LewWorld still has no comment of substance, and in the ‘Skeptical Science’ style, is furiously deleting inconvenient comments that ask questions like “What are you going to do now that the removal of the fake responses shows a conclusion reverse of that of your title”?
Jo Nova finds that Lewandowsky has received $1.7 million AU in taxpayer dollars since 2007.
Can you believe how much it costs to do an internet survey these days?
Yet with all that, he used the “free” Kwiksurvey platform.
Kwik Surveys is a Free to use survey builder. We have designed Kwik Surveys to be easy to use for all experience levels so you will quickly be creating surveys.
Why free? Over 75% of our customers are educational and profit free enterprises with little or no budget.
Free is not the best! Worried about customer support? That is why we offer you a chance to upgrade to premium support.
Science on the cheap, even when you have money. Stay sciency Lew.
In other LewNews, Jeff at the Air Vent says:
…I took Lewandowsky’s survey over at WUWT for entertainment and couldn’t mark any of the conspiracies listed as things I believe. Most of them were complete nonsense, some of which I hadn’t even heard of. Others seem plausible but I don’t have enough knowledge on any of them to claim ‘belief’ at any level. In other words, I had straight negatives for all of his “conspiracy” answers. Aside from the now-obvious fake answers that Steve McIntyre and others identified, the types of conspiracy questions seem to give the study a little more credibility. However, due to the leading nature of the non-conspiracy oriented questions, I am certain that I would have dropped the survey part way in simply to avoid supporting the undisguised intent of the questions. In other words, it seems highly unlikely that the survey attracted many thoughtful climate skeptics.
Yesterday though, we found out from Steve McIntyre that the math of the study was bodged so badly that simple analysis REVERSES the conclusions of the paper.
If we weren’t so familiar with this sort of faked result from the catastrophic-warming-so-we-must-shut-down-our-economy advocates, you might not even believe it were true. At this time, I have no belief that Lewandowsky intends to be a scientist on the matter, but lets see if he offers appropriate retractions – starting with the title.
Anti-green blogs this:
A psychologist who appears to know nothing about science
I spent 20 years getting 200+ papers published in the academic journals which pointed out how unscientific existing psychological research was so I am not too surprised by Stephan Lewandowsky — who as well as being an academic psychologist is also a frantic Warmist.
He has a track record of “psychologizing” climate skeptics. That you have to be psychologically defective to reject warming is his theme. Leftist psychologists have been doing much the same for at least 6 decades to my knowledge but their only real success would appear to have been in convincing one-another. It makes their little bubble-world more comfortable to believe such things
Speaking of unscientific psychological research, there’s this new article about that very subject in the Guardian:
False positives: fraud and misconduct are threatening scientific research
High-profile cases and modern technology are putting scientific deceit under the microscope
Unfortunately, Lewandowsky’s deceit isn’t listed (yet), but there is this:
The questions are certainly intriguing, but unfortunately for anyone wanting truthful answers, some of Smeesters’ work turned out to be fraudulent. The psychologist, who admitted “massaging” the data in some of his papers, resigned from his position in June after being investigated by his university, which had been tipped off by Uri Simonsohn from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Simonsohn carried out an independent analysis of the data and was suspicious of how perfect many of Smeesters’ results seemed when, statistically speaking, there should have been more variation in his measurements.
The case, which led to two scientific papers being retracted, came on the heels of an even bigger fraud, uncovered last year, perpetrated by the Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel. He was found to have fabricated data for years and published it in at least 30 peer-reviewed papers, including a report in the journal Science about how untidy environments may encourage discrimination.
The cases have sent shockwaves through a discipline that was already facing serious questions about plagiarism.
“In many respects, psychology is at a crossroads – the decisions we take now will determine whether or not it remains a serious, credible, scientific discipline along with the harder sciences,” says Chris Chambers, a psychologist at Cardiff University.
“We have to be open about the problems that exist in psychology and understand that, though they’re not unique to psychology, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be addressing them. If we do that, we can end up leading the other sciences rather than following them.”
Cases of scientific misconduct tend to hit the headlines precisely because scientists are supposed to occupy a moral high ground when it comes to the search for truth about nature. The scientific method developed as a way to weed out human bias. But scientists, like anyone else, can be prone to bias in their bid for a place in the history books.
…
The field of psychology has come under particular scrutiny because many results in the scientific literature defy replication by other researchers. Critics say it is too easy to publish psychology papers which rely on sample sizes that are too small, for example, or to publish only those results that support a favoured hypothesis. Outright fraud is almost certainly just a small part of that problem, but high-profile examples have exposed a greyer area of bad or lazy scientific practice that many had preferred to brush under the carpet.
Many scientists, aided by software and statistical techniques to catch cheats, are now speaking up, calling on colleagues to put their houses in order.
That’s what we’ve been doing with Dr. Lewandowsky. So far the journal author has been silent. I asked Psychological Science editor Robert V. Kail to investigate this paper, as did others. Crickets.
Perhaps he needs to be reminded of the track record above.
In other news, the sister website to Lewandowsky’s psy-ops efforts, Skeptical Science is the subject of some satire by Bob Tisdale today for their serial deletion panic:
…it’s their idea of comedy.
But, this bit of news about Skeptical Science isn’t so funny. Originally I had not planned to make notice of this, but instead sent a courtesy note to one of the authors of SkS that I have corresponded with in the past. What I got back was venom, and not even a hint of remorse for the behavior. So I’ve decided that since that SkS author has no shame, I’d make this latest PopTech expose’ known here:
It is even worse than Phil Jones famous quote in Climategate 1 on the death of John L. Daly:
In an odd way this is cheering news !
Integrity is best demonstrated by what is said when people you don’t care for aren’t looking. As has been repeatedly demonstrated by words and deeds, the proprietors and authors at ‘Skeptical Science’ have no integrity nor compassion.
UPDATE: Steve McIntyre finds more evidence of malfeasance in the Lewandowsky SkS connection here:
http://climateaudit.org/2012/09/14/the-sks-link-to-the-lewandowsky-survey/
He writes:
The relevant posts at six of the blogs have been located, but the relevant post at SkS, either no longer exists or never existed. Today’s question: did John Cook destroy all evidence at the SkS site of the existence of his posting the Lewandowsky thread? if so, why? Or are the claims by Cook and Lewandowsky to have posted the link untrue?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
On quoting from the SkS private emails:
When they first came out, some of us had great fun quoting from them under Josh’s marvellous TreeHut cartoon at
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/3/26/opengate-josh-158.html
I had twinges of conscience at first, until I saw the nature of their pitiful plotting. Here’s one that’s not rude, or pitiful, but rather charming:
rustneversleeps:
(Can you hear the echo of Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”: “We’ll always have Paris.”?)
RHS said on September 14, 2012 at 12:07 pm:
What has Lewandowsky done to deserve our pity and our mercy? We’ll send in Lord Monckton.
“””””…..Jo Nova finds that Lewandowsky has received $1.7 million AU in taxpayer dollars since 2007. …..”””””
That’s almost as much as Serena Williams got for winning the US Open last week; and SHE really earned every penny of it. And that was before our favorite Uncle ripped her off for a really big chunk of it that, for just sitting on their arses.
So far, Lew doesn’t seem to have earned even one penny of what HE got out of Serena’s earnings.
The good folks at Lewandowsky’s site, which is apparently administered by John Cook (from SKS) are busy rewriting history as fast as they can. To their small credit not ALL critical comment is removed, but anything that lends support or asks the difficult questions, no matter how straightforward, is either snipped in to at time gibberish, or removed in its entirety.
Of course supporter are largely allowed to denigrate and demean at will. A case in point Eli Rabett’s attack which stands:
Prompted this detailed response from me, which Lewandowsky’s operatives quickly deleted:
My recent response to Rabett, at CA was this:
We all know what is going on here. The whole intent seems clear from the start. We’ve seen it time and again from the pro-AGW side … create work branded as research, include inflammatory and sensationalistic headlines, disseminate to the media, who will dutifully lap it up. In my opinion – looking at Lewandowsky, Cook and like’s history, background and actions – its clear [to me] that the “science” is largely irrelevant to them.
As long as its something the media will run with, its a win for them. They know that the public see’s all of those stories … but even if they are shamed into retraction – the retraction stories story’s rarely if ever see the light of day, and never to the masses.
You will never see the large numbers of dutiful warmists who reported the original story, write a followup that says – “You know the story we wrote about Climate Skeptics being looney tune conspiracy theorists? We’ll – turns out it was based on fake data and has been forced to be retracted.”
The question I asked of Eli Rabett:
Do you believe science should be accurate? Or are you one of those just fine with “fake but we’ll consider it accurate” as long as it achieves our goal?
2. Several questions concern material that is presently subject to an FOI request. I will let that process run to completion rather than pre-empt it.
============================================================
Damn! I hope the walls I threw up hold!
Mr. Sparks –
In response to your recent request – you’ll have to wait a little longer for a more professional diagnosis of your “nutter” status. The results of the re-created Lewandowsky survey are being tabulated. Can’t say when, but likely soon, you’ll be able to confirm with a reasonable degree of confidence, whether you really are nuts or not.
🙂
From Lewandowskys blog – a seminal question:
Even if true that a tiny fraction of skeptics also believe the Moon Landing is fake – so what? What scientific or other value does this provide?
And why was it worth 2 years of work and untold dollars spent?
A.Scott says:
September 14, 2012 at 2:19 pm
….. And why was it worth 2 years of work and untold dollars spent?
=============================================================
Because of where the dollars were spent?
This timely article well states the problem with this ‘science by cause advocacy’ approach. Where scientists largely ignore or subvert science to promote the goals of the “cause” … no rational person can look at Lewandowsky’s and some of his cohorts history, as say they are not almost rabid promoters and advocates.
Same can be said for almost all of the high profile players in the climate science field.
Here with Lewandosky we have a well funded study clearly designed with one goal in mind. Create a “scientific paper” with a premise and headline conclusion designed for maximum media attention. An alleged scientific work whose conclusions, even IF accurate, have no apparent benefit or value.
Its no wonder the public no longer trusts scientists regarding climate, but are largely tuning them ALL out …
Too much advocacy? Scientists and public policy.
Excerpt:
This very real problem, that true science is being minimalized, and losing respect of the public becasue of these “science by cause advocacy” types, is the reason the scrutiny must continue.
There will be a day that a real scientist DOES discover something truly important … and the public will ignore it – because the credibility of mainstream science has been so damaged by junk science as with Lewandowsky here.
Science is, or should be, researching a premise, putting it out there to be challenged, responding to the criticism, and then reporting the findings in a rational, straightforward, non sensationalized way.
It used to be you had to make a decision – science or the cause – you couldn’t be both.
It seems clear it was worth it becasue of the inflammatory and sensationalized headlines, in furtherance of their cause, the authors were able to obtain in the press – while hiding behind the “its not published yet so we aren’t commenting until it is” excuse.
When in reality it does not matter at all if it is never published as of right now. They have achieved everything they are going to already thru release to the press, and the mindless response from the AGW supporters therein.
One of my favourite quotations seems to apply rather well to Lewandowsky.
“The only conspiracies are those created by conspiracy theorists.”
Lewandowsky’s online UWA CV shows he has received over $1.5 million in CLIMATE related grants for the 2011-2014 period, and that these are his first ever climate related grants:
And the paper acknowledges it is funded by the top grant above:
However the truly interesting finding is that the grant is for the 2012-2014 period. Lewandowsky did this work in 2010.
I suspect the grant documents might be illuminating.
A.Scott says:
September 14, 2012 at 2:09 pm
“Mr. Sparks –
In response to your recent request – you’ll have to wait a little longer for a more professional diagnosis of your “nutter” status. The results of the re-created Lewandowsky survey are being tabulated. Can’t say when, but likely soon, you’ll be able to confirm with a reasonable degree of confidence, whether you really are nuts or not.”
Ha! Even if Lewandowsky proves to me, other skeptics believe that the moon landings were faked (which is a bit odd for a skeptic to think so, IMHO), I know the moon landings took place so I must be half way not nuts according to Lewandowsky, Maybe I’ll have to face up to the fact that I’m just a bit quirky and inquisitive and not at all like Lewandowsky’s conclusions suggest, Well, the nurses have managed to break down the wardens door, must dash!
In the article referenced above by Charlie A, Lewandowsky and his co-author say:
In science, to actually contribute at the forefront of a field one has to earn credibility, not demand it. Being taken seriously is a privilege, not a right.
In science, this privilege is earned by not only following conventional norms of honesty and transparency but by supporting one’s opinions with evidence and reasoned argument in the peer-reviewed literature.
If this is indeed the case, Lewandowsky is in the process of forfeiting his privilege.
The phrase “preparation of this paper” obliquely acknowledges that the grants in question didn’t pay for the data collection, just for the writeup.
Otherwise the acknowledgments would say something like “the research reported here.”
An online survey study—even a study with well-designed survey and adequate sampling—costs hardly anything to conduct. Grant funding normally not required.
In an era in which serious physicists offer statistical proofs that our entire world is nearly certainly a computer simulation running on some alien kid’s quantum smart phone, whether the moon landings were faked quite honestly becomes a minor question in a much bigger debate.
Option 2 – never heard of the man till the latest caper. (Tried to post this comment earlier but wordpress is really annoying in not accepting my login so I’m trying another address.)
Caleb says:
September 14, 2012 at 1:01 pm
As I recall, the governer of New Mexico had to veto the following to keep it from becoming law, back in 1995:
“When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. Additionally, a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air with a wand. Whenever a psychologist or psychiatrist provides expert testimony regarding a defendant’s competency, the bailiff shall contemporaneously dim the courtroom lights and administer two strikes to a Chinese gong…”
==================
ROFLMAO
Feynman outed spurious psych experiments in his famous Cargo Cult Caltech commencement speech in 1974. You all are expending too much energy proving nothing has changed. Prof L has already shown his Mann like scientific climatebcolors–assertions, denials, evasions, deleted posts. So that is not new either. Nor will outing them apparently change them. It is religious belief, and they react like other religions to ‘affronts’, as we are sadly experiencing yet again globally.
You cannot reason with zealots. You can attempt to cut off their public funding. You can attempt to muzzle their access to public fora. You can discredit them. But you cannot reason with them. Best to stop trying, especially if the effort only gives their nonsense more publicity.
Professor Lewandowsky…. for the love of humanity… STOP DIGGING!!!!!
Even in Australia $1.7million buys a lot of Lew Paper.
I’m really worried that the University of Western Australia is going to further enhance its internation prestige by hiring…Gleick.
Bernd Felsche says:
September 14, 2012 at 8:01 pm
“Even in Australia $1.7million buys a lot of Lew Paper.”
Oh come on grow up, Lew paper? That’s just immature, everyone knows 1.7million dollars equates to Ten pence sterling a roll.
Exactly right, and it should still be the case. But this is why Post-Normal Science (PMS) was invented, to allow shameless crybaby chicken little advocacy to have a scientific-y-like appearance when advancing fear mongering, pal-reviewed papers.
during the time of the survey period (8/30/2010) a commentator at Bishop Hill “Jerry” cited a link to the survey in Unthreaded (h/t Steve McIntyre), with some trenchant criticism of the types of questions. I think it is worth quoting to have a record on WUWT of contemporaneous criticism, what were obvious flaws seen right away by someone who says he has worked with professional survey companies. No reason to think this comment attracted attention at the time, but it is interesting for what it represents (someone who knows more than Lew & co. about framing survey questions with rigor!!). As Steve Mc notes, the pagination for the “Unthreaded” link will roll onward as more comments are added nowadays at the front end, but here is where it appears now:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/unthreaded/?currentPage=647