Guest post by W. Jackson Davis (who attended the seminar today as listed below)
The contrarian discourse in the blogosphere–what are blogs good for anyway?
Franziska Hollender, Institute for Social Studies of Science, University of Vienna CSTPR Conference Room, 1333 Grandview Avenue. Tuesday Sept. 11, 2012
Summary from CSTPR
The media serve to inform, entertain, educate and provide a basis for discussion among people. While traditional media such as print newspapers are facing a slow decline, they are being outpaced by new media that add new dimensions to public communication with interactivity being the most striking one. In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians? Some propose that the contrarian discourse is merely an annoying sideshow, while others think that it
is science’s responsibility to fight them. Blogs, being fairly unrestricted and highly interactive, serve as an important platform for contrarian viewpoints, and they are increasingly permeating multiple media spheres.
Using the highly ranked blog ‘Watts up with that’ as a case study, discourse analysis of seven posts including almost 1600 user comments reveals that blogs are able to unveil components and purposes of the contrarian discourse that traditional media are not. They serve as extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science, however, blog users themselves do not see post-normal science as a desirable goal. Furthermore, avowals of distrust can be seen as linguistic performances of accountability, forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again. Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.
Approximate Transcript by W. Jackson Davis
(vetted for accuracy by Ms. Hollender)
Introduction
I did this study because this “mediated” society [one blanketed with diverse media] calls the integrity of science into question. A changing media landscape provides new possibilities for public discussion and participation.
Anthony Watts received an invitation to this talk and posted it online. It received 476 comments. The comment section verified my results and provided extended peer-review at the same time.
This study was done as a Master’s thesis–a small scale study by a graduate student. I sampled 7 blog posts by Anthony Watts between 2006 and 2012. I used principles of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, Wodak). The climate blog “Watt’s Up With That” (WUWT) is ranked 118 of more than one million. WUWT gets 3 million hits per month. My results should be seen as an in-depth case study rather than overview of the field.
Discourse analysis–my primary methodology–is used to analyze prevalent power structures and views language as a social practice. provides overview of prevalent power structures.
Results
Normal science (as promulgated by Thomas Kuhn) is seen as the goal by bloggers above all else. However, their request is to provide people broadly with the means and education to evaluate and disseminate the scientific data they provide, which does not fit with the principles of normal science in which the production and review of results of inquiry stay inside the scientific community and even within a certain paradigmatic community.
Post-normal science (defined by Funtowitcz and Ravetz) as practiced by the blogger community is described as anti-scientific, yet the blog community does extended peer-review and demands the further opening of science towards the public. She believes that whether post-normal science is anti-scientific may be debatable.
Post-normal science is, in her view, a description, not a prescription. Normal science no longer fits with complex socio-economic factors that influence science.
Analyzing the seven WUWT posts, she finds discursive strategies on WUWT to include ridicule, personal attacks, and name-calling. She says this is formally discouraged on the site, but nonetheless occurs.
Narrative structures utilized on WUWT include: 1) Scientific data dissemination. 2) Critique of scientific findings. 3) Social and political implications of climate change. 4) Climate change as a political tool to challenge capitalism and impose a new model of wealth onto the American public.
Comment thread narratives include: 1) The authority and trustworthiness of science. 2) The role of science in society. These are often discussed at length.
Discussion
Science itself is not a sound action-basis and does not determine what the results of scientific inquiry imply for society. Science is not free of values and beliefs, it is not done under the exclusion of social, economic and political factors.
Data represent a social construction. Who constructs the data, and for what purpose, is relevant to the analysis. Nothing is without (observational) bias. In fact data construction is never unbiased. There is always a translation between the observed phenomenon,what we observe and what we record as the data that represent what we have observed.
The choice of media arena is crucial to the discourse. Some people say blogs, and post-normal science, is a sideshow (WUWT), irrelevant, and unimportant. However, choice of media is crucial. This is among the reasons she wanted to research it.
Gate-keeping exists implicitly and explicitly on blogs, including WUWT. Censorship is taking place. Hostile comments prohibit an open and constructive discourse–but gate-keeping is no longer imposed by the medium but by human intervention. Interactivity is high, manifest as responses to posts and subsequent responses to posters.
Not all of this is true for WUWT–there is definitely gate-keeping, however. Certain kind of comments are welcome, while others are deleted by the site manager (gate-keeper).
There are very few dissenting comments on WUWT, and if so, they are viciously attacked. Self-selection of contributors therefore takes place, under the influence of and to avoid prospective attacks on views expressed.
These are all things that happen at WUWT–it is not that free, not everyone is welcome. There is gate-keeping.
Interactivity of the WUWT blog is high. No post has less than 50 comments, and the seven posts analyzed here received up to 400 comments.
Example: The post advertising this talk was published on Sept. 1, 2012, receiving at least 476 comments. Personal attacks on Ms. Hollender were commonplace, including “This girl has a brain the size of a peanut.”
She experienced extensive misunderstanding of certain terms and notions “science as ideology, “avowals of distrust, “linguistic performances.” Plans to disrupt and intervene in her presentation were posted. One comment said to offer her another Zoloft and put her by the window, she’ll enjoy the bright colors in the sunlight.”
On the plus side, the constant questioning encompassed in blog comments holds scientists accountable. She agrees with this function, which she considers valuable. This is what she expressed as avowals of distrust, which is a term from speech-act theory and describes linguistic performances that accomplish something beyond a statement.
The example of the post announcing her talk, and the many responses, illustrate exactly some of the problems she sees with the blog. About 250 have nothing to do with her talk, and instead diverge to off-track issues–and there is no formal mechanism to keep the comments on track.
Responses
Post-normal science is a description, not a prescription. It is something that is happening, not something that should be happening. We have problems now, certain things are at stake. What comes out of science is one thing–what we do with it is another.
“Science is not an ideology, but it is not free of values and beliefs–and what role science plays in our society is a matter of ideology.”
“Blogs are an underrated media arena and need to be taken more seriously in academia–extended peer review works very well in the Blogosphere, but constructive discourse is not happening because of personal attacks and ridicule.”
Peer-review needs to be extended toward wider public, “extended peer review” using non-traditional approaches. People who are not expert in the field should engage, look at material, point out mistakes. This function works very well in the blogosphere. Often papers are reviewed like this (example of Roger Pielke on his blog). This facilitates uncovering of mistakes and inconsistencies. Constructive discourse is mixed up, however, with “noise”–personal attacks, non-constructive replies, etc.
Every scientist used to criticism–but not used to being called “ridiculous.” Blogs would work better without the non-constructive discourse.
She personally takes no position on climate change in order to remain objective in her analysis. She is unbiased, deliberately avoids sitting in either of the corners.
“Q and As”
Q: Are you personally involved [in the issue of climate change and its causes]?
A. No, she deliberately avoids taking either side on ethical grounds. She will not engage, because this would compromise her objectivity.
Q. Productive criticisms emerge from this blog–does same come out of journals? Does vitriol facilitate critical attitude even though it is harsh?
A. Yes, generates content and visibility, and so vitriol is not all bad. It can lead to constructive discourse. Also steers away many people. Also generates a lot of media attention.
Re: open source journals–they still stay within the scientific boundaries. You can access them, though it is hard if you are a lay person. Blogs a better medium to reach a wider public than just your own colleagues. Access is not the same. Blogs are superior in this regard.
Q. Have you observed any difference between Anglo sphere blog tradition and European tradition?
A. She has not read many German blogs–not as many. She does read some institutional blogs, but there is less of a divide in Germany than in US, so do not have two oppositional views on climate. Don’t have the same diversion of opinion in Europe.
Q. How can you learn and take back to journals to get them to engage a broader audience?
What can the journals do [to reap this benefit of blogs]?
A. The journal Nature Climate Change offers a possible model–it has moved to an online format, there are chat rooms. There is still a barrier to access, however. The reason is economic; when you have a print journal, have to pay for it. The access [under this business model] cannot be free to everyone. Individuals can always seek out information by going to a University library, but this is not generally done. Nature Climate Change has made a step toward broader access with online forum. Scientific journals do use a certain kind of language, but it is not journals’ responsibility to teach this to the public, it is the responsibility of each individual.
Q. Your presentation is concerned with discourse between two groups [“warmists” and “skeptics”]; how do you view the two camps and where do you sit?
A. She is still undecided on the science. She feels she cannot take either side because she does not have all the [scientific] information required. She is not a climate scientist–she is undecided. Adapting to climate change may require certain lifestyle changes, which she does embrace (such as recycling). She nonetheless believes that it is important to keep an open mind on both sides. Science never proves anything beyond doubt. Still, the question remains as to what we should do about climate change. The precautionary principle is important–it is essential to act sooner than later.
Q. Do blogs help generate new ideas and avenues of research?
A. Different roles of commenters–there is the police function, aimed at exerting power and silencing oppositional voices. Another role is productive–criticism, reinforcement, engaging information.
Q. Do you see same people serving the same role repeatedly, or do people switch roles?
A. Both. Blogs are more complex than they appear.
Q. My question is about the blogs’ influence on the relation of “normal” and “post-normal” science. Many people who post on WUWT do so because they cannot get their findings published in what they consider a biased and even corrupted climate science peer-review system. Do the blogs enable exposure of new ideas that can enter the discourse of “normal” science?
A. She only looked at Watt’s posts, and not at the guest posts that would pertain more to this question. Guest posts are written by knowledgeable people. She cannot judge whether guest posters would be able to publish what they write on WUWT. It is generally not clear whether they tried. Anyone can write anything they want–there probably are ideas that do not have peer review that can be beneficially published on blog.
Q. Do other blogs have a more balanced or “intermediate” view on climate change? I am thinking of the Judith Curry blog–is this an intermediate view on climate?
A. Judith Curry has adopted “warmist” views [views supportive of the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming], in Watt’s opinion, but her blog gets many diverse comments as well. Interaction between bloggers is interesting. Most blogs have distinct viewpoints, but none encourage diverse views.
Comment from audience. Competitive discourse as on blogs may be a “purer” method of sorting out the “truth.” Aristotle used in his rhetoric. Blogs may be modern equivalent. Gecker [sp?] and Posner [sp?] at the University of Chicago have economic blog where they debate each other on economic matters using this format.
Reply. There is initiative in Europe called “deliberative democracy”–citizens have access to information and experts. It works well, although it takes a lot of effort and expense.
Comment from audience. People are generally getting very negative on blogs right now in U.S., maybe because of the political season.
Reply. She says this is part of the reason she looked at 2006-2012–she wanted to integrate over time. She wanted to control for short-term fluctuations, including seasonal and political, as a kind of “control.”
Comment from audience. There is a major misunderstanding of [your position on] blogs — you (she) is not taking a side, but rather just describing what is going on.
Reply. She agrees–she does not take sides. She is descriptive, not prescriptive. She feels very misunderstood in that regard.
Comment from audience. A book that comes to mind is Republic of Science, by Ian C. Jarvie. He edited some journal the philosophy of social science. He defends an Anglo-American norm, very much non consciously adopted by most scientists. Ravetz came out that it is the urgency of the matter that drives standards.
Reply. She replies that post-normal science does NOT promote lower standards…one of the main problems is that whether climate change is taking place, and whether anthropogenic. The other side is concerned with what to do about it after having adopted what they perceive as a scientific consensus, so the discussion between the two opposing groups is not about the same thing anymore, which makes it frustrating for both sides.
______________________________________________________________________
The representative of the host organization, CSTPR, stated that both audio and visual of this seminar will be posted on sciencepolicyColorado.edu in the next couple of weeks.
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Comment by Anthony:
For the record, Ms. Hollender never contacted me nor asked any questions online that I am aware of. She states that she sampled seven WUWT blog posts to come to her conclusions. As of this writing, there are 7,764 published stories, which would make her sample size 7/7764 = ~ 0.0009 or .09%. I think that if I were to do a study with a sample size that small, I’d probably be laughed at.
Since she chose what posts to sample, I have no idea what if any personal bias she might have intentionally or inadvertently introduced by her choices. I do know this though, her statement of:
Interactivity of the WUWT blog is high. No post has less than 50 comments, and the seven posts analyzed here received up to 400 comments.
The “no post has less than 50 comments” is demonstrably false. There are many many posts at WUWT which have less then 50 comments, especially in the early days of 2006 and 2007. However, even recent posts such as:
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup for 9/9/2012
…has only 7 comments, so this suggests to me that she wasn’t very careful with her sampling methods, and perhaps used personally formed opinions rather than hard data to come to that conclusion.
Also as of this writing there are 895,357 approved comments and the traffic count is at 125,607,045 views.
I don’t claim WUWT to be the perfect venue, and clearly there are many things that could be done better here, but I think the numbers speak for themselves. If there’s any other climate blog that can garner that kind of reach, please let me know. I encourage her to do an identical study on RealClimate, and note what she finds there, especially when it comes to gatekeeping.
UPDATE: Just a few minutes after posting, Fran Hollender responded in comments. Here’s that comment along with my reply:
Fran Submitted on 2012/09/11 at 9:39 pm
I wish you had consulted me on your added comments, too. In my talk I specifically said that in my sample (!), no post had less than 50 comments.
REPLY: It certainly doesn’t read that way, and you vetted the document by W. Jackson Davis before posting was done here. Not knowing which posts you sampled, I can’t confirm anything of what you talked about.
And further, how could I contact you? You’ve never revealed yourself to me or to WUWT that I am aware of….until now. But a search shows you commented under a fake name here on 02/07/2012 as “thedetroiter”.
Here’s the two comments:
===============================
thedetroiter 2012/02/07 at 4:27 am
Oh, as an addition: even here in Germany we know not to trust anything the BILD writes. Most of you won’t understand the BILDblog, but its mission is to debunk their bullshit.
Before using a BILD article as a basis for an argument, thing again. Next time maybe just enjoy the naked ladies and move on.
================================
thedetroiter Submitted on 2012/02/07 at 3:25 am
Right. Green activist, you say? Vahrenholt was a lobbyist for Shell and responsible for “improving their public image”. He now works for one of the biggest energy companies in Germany.
================================
These suggest you have biases too.
– Anthony
UPDATE2: Fran has responded to criticisms in a lengthy comment here
If so, they should call it “Post Normal-Science,” not “Post-Normal Science” or the ambiguous “Post Normal Science,”
= = = = = =
more soylent green!,
As I continue my premise detecting activity on her seminar’s argument I will keep your comment in mind.
In my view science is just normal application of a normal human being’s natural and normal cognitive capabilities. Anyone with an interest in accessing the necessary cold hard reasoning that is available to us all and willing to work hard can do it. I mean anyone. So I do not preclude her achievement of science understanding yet, I am still in my analysis. : )
Thanks.
John
Give it a year.
More about Boykoff…
…looks like we’re approaching the heart of the Climate-PNS beast…
…it lives in the bowels of Boulder…
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_4100/slides_jan26.pdf
“will climate governance create an enabling environment where ‘climate capitalism’ is compatible with climate change mitigation and adaptation?
OR will carbon markets exists as isolated sites of accumulation in an economy separated from climate reduction efforts?
•‘climate capitalism’ – system where capitalist imperatives of accumulation are achieved through low carbon economic growth
•future paths? ‘cowboy climate capitalism’ vs. ‘climate Keynesianism’”
Oops! No mention of “What if the theory of CO2AGW is, ahem, WRONG”?
Impartiality rocks. I smell a Muller.
rogerknights says:
September 12, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Or ask a Spaniard if you’re impatient.
More links about Franziska Detroiter’s future mentor Boykoff:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/about_us/meet_us/max_boykoff/
So he’s a kind of American Schellnhuber.
Here he gives his opinion in the WaPo.
“A dangerous shift in Obama’s ‘climate change’ rhetoric”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-dangerous-shift-in-obamas-climate-change-rhetoric/2012/01/26/gIQAYnwzVQ_story.html
Impartiality. Shaken, not stirred.
@richardscourtney says:
September 12, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Well said; hear, hear!
DirkH says:
The quote of “thedetroiter” where she expresses the desire to rule the peons via means of the UN has vanished from her Flickr stream.
&
The blog “thedetroiter” is now marked as private.
The blog “ScrewKyoto”, also maintained by Fran Hollender, is also now marked as private.
Fran’s Twitter account indicates that she “follows” these people:
ActionForOurPlanet
Chris Mooney
Climate Progress
Yale Climate Project
DeSmogBlog
John Resiman @ur momisugly RealClimate
Peter Gleick
OneClimate
ClimateTruth
WUWT
Marc Morano
Cato Inst.
Michael Mann
Andy Revkin
Max Boykoff
LearnMoreAboutClim8
InsidetheGreenHouse
This list does not suggest the lack of bias claimed by the researcher. Neither does having a blog called ScrewKyoto, let alone the act of hiding it from public view now.
Fran asks:“However, how is this relevant to my work? Why does it matter what I once wrote about myself years ago, who really cares about my personal life, and why SHOULD you care?”
From the standpoint of science, we shouldn’t.
On the other hand, “Post Normal Science” encourages us to judge the “quality” of the research that is presented to us by (among other methods) examining the “values” and “motives” of the researcher. This is the system of inquiry that you are promoting. Stop whining about it.
JJ says:
September 12, 2012 at 12:51 pm
I disagree strongly about the “We shouldn’t” because Franziska has made it clear – or at least pretended – to NOT engage in the question of climate science but only in the question of the “power structures” immanent in this blog’s discourse.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I think we’re just examining the power structure behind the hidden networks of the warmist-social science complex; we are making no judgment at all about the veracity of the theory of CO2AGW on this thread.
And I think we did a splendid analysis.
Dear Franziska, from the very first moment I read the post it immediately struck me:
“Ils n’ont rien appris ni rien oublié:”
“Science is not free of values and beliefs, it is not done under the exclusion of social, economic and political factors.
Data represent a social construction. Who constructs the data, and for what purpose, is relevant to the analysis. Nothing is without (observational) bias.”
Who needs this kind of science? Data a social construction? Memories of communist science scream out of the print. Yes there was the time when science had a clear social bias and imprint. We have seen the results, there is abundant material in the former communist countries.
“The contrarian discourse in the blogosphere–what are blogs good for anyway” – this comes out impertinent in tone. The tone strikes from the very beginning and goes down through the discurse.
“Nothing is without (observational) bias. In fact data construction is never unbiased. There is always a translation between the observed phenomenon, what we observe and what we record as the data that represent what we have observed.”
Is it so? Now it is clear why the temperature is different when read by different people. People who understand “the science” see it with different eyes, it is a subjective and not objective temperature measurement. Is this what this sentence tries to communicate? It is exactly to remove subjectivity as much as possible that raw data needs to be produced, methodology needs to be clarified and the experiment needs to be reproducible.
If the results are not reproducible this is not science.
“The choice of media arena is crucial to the discourse. Some people say blogs, and post-normal science, is a sideshow (WUWT), irrelevant, and unimportant. However, choice of media is crucial. This is among the reasons she wanted to research it.”
I feel irritated by this linking of post-normal science to blogs review. I do not feel and would not support post normal science. I would love to read about science. Science which is using the scientific method and is reproducible. This is not only the case of climate science, it is the same for social science (sic), medicine and other. And it is very important:
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
What is becoming irrelevant is the former MSM which is becoming legacy media, not blogs. Blogs offer a much more efficient way of communication and analysis, synthesise the feedback from many persons (if this is allowed) what really happens at WUWT. It is a great, active community here.
This is the strenghts of blogs and you seem to have missed it.
“There are very few dissenting comments on WUWT, and if so, they are viciously attacked. “
Is this comment your showing “data is social construction”? “Who constructs the data, and for what purpose, is relevant to the analysis.”?
Please show the data which is the basis of this statement. You cannot make such affirmations without underlying it with data. Please compare it and make analysis with other blogs. I have my subjective understanding in the blogosphere and would like to compare it with your data to make it more objective
If a phenomenon cannot be replicated, if its replication depends on the social group the person doing the experiment belongs to, then it is not science. There cannot be airplanes and rockets, trains and computers that work based on such science.
Dear Franziska you again say you: “takes no position on climate change in order to remain objective in her analysis. She is unbiased, deliberately avoids sitting in either of the corners.”
You also do not like the word “ridicule” especially used like below, but how can one not laugh and not use the word ridicule when you would like to show yourself unbiased, not taking positions on climate change but posts a title like “In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians? “
Where did the question arise? Who asked this question? Why is anything to do with the contrarians? Why do you want to do something to me?
So she has confirmed that she is thedetroiter – and therefore lied outright to her audience in the talk above regarding her postion.
Is there no depths these propagandists will not sink to?
You make me sick Fran. Like Lewandowsky you’re an example of everything that is wrong with Western academia and you don’t even have the humility to apologise when caught out.
thedetroiter;
I appreciate that many people here are not familiar with discourse analysis, but it really isn’t fair to lash out at a methodology where all you know about it is a Wikipedia post. Go ahead, read a book on it, then make up your mind.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well Fran, right back at you. You admit you are not familiar with climate science. You state that you are not interested in it, you instead want to move on to discuss what to do about it.
You can’t see how it is fair for people who are not familiar with discourse analysis to lash out at it. You recommend that they read a book on it and them make up their own minds.
Yet you feel perfectly comfortable dismissing out of hand the opinions of those of us who are familiar with the very science that you dismiss out of hand. Who are you to dismiss us, many of whom are engineers, physcists, chemists, and researchers directly active in climate science itself with an imperial wave of your hands? Does the advice “read a book on it” not apply to you?
The fact of the matter is that you have wilfully blinded yourself. You have admitted you know nothing about the science, made no effort to learn about it, and instead simply define the discussion as belonging to two groups. One you define as being obsessed about the science in the manner that serves no further purpose, the other has having moved on to a discussion about what to do about the science, a group you have openly admitted to identifying yourself with.
Why is it Fran, that the more someone knows about climate science, the more likely they are to be a skeptic? Why is it Fran, that you can see the limitations of those who are not familiar with discourse analysis, and recommend that they read a book, but you cannot see that same failing in yourself when it comes to discussing climate science? Why do you get a free pass to “decide” what is truth and what isn’t in climate science? Should you not seek at least the same level of expertise you demand of others to have a conversation about discourse analysis before having a conversation about climate science?
Your entire thesis is that the science is settled, and there is a need to move onto a discussion about what to do about it. What to do about it appears to include what to “do” about the “contrarians”, not as a means of confirming the science one way or the other, but to marginalize them from the conversation altogether in order to concentrate only upon what to “do” about the climate.
This is the language of totalitarians. This is the language of those who propose that their value systems trump all others, and rather than confront valid objections, that the means to silence the objectors is instead the preferred method. You are channeling Pol Pot. Hitlet. Genghis Khan. And you don’t even know it.
Worst of all, it has never entered your mind that we might be right, and that the costs of mitigation will kill billions more than the negative impact of the “solutions” that you imagine. Perhaps you even imagine a new world order (your aspirations to rule others as a member of the UN having been noted already) and come up with some “final solution” to the climate issues. Unfortunately Fran, “final solutions” have a tragic history that you don’t seem to understand you are in fact flirting with. If you are so foolish as to temp history’s penchant for teaching through repetition, then that is your choice. But all the derision heaped upon you, much of justifiably so, is from those of us who HAVE learned histories lesssons and have no intention of repeating it with you as either propononent or victim. We’ll fight you every step of the way.
Sea level rise is decelerating
The ice caps have not melted, and total global ice has declined only marginaly
The glaciers will not be gone by 2035 and many, many of them are growing, not shrinking.
Manhatten is not under water, decades after the prediction was made by still current climate “scientists” that it would be.
The best predictions of climate “scientists” were for much higher temperatures than we have today at CO2 levels much lower than we have today.
Despite obvious manipulation of the temperature record, it STILL shows no significant warming for the last 15 years.
But most of all Fran, the effects of CO2 are logarithmic. Don’t know what that means? Go read a book on it and make up your own mind. Until you do, you are nothing more than a lobbyist grasping for power, and the insults and derision you have encountered in this thread don’t even come close to what you deserve. People like you fail for the most part, to achieve your agenda. The problem young lady, is that when people like you succeed, death follows you in the hundreds of millions.
When you are done reading a book on the lograithmic effects of CO2, I suggest you venture into the history of man’s inhumanity to man, and how easily your flippant dismissal of “contrarians” turns into holocaust.
“Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.”
Lets just push that through the de-wanking translator…..
We’d like uncritical approval of our political action agenda without going to the bother of justifying it with reproducible evidence; or the effort of calculating costs and benefits.
Anthony: “I encourage her to do an identical study on RealClimate, and note what she finds there, especially when it comes to gatekeeping.”
Being Ms. Hollender’s work/paper was “The contrarian discourse in the blogosphere–what are blogs good for anyway?” and going with (assuming) Ms. Hollender having only reviewed posts at WUWT and never reviewed RealClimate (or equivalent there of); then it would seem Ms. Hollender is biased. Ms. Hollender clearly believes AGW is real since she choose WUWT to be the contrarian in her work/paper.
Ms. Hollender’s work/paper comes off as a case of an AGW supporter complaining about those who are resistant to propaganda.
thedetroiter / Fran
“I appreciate that many people here are not familiar with discourse analysis, but it really isn’t fair to lash out at a methodology where all you know about it is a Wikipedia post. Go ahead, read a book on it, then make up your mind.”
– That’s where you’re wrong. I’m loathe to admit it, I can barely believe we can be considered part of one of the same disciplines – but as one STS scholar to another I redirect you to Bruno Latour’s all out assault on the social sciences and discourse analysis in ‘Reassembling the Social’, backed by a similarly all out assault on both continental and analytic philosophy. I doubt you’ll understand his critique as he goes very deep into philosophy (attacking the Kantian Subject/Object division from which so many other controversies are unnecessarily derived, including the very basis of “discourse analysis”) and you’ll likely claim that you don’t understand enough philosophy to be able to grasp it.
Mike Ozanne: “We’d like uncritical approval of our political action agenda without going to the bother of justifying it”
Exactly. The Alarmists just hate having to justify there Taxpayer funding and power grabbing regulations.
Franziska,
Presented for your edification.
Here is Richard Feynman explaining what science is. 10 min.
Here he is again discussing pseudo-science. 2 min.
Franziska Hollender,
In addition to the two premise faults in your seminar presentation that I think you committed (John Whitman on September 12, 2012 at 11:23 am @ur momisugly thedetroiter on September 12, 2012 at 10:42 am) I ask you to consider these two additional problematic premises of your seminar talk.
The third premise problem in your seminar talk is the invalid presumption that current freedom of speech in climate science dialogs on any venue anywhere requires a sociopolitical focus on (in your own words) “In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians?” You merely postulate there is a problem with freedom of speech in voluntary open public climate science venues when it does not actually exist, then you discuss a non-applicable subjective sociopolitical PNS solution to the non-problematic free of speech.
The fourth premise problem with your seminar talk is subtle and ubiquitous to virtually all CAGW protagonist arguments: the hidden false obstruction premise. This is the false premise that says if you are not for us then you must be against us; which by the way is a false dichotomy. When you (Franziska) say (again) “In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians?” then you are implicating obstruction by someone; in this case by your so-called ‘contrarians’. Yet you did not and cannot manifestly justify this hidden premise; which you seem to just culturally inherit from the hype of the media focused activists. The activists who openly advocate radical ideology which is seeking to influence scientific communities to scientifically endorse sociopolitical imposition of their (the activist’s) radical ideology.
I look forward to an open dialog with you wrt your premises. More premise problems with your seminar talk will be posted later in this thread.
John
In the notes about Hollender’s talk, I’m pretty sure the bloggers with University of Chicago affiliations are Gary Becker and Richard Posner.
Fran said:
“In order to do qualitative, not quantitative work, it is less important to have large samples and more important to study the sample thouroughly”
Then perhaps you should have gone to RealClimate for your data.
They need all the attention they can get these days. Given that they are all good objective scientists, I’m sure they’d be in a much better position to appreciate your analysis of gatekeeping, ridicule, attacks and so forth on their site.
A couple of helpful questions you might consider as topics for your next assignment:
What have your learned?
What would you do different next time?
Granted, Ms. Hollender’s study is limited in scope, but she did say as much at the beginning of her talk. Also granted, the study has logical and methodological limitations and faults, many of which are highlighted in this lively discussion thread.
Notwithstanding the study’s shortcomings, Ms. Hollender concludes that WUWT plays two crucial new roles in media-dominated society: 1) reaching an extended new audience, and 2) contributing to scientific accountability through extended peer review. Unfortunately, neither conclusion was addressed in the study design, and both conclusions remain untested hypotheses (truisms?).
Perhaps the most significant limitation of the study is that it was restricted to seven posts by Anthony, and did not address Guest Posts. As we know, Guest Posts play at least two additional potential roles: 1) to preview and test new ideas, methodologies, and data that would otherwise not be published in what has become the politicized peer-review environment of climate science; and 2) to stimulate action from those members of the extended peer review community in a position to influence policy. Future researchers may yet test these hypotheses: opportunity missed, but perhaps not lost.
A clarification: Ms. Hollender writes in her post above (Sept. 12, 2012, 10:42 am) that
“Now, to the “transcription”: it is true that I was given the opportunity to review the text before it got submitted. However, I was also pressured quite quickly by saying “If you don’t change anything right NOW, I will just post it as it is.””
She mistakenly attributes to me an e-mailed comment of another audience member who also planned to submit a story on her seminar. For the record, I informed Ms. Hollender before her seminar that I wished to make an “approximate transcript” of her comments for submission to WUWT, if she agreed, and offered her both the option to decline and the opportunity to review and correct my “approximate transcript” prior to posting. She accepted.
My subsequent e-mailed invitation to her to vet my “approximate transcript” for accuracy reads as follows:
“I invite you to make whatever edits you believe are necessary to ensure accuracy. Please use red font to distinguish your edits, and return the edited version to me ASAP. We would like to get this to WUWT as soon as possible.”
I informed Ms. Hollender by subsequent e-mail that each of the seventeen edits that she entered to my original “approximate transcript” was included in the version posted on WUWT. In any case, and as noted in my post above, the audio and visual record of the seminar will be posted on sciencepolicyColorado.edu in the next couple of weeks. My apologies in advance for any inaccuracies.
more soylent green: “The science has been done, in her mind, what we should do about the problem is what we should be focusing on …”
The most concerning aspect to AGW, is not that AGW is Fraud, it is that those behind AGW are the ones creating the solutions (albeit to a non-problem).
Green-cars that are not even remotely green between required recharging and their batteries making/disposal. Shuttering of coal-fired power plants without any consideration of what the replacement plants impact will be. The solutions of wind or solar power without thought about required power storage (no wind / night). EU’s plan to burn forests since they are renewable “biofuels”. Termination of Incandescent bulbs in favor of mercury laced CFLs.
W. Jackson Davis says: “Granted, Ms. Hollender’s study is limited in scope.”
Good point. Limitations starting with “contrarian”.
This is my attempt at a discourse analysis of the comments in the WUWT article. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/01/wuwt-is-the-focus-of-a-seminar-at-the-university-of-colorado/
My goal was to focus on the following assertions in Ms. Hollender’s analysis of that thread in her Sept 11, 2012 talk as documented here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/11/a-review-of-the-seminar-the-contrarian-discourse-in-the-blogosphere-what-are-blogs-good-for-anyway/
– Personal attacks on Ms. Hollender were commonplace
– Plans to disrupt and intervene in her presentation were posted
– About 250 [comments] have nothing to do with her talk
– She experienced extensive misunderstanding of certain terms and notions “science as ideology, “avowals of distrust, “linguistic performances.”
–
She cited 476 comments in her talk.
Personal attacks on Ms. Hollender were commonplace
I scored 12 comments as personal attacks on Ms. Hollender. This is 2.5% of the total. Because of the negativity associated with personal attacks, I would give Ms. Hollender a pass on this assertion. Commonplace synonyms include usual (false) and everyday (true). The antonyms are exceptional, infrequent, rare, and unusual. In this context, IMHO, 2.5% is too high and is uncivil. How will we get young social scientists to participate if we are uncivil to them and consistently attack their chosen discipline (and note that the attacks on the discipline where not scored as personal attacks even though they are ad homonym attacks) . To that extent, I find her assertion: “There are very few dissenting comments on WUWT, and if so, they are viciously attacked.” to be distressingly true.
I scored personal attacks as those focused personally on the author. I did not score attacks on sociology as a science, post normal science, or science as an ideology as personal attacks. Example of personal attack scoring follow. In what follows, I an using a DD:HHMM notation to identify comment time where HH is 00-23.
No: davidmhoffer 01:1026. “What complete arrogance surpasses only by their self imposed ignorance.” This was almost a yes but it is really a comment about an attitude and not Ms. Hollender.
No:eyesonu 01:1144 “It’s a Saturday afternoon and my 2 beer response would be: Get on your knees and worship the intellectual superiority of the contrarian skeptics and ask for forgiveness for your ignorance.” Tongue in cheek and clever.
No: Ross: 01:1225 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/01/wuwt-is-the-focus-of-a-seminar-at-the-university-of-colorado/#comment-1069421. Actually a very nice post but someone who is thin skinned might deem it a personal attack.
Yes: otsar: 01:1226. All examples of Reducto ad Hitlerum were scored as personal attacks. Not so for comments relating post modern science to Marxism.
Yes: Bull: 01:2222 “If you educate an idiot all you get is an educated idiot not a clever person”. This was scored as a personal attack and off-topic.
Yes: Gallun 01:2308 “This is girl thinks stringing big words together makes her look smart…”; “She will get it — and I bet they will give this bimbo a MacArthur Genius Grant also.” Gallun also gets credit for “This little girl has a peanut for a brain.” At 02:0113 Sad because the posts otherwise have content.
No: Selkov 01:2330 “What a drivel. That blurb could have been computer-generated, just like post-modern philosophy, and nobody would be able to tell the difference.” This comment is focused on the content, not the person.
No: Gallon: 02: “Is she writing in fluent bollocks? I’m having a hard time decyphering that last paragraph”
No: First 02:0759 “It’s extremely depressing that such people are employed by institutes of learning”.
Yes: Jeff: 02:0927 “ – has the insufferable Ms. Hollender …”
Plans to disrupt or intervene in her presentation were posted. I found zero instances. I did see comments about attending. Then there was this term of art that might just be a language misunderstanding: 01:1353: “Methinks Dr. Hollander is in urgent need of a deprogramming intervention …” This was scored as a personal attack but not a threat to intervene in the talk. The term disrupt did not appear in the thread. The Zoloft comment mentioned in the next sentence was scored as a personal attack but not as a threat.
About 250 [comments] have nothing to do with her talk
I scored 15 comments as off topic including the clearly marked as OT thread on sea ice. A couple of the off topic comments were whimsical. I think that to get to 250, Ms. Hollender had to score the extensive discussion on post normal science as off-topic. I scored every comment even vaguely related to the abstract as on-topic.
She experienced extensive misunderstanding of certain terms and notions “science as ideology, “avowals of distrust, “linguistic performances.”
The intent of this assertion is not clear. I added this section because I am in the group who cannot parse the term “avowals of distrust can be seen as linguistic performances of accountability…”. The discussion related to this phrase focused primarily on the consequence: “forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again.“ OTOH, I found the science as ideology discussion to be useful and would argue that it is a point in favor of the blog.
Finally
RockyRoad was prescient when he asked:
September 2, 2012 at 2:12 am
I wonder if she’ll include this thread of comments in her study. Will that skew the results? Will we see chaos in her conclusion? Or after considering such scathing rebukes of PNS, will she drop the project altogether?
Time will tell.
Hmm, no sign of this not very thorough or competent student since that first comment – it’s beginning to seem like the perfect troll to me. Megatroll perhaps?