You’ve all heard of a religious “grail quest“, I submit what we have here is an ongoing religious “smear quest”.
The cartoonist (John Cook, purveyor of the laughably named “Skeptical Science”) and the psychologist (Stephan Lewandowsky), the two rightmost people in the photo above, are working together again to smear anyone who has doubts about the severity of the global warming. If making up data for a fake correlation (they never polled any skeptics, only friends) to support the idea that climate skeptics deny the moon landing wasn’t enough, now they are going after HIV and AIDS conspiracy theory. Basically, they think because we reject their ability to perform actual statistical science (by polling a representative population of skeptics instead of friends who support their mindset) that we are now engaged in “counterfactual thinking”. I look at it as psychological projection on their part.
Making up data to support your claims is about as counterfactual as one could possibly imagine, but this seems to be just another case of “anything for the cause” I suppose. They must really hate climate skeptics to stoop this low, that’s about the only thing that makes sense, because this surely isn’t about science, but is clearly an emotional issue for them. Meanwhile, rational thinkers stand back and laugh at the show.
Here’s the latest Lewpaper:
===========================================================
Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation
- 1Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia
- 2Global Change Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia
- 3Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
- 4 Climate Realities Research, Australia
Conspiracist ideation has been repeatedly implicated in the rejection of scientific propositions, although empirical evidence to date has been sparse. A recent study involving visitors to climate blogs found that conspiracist ideation was associated with the rejection of climate science and the rejection of other scientific propositions such as the link between lung cancer and smoking, and between HIV and AIDS (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, in press; LOG12 from here on). This article analyzes the response of the climate blogosphere to the publication of LOG12. We identify and trace the hypotheses that emerged in response to LOG12 and that questioned the validity of the paper’s conclusions. Using established criteria to identify conspiracist ideation, we show that many of the hypotheses exhibited conspiratorial content and counterfactual thinking. For example, whereas hypotheses were initially narrowly focused on LOG12, some ultimately grew in scope to include actors beyond the authors of LOG12, such as university executives, a media organization, and the Australian government. The overall pattern of the blogosphere’s response to LOG12 illustrates the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science, although alternative scholarly interpretations may be advanced in the future.
http://www.frontiersin.org/Personality_Science_and_Individual_Differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/abstract
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For those of you just joining this discussion, and wondering where the claim of “making up data” comes from, it would be instructive to read the WUWT topic section on Lewandowsky to see how truly bad his work really is:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/stephan-lewandowsky/
This entry is of particular interest:
McIntyre takes down Lewandowsky’s fabricated statistical claims
Lewandowsky and Cook are engaging in clearly transparent “Punitive psychology”. The technique was widely used in the Soviet Union to incarcerate dissidents in mental institutions. At the University of Western Australia the walls of the prison are not brick or stone, but walls of censorship, confining the dissident to a limbo where no-one will report what they say for fear of being judged mentally deficient themselves.
A good example of this is equating climate skeptics to pedophiles, something else Lewandowsky was involved in (via an ABC radio show, but he didn’t actually make the claim, the announcer did) but note that he’s made the claims about HIV and AIDS here, even before his latest paper was published. Predetermined conclusion anyone?
The man and his apprentice, John Cook, are shameless in their smear quest. But, they are apparently getting paid handsomely; Jo Nova finds that Lewandowsky has received $1.7 million AU in taxpayer dollars since 2007.
One wonders what sort of incident it will actually take before UWA starts to reject this sort of hateful smearing under the guise of “science”. Maybe when the grants dry up they will look at it differently?
But, let’s give Lewandowsky a chance to explain his reasonings in his own words:
This one is also interesting.
UPDATE: Climate Resistance has a pretty good summary of the issue
But self-evidently, it was the opacity of the first paper (LOG12) and its method that led to the bloggers’ speculation. Had Lewandowsky and his researchers been upfront about which blogs they had approached and when and by whom, there would have been no confusion. But on Lewandowsky’s view, speculation about his methodology counts as ‘conspiracy ideation’, which is to say that wondering out loud about whether or not Lewandowsky had done what he had claimed to have done betrays a similar mode of thought that convinces people that the CIA organised the assassination of JFK.
…
Related articles
- The involvement of conspiracist ideation in science denial (psychologytoday.com)
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He’s a comedy villain, right down to the acrobatic eyebrows and the slitty eyes when trying to shock. Sorry, the man’s a tit, and an arrogant one at that. Might I recommend simply ignoring him? They hate that, you know…
p.s. His conclusions, when you strip away the fancy words clearly chosen to sound impressive, are childish. How exactly did he come by the title of Professor? It certainly wasn’t through demonstrating complex thought.
interestingly enough, I have found, in my life that most of the true “psychotics” that I become aware of tend to be members of the association of psychologists. They have done to “crazy” what Hansen has done to science. Neither seem to actually know what they are talking about.
Makes my skin crawl. Imagine being stuck in that class for six months. This is, of course, pure obfuscation and their work is irrelevant to the questions of CO2 and global warming. My personal experience is that the majority of people, global warmers amd “Deniers”, don’t know much about the subject and do not read extensively about it. It is those people that this kind of press release is geared for; Lewandowsky et. al. understand that people are influinced by these press blurbs.
One hears them at the top of every hour on the radio, about this study or that suggesting this or that. The devil is always in the details. Areas of study, like climate, economics, biology, environment and sociology are fraught with unkown variables and so a skeptical approach is advisable. Some of the policies that are being proposed demand opposition, They will affect all of us in profound ways.
Wunch of bankers.
The use of the pseudo-word “ideation” is an immediate flag that the paper is post-modernist nonsense.
Lewandowski should have saved himself some time and simply used the Postmodernist Generator
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
[reload for a new article]
The thing is you could apply their criteria to almost any controversial topic in the blogosphere and you’d get pretty much the same result. In fact, if one were to apply those self same criteria to warmist blogs, that is EXACTLY what you would get. A conspiracy theory about Big Oil’s funding of skeptics as part of an insidious plot to destroy the world while becoming fabulously wealthy. Not to mention some ideation and a whole whack of counterfactual thinking.
Maybe whacko counterfactual thinking would be more accurate?
Weren’t there a few other threads on this guy? I hope someone will publish those additional links here.
Incidentally, I don’t suppose Dr. Loo bothered to take WUWT’s self-survey into account, which found the opposite of his results.
I hope his paper does get published. In five years it’ll be the most cited article in that journal’s history. It’ll be referenced as often as Reefer Madness. Go for it!
I figured I’d take a look to see what they are offering in the way of answers to “climate questions” at the website up there in glowing lights, http://www.news.uwa.edu.au
It’s your typical university news aggregation website. I looked at the first 100 articles. Regarding climate, I found three. Dang, it’s a new consensus, 97% of the articles at UWA don’t care about climate science …
One was about a miniature probe for collecting weather data in crop fields. One was about a university scientist going to Antarctica sometime to study climate.
The third one was actually interesting, it starts out:
If that’s their idea of how to counteract the pernicious effects of WUWT’s nasty habit of spreading truth to the masses, they’ve got a ways to go …
w.
Just watched his ravings about peer review.
According to him ‘deniers’ are sneaky enough to publish their work on the internet! Or in books!
The sneaky bastards! Keeping their work so secret that anybody who wants to find it must have a browser..or be able to find Amazon! Can you imagine anything more underhand?
LowRoad says:
February 5, 2013 at 8:36 am
“If governments, corporations and grant receivers didn’t lie so much to cover their arses and/or protect their ripoffs, “Conspiracist ideation” wouldn’t be as rampant. Recent discoveries come to mind:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Divers-find-ammunition-in-sunken-Lusitania
”
It was never in doubt that the Lusitania carried war supplies. Even wikipedia admits it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania#Controversies
PS: I notice that we contrarians aren’t being put in the same bag as “foes of fluoridation,” although it’s a perfect parallel: The forces of science, 97% arrayed in consensus, against reds-under-the bed cranks and conspiracy theorists (It’s a plot by aluminum companies to dispose of their waste at a profit.) The problem with this perfect parallel is that it’s broken down in the end. Europe and Russia have backed away from it, which their tooth decay rates have declined. And the evidence of fluoride’s harm and/or low benefit has accumulated. Check Wikipedia.
So drawing a parallel would not serve their case.
It ought to make them stop and think that maybe “science” (as presented to us) can be overselling something, and the cranks can have a point.
“Lewpaper” – well done, brilliant. For US readers who don’t know what that is, ask a Brit.
When I lived in Perth the joke used be, Toget into UWA you had to read and write, to get into Curtin read or write, to get into Murdoch know someone that could read or write. What an embarrassment having these people associated with UWA.
What the hell does conspiracist ideation mean – in simple words.
Mindert Eiting says:
February 5, 2013 at 8:43 am
cui bono says, etc. Lewandowsky does social psychology. Some parts of psychology (you probably never have heard of) are considered serious science. Social psychology has a hard time as recently two Dutch social psychologists proved to be involved with data manipulation and fraud. Lewandowsky does not make the situation any better.
A housemate of mine back in the eighties took an ‘Introduction to Psychology’ module alongside his main subject. During the first lecture his class was told that the only reason anyone ever studied psychology was their worry about their own thoughts. Having watched the video clips above that seems plausible.
OK got it – means thinking in a conspiratorial way.
“They must really hate climate skeptics to stoop this low, that’s about the only thing that makes sense, because this surely isn’t about science, but is clearly an emotional issue for them.”
Right on the nose! Rational debate with them is impossible.
Their attempted use of the words ‘recursive’ and ‘counterfactual’ amounts to nonsense. They have no idea of their own limitations.
Fred ftom Canuckistan . . . says:
February 5, 2013 at 9:21 am
“Hmmmm . . . as sanity starts to return to climate science, as data triumphs over computer models, as thought leaders in the field start to climb down from their years of Fear Mongering, these fools are just plumbing new depths of desperation driven by the concept that their time in the limelight is up, their reputations are toast and their careers are over.”
Oh, I wish it were true. I pray that it will become true. However, given the sorry state of academia in the postmodern age, Lewandowsky and friends might publish a book that becomes a best seller among some academic sociologists. There are some sociologists who do first rate work but they tend to be in departments that emphasize mathematical applications such as departments of agricultural economics.
@ur momisugly Theo Goodwin, it is not sceptics that they hate, its self loathing, trademark of the anti-humanist order, everytime they pass a mirror their frenzy grows.
Mr. Watts,
Thank you for the response and the links, particularly:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/03/truth-about-skeptical-science.html
The SkS crowd appears to be singularly dodgy and slippery lot.
.
Grant says: “Imagine being stuck in that class for six months” That’s a very good point. I don’t know whether Lew actually teaches, but it would be such a betrayal of science and learning to have somebody who is such a bigot taking classes. What sort of example would it give?
Not sure I understand this at all. Sure, the words are English, but some seemed to be made of roots from some words glued to the stems of others, which sounds like you’re reading something written by the head of social services in Islington borough council. Maybe it was, although she liked to use the word “silo” a lot.
But, would I be correct if I inferred that this “project” basicaly consists of him scanning climate science blogs using some kind of language interpreting algorithm, looking for evidence that posters may be exhibiting conspiracy theories? And this tells him that climate science . . I mean climate science blogs are. . . Sorry, I thought I had it for a moment, but completely stuck, I’m afraid
Dear Horse, to the famous statement that prediction is difficult, especially if it is about the future, I would add that judgement is difficult, especially if it requires knowledge of the subject.
to John W. Garrett and others who are new to the story:
The original research claiming a link between denying climate change (?) and denying the moon landings was first publicised by cognitive psychologist Adam Corner in an article in the Guardian in August 2012, a month before it became available as a “prepublished” paper. The Guardian article attracted 1300 comments, but since most informed sceptics are banned there, the debate didn’t advance until the same article was published on Dr Corner’s government sponsored “how to win friends and beat the sceptics” site “talkingclimate”, where it was roundly demolished by a number of us in the comments, and was defended by no-one.
Debate continued at WUWT, BishopHill, Climate Resistance, Joanne Nova’s and parrticularly at SkepticalScience and at Lew’s university blog, shapingtomorrowsworld, where, despite harsh moderation, a number of direct hits were scored in the comments. When Steve McIntyre joined in at Climate Audit, it seemed to be all over, particularly as the paper has still not appeared in the monthly journal where it was announced five months ago.
I claim credit for another conspiracy theory beside the one with which I am credited in LOG12. The original paper claimed that respondents were sought on eight “consensus” sites, and this claim is repeated in the current paper. One site in New Zealand was completely inactive, and there was no sign of any invitation to participate at SkepticalScience, the site founded by John Cook, where Lewandowsky is a participant and sometime moderator. (SkepticalScience is the most prominent of the sites mentioned and could be expected to furnish the largest number of informants). John Cook informed me in private correspondence that he has no clear memory of the event, but he imagines he must have removed the invirtation to participate in the survey from the site. Yet there is no record on Wayback, which was sampling SkS every month.
Furthermore, in private correspondence between SkepticalScience authors which was leaked on the internet in March 2012, (in mails dating from after September 2011, when the research took place) John Cook refers several times to Lewandowsky, his intention to co-operate with him in some kind of on-line research, and even to using the database of SkepticalScience visitors, broken down into sceptics and believers, in that research. How could Cook be talking about ideas for forthcoming research in these terms to his fellow authors, if an invitation to take part in such research had already appeared on the site?
The claim that respondents from eight sites were used, and that Skeptical Science was one of them, made in the original still-awaiting-publication paper, and repeated in the new one, would therefore seem to be false.
john robertson says:
February 5, 2013 at 11:10 am
Yep, misanthropy written large.