Guest post by Brandon Shollenberger
Words cannot describe the humor of Michael Mann’s latest post:
As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. These are mostly just noise in the background these days, as the media increasingly appears to be recognizing the intellectual bankruptcy of the industry-funded climate change denial effort and those who do its bidding. Occasionally, though, I will debunk the most egregious of the smears and falsehoods, both to set the record straight, and to arm readers w/ the information necessary to evaluate the credibility of the various actors in the climate change denial campaign…At that point I will be updating my lecture slides, many of which are indeed somewhat out of date.
Thus starts the latest crazy posting in the climate blog world, unsurprisingly written by Michael Mann. Snickers abound when Mann talks about “credibility,” but no words exist for the reaction this post should garner. Specifically, Michael Mann refers to a recent posting from (the long missed) Steve McIntyre, saying:
…it seems remarkable that Mr. McIntyre couldn’t figure this out, and instead chose to invent an entire conspiracy theory involving not just me, but multiple scientists, the AGU, IPCC, etc.
Steve McIntyre has gathered a great deal of respect, including respect from people who don’t agree with him. He has made many points even his critics accept are true. How can anyone believe he is some conspiracy nut? I don’t know, but it can’t be because of anything he wrote in that post.
The term AGU is used approximately 30 times in McIntyre’s post. In every case, it is used in a sense like “Mann at AGU,” “Mann’s AGU graphic” or “the AGU audience.” Not a single case of McIntyre saying the AGU did anything exists. The same is true for the term IPCC, which gets used 10 times. In fact, the only person (other than Mann) the post refers to as doing anything is Naomi Oreskes, who McIntyre says “appears to have [been] wrongfooted” by Mann.
Put simply, Steve McIntyre blamed everything in this post on Michael Mann. Mann interprets this as:
…an apparent effort to manufacture a nefarious plot out of whole cloth [where] Mr. McIntyre (parroted by Mr. Watts) imagines a great conspiracy.
While this is arguably a new low for Michael Mann, many people won’t be surprised at him saying things that make him appear delusional. However, some may be surprised to see John Cook, proprietor of Skeptical Science, agreed, saying (in a comment):
I find it interesting that Steve McIntyre automatically lunges towards a conspiratorial explanation of events. Stephan Lewandowsky published a paper last year showing a significant association between climate denial and conspiratorial thinking. The response to the research from climate deniers was a host of new conspiracy theories. We document the originators of these conspiracy theories in the paper Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation: http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/Lewandowsky_2013_Recursive_Fury.pdf. The chief originator of conspiracy theories? Steve McIntyre.
That’s right, the founder of Skeptical Science, a man who works with people like Stephan Lewandowsky to claim skeptics are conspiracy nuts, promotes this as an example of their conspiratorial ideation. A man who publishes papers claiming to find conspiracy theorists finds blaming everything on Mann to be a conspiracy theory involving an unknown number of people.
Be careful folks. Blame Michael Mann for anything, and you may be fabricating a conspiracy involving intergovernmental bodies, scientific communities and “multiple scientists.”
Or so global warming advocates will say.
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See Steve McIntyre’s observations on Dr. Mann’s graphic shortcomings here
Related articles
- Mike’s AGU Trick (climateaudit.org)
- Michael Mann’s new ‘trick’, pulled off at the American Geophysical Union Convention – exposed by McIntyre (wattsupwiththat.com)
- John Cook: Conspiracy Theorists Respond to Evidence They’re Conspiracy Theorists With More Conspiracy Theories (huffingtonpost.com)
- Friday Funny – John Cook’s withdrawal symptoms (wattsupwiththat.com)
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Michael Mann is becoming more irrelevant by the day and I think eventually the hockey team can’t take it any more and are forced to dump him.
Stephan Lewandowsky has claimed, now for some 9 months, that his “NASA faked the moon landing | Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science” paper has been peer reviewed and is “In Press” at Psychological Science.
This is a purely false statement. This paper has NOT been published anywhere (other than the authors website as noted), let alone at Psychological Science. Neither has it been posted in the Psychological Science “Early Online” section.
In fact, to the best of my knowledge there has been NO acknowledgement from Psychological Science that that supports Lewandowsky’s claim the paper has been published.
No worries for Lewandowsky, John Cook or any of the others, however – they’ve simply forged ahead and pretended it was published, citing it in several subsequent papers.
John Cook referenced the recent “Recursive” paper which has been posted at the Frontiers in Psychology pay to publish journal. There to the authors make the claim the paper has been published, yet again, s with the “Moon Landing” paper, there are significant issues with this paper as well.
When originally published the paper included an online PDF version of the full paper – both at the Frontiers site and Lewandowsky’s Shaping Tomorrows World blog.
When initially posted at the Frontiers site, there was a link to the PDF in the “Article Info” section at top right of the article. It has now been removed.
Additionally, in the story on this paper on principal author Stephan Lewandowskys blog page at the Shaping Tomorrows World, he notes he paper “accepted a few days ago by Frontiers in Psychology, and a preliminary version of the paper is already available, for open access, here.” Clicking on the link in the word “here” originally, as noted by the author, took you to a PDF of the paper. It has now been redirected to go simply to the Abstract at the Frontiers site.
Presumably the removal of the PDF originally provided is due to the true and accurate claims (as reported here at WUWT) that the paper negatively misrepresents at least one of its referenced cites,
Further, since posting of the paper at the Frontiers site, despite claims its been peer reviewed, the listed peer reviewers have been changed 3 separate times. The two initial reviewers listed both are also have work cited as references in the paper they are reviewing.
The following shows the changes, all of which occurred within approx. 10 days after the paper was published online at the Frontiers site;
The first reviewer removed – Michael J. Wood at University of Kent, does seem qualified – his area of research is conspiracy, he is a postgraduate researcher in the Psychology Dept. at U-Kent whose thesis work is “Understanding beliefs in conspiracy theories” and he teaches Psychology Stats … making him seemingly ell qualified to review both the “Recursive” paper and the underlying “Moon Landing” paper that Recursive was based on. I suppose it is little surprise the seemingly most qualified reviewer was the first to be removed I guess.
The 2nd original listed reviewer, Elaine McKewon is a journalism graduate student at University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. She is also an author at “The Conversation” along with Lewandowsky, Cook et al. Her research interests include “Climate Change Skeptisim,” “Message Framing,” and “Advocacy Groups.” Her graduate work topic is “Manufacturing Doubt: The role of the industrial-thinktank-media complex in the production of ignorance about climate change in Australian newspapers, 1996-2010.”
Her work demonstrates a clear activist/advocacy point of view nearly identical to the authors of this paper. She also lists a business relationship with the authors institution, University of Western Australia, in her CV.
In my opinion there could be no better example of lightweight “Pal review” than Ms. McKewon. Yet she has remained, thru three different changes of listed peer reviewers.
Wood was initially replaced as a listed peer reviewer by Dr. Prathiba Natesan, University North Texas, USA. Dr, Natesan appears well qualified, with no appearance of bias or conflict. As an Asst. Professor in the Psychology Dept, teaching Statistical Theory, Structural Equation Modelling etc., her background and expertise would be particular useful in reviewing the issues related to the statistical analysis of the underlying “Moon landing” paper, which is the basis for the Recursive paper.
Yet Dr. Nateson was removed as a listed reviewer within a day or two as well.
This left only the original Ms. McKewon as a peer reviewer. At this point the Editor of the paper, Dr. Viren Swami, also was listed as a reviewer.
While Dr. Swami is well qualified – as his prior work (Swami 2009, 2010, 2011)was the basis for a good part of Lewandowskys “Moon Landing” paper – it seems highly unethical and suspect for the Editor responsible for oversight and approval of the paper to also be a reviewer.
To date neither the Frontiers Journal nor the authors have responded to questions about these issue.
To review – the original Lewandowsky 2012 “Moon Landing” paper, which Lewandowsky, Cook et al, have claimed since July 2012, to be; peer reviewed accepted for publication by, and “in press” with, Psychological Science has not seen a one of those claims acknowledged or confirmed. The paper has not been published and no acknowledgement has been made by the journal of its acceptance.
And the same type questionable conduct and issues are arising on the follow on “Recursive” paper as well.
And all the while the authors of “Moon Landing still have failed/refused to provide the Supplemental Online documentation they claim contains the information necessary to verify and validate their work.
These are simple, honest, fair questions. Each and every one ignored.
Brandon Shollenberger says:
March 4, 2013 at 12:01 pm
“For those who might not have realized it (such as Theo Goodwin and john robertson), Jeff Norman was joking. He was making fun of how data has basically been manipulated to show certain results by Mann.”
He was trying to do a parody. One important lesson in life: there are some so low that they cannot be parodied.
It’s not fair. Nobody ever lets ME in on their conspiracies!
As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts.
The head of the IPCC said recently something to the effect of “No warming for the last 17 years.” Does that make him irrelevant?
Lawyers have a “side” and can freely argue their case by choosing which facts to put forth to best win their argument. Mann should have been a lawyer because he doesn’t have what it takes to be a scientist.
Think of Michael Mann as an “orthostatic recusant”– one who adamantly refuses to admit anything, holding his position like an unyielding Standing Stone. Such lithic “menhirs” or “orthostats” stand typically in neolithic circles erected as primitive astro-calendrical observatories.
Green Gangsters in general, Mann in particular, are nothing if not druidical postulants immune to any objective or even rational debate. Calling them “by names aright” –“orthos”, perhaps “ORs”– would go far towards “rectifying” climate discourse in Confucius’ sense that “names as words imply reality, which leads to action … therefore, no name properly understood should imply opposite actions in reality.”
A. Scott says:
March 4, 2013 at 7:38 pm
Great sleuthing! (I hardly ever use exclamation marks, so thank you for that also).
However, The Powers That Be are covering all of these jackasses asses. Anyone who believes otherwise is a conspiracy theory denier 😉
In My Far From Humble Opinion.
What’s a guy got to do to get a break?
I am reminded of a friend from the ’60s who, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, took issue with the various conspiracy theorists of that era – from the assassination theorists to the John Birchers – by wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “The Paranoids Are After Me!”
Ok! I am all confused . . . . all this ideation . . . . just who’s idea was it anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_(idea_generation)
Socratease says:
March 4, 2013 at 10:15 pm
Phew, (wipes sweat from brow,) I was becoming paranoid, I thought it was just me. 😉
DaveE.
I’m no expert. In fact, I admit to bring a relative newcomer to this debate. Nonetheless, has anyone considered the possibility that the likes of Mann and Gore are impostors, created to discredit the whole Climate Change conspiracy? They certainly appear expert in inserting their feet in their mouths! Perhaps a tad too good?
A.Scott, thank you for the incisive account of the review/publication status of these two papers. Can anyone obtain current publication status on either paper?
A hypothetical: what is the ethical and professional status of a researcher who might be found (a) engage in media PR about supposed scientific papers while (b) misrepresenting the publication status of either paper?
Hypothetically speaking, Lewandowsky could be following in the distinguished steps of such Hockey Team fanboys as Wahl/Ammann.
I do believe we have some sort of circular error here . . . .
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2012/02/17/circular-references-excel-error-message.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning
With no response from John Cook or Stephen Lewandowsky so far, I’m starting to think there won’t be one. I wonder if I could get one by posting on their blogs (on appropriate pages). I’ll give it a try.
I just posted a comment on Skeptical Science on a topic that is only a week old. I think I was perfectly polite and reasonable, and I can’t see any way they could justify deleting it. In case they do though, here is a screen grab of it.
Long time passed since I clicked a link to the SS. This gets interesting – thanks Brandon.
I have been on the front page of Paranoid Monthly twice.
And the insanity continues. John Cook has found yet another non-conspiracy theory to promote as a conspiracy theory. Namely, saying SKS was paid to set up a website is believe in a conspiracy theory:
http://bit.ly/14Atd48
This will probably be my last comment on this page (though I might see if I can write a follow-up Anthony would be willing to publish), but I have to share this somewhere. Over on Skeptical Science, a moderator told me I was “skating on the thin ice of sloganeering.” I said I would drop the issues to avoid that, but I asked the moderator “to say or do something about the repeated accusations of dishonesty that have been leveled against me.” After all, the Skeptical Science comments policy explicitly forbids such accusations. The response?
They deleted my comment without saying a word. That’s right. Skeptical Science deleted my comment asking them to enforce their rules while allowing others to break their rules in order to attack my integrity. Apparently it is okay to break their rules as long as they like what you say. For those who want to verify what I say, here is a screenshot of my comment, and it’s easy to find accusations of dishonesty in the comments (Tom Curtis even admits to making such).
Oh noes. I’m saying Skeptical Science secretly moderates their site in a dishonest way to attack their opponents. I’m a conspiracy nut!