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
LazyTeenager says:
December 15, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Since this “15 years of no warming” from the CRU data set is so popular now, can I start a vote to have the collective WUWT send Phil Jones and the CRU guys an admission of fault and a big fat apology for sending so much spew his way.
Accompanied by a gracious thankyou for providing a dataset that proves what you guys said was right all along.
Lazy, as observation, all these data evaluation tend to adjust the data. Each new version has the interesting result to cool a bit the past values, and change the slope to take out the 1950-1975 cooling.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/03/has-the-crutem4-data-been-fiddled-with/
All these years of adjustments and the skeptics keeping track of it do not allow for further big tricks.
The big thanks goes to the skeptic community keeping track of the data keepers and their data manipulations:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/another-giss-smoking-gun/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/cooling-the-past-at-giss/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/how-giss-corrupt-us-temperatures/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/giss-adjustments-in-iceland/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/ghcn-adjusting-the-adjustments/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/new-ghcn-version-cools-the-past-even-more/
and many many more, see climate audit, see proper data validation:
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/cooling-the-past-at-giss/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/visualizing-how-wildly-corrupt-noaa-and-giss-are/
where would the data be without the skeptics keeping an eye on it? And you chose to post that comment on a thread with hypocrisy in the title. Best fit.
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.
If the proof is THAT strong, why the need for confidentiality?
Logical and moral FAIL
Out of mild interest I opened Lewandowski’s personal blog – see below.
I doubt if I have ever come across such an utterly pointless individual, outside of a government bureaucracy. Look at the blog and judge for yourself. What has he ever done that has been genuinely useful?
Having the ability to dream up a stream of half baked theories simply doesn’t count as being useful.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=lewandowsky&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebsites.psychology.uwa.edu.au%2Flabs%2Fcogscience%2FStephan_Lewandowsky.htm&ei=oZ_NUKL1OKyq0AXChYGYBQ&usg=AFQjCNFd_4XJrDuzXpy6K3yaWLWr8B82iQ
Jimbo says:
December 15, 2012 at 1:24 pm
It’s funny how the more global temperature diverges from IPCC projections the more certain they become that it’s man’s co2. What if we go into a decade long cooling? What then? How do they climb down after nailing their flags to the mast? 16 years of a temperature standstill and they become more convinced. Amazing stuff. This couldn’t happen in any other field of science – I think.
It is not science it is a return to Alchemy
If the shoe fits….
mfo says: @ur momisugly December 15, 2012 at 4:03 pm
….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
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Talk about being incapable of logical thinking!!!
If it started BEFORE she was blogging it is most likely a neighbor or acquaintance she messed with. No details on her except she wants “natural Justice” and worked for a non profit
LevelGaze and TBear,
Sorry guys. Lewandowsky was born in Australia so, he is yours to keep.
On a different note, it amazes me how a single, flawed, internet survey based “study” took Lewandowsky from being an unknown “researcher of cognitive memory” to being a renowned “researcher of climate change denial”, a “climate scientist”, and a spokesman for the CAGW movement. Are Lewandowsky, Nutticelli, and Mann the best that the CAGW crowd have to offer??
BTW, any updates on Mann’s lawsuit??
The man’s a fraud. I’ve encountered Shaman’s with a better grasp of human psychology. Come to think of it, maybe he should leave maths alone as well – he patently has no grasp of it. He seems to operate on Dr. Goebbels dictum – “Tell a lie big enough, often enough and it becomes the truth.”
Oops, I forgot Al Gore, “climate spokesman extraordinaire” and “inventor of the internet”.
eo says:
December 15, 2012 at 1:58 pm
“Yes, it is entirely dishonorable to leak the draft of the AR5 working group 1 report.
Anyway the public in general does not understand the difference between weather and climate.”
Point 1. Didn’t see you telling us all the Gleick was “dishonorable” for obtaining information by false pretences (oh and making up some other stuff!)
Point 2. Climate is just “average weather” over a period of time.
Anything else.?
Based on his careful application of advanced statistical methods, Prof. Lewandowsky has determined that by the time the IPCC publishes AR6 in 2020, even if there has been no observed warming during the preceding 22 years climate scientists will be 108% certain that all climate is caused by human activity.
Speaking as a professional psychologist and someone who has taught graduate research, I suspect that Professor Lewandowsky missed out on the lessons of the basic research course he took himself as a graduate student. If he had fully understood how research works, he would know that there is very little in the huge body of anthropogenic global warming “research” to support the theory. In my class, Lewandowsky would get an “F” for his superstitious opinions. That is all that they are.
He should stick to learning theory; at least his work in that field of inquiry is harmless.
Stephen Lewandowsky writes the following from:
The Challenge of Understanding Accumulation, By Stephen Lewandowsky
“It’s unsurprising, then, that Hans Schellnhuber, climate advisor to the German government and himself a natural scientist, recently argued that 90% of all research on global change ought to be conducted by social scientists.”
And what do we know about Schellnhuber:
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber wants stronger green hammer
In response to a question about sharp Argentine and Brazilian government attacks on ecologist positions, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the German Chancellor’s deindustrialization council, WBGU, said in Frankfurt yesterday that, unfortunately, the global climate problems cannot be solved globally, because, for that one needs to have a global government, which does not exist. He said that he very much regrets that it does not exist.
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/hans-joachim-schellnhuber-wants-stronger-green-hammer
(Was Schellnhuber a former movie actor?)
Hans today
Hans as a movie actor?
In summary, Lewandowsky claims that people like me are “conspiratorial thinking” denialists of global warming because we believe in conspiracies like global government.
But Lewandowsky cites Schellnhuber and Schellnhuber wants a global government.
And this is what they call ‘science.’
“eo says:
December 15, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Yes, it is entirely dishonorable to leak the draft of the AR5 working group 1 report. The report is still a draft and tentative in nature. It is still subject to revision and change just like the raw temperature data. After revisions the facts , conclusions and recommendations could be entirely different and could be opposite as to what is presented in the draft reports.”
——————–
That’s correct, but at least we’ll now have an overview of the process through which these revisions will be made, impossible with previous reports.
Climate science will be like gravity when it’s effects can be summed up in a simple equation that predicts accurately the quantity being measured (travel time on a falling object for gravity/temperature change based on CO2 for climate change). Gravity is not based on probability. Climate science is. It will never achieve the accuracy of the law of gravity.
So, he’s professor of “Climate change denialism” or researcher in climate change denialism or something. Is that even a field of science?
Well, if a university appoints someone to chair a department of fairies at the bottom of the garden, then I’m sure they will find evidence for – fairies at the bottom of the garden.
Australian Universities are full of second rate American Scientists who have not been able tomake it there. There are now very few Australian academic institutions who are even listed on the top 200. This a a really goodexample
If climate science is a strong as Newton’s laws of gravity, then how come climate science can’t explain the beginning and end of ice ages?
It’s as if Newton’s law of gravity couldn’t explain why the apple fell downwards instead of up.
“…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”
Is this part of the “dishonorable disclosure”, this 99% certainty (up from 90%)? Then why disclose it now? Talking about thermodynamics. Is it 99% certain that humans have caused most (/all?) of post-industrial warming – which means “as certain as basic thermodynamics”?? Isn’t it that most of the warming in climate models is a result of imposed positive feedbacks in addition to the 3.7w/m2 forcing for CO2 doubled? What about cloud change over the tropical oceans as possible negative forcing/feedback? What about black soot in Greenland as the main cause for recent melt there? What scientific case? Still clean CO2 is the 99% culprit – even for the ice loss up there?? Professor Lewandowsky, one doesn’t have to believe in conspiracy theories in order to question your statements and defamations. What certainty are you exactly talking about?
Peter Miller says:
December 16, 2012 at 5:04 am
“I doubt if I have ever come across such an utterly pointless individual, outside of a government bureaucracy. Look at the blog and judge for yourself. What has he ever done that has been genuinely useful? ”
That’s why he is in the government bureaucracy.
Lars P. says:
December 16, 2012 at 4:48 am
“Lazy, as observation, all these data evaluation tend to adjust the data. Each new version has the interesting result to cool a bit the past values, and change the slope to take out the 1950-1975 cooling.”
The fun thing is that HADCRUT375 will still show global warming when London is covered by glaciers.
Henry Galt says:
December 16, 2012 at 1:09 am
I much prefer the open-minded ‘liberating’. It rolls off the tongue, describes the effect and wont cover me in projection if performed to windward.
===============================
Very William F. Buckleyesque. Nice.
@ur momisugly FrankK (December 15, 2012 at 6:13 pm):
Regarding Lewandowsky’s background: Toronto academics enthusiastically embraced political correctness in the 1980s, when he was doing graduate studies there. All the trendy group-thinkers became fellow travellers in the quest to throw off all the bonds of truth. Those of us of a different academic leaning managed to acquire and retain critical thinking abilities and even make it into tenured positions by keeping our heads down and keeping our thoughts to ourselves.
But it was a magnificent period for those who embraced the ‘right way of thinking’ (i.e. thoughtlessly parroting the new politicized interpretation of everything, including the weather) as it enabled them to float into the ivory towers in the rising tides of political correctness without ever having to have an original thought. On top of that, they are so well buffered by each other that they develop a robust complacency that cannot be punctured by any application of truth, logic, or arguments to appeal to human decency.
It seems to me that with our Human Rights Commissions and our new (thanks to PM Trudeau) constitutional limits on free speech (which said commissions interpreted to mean that nobody could say anything critical of politically-protected special-interest groups), Canada, and especially Toronto, were ground zero for the emergence of virulent, and politically muscular, political correctness. Lewandowsky is a prime example of the miasma of toxic invective that these people spew out when others resist this political movement’s accepted narrative. Lewandowsky is definitely a product of Canada, not Australia.
By the way, I too am of U of Toronto ‘alumnum’
Gail Combs says:
December 16, 2012 at 5:51 am
mfo says: @ur momisugly December 15, 2012 at 4:03 pm
….The blogger, Verdant Hopes, concludes:
=============================
I think it’s a parody.
Johanna
Poe was indeed perceptive without knowing the ins and outs of what Isaac was doing no more than his contemporaries did and right up to the present time,all that matters to the theorists is that once you mention ‘laws of gravity’ it conjures up equations and any contention ceases,it doesn’t matter that Newton’s Principia is written in the language of geometry and easily taken apart,the ideology is so prevalent in society that few have questioned it out of fear or unfamiliarity.
Poe was following Humboldt and here the curtain rises on a more focused version of Poe’s comments where theory/models are based on spurious conclusions,not so much individual topics such as climate but a wider view of the matter where the real problem exists .Climate is not a battleground for competing models as the problem is modeling itself and it had a definite beginning ion the late 17th century via Newton and his clockwork solar system .The excerpts from Poe and Homboldt are meant to appeal to individuals who can see they can reason properly and that is as rare today as it has been for a number of centuries –
“This empiricism, the melancholy heritage transmitted to us from former times, invariably contends for the truth of its axioms with the arrogance of a narrowminded spirit. Physical philosophy, on the other hand, when based upon science, doubts because it seeks to investigate, distinguishes between that which is certain and that which is merely probable, and strives incessantly to perfect theory by extending the circle of observation. “This assemblage of imperfect dogmas bequeathed by one age to another— this physical philosophy, which is composed of popular prejudices,—is
not only injurious because it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of ill observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover the mean or medium point, around which oscillate, in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms, for something beyond the marvel of a regular succession, and an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses to recognise in the present any analogy with the past, and guided by its own varying hypotheses, seeks at hazard, either in the interior of the globe or in the regions of space, for the cause of these pretended perturbations. It is the special object of the present work to combat those errors which derive their source from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions.” Homboldt ,Cosmos
I was taught (granted, long, long ago) that the word Hypocrisy began with ‘Hyp’.
Is ‘Lew’ now more appropriate?