Second Lewandowsky conspiracy theory paper delinked from journal

Thank you Geoff and Barry for your efforts. At face value, the editorial team of the journal appear to be acting with integrity, for which they can only be commended.
Pointman

Kon Dealer………Is this then potentially a lower magnitude version of the Parncutt incident.

Do you even know what that journal is? Not to entirely slam them, but I’ve been contacted to be an editor for a ‘topic’ for them. I’ve not looked into it extensively, but it’s not a typical journal. I think it’s a place where cronies could very easily slide things in. Here’s a description from their site:
“…the unique peer-review at Frontiers, with an interactive forum for transparent and real-time discussions between authors and reviewers, is key in certifying the highest quality publications and leading to high citations.
The Frontiers philosophy is that all research that is scientifically sound deserves to be published, removing all bias and subjective editorial criteria, and holding reviewers responsible for their reviews.”
http://www.frontiersin.org/news/Frontiers_Impact_Factors_2011/135

When this started I tried to see the best in Lewandowsky, I give him the benefit of the doubt. So, I wrote to him explaining that he was mistaken about us sceptics.
He didn’t even reply. I can only conclude that he has not the slightest interest in “seeing the other side” or academic balance.
That is about all I want to say about the kind of person he is.

I’ve had a handful of exchanges with Barry Woods on twitter about this. His admirable position is that he will try to sort it out with the journal, and in that he is a far more forgiving man than I. If I had been so abused I’d have contacted the University’s ethics committee in the first instance and wouldn’t have even bothered with the journal.

Thanks Matt E’
When they say:
“removing all bias and subjective editorial criteria”
clearly thats a defensive statement. Ie, they are uneasily aware …haha, deniers of the fact, that what they DO is exactly what they say it is their policy not to do.

The actual temperature trends to date are NOT meeting the theory’s predictions.
In fact, most of the predictions are very far off so far (not all but most of them, including the most important ones).
Lewandowsky says we must be nuts for even testing out that fact. How twisted can a person be? I mean checking predictions with observations/results. No scientist does that and no field of science condones that.
This is what he is saying.

So, who are the real crack pots again?

Re Bill Ellis…Lewand..whatever the stupid pillocks dumbass name is….(about time he Anglicised it if hes pretending to be Australian) is obviously cut from the same cloth as the Soviet “psychiatrists” who “treated” dissidents bin the USSR.

I hate it when people assess others by their appearance…but sometimes you cannot help drawing inferences.
[snip so lets not do it – Anthony]

Ahoy Bella Lugosi…all I see there is a picture of your Transylvanian homeland….WTF has it to do with our interests here?

Leave Stephan alone. He was one of my mum’s best friends

These guys continue as if nothing happened. No surprise here since it is their JOB. Who pays?

“I hate it when people assess others by their appearance…but sometimes you cannot help drawing inferences.
[snip so lets not do it – Anthony]”
They are doing it to us!!!

…thats “too” civilised.

@Wamron, its coming.
The farce is imploding faster each day, each honest inquiry shines light where the team never expected light to fall.
However these useful idiots and grant graspers are mere minions, the real targets of my wrath are the high priced help inside my government.
Watchdogs, compulsory protection, here to protect the public treasure.
If they were watchdogs, they are rabid.

Personally, I am spewing (as we say in Australia) that this paper might not be published.
I am listed in the Table of Honour which identifies persons suffering from “conspiracy ideation”, along with such luminaries as Steve McIntyre and Anthony. I am even referenced in the main text.
Not only will my brush with fame likely never occur again (and I am not worthy, but very proud) – publication of this silly paper is a superb public demonstration of exactly the point he was not trying to make.

Dr. Lew and Cook appear unable to perceive how a blatant attack paper like this damages their side of the debate by polarizing it into extremes. The landscape can be thought of as a relatively small group of skeptics, a relatively small group of warmists and a large ‘middle’ of people who are undecided. The real battle is to win over this undecided middle. The bulk of these folks started out in the late 90s willing to go along with the warmists and their appearance of consensus. The skeptics have now been able to win over a portion of the middle and pull much of the rest back into “undecided” from leaning toward the warmists. The largest assistance to the skeptics has not been imaginary payouts from big oil, it’s been over-reaching by the warmists.
I have a number of friends who are in this middle group. We have some good discussions and they don’t always agree with my skeptical viewpoint. This paper had a powerful impact on my friends. They saw it as obvious ad hom, immediately drawing the soviet Lysenkoism parallel themselves. Lew and Cook trying to paint those who disagree with them as literally crazy is backfiring with the undecided middle. Of course, Lew and Cook don’t perceive this because they are surrounded by an echo chamber of other extreme warmists shouting “atta-boys”. They remain tone deaf to how the only audience that really matters sees this!
This kind of wild over-reach is also driving a wedge into the ranks of the warmist side. The extreme warmists are forcing their less extreme warmist allies to realize there are important differences within the warmist side. Has anyone else noticed the number of warmist scientists expressing small but meaningful public reservations and caveats about the warmist case in the last six months? They are starting to realize that history may not be on their side. As the extremists continue to mount ever more desperate (and distasteful) last stands, their allies are edging ever closer to the exits. Everyone remembers the lessons of plate tectonics and ulcers/bacteria. No one wants to be recorded by history as one of the religiously driven zealots who held an untenable position to the bitter end. The savvy, long-term players are hedging by putting some “prudently cautionary” sound-bites on the record, just in case. Watch this strategic hedging turn into a rush for the exits as the climate continues to not cooperate over the next 18 months.

John Cook@skepticscience
The Lewandowsky moon landing paper that started all the climate denier conspiracy theories is now published.
Classic!!!!
A clear statement of responsibility. Nice to see. (even though I assume it was an inadvertent admission).

Dirk H
You might want to google (Sandy’s ‘mom’) ‘Alena Composta’, maybe even with ‘Lewandowsky’ in the search-terms!
Have fun reading!
😉

Fred–I understand and agree with the first two sentences– the third doesn’t make sense. Why would you be disapppointed in WUWT? The one that explores competing theories? And granted, pokes fun at the ones who started the problems in Climate Science, who could resist? Or did you forget the “sarc”?

ferdberple says: Intolerance of competing theories is what has led to the problems in Climate Science. It is the behavior one expects of Real Climate. I am disappointed in WUWT.

Point well taken Mickey Reno: March 29, 2013 at 8:17 am

Re Mark:
“I have a number of friends who are in this middle group. We have some good discussions and they don’t always agree with my skeptical viewpoint.”
Someone used to say to me: “I wish you weren’t so American about it”.I would have thought CAGW is American, surely, most modern global memes seem to have originated in California.
Anyway, to take up your observations that most people are in a 90% middle group, its worth noting that probably 90% of that middle group never actually discuss or think about climate change….they are just too busy with trying to live. So you can be even more specific in targeting your audience. Its the maybe 10% of the undecided 90% who when online look at climate discussions.
I would expand also on the implication of what you are saying. That is that such people are not influenced by science or facts. They are influenced by certain cultural buttons being pushed. the Left are usually good at that. Its why they seek to try to influence perceptions by using “denier” or the Moon landing conspiracists. But its really cack-handed. Lewandowsky is simply unintelligent. Hes bad at Chess-like thinking. Any undecided or doubting on CAGW is unlikely to be a Moon landing doubter.They are so few in number. So the majority of middle-grounders, when hearing that CAGW asshats are saying they are Moon landing doubters will feel misrepresented and traduced. Thereby alienated from the “believers”.

@ Wamron says: March 30, 2013 at 6:31 am
I think it is obviously true what you say about the great majority of people being too busy with their own concerns to personally evaluate this. It must necessarily be the case across a whole range of issues.There is no option but to “trust”.
As such it is unreasonable to expect people to personally decide on the substance of any scientific proposition, and to come to an independent position “influenced by science”. It is only necessary to look at this issue and the exchanges on this site to see that even those who take an active interest cannot agree what “the science” is. Rather than being influenced by science directly, virtually everyone must trust to being influenced by scientists themselves, and by those entrusted with the responsibility to interpret that and if needed apply as policy. This is true of scientists themselves in areas outside their expertise. It is unavoidable.
If the processes that identify legitimate conclusions within science itself, and the capacities of those responsible for interpreting these and applying them are corrupted, as they are in this case, the fault lies with those bodies and people. Those outside this cannot be accused of indifference, ignorance, or mindlessness. They are not to blame.
As to facts of an empirical nature, if there are two or more claims that contradict each other, as there are here, people can only decide between them if the basis for them is accessible. This is rarely the case in any specialist field whether it is science or economics.
It is only recently in “climate” that the basis for claims of empirical fact are becoming accessible. And that goes for the people in the field itself.
What 99% of people are left with – which includes many who visit this site – is the ability to judge the character of the active participants based on observable honesty in methodology and argument or not, inconsistencies, evasion, manipulation, and previously established reputation.
As you rightly say, there are those in profusion who seek to manipulate by “pushing buttons”.
This should not be seen as evidence that those manipulated are by definition unnaturally credulous, although it is certainly the case that people by, in effect, tribal identification, or fixed conceptions based on what is convenient for them, are fertile ground, and that when any proposition comes from a quarter they identify with on the basis of self-interest, they will assume this is in their interest and be inclined to “think” accordingly.
But ultimately, if the promoters of any scheme or mindset are undeniably fraudulent in their manner of dealing with others, this will tell. Where this fraudulence intrudes into a realm that is easily grasped by anyone, as is the case here, and it is seen, they are done.
The apprehension of this core fact, which reduces any other claimed fact to irrelevancy, is what people have always relied on. So the elevation of those like Lewandowsky into visibility, where they can be shown for what they are to all, is all that ultimately counts.

Wamron says:
March 30, 2013 at 6:31 am
“Someone used to say to me: “I wish you weren’t so American about it”.I would have thought CAGW is American, surely, most modern global memes seem to have originated in California.”
CO2AGW definitely yes, in Stanford, 1975.
1975 `Endangered Atmosphere’ Conference: Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born
Mead, Schneider, Holdren and Lovelock
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/highlights/Fall_2007.html
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf

DirkH….MAN thats SUCH a cool link. Margaret ffffffn Mead.
Her ENTIRE CAREER was built on a hoax (to which she was a credulous victim).
Re Brian Freeman, “Margaret Mead and Samoa”.
But theres a lesson in there (besides the obvious one about the crap that social science is).
Margaret Mead is STILL high on a pedestal, four decades after her lousy, shiitty crap “work” was thouroughly, totally, comprehensively taken apart, trampled over and weed upon.
Lesson: it doesnt matter if its pseudo-science, it can still dictate debate. Its ALL culture. EVERYTHING is culture. To follow up on my previous comments, sceptics need to stop worrying about the science, that battle is won, the need is to engage in some shrewd engagement with the attentive minority of the general populace.

CORRECTION……DEREK Freeman.

DirkH…..I was dismayed to discover that Mead was the wife of Gregory Bateson. I was amused to discover that like Bateson she was a good friend of M.H.Erickson. I have no desire to speak ill of the latter, for his many failings an insightful and ingenious man. But those “failings” were among the most succesfull examples of popular pseudo-science of the 20th Century. Bateson and Mead must have been a good combination.
Bateson, on the other hand, illustrates the other side of the same coin. His thoughts about the aetiology of schizophrenia were promising, may or may not have been valid, but were binned simply because they were not approved in the nascent feminist regime of the day.
So Mead and Erickson illustrate how pseudo-science can continue to mis-guide people in spite of their obvious failings. Whereas Bateson illustrates how a possibly scientifically testable idea can be censored because of the same cultural factors.
This goes back to my comments earlier. Once the science has been…er…”settled” …theres no point banging on about it. Policy will not change until the culture changes. Culture cannot be changed by science alone.

@ Wamron says: March 30, 2013 at 10:38 am
I think we are viewing this with slightly different emphasis’s or maybe focusing on different points in the process.
I agree that how “science” is constituted and its basic justification SHOULD allow for the verification you mentioned, to be, within its terms of reference, absolute. And observably so to an outsider. [I do not consider this to be unique to science in substance: it is an expression of the application of intelligence, in science formalized as a process.]
However many areas of science appear arcane to those not familiar with the language, context or intention. And much that appears comprises building with detail that in itself does not allow a judgement about the wider area of inquiry.
It is requisite on science and scientists themselves to “police” these things. Any uninvolved person has a limited capacity to do so. Not to do so by scientists is a failure of science itself.
This is what has occurred in CAGW. And all of contemporary scientific practice is implicated.
This should never have got beyond an interesting speculation. And indeed it remains a speculation but one with an ever diminishing possibility of being correct. And it is no longer interesting.
We are in complete agreement that CAGW is discredited as it has been proposed. This is a very simple proposition and based on the claims made by the proponents has been demonstrated to be invalid, at least to the 95% level (!), which renders it a curiosity at best.
It is completely unnecessary to apply “science” to reach this conclusion. It requires no technical, specialist, or expert understanding.
If someone claims to know something, anything at all, and on that basis says “this will happen” and it doesn’t, then they don’t know what they are talking about. Joe Blow doesn’t know what he is talking about if he says Mary will be at the supermarket in one hour and she isn’t.
If this happens once, then Joe was mistaken for whatever reason. If it happens again, then Joe is unreliable. Repeat, and Joe is a bullshit artist. This is “Climate Science”.
Anyone understands this immediately. They simply need to be made aware of it.
I take your implicit point that proponents of CAGW are a declared enemy, and that therefore all bets are off, and any method of combat is acceptable. If someone pulls a knife on you in the street, they forgo the right to claim considerations that apply to those who don’t.
However I very strongly disagree with the idea that any manipulation is necessary. Manipulation and deceit always ultimately degrade. Everything.
As can be seen in “Climate Change” scientifically, politically, culturally and personally. This is the defining characteristic of contemporary life across the board. And it is a cesspool.
If by manipulation you mean largely strategy, I agree. I also agree, as some of the above must show, that this is, in the broadest sense, cultural.
To achieve a complete repudiation by the public of CAGW it is only necessary for them to be able to see and judge the statements, claims, actions, and ultimately character, of the “Climate Community”.
To do that properly it is necessary to stop pretending that there is meaningful integrity in a gamut of “scientists” who are not scientists, “idealists” who are not idealists, and associated political and business interests who are in fact working towards their own interests.