LewWorld has increased its spin and is now “drilling into noise“. The resulting increased spin and precession looks to be creating dangerous wobble on LewWorld. Meanwhile while Lew is drilling for noise, McIntyre has tried to get the same results as Lewandowsky’s paper by taking Lewandowsky’s noisy data and applying the same techniques listed in the paper. Replication doesn’t appear possible. It looks like the paper is a dry hole even though it is gushing superheated air. Meanwhile, Lewandowsky’s coauthor, John Cook, has been host to his own oily conspiracy fanboy club. If you have not read it yest, be sure to read: ‘…we need a conspiracy to save humanity’, because it seems to be a true window into the soul of “Skeptical Science” denizens. Also of interest, Tom Fuller analyses Lewandowsky’s medicalization of skeptics.
A. Scott takes a look at some of the drilling logic being applied by Lewandowsky in this essay below. Finally, at the end, I have a short poll about Michael Mann and Stephan Lewandowsky.
I have 10 fingers and toes, therefore I faked the (Moon) Landing hoax
Motivated Rejection of the Lew…by A.Scott
There’s a new story up – “drilling into noise” – by the lead author, Stephen Lewandowsky, of the recent paper “NASA faked the moon landing – therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.”
For the first time, in a now total 9 blog posts on this paper, this most recent story is more talk, less condescension and derision towards those who would dare challenge his work. Well OK, mostly, sorta less. It is a long story, with lots of fancy terms, initials, equations and descriptions.
In it he reminds us lowly unwashed masses that we are knowledge-less simpletons – merely “toying” with his data. That we couldn’t possibly understand all the important stuff real scientists like him know. Or maybe he didn’t say it exactly that way, but it’s just how it came across.
He takes the long way around to re-tell us why skeptics are somehow conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landing, and (science), is fake, or something like that. I guess the parentheses mean because the answers to some of the other questions about science were true, that we can perform a latent variable analysis, and prove we actually DO believe in that fake old moon landing even though we said we didn’t. Or maybe not.
That’s this cool new idea he shares – we can’t just look at the simple answers to the questions – like whether we believe the moon landing was fake, nah, those 10 people don’t know nothing – they’re just noise. Nothing to see here – no one behind this curtain – now move along …
No – we must look to the answers of the other questions, to determine if we believe the moon landing was fake and thus are nasty old science rejecters. And motivated ones at that. Or something like that.
Of course he cannot go into the details in a place such as his own blog, but never fear he assures us, they mixed up some particularly resilient associations between latent constructs, and hypothesized that pesky measurement error right outta your clothes. I might have mixed that up a little though – its tough for us mere mortals to follow all that complicated sciencey stuff you know. I think I feel a definite conspiracy ideation coming on after that. Better take an aspirin.
I may be a bumpkin, but I think I can help simplify his story.
I have 10 fingers and 10 toes. So I can usually count to 20, or sometimes a few more, without much trouble.
I don’t need to even take my shoes off to count the total number of folks who agree the NASA Apollo Moon Landing was fake – and filmed in Hollywood … Beverley Hills that’s is …
Just 6 poor saps said they “Strongly Agree” the moon landing was a hoax. And 4 more said they “Agree.” A whopping 10 science rejecters right there I tell you. Of course some of them might be fake. We might only need one hand to count them.
I have a fancy technique too. Well, more of a rule really … my rule is if you can counts it on fingers and toes – its probably correct – they usually don’t lie.
I rarely need pivot tables, linear regression, informed judgment, uninformed judgment, deep statistical competence or incompetence, SEM, latent constructs, latent variables, latent prints, clean socks, pretty rocks, or any other special highfaluting whizbang stuff to count numbers that fit on my fingers and toes.
I submit a new theory too, that if a number fits on your fingers and toes, it ain’t that darn unhelpful noise he’s sqwaukin’ about – unless of course you’re snappin’ your fingers ’cause you just figured out the answer. That could be noise – at least if you’re good at snappin’ your fingers.
I can also tell you if you have a number that fits on the old “digit-all” calculator (its a joke son, get it – digits) and someone tries to claim it has some latent construct or any such thing if you compare it to to a room FULL of hands and feet, there just might be something in common between that fella and what ‘ol Bessie’s out in the pasture making right about now. He just might be one of them types, if they can’t dazzle you with their brilliance, they start trying to baffle you with their … err, well … Bessie byproduct.
I guess the moral of the story is you can always trust your fingers and toes.
Any time you can use those good old fingers and toes to solve a tough question you usually don’t need nothing fancier – and you can pretty much trust the answer. Even if you’re a scientist. Well, unless you’re a rocket scientist and you might send your pal Zeke the chimpanzee to Pluto instead of Mars. Then you should probably break out the slide rule.
Or at least take off your shoes to double check your work.
=============================================================
[added] also worth reading is Willaim Brigss essay: NASA Faked Moon Landing—Academic Psychologists Swoon, Tie It To Climate Change
One day a terrific psychological study is going to be written on the madness and mass lunacy which arose after climate change swam into the public’s ken. I don’t mean the actions and thoughts of the man-in-the-street, which were and are no different in this area than they were and are in any political matterhe . No: the real curiosity is what happened to academia, inside departments which haven’t anything to do with climatology.
Given the bizarre work of Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky, his hilarious protestations over the questions raised about his data gathering methods and his methodology, plus his “muted for prime time” hatred that you can read between the lines (as well as what we see on his mouthpiece wesbite, Skeptical Science, I decided it was time to ask this question:
Has Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky usurped Dr. Michael Mann as the most irrationally emotive spokesman for climate alarmism?
Bottom of the barrel, slime under a rock, critter waste products, helminths (parasitic worms), ectoparasites (parasitic bugs), climate economic disruptive anti-scientists, whatever…
Don’t treat them with any respect. They have proven our lack of need or desire to show them any respect. Locking them in the town stocks side by side for a few years might be good medicine for their egos.
It does look like a good time for farsighted entrepeneurs. Gather and cross reference notes now and be ready to publish modern textbooks to replace the horrible science shams forced on today’s students.
Each one of these ego-moronics opens a whole realm of pseudo-science that will offer case studies and examples for years to come.
NASA obviously did not fake the original moon landing(s) between 1969-72. However, it is absolutely incredible it was never able to replicate the feat since then. Therefore there must have been numerous secret landings on the moon during the last forty years, done in deep government sanctioned conspiracy. Their recurrent denial of the fact can’t be anything, but a pathetic HOAX.
There. You have your outstanding conspiracy theory, to be distributed freely under the Artistic License.
/sarc
“First, our “brand” is defined by:
Quality. Our posts are either written by academic domain experts or have survived academic scrutiny. All our posts are reviewed by our editorial board before publication.
Civility. We do not censor opinions, but we insist on strict civility in the comments.”
Lewy on SkepticalScience re his site. I guess the above explains why my post asking why he didn’t speak to the skeptical Nasa astronauts about the moon landing, to ask them whether they though they were faked, was deleted. It seemed to me an obvious question with regard to what his “survey” concluded.
I truly think the man is sick. Have I medicalised Climate Jihadism?
“harrywr2 says:
September 17, 2012 at 9:53 am
It might be a more interesting poll to compare which climate scientists self identified skeptics believe are ‘closest to the truth’.
I.E. Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Curry, Issac Held, James Hansen(NASA) or Michael Mann. They all have Phd’s in the relevant field. Lindzen,Held and Hansen are members in good standing of the National Acedemies of Science in the relavent geophysics section.
Why have a poll to which the answer would be zero,and waste bandwidth?
And you forgot to add Kenjii to the NAS (now that would be a 100% answer)
Or did you forget the /sarc tag and I missed it?
The prof is trying to pretend psychology is a science, the sad deluded fool. But then, trying to play with the big boys was bound to end in tears! He has dug himself a hole and sems to busy dragging his buddies down into it. I wonder who is going to bail out first to save their careers and\or reputation?
I don’t know about these climate scientists but I have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.
No wonder climate science is in a pickle, they can’t add up.
“Strict civility”??? The man is truly delusional.
Lewandowsky’s stream of evasive, invective-laden sarcastic posts give new meaning to the word “civility” — he has not conception of what decent people consider to be civility. Stephan Lewandowsky is among the most un-civil people I have seen in any walk of life. He is not fit to discuss “civility”…. His paper smearing all “skeptics” is deeply uncivil and malicious.
Mann has to be still the main amn, its still the case that he lectures the ‘followers’ and sets the agenda , Lewandowsky is just s lesser shadow under his great darkness.
This has probably been seen already, having been written by Lewandowsky in 2010:
“….peer reviewed science is not indiscriminate: not all opinions are equal and one cannot choose what to believe on the basis of whim or ideology. What counts are evidence, logic, and competence.
“Peer reviewed science is egalitarian but not indiscriminate.
“Science carries with it responsibilities such as accountability and subsequent scrutiny—peer review is a spam filter, which works well but not perfectly. The true value of a peer reviewed article lies in whether or not it survives scrutiny upon publication.
“If it does not, then peer reviewed science is self-correcting and eventually cleanses the occasional junk that penetrated the spam filter.”
“……. in science, a decision against publication is (almost) always quality control and (almost) never censorship.”
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39148.html
Psychologist psychoanalyse thyself. Upon self-examination a narcissist would be unable to realise it:
“Narcissistic injury (or wound) is any threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).
“The narcissist perceives every disagreement – let alone criticism – as nothing short of a threat. He reacts defensively. He becomes indignant, aggressive and cold. He detaches emotionally for fear of yet another (narcissistic) injury. He devalues the person who made the disparaging remark.
“By holding the critic in contempt, by diminishing the stature of the discordant conversant – the narcissist minimises the impact of the disagreement or criticism on himself. This is a defence mechanism known as cognitive dissonance.”
“The cerebral narcissist is as competitive and intolerant of criticism or disagreement as his somatic counterpart. The subjugation and subordination of others demand the establishment of his undisputed intellectual superiority or professional authority. ”
http://samvak.tripod.com/faq73.html
It’s amazing how many people don’t understand the first rule of holes. 😉
DaveE.
Lewandowsky was one of the academics who sent a letter to Notre Dame University asking for a Monckton lecture to be cancelled last year.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/9756509/academics-want-climate-sceptics-lecture-cancelled/
He is mentioned near the end of the article as follows:
“Another signatory, Australian Professorial Fellow at UWA’s School of Psychology, Stephan Lewandowsky, said he strongly endorsed Lord Monckton’s right to free speech “for example in a pub or on a soapbox or in a circus arena”.
Timbo says:
September 17, 2012 at 9:50 am
Ian says:
September 17, 2012 at 9:16 am
How about some kind of Ig Nobel prize for climate scientists?
Already in the works. Pointman (Pointman’s) has an annual Climate Prat Award contest going. The problem is, the field is too rich.
——————-
yes, There should be always a best, second , third, fourth prize, you cannot give all the honour to only one….
OYG!
Did you guys happen to notice the graph that this d1p$#!^ uses in his “drilling myself a deeper hole” BS? It is that “skeptics believe in this cherry picking” picture created by Cook.
So, we call him out for using fake data he got by “surveying” warmists posing as skeptics, and he supports his actions by referring to a fake graph purporting to show “how skeptics think” that was ginned up in the imagination of a warmist!
Hey, Lew[snip]! None of your “cognitive research” says squat about what skeptics think. All of your “data” is really just what you warmists wish us to think. And that says a lot. About you, not us.
[humor piece – inflammatory – mods go ahead and snip if you don’t like it]
Who’s got game, fight fans. Let’s go ringside
Announcer: Good evening fight fans. Tonight’s fight promises to be a good one, with the defending champion of the World Paleo and Heavyweight divisions, taking on a new up and comer from down under.
In the sun corner, Champion Dr. Michel Mann from Penn State University and the U of Virginia! He’s a REAL climate scientist, who’s been embarrassed by ClimateGate, beat back FOI lawsuits, slammed the deniers in an inflammatory book that’s getting 5 star reviews, censors his detractors on the one true REAL CLIMATE BLOG, been made a fellow of the organization that made Peter Gleick it’s ethics committee chairman, conspired with John Cook to cook the reviews at Amazon, enhanced Penn State University’s otherwise stellar reputation AND best of all, made a hockey stick and hid the decline, giving Al Gore tingles up his leg.
[YAY -crowd cheers]
Now, our challenger, In the moon corner, we have Dr. Stephen Lewandowsky from the University of West Anglia, who just recently wrote a great little smear piece that’s rising up the charts with a bullet. It’s not even been published yet, but the web attention it’s drawing is pretty hot. He too is working with John Cook to censor the opponents and control the terms of debate and he does have a Ph.D, in, er psychology. Let’s put your hands together Chicago!
[moo- Aussie cows are going wild!]
Now here is your fight play-by-play from Chick Beigenet and color commentator Whitey Storm. Take it away Chick.
Thank you, Don, now let’s get ready to rummmmmmble!
[ding]
And there’s the bell for the first round, the fighters have come to center ring and touched gloves, and the ref signals fight. You know Whitey I don’t know if this kid has what it takes to take on a seasoned pro like Mann… Omigod! Mann’s first punch has connected, Lewandowsky is down! This is going to be the shortest fight in history, with Lewandowsky going down at the 3 second mark of the first round. Whitey? Right you are Chick, the Lew-minator, a nickname I had picked out for him before the fight, has folded up like a cheap tent. Turns out he’s a flash-in-the-pan poser who’ll never rise to the level of the great Michael Mann. I guess we should have known this, because he’s only a social scientist. Back to you Chick.
Thank you, Whitely, well that’s it for fight night, we now return you to your regularly scheduled pogroms.
There’s a guy called Barry Woods commenting over there, very reasonable, very solid.(And the only dissenting voice permitted.)
He is very patiently pointing out to them that they seem to be accusing skeptics of faults which they have in fact synthesised themselves…in this instance a graph which allegedly shows how skeptics perceive global warming…(it goes up in steps and the only place I’ve ever seen anything like it is in Lew World.)
Anyhow when he pointed out that the Warming Trend seems to have stalled for the past eleven years and that many authoritative sources confirmed this; Lew did that classic Warmist trick of moving the goalposts – and declared, ‘the atmosphere may not be heating up but Ocean Temperatures are!’
As I have said many times before, arguing with a Warmist is like nailing jelly to a wall.
Bad News Quillan says:
September 17, 2012 at 10:12 am
I voted for both (#3).
Reason: both are being equally defended by the alarmists (See, e.g., DeSmogBlog)…
because they CANNOT admit error. Ever. (Mann, Lew, Gleick many other cases).
They rather defend the most blatant fraud and incompetence. Amazing.
This is the classic response of the Narcissistic Personality. A lot of them get to high places for that very reason…their admirers collude with the astonishing self belief and anyone who spots them generally gives up in disgust and exhaustion.
Funny, several psychologists I’ve met seem very reluctant to discuss Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or even admit it exists. But once you’ve fallen foul of one they become easy to spot. And it is easy to bring them out of the woodwork….just tell them there is a possibility they might be wrong about something. The “normal” response is to reflect when challenged, not attack.
Chris B said on September 17, 2012 at 10:29 am:
So Mann really does want To Serve Man?
Care to try that one again? My fingers and toes count up to 1048575, starting at zero. Well, they would if I didn’t need to hold my toes in position with my fingers.
Well, I can get past 8 million 😉
In private, of course.
There is also some SkS clown on STW who asserts that the scurrilous title of Lewandowsky et al (2012) is just fine because it’s meant to be “humor” and of course libelous inaccuracy for the sake of humor is a notable feature of scientific papers.
So let’s think of some some “humor” for titles to new climate psychology papers Lew & co. might try next:
“The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling! An Examination of a new ‘Theory of Mind’ for Climate Histrionics”
“How Many Times Did the Mann Cry ‘Wolf’ — Analysis of Alarmism Fatigue and Green Depravity”
“Climate Alarmists are Psycho-Hysterics: A Humorous Look at Climate Change Hysteria”
I’m sure there are better examples which might actually be humorous, but it’s a start….
Not I … several … appears its the newest spin, since all the I’m too smart for you sciencey stuff by Lewandowsky wasn’t haveing the desired effect.
Thus the impetus for my ‘Fingers and Toes’ story.
It might be fake, but its still accurate.
Just kidding son, its a joke, its all just a funny joke.
that should be “Not 1”
Wes Spiers says:
September 17, 2012 at 12:19 pm
“It’s ironic that both Steve McIntyre and Steve Lewandowsky are graduates of the same university, (Univ. of Toronto) albeit from different departments and 16 years apart.”
Worlds apart surely? I suggest a generic name for his sort – lewcocyte, a cell of the warmist immune system involved in defending the “body alarmist” against both criticism and inconvenient facts. Lewcocytes attach themselves to critical but otherwise innocuous blog comments and destroy them within seconds.
Meh, Lewandowsky is a lightweight, posed against a middleweight.
He is one of those people who regard psychology as a tool for achieving whatever socio/political ends that they deem desirable – and there are lots of them about – but fortunately he is not very bright, and arrogant with it.
Mann is a lot smarter and actually produced some good work at times.
Lewandowsky’s forthcoming paper “When did climate change deniers stop beating their wives” is awaited with much interest.
I believe that in July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and Michael Collins remained in Lunar Orbit. These three men were my childhood heroes, along with the Russian Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space.
I believe that smoking causes cancer. That knowledge doesn’t prevent me from smoking, even though I know it should. I believe that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus.
I believe Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, although I admit I don’t know enough about it to know why I believe that. Nor do I know enough about the assassination of Martin Luther King to really form an opinion.
I believe the Illuminati are a fictional construct and there is no New World Order, although I also believe that people in power would like more power, and some will do practically anything to get it.
I believe that the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 was a cock-up of the grandest scale on the part of the US Navy. In particular I do not believe any government would purposely permit their people and particularly their materiel to be wasted in this way.
I believe that Area 51 is a US Air Force base. I don’t believe there are any aliens there, either living or dead (although I did thoroughly enjoy the recent Pegg/Frost film, Paul).
I believe that the attacks of September 11th 2001 were the work of Muslim terrorists.
I don’t know enough about SARS to form an opinion.
I don’t believe a Flying Saucer crashed at Roswell in 1947.
I believe Princess Diana’s death was a tragic accident, caused by pursuit by Papparazzi and her driver being under the influence of alcohol.
I don’t know anything about the Oklahoma City bombings and I’m not sufficiently interested to want to find out.
I believe Coca Cola is quite tasty, although I prefer lemonade. I hadn’t heard until recently that Coca Cola might have done some clever marketing related to changing the formula. If they did, then fair play to them.
I don’t know enough about CFCs to be certain one way or the other about whether they have a serious impact on the Ozone Layer. I have come across some bits and pieces in the past about CFCs and patents, and the timing of the discovery of the Ozone Layer, but I’ve not done enough research subsequently to form a definite opinion. I’m content that not using CFCs is, on balance, a good thing.
I believe that protection of the environment trumps financial concerns. The caveat is that I feel the Precautionary Principle as commonly stated goes too far and is harmful both to the economy and to the environment.
I believe that global average temperatures have increased during the past century. I believe that human activities have contributed to that increase. 97% of carefully selected Climate Scientists also believe this. I don’t believe that this is catastrophic, and I don’t believe it will become a catastrophe. I think that overall, warmer is better. I also believe that the climate has always changed.
I believe that Stephan Lewandowsky is a sincere CAGW activist, who believes that a gerrymandered survey aimed to paint anyone who doubts the CAGW thesis as a swivel-eyed loon will help his cause. I also believe his paper will be retracted.