Fabricated quotes and gross distortions are used to paint skeptics as conspiracy nuts. The question is, is it a conspiracy, or is it just incompetence?
Guest post by Brandon Shollenberger
Many people have shown interest and scorn for a recently released paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook (and others), Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation. People have taken issue with a number of aspects of the paper, but to my knowledge, nobody has noticed Lewandowsky and Cook fabricate things in their paper. That’s right. They make things up.
While there are many examples, I’d like to focus on some obvious distortions of quotes. A number of quotes are distorted to make skeptics look bad. This is seen as early as the second quote taken from a skeptic. The paper says:
The notion of “scamming” took center-stage in the blogosphere’s response to LOG12, although not all comments went so far as to suggest “… there are no `Human Subjects’ ” (http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/ccc1.html#198).
It’s hard to imagine anyone being crazy enough to suggest nobody who took the survey was a human. Naturally, nobody suggested that. If one follows the link provided, they find a comment by the user Foxgoose which includes:
The current premise is that there are no “Human Subjects” and as more and more known sceptical blog proprietors add their voices, this will become increasingly apparent. Unless of course Stephan has approached the proprietors of five “sceptic blogs” which no-one in the sceptic community has ever heard of.
If that quote isn’t clear enough, the exchange it is in certainly is. The “Human Subjects” being discussed were the skeptic blog owners supposedly contacted by Stephan Lewandowsky. Lewandowsky claimed he couldn’t release the identities of those because of privacy concerns. Foxgoose suggested there could be no privacy concerns because nobody had been contacted.
What does this have to do with whether or not humans took the survey? Nothing. Lewandowsky et al. took a comment about one subject, stripped it of context and placed it in an entirely different discussion. They completely fabricated this insane claim then portrayed it as a belief some skeptics hold. And that’s not the only time they distorted a quote in such a blatant way. In another case, the paper says:
Another commenter applauded the alleged cunning strategy to goad bloggers into paranoid behavior:
“If it’s true they are selectively blocking, I have to begrudgingly respect the skill with which they are playing this audience: there is no way for anyone to complain without matching the stereotypical conspiracist of the study!” (http://climateaudit.org/2012/09/14/the-sks-link-to-the-lewandowsky-survey/#comment-352753).
The comment in question was made by the user Nathan Kurz. Here is what his comment said:
While it’s possible that specific IP addresses are being blocked, claiming that they are reads a lot like a conspiracy theory. The irony is amazing. If it’s true they are selectively blocking, I have to begrudgingly respect the skill with which they are playing this audience: there is no way for anyone to complain without matching the stereotypical conspiracist of the study!
Showing that one can get through via an Anonymizer doesn’t strike me as strong evidence. I think the likeliest innocent explanation is a misconfigured router somewhere, so access from a completely different network doesn’t imply much. Much stronger would be to show that you can access from a neighbor’s computer using the same ISP. If the neighbor get through (and is using the same browser and OS), you have firmer evidence. If the neighbor also can’t access, one could either conclude they are blocking wider swaths of the internet, or search harder for innocent explanations.
Nathan Kurz clearly thinks the supposed strategy is unlikely. He argues against the idea. The paper doesn’t tell you that. Instead, it portrays him as promoting the idea. They quote a skeptic who was being reasonable and not believing there’s a conspiracy, but they hide his beliefs so he seems to believe in a conspiracy…
But that doesn’t compare to my favorite example. In it, the authors simply fabricate a quote:
A further hypothesis supposed that the real purpose of LOG12 was to provoke conspiracist ideation from climate deniers: “Here’s a conspiracy theory for you: This is the subject of the study, not the survey. The reactions of the skeptic community to a controlled publication with obvious flaws, presented as caustically as possible and with red herrings presented for them to grasp at. There’s some evidence for this theory in internal mails at SkepticalScience, where John Cook can be heard talking enthusiastically about his discussions with Stephan about gaming blogs” (http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=118&&n=161#751).
If you follow the link, you’ll find a comment by the user geoffchambers which doesn’t include a word from him. His comment consists solely of a quote from thomaswfuller and “(-Snip-).” That means the citation given doesn’t show what the authors quote. And it gets better. The quote included from Fuller says:
Here’s a conspiracy theory for you: This is the subject of the study, not the survey. The reactions of the skeptic community to a controlled publication with obvious flaws, presented as caustically as possible and with red herrings presented for them to grasp at..
That is part of the quote Lewandowsky et al published. However, we can see the original comment from Fuller here. It says (emphasis added):
Here’s a conspiracy theory for you. This is the subject of the study, not the survey. The reactions of the skeptic community to a controlled publication with obvious flaws, presented as caustically as possible and with red herrings presented for them to grasp at.
To date, my conspiracy theory makes more sense than what we’ve seen of the primary research that informed Professor Lewandowsky’s paper.
I really hope that I’m wrong, as I will be extremely unhappy if research is used as bait. But it makes a weird kind of sense…
This shows Fuller’s comment is the source of part of the quote Lewandowsky et al published, but it could not have been the source of the entire quote. Presumably, what happened is geoffchambers quoted Fuller and responded by saying:
There’s some evidence for this theory in internal mails at SkepticalScience, where John Cook can be heard talking enthusiastically about his discussions with Stephan about gaming blogs.
Then when Lewandowsky et al copied the text of geoffchambers’ comment, they inadvertently combined the quote from Fuller with the body of geoffchambers’ comment. In other words, they combined parts of comments from two different people into a single quote. As though that wasn’t bad enough, neither comment can be viewed by readers of the paper as the comments were both edited/deleted by moderators of the site associated with two primary authors of this paper!
This doesn’t scratch the surface of the problems with this paper. It also doesn’t address the fact John Cook apparently has no idea what a conspiracy theory is. Still, if the authors of this paper are so lazy, incompetent or whatever else to completely distort and fabricate quotes, how can anyone take them seriously?
And for the record, I don’t think any of this was intentional. I don’t think there is a conspiracy. That would require them knowing what they’re doing!
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As noted above, Geoff Chambers corresponded with John Cook about whether he had posted the Lew survey at SKS. Cook’s answer to Chambers at the time was a baldfaced lie (established by FOI materials that I plan to post up.)
My mum always said that I was a bad lair, after awhile I realized what she meant by that.
DaveA, I recently read a comment from the Skeptical Science forum leak by the user, John Hartz. I assume it’s the same person who warned me there and was probably the one who deleted my comment asking them to moderate Tom Curtis for his flagrant violations of SKS rules. In this comment, he said:
It makes his moderation decisions a bit more… something.
Skiphil, I’m amazed at how Tom Curtis constantly focuses on points of semantics and constantly gets them wrong. For example, he devoted quite a few words to saying if something was “fabricated,” it had to have been done so intentionally. In his latest comment, he says:
Even a quick Google search is enough to show this wrong. Unintentional deception is something talked about by plenty of people. There is nothing unusual or contradictory about my wording, and yet, he devotes an entire point/paragraph to it. You might remember this sort of behavior from a post you commented on. For a person who spends so much time talking about what words means, he seems to have no idea what words mean.
By the way, he’s doing Cook and Lewandowsky proud now:
I said a single quote doesn’t help Lewandowsky et al’s case much. Curtis portrayed this as me saying the quotes do not help their case. He’s flagrantly misrepresenting my remarks discussing… the flagrant misrepresentations of people’s remarks. I criticized the paper for distorting quotes. He disputes my case by… distorting quotes.
It’s recursive!
By the way, I’ve decided to probably stop posting on that Skeptical Science thread due to their ridiculous moderation practices. There is no way to deny Tom Curtis has repeatedly accused me of dishonesty, but the moderators have refused to do anything about it. And when I tried to draw attention to the issue, they deleted my comment.
I’ve posted a comment asking them to enforce their rules. If they don’t, I’m done posting on that page. I’ve done enough to draw attention to the tactic they’re using. It’s practically the same as I highlighted before:
Welp, that pretty much settles it. SKS is outright dishonest. The comment I referred to above lasted all of about an hour. It was deleted before my comment about it here even cleared moderation.
SKS allows users to break its rules in order to attack people saying things it dislikes, and it deletes comments that draw attention to such rule-breaking. Outright dishonesty.
Dare I say, it is almost conspiratorial?
Steve McIntyre:
Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I didn’t have the information to show what you say, but I suspected it. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure I’d say Spencer’s statement was categorial. He said, “[I]t doesn’t look like I was contacted.” It can “look like” something didn’t happen even though it did. By hiding his involvement, Lewandowsky created room for that sort of confusion.
This possibility was obvious, and it was one I considered immediately upon reading her post. It is difficult to imagine how Lewandowsky et al could publish hearsay like this without realizing the risk.
Thanks for drawing my attention to that comment. I didn’t notice it when it first got posted, and I might have missed it all together if you hadn’t mentioned it. It’s crazy just what these people will do.
With Anthony and the mods’ permission, I would like to post this comment which I have just put up at Lewandowsky’s “Shaping Tomorrow’s World” blog.
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=74&&n=188#comments
I would also like again to thank Brandon and others who have helped with background on this matter:-
Professor Lewandowsky
I am commenting late on this thread because I have just become aware of several serious instances of falsification and academic fraud in this paper – one of which involves myself.
It appears that words in a comment I made on this blog were linked in a way which completely changed their meaning and context – with the clear intention of fraudulently supporting the paper’s aims while exposing me to ridicule for an opinion I had never expressed.
I replied to a comment by Eli Rabett who had used the words “Human Subject folk” as a reference to your university’s ethics panel. The discussion centred on whether you you could hide behind your ethics people to avoid naming the sceptical blog proprietors you claimed to have directly contacted. I expressed doubt that the Human Subiects even existed since I didn’t believe you had contacted the individuals ( a surmise which subsequently proved to be correct).
You linked to my comment, in the paper, as an example of “conspiratorial” belief that no human subjects had taken part in the research, a completely different proposition and one which, if true, would confirm the psychological defects you were alleging in people who share my opinions.
The fact is, it wasn’t true – and using my comment in that way was fraudulent. I have also taken preliminary legal advice and determined that it may also have been libellous – provided that I can show that there are a reasonable number of readers who are aware of my real identity – which is the case.
I have now made contact with UWA Human Research Ethics Dept, as well as your Board Chairman and Vice Chancellor, and requested that they investigate this complaint.
I am also approaching the University of Queensland with a similar complaint about your co-author John Cook. I understand that, because of certain provisions of the legal code in Queensland, there may also be criminal aspects to this type of behaviour there.
The purpose of this post is to give you an opportunity to withdraw the offending material from the paper and make a public apology to me here.
The full details of the academic frauds you have perpetrated on myself and others are covered in this linked blogpost at WUWT – where I will also post this comment in case it does not appear here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/09/stephan-lewandowsky-and-john-cook-making-things-up/#comments
If you wish to make contact with me to discuss the wording of an apology – you may contact me using the email address I have already supplied to your university’s authorities.
This is an amusing example of just how bad Tom Curtis proves to be at textual analysis, even though he seems to fantasize that he is some master of the art. Curtis butchers a simple sentence by Brandon, turning singular into plural and “much” into “at all” so that Curtis can tear down a straw figure of his own creation. What Brandon did NOT say is that all the quotes (plural) did not help the Cook/Lew argument at all. He said ONE quote singular did not help the case “much” relative to the risk undergone (risk of being exposed and have their entire argument discredited). Yet, using one bogus quote which didn’t help their case “much” was part of the risk taken by the bumbling Cook/Lewandowsky team to create a fatuous article which they hoped would serve its propaganda uses. That is what such propagandists do.
[emphasis added]
Skiphil, the worst part is how much any particular quote “matters” for a case depends on many factors. It is perfectly possible for one quote to almost not matter while another quote is vital. I could have said that misquote was completely irrelevant, and it wouldn’t necessarily indicate the other misquotes were unimportant.
Anyway, for those who haven’t been keeping track, there are five distinct quotation/citation errors in this paper. There are the three I discussed in this post, a fourth where inaccurate hearsay from Jo Anne Nova was published as fact, and a fifth where Jeff Id’s views were grossly mischaracterized. In all five cases, Lewandowsky et al’s case was strengthen by the distortions. And those are just the quotation/citation errors (I’ve noticed) in the paper. I haven’t touched on the inaccurate characterization of issues, factual errors or failures of logic.
It would be impossible to qualify the effect of errors in this paper without going through it and writing a running commentary. The result would be almost as long as the paper itself. I think it suffices to say if the authors cannot be trusted to portray quotations accurately, they cannot be trusted to portray anything accurately.
foxgoose, good luck! Let me know if it reaches the point where the paper itself needs to be examined, not just how the authors handled your quote. There are many distortions in the paper that don’t (directly) involve quotations. I didn’t discuss them here because I was sticking with the most obvious problems, but if a thorough examination of the paper is necessary for your complaint, I could write up a much more detailed review.
As you would expect, the authors distort far more than quotes.
Thanks Brandon – if you want to make direct contact, I’ll copy you in on any further correspondence.
My email is foxgoose at hotmail.co.uk
Brandon
I’ve had a look at the twittering over your comments at the SkS Tree House and noticed that Tom Curtis (once you’ve ploughed through all the pompous circumlocution) actually accepts your point that the quote involving me was a “misquote”.
Quote:-
I can’t post there to defend myself, because my conspiratorial ideation has left me with the weird impression that my SkS login suddenly stopped working – in the middle of a discussion about Al Gore’s Climate Droppings last week.
Nevertheless, it’s cheering to know that good old Tom is on my side – and that he thinks two leading academics of the “Climate Psychology” cult made a teeny weensy slip up in their extensively peer reviewed, published academic paper – by misquoting me.
It seems to me that tenured academics publishing untruths in peer reviewed papers is about as trivial as a 747 captain making a teensy weensy slip up setting his 10kft altitude dial – but what do I know?
Brandon Shollenberger says:
March 9, 2013 at 4:56 pm
Regardless, the user Albatross said users should “ask [Anthony] publicly if he …”
Brandon, I do not see why should anybody care for any stupid conspiracy theories and irrelevant questions from that site? Why should anybody be defending himself and trying to argue about question raised by that group? Sorry, we allow these guys to decide what to talk about?
They should explain and post in detail all their fundings, and then explain their moderation rules and explain the reason for moderations based on the moderated comments.
Why not ask them to provide the original comments before & the moderated comments after moderation?
I guess that would be a gold mine for a psychology professor to make some papers.
Brandon Shollenberger says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:55 pm
Welp, that pretty much settles it. SKS is outright dishonest. The comment I referred to above lasted all of about an hour. It was deleted before my comment about it here even cleared moderation.
SKS allows users to break its rules in order to attack people saying things it dislikes, and it deletes comments that draw attention to such rule-breaking. Outright dishonesty.
I find this is what we have to talk about that site.
Only once they will come out clean, apologize for the misuse and restore comments to show reality, then people might start to listen to their questions. Not before.
I’ve put up a post for those who want to discuss how best to proceed or fill in gaps in the story.
http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/lewd-cooked-and-cornered/
I’m thinking especially of those like manicbeancounter and A Scott whose contributions have been unfairly overlooked by Lewandowsky et al 😉
Lewandowsky’s Recursive paper cites a new paper,
Lewandowsky, S., Gignac, G. E., and Oberauer, K. (2013). The role of con- spiracist ideation and worldviews in predicting rejection of science. [Manuscript submitted for publica- tion].
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/DownloadFile.ashx?pdf=1&FileId=3516&articleId=40138&Version=1&ContentTypeId=21&FileName=fpsyg-04-00073.pdf
That title sure reads like the moon landing paper has been revised. Perhaps the original will never be published?