can speak with authority on the subject of unsustainability, considering his very large house, with swimming pool, backing on to a golf course that requires a 60 kilometer commute by car to the UWA.
David Ross;
However, after entering the password the page refreshes with no change.
>>>>>>>>>>
I ran into the same thing initially. Turned out that scrolling with the mouse wheel was the problem. Scrolling by clicking on the side bar enabled me to expose the parts of the survey from the top and in proper increments. Your root cause may be different then mine, but I think it is a browser compatibility issue. If that doesn’t work for you, try a different browser.
A. Scott, I’ll just ditto Smokey’s compliment to you above and thanks for all of your time re-constructing a copy of Lewandowsky’s survey. It has shown exactly the response I suspected it would show, for far to many here have the scientific intelligence to see completely through it and I for one am grateful to most of the great comments above.
lol, amusing comment on the Lewandowsky article, probably won’t last with all the snipping that is going on there:
===============================================================
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySouljah.html
18. LewPaper at 11:56 AM on 10 September, 2012
This blog’s policies emphasize “civil and substantive” discussions and fostering “conditions for reasoned debate”.
Do authors and members of the Editorial Board actually regard Professors Lewandowsky’s last several articles here as “civil and substantive”?
Does the smearing of all sources of criticism foster “conditions for reasoned debate”?
Across the academic and policy worlds this blog is an extreme outlier, a locus of reckless ad hominems and slovenly discourse. Its sponsors and and contributors should be deeply ashamed of what Professor Lewandowsky has done to this forum. Thank you for your consideration.
If you read his paper you see that Lewandowsky believes in the theory of “manufacture of doubt” as an organized effort by certain nefarious organizations to undermine well-established scientific facts they find detrimental to their interests (smoking and cancer, whatever). Okay, maybe there is something to that, but that’s definitely a conspiracy theory. No doubt about it. And he believes the skeptics who write papers questioning the case for catastrophic global warming are an active part of a conspiracy to “manufacture doubt” about what he thinks is a “well-established” scientific fact.
In this case, the negative load of the word “conspiracy” doesn’t seem to bother him. Because it’s his pet conspiracy theory. But he is very happy to use this loaded phrase, conspiracy theory, to smear skeptics with it by sending out some nonsensical survey where most of the questions are ill posed on purpose and don’t even allow “I don’t know” as an answer. His paper is a unique mixture of pseudoscientific trash and manipulative bad faith. I can’t believe this thing will be published anywhere.
The page seemed to be broken, but I managed to complete the survey after a simple cut and paste. For what it’s worth, my comment at the end of the survey is regurgitated here:
Asking what I think are the numbers out of 100 “professional” scientists and medical students is fallacious. This requires someone like myself, a non-professional to base my answer on those requiring certain results within their professions to remain employed.
The answer will be skewed and results cannot be derived from this.
Certainly, smokers CAN develop lung cancer – but many also don’t. Notably, non-smokers CAN also develop lung cancer, which means that smoking isn’t definitely causative.
Similarly with climate change, there have been no measurable results regarding human emissions. Instead, ocean oscillation patterns and solar activity bear closer resemblance, however so-called “climate scientists” are now deriving “positive” results from computer models that have little or no ability to model the effects of clouds and, almost completely ignore ocean oscillations and solar activity.
NASA have noted climates becoming warmer on Mars and other planets, however we still cling to the fanciful notion that we on Earth are causing this on our own planet. This is both shameful and neurotic and harks back to the 1300’s where “witches” were burned at the stake for crop failures.
If CO2 were the powerful mechanism behind climate, Earth would have had a runaway greenhouse millions of years ago when levels were some 20 times higher. How is it possible that we still have frosty mornings and can freeze to death in deserts on clear nights if CO2 is supposedly such a good insulator? Do these “scientists” actually remember OBSERVING frosty mornings don’t occur in overcast conditions and why this might be so? Their precious models likely can’t account for that.
If CO2 is such a thermal god at such low concentrations (currently 0.039% – 390ppm), wouldn’t we expect people to burn their tongues on their own exhalations on a sunny day at 4%, or 40,000ppm?
Notably, Aragonite corals evolved in high-CO2 climates, in an ocean that can never become acidic enough.
This is proven by placing eggshell (calcium carbonate) in soda water. The shell will never dissolve in this water that’s thousands of times more CO2 and carbonic acid concentrated than seawater can ever become.
Warm water also can’t absorb as much CO2 as cold water, so if any global warming occurs, how are the oceans to become acidic at all?
This survey is scientifically invalid and biased.
One last suggestion for the poll is to include the statement
“The People have a right to all data, information, assumptions, methods, reports produced etc. by taxpayer funded research because they already paid for it up front so it’s their data.”
Strongly Agree or Strongly Disagree