From Tom Nelson, it was too good not to repost, especially when Lewandowsky hands out moral lessons while being immoral himself with his labeling skeptics as “moon landing deniers” with a gussed up survey and statistical slight of hand that turned out to be a an academic scam used as a tool to dehumanize people that have legitimate doubts about the science.
Now that Lewandowsky has declared the AR5 draft leak issue “dishonourable” (something not even the IPCC itself said in their statement) I expect we won’t see any use of AR5 draft information by his mouthpiece pawns, John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli on “Skeptical Science”, because well, using that new “dishonourably” obtained information would be wrong according to Lew.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, a researcher of climate change denial at the Cognitive Science Laboratories at the University of Western Australia, said the premature leak of the report was “dishonourable.”
“Science is one of the most transparent endeavours humans have ever developed. However, for the transparency to be effective, preliminary documents ought to remain confidential until they have been improved and checked through peer review,” he said in an emailed comment.
“The leak of a draft report by a reviewer who has signed a statement of confidentiality is therefore regrettable and dishonourable.”
“However, what is worse than the leak itself is the distortion of the content of the draft chapter by some deniers (no, they are not skeptics),” he said.
Prof Lewandowsky said that the report’s statement that humans have caused global warming was a “virtual certainty” meant it’s authors had 99% confidence in that view.
“That’s up from ‘very high confidence’ (90% certain) in the last report published in 2007,” he said. [Hey Stephan: How, specifically, were those 90% and 99% numbers calculated? What, specifically, changed between 2007 and now that accounts for the alleged 90% reduction in uncertainty?]
“In other words, the scientific case has become even stronger and has now reached a level of confidence that is parallelled only by our confidence in some very basic laws of physics, such as gravity or thermodynamics.”
To claim otherwise by cherry-picking part of a sentence out of context is absurd, he said.
“Although it illustrates the standard approach by which climate deniers seek to confuse the public. Climate denial lost intellectual respectability decades ago, and all that deniers have left now is to misrepresent, distort, or malign the science and the scientific process.”
For the last few years, my new passion has been rock climbing…Most airlines [Wait, with the fate of my grandchildren allegedly hanging in the balance, this guy still takes unnecessary fuel-guzzling trips to climb on rocks?!] can handle that, whereas few take sailplanes as check-in luggage
carefully framed reuters’ article re some more CAGW “confidentials”:
13 Dec: Reuters: Timothy Gardner: Lawmakers press EPA chief on “Windsor” email alias
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Gunna Dickson)
Republican lawmakers want the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency to explain her use of a government-assigned email address under a fake name…
Lawmakers and a public interest watchdog group have complained that Jackson’s second account – named after a family dog – was not something that could be easily linked to the administrator.
Emails Jackson wrote using that account may not have been captured by Freedom of Information Act requests or made it to national archives, they argued…
http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-press-epa-chief-windsor-email-alias-031420329–finance.html
I have no problem with confidentiality in a scientific endeavor that involves patents, such as drug research or new technology. However this “climate” stuff involves all of us and the people involved all seem to have ulterior motives rather than altruistic intentions.
Apparently the word “transparency” means different things to different people. From this observer, the entire concept of the IPCC is anything BUT “transparent”. A large group of well financed people spending huge amounts of time and money to attempt to prove an unprovable hypothesis is NOT Science. And how, exactly, did we get to a point where proclamations from on high are “science”?
I’ve been saying for years that eventually people will look back on this and wonder what they were thinking… it’s like a kind of mass madness where people fervently believe something that was always demonstrably ridiculous. Yes, “climate fear” is ridiculous, and reminds me most of “Koro Syndrome” (look it up)
Jimbo says:
December 15, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Wouldn’t and shouldn’t.
But Jimbo, in the face of a contradiction, simply check your premises–you’ll find one of them is wrong. In this case, it is that this is a “field of science”. It is none other than a field of politics, and everybody knows just about anything goes in politics–especially the irrational–in order to achieve the UN’s facinorous agenda.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 15, 2012 at 12:45 pm
“It is good that he mentions Newton’s ‘law of gravity’ as this original piece of fiction was really what started the modeling bandwagon rolling centuries ago and like ‘global warming’ when a theory/model can explain just about everything,then people know there is something radically wrong with the followers of the bandwagon. Etc etc etc”
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Newtons Law of Gravity works and can deliver a current space vehicle to the outer planets. AGW theory doesn’t work on many levels. That’s the difference. AGW is a flawed hypothesis and does not reach a level anywhere near being a ‘Law’ that in the case of Newton has been proven to be practically correct for relatively lower velocities below that of light velocity. AGW is empirically unproven.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity readily explains Newtons Law as a consequence of the ‘curvature’ of space surrounding a mass or masses.
What Lewandowsky simple shows is his total ignorance of scientific theory, principles and the scientific method. He is completely out of his depth and has not a fragment of expertise on this subject to offer in my opinion.
Prof Lewandowsky appears to have recieved his PhD in Australia. It is now well documented that there is an age group there that was educated on how not think critically.
They have been educated to answer to authority without question.
The nation has a chance yet, but is rapidly sinking into total oblivion.
Sad to watch…………sad to watch.
Of all the shonks currently promulgating the lie of AGW Lewandowsky is a standout.
Chris B – His intonation is quite embarrassing. He appears from this video to be very wrapped up in his own perceived importance and sense of intellect. But he does himself a disservice with his extreme position on the legitimacy of alternative viewpoints as it diminishes any credibility he hopes to establish by claiming membership of the elite group known as ‘scientists’
“Human role in climate change now virtually certain” (1)
It is quite fortunate English is not my first language after all. Sometimes it makes me ponder on the underlying logical structure of propositions, what native speakers almost never do, having that wonderful gut feeling thing that reveals meaning immediately as the proposition unfolds with no conscious effort involved whatsoever. Or so they think. Or rather, they’d never reckon they could be duped in this field, on home ground, so to speak.
Nothing can be farther from truth. That’s what weasel words are for after all. Like “virtually”.
According to the free dictionary it means something like in essence but not in fact. Okay, let’s make the substitution.
Human role in climate change now in essence but not in fact certain (2)
What’s the negation of this proposition? After playing a bit with propositional calculus, one finds this sentence:
If human role in climate change now in essence certain, it is so in fact as well (3)
But (3) is the negation of (1), so what Lewandowsky actually says is
“human role in climate change now in essence certain” (4)
does not imply
“human role in climate change now in fact certain” (5)
It is so, quite independent of the truth value he would like to attach to proposition (4).
Had he put it that way, very likely a virtual consensus might be built on this stance.
Let the good Prof speak – the more he opens his mouth and comments on things he hardly understands the more clear it becomes to the public that the AGW emperor indeed does not have any clothes..
Not only that, the Lewandowsky’s and their SkS ilk would like to deny the public the right to examine the actual science rather, than some massaged and manufactured climate data, in a debate that is framed by “their agenda” rather than allowing the public at large to consider all the facts and make their own decisions.
It’s the old argument from authority. Arguments from Authority can only thrive when you prevent transparency of science by using secrecy, obstruction, collusion, diversion, smears and inuendo as a platform of behavioural activity to prevent the views of others exposing the authority weilder has feet of clay.
Ah, la Lunar Lewandowsky. Keep those Youtube clips coming they say it all. If the schadenfreude don’t getcha then the craziness will. What would happen to the clause if the MSM started playing clips like that to the general public? The melodramatic changes in emphasis. The eyes! Oh the eyes have it all right.
Thank you Chris B.
Dexter neds to update his code
Also, please tell me Dr. Lew, if “science is one of the most transparent endeavours humans have ever developed” then why does Dr. Mann and the UVA fight so hard to prevent the release of emails they are required to release by law? Tell me how your statement is true since people who agree with you fight so hard to hide data and methodologies? It isn’t too hard to find scientists like to exclude important data and then fight tooth-and-nail to keep that important data hidden, not just with CAGW but in other fields too.
The second sentence directly contradicts the first. Assuming the first sentence is true (which it isn’t), once you release something there should be no more need for transparency because everything should already be there!
It is only dishonorable to leak information if that leak will embarrass the project management. If however you are on the other side, i.e. intent on showing management to be what it is, at least in your view, you are a hero. My view most if not all management is beyond their level of incompetence. (me included when appropriate) I still don’t know why anyone give Lewandowsky any press beyond the time of day? Surely we have better things to talk about.
December 15, 2012 at 2:12 pm | Klimarealist says:
@DirkH
it’s the GDR, German DemocraticRepublic – RIB
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DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik, one and the same thing.
December 15, 2012 at 3:36 pm | Dennis Nikols says:
_______________________________________
Ah! But, if that “leak” was to be obtained through deception and contained some forgery then it would be “honourable”.
“Science is one of the most transparent endeavours humans have ever developed. However, for the transparency to be effective, preliminary documents ought to remain confidential until they have been improved ”
Thank you for the good laugh. At first it is a discussion about analysing scientific papers and besides, how would secrecy of any kind improve the transparency? Well simple, the word transparency has a different significance, what we stupid deniers have not yet understood.
Transparency means the process looks for any “outsider” like it is intended to look, like in a showcase. He does not see the process itself, the discussion, the arguments, but only exactly the steps that are required for his poor limited brain to get to the desired result. Not to get confused with all that scientific complexity.
The problem is we still cling to those old understandings of words like transparency, science, peer review…
Well at first I laughed at the sentence, but then reading through the whole it made me very sad. What a limited understanding of CAGW-skepticism does he have. And he is named “a researcher of climate change denial”?? It is scary, far from normal.
Ivar Giaever is perfectly right, this is religion not science.
From an evolutionary point of view, people like Lew thrive in the Australian university system because they are rewarded via natural…I mean political…selection. Here’s an example of how it works. Just last month, well AFTER his conspiracy theory paper fiasco, he was rewarded with another $338,000 of taxpayer’s money from the Australian Research Council, together with his conspiracy survey buddies (while >90% of applicants missed out). The abstract of their grant application read “The public now has access to vast amounts of scientific knowledge and information on the internet and in other new media. Paradoxically, this increasing availability of knowledge has been accompanied by the increasing traction of pseudoscientific misinformation. This project explores the reasons underlying those trends and seeks solutions.”
So, his crap projects support the correct political side –> he gets the most coveted ARC grants and nationwide media coverage –> that makes his university very happy (particularly UWA that is massively in debt) –> that increases his political weight inside the university –> he uses that increased political weight to force dissenting opinions out of his university. Lew’s UWA colleague K Judd explicitly told me once that he’s been lobbying the UWA Vice Chancellor for years, to force “deniers” out of academia and was disappointed not enough measures had been taken against them yet.
If you want to reverse the trend and go back to honest empirical science, you need to reverse the direction of natural/political selection.
Up he pops, like a bad skin rash, the addlepate professor of cognitive incoherence and statistical mumbo jumbo, to give the world the benefit of….. nothing whatsoever. Being the psychologist he clearly thinks he is he would of course immediately be able to tell when something is genuine….wouldn’t he?
Like this-
“There are only a pitiful few deniers, Stephan tells me, adding that they use multiple aliases to mount their anti-Gaia barrages. And most chilling of all, they are paid, presumably by Big Carbon, to work this dreadful mischief! “Bear in mind that a proportion of those comments is orchestrated,” he writes, “and for all we know there are only a handful of people with multiple electronic ‘personas’ each, who are paid to create disproportionate noise.”
“You heard it from a professor, so don’t doubt that revelation for a second.”
John Cook also chips in with the wisdom of the ancients. Something about Ghandi, den**rs and dead rats on the doorstep. He writes, ” deniers attack everyone indiscriminately from the lowly blogger to the most IMMINENT climate scientists in the world.” Those imminent scientists must be imminently shaking in their imminent boots.
The blogger, Verdant Hopes, concludes:
“Now I am worried. I have been finding dead rats on my doorstep for some time, even before I started blogging. I had believed (in my innocence) that they were Sparkles’ handiwork, but now I fear Big Carbon has been instructing its operatives to monitor my opinions and engage in pre-emptive intimidation.”
http://verdanthopes.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/tomorrow-belongs-to-us.html
Ah, the man who spawned the “Flusted Bush”
Modern Conspiracy Theories:
1. Moon landings never happened.
2. Smoking is beneficial to health.
3. Drunk driving is safe.
4. Sceptics are funded by ‘Big Oil’.
5. The science is settled.
6. CAGW.
7. Climate statisticians are decent honourable people, trustworthy who can rightly consider themselves the ‘Chosen of God!
Considering that there is not one shred of defensible evidence for what he claims, particularly regarding the climate, he sure is pedantic and full of the idea that he is unarguably right. It would appear that almost everything he says of the skeptics is more true for him.
It is also quite clear that he knows little science.
Indeed, getting around the “prestige” and unwarranted credibility that the IPCC garners, we have to work on lowering their credibility. That’s a reality when you are trying to counter a multibillion dollar business of a scam.
FWIW,
For about the last decade I have been ordering the same wall calendar, it has wonderful pictures of various weather phenomena.
The calendar inserts a weather story (full page) between each month as the pages are flipped.
The 2011 edition started to jump on the CAGW bandwagon, so much so that I considered getting something different for 2012.
The 2012 edition inserted stories between 7 of the months, that dealt with (individually):
Sinking islands
Invasive plants (due to warmth)
Agriculture (the usual)
Changing monsoons
Crime (hot people get mad)
Investments (betting becoming unpredicable ?)
Chesapeake Bay (worse than it is)
The 2013 edition only inserts:
Epidemiology (spreading disease)
Penguins (with a picture showing the warmth over the Antarctic peninsula)
————
I’m almost tempted to read some of the inserts this year, as I used to 🙂
“In other words, the scientific case has become even stronger and has now reached a level of confidence that is parallelled only by our confidence in some very basic laws of physics, such as gravity or thermodynamics.”
How can this man have an appointment as a professor of anything?
OMG. He said “thermodynamics”. That’s like sciency.