I’ve been waiting to get some confirmation on this since yesterday , and now that I have it, I can state that the link to the second Lew paper Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation By Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook of “Sceptical Science” has been disconnected from normal public access at the abstract. The abstract remains, but the paper and supplementary info links on the abstract page have been taken out.
Retraction Watch writes:
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That study was published in Frontiers in Personality Science and Individual Differences. But yesterday, that paper — or at least everything but the abstract – disappeared. It turns out this is the second time that’s happened. The paper was first removed on February 6, just days after it was accepted and published, because of complaints from a blogger named Jeff Condon, and since reposted — at least until yesterday.
We asked journal editor Brian Little for some details. Little — whom, we should note, went out of his way to respond to us quickly, despite the impending Easter holiday and a self-imposed “sequester” so that he can finish writing a book — told us:
The article was removed on February 6th because of a complaint about a factual error. We did due diligence, contacted the authors, had it corrected and it was put up again.
Little said he was told yesterday by the Frontiers editorial office that the study had been taken down again, but didn’t know why. There’s a conference call scheduled for just after the Easter break, he said
to find out why it was taken down and to seek a fair and timely resolution.
It doesn’t seem that Frontiers has a policy for taking down articles. When Paul Matthews, of the University of Nottingham, asked the editorial office what had happened the first time the paper was removed, he was told:
Thank you for your message. Please allow me to clarify that the PDF version of the manuscript has been temporarily removed for the purpose of further typesetting. The manuscript is currently in production stage and the full manuscript will be published in the coming weeks. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.
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Hmmm. I doubt seriously they need a conference call for “typesetting”. I wonder if they’ll be able to salvage it from the GIGO macerator this time? Since it was mostly about smearing climate skeptics, and not any actual science, I hope that the people in charge will go with integrity, rather than continue with this ginned up collection of emotional screeds from Lewandowsky and Cook.
Read the full post at Retraction Watch here
See also Steve McIntyre’s dissection of the Cook-Lewandowsky “Lying/deceiving/incompetence” complex
UPDATE: My title and original first paragraph wasn’t fully accurate regarding links. While the paper PDF still exists on the Frontiers in Personality Science website, it has been delinked from the abstract page. Title and first paragraph have been edited for clarity within a few minutes of initial publication. – Anthony
UPDATE2: Geoff Chambers writes in comments:
Barry Woods and I both wrote to the editors independently asking for the article to be retracted. When I didn’t get a reply, I posted the letter on their site, and here
http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/lews-talk-costs-libels/
The editorial assistant wrote to me yesterday, saying:
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are taking this email very seriously and will temporarily remove the article while we investigate your claims. Please feel free to forward us any further information that will assist us with our investigation”.
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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.
Correction……………line 5: “Erickson and Mead”.
@ur momisugly 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.
a note on Lewandowsky’s incoherence, evident malice, and double-standards (cross posted with CA):
Since Lewandowsky is already on record (last Sept.) insisting that various bloggers should have perfect email records and recall for any unsolicited two-year old request(s) from his assistant Hanich, Lew has unwittingly set the bar very high for himself.
While the skeptic bloggers had no reason in 2010 to know the name Hanich (or even Lewandowsky), or to care about a spammy request from the equally obscure Univ. of Western Australia, Lewandowsky reviles and ridicules them for not instantly sorting out the long lost details two years later.
Yet, Lewandowsky and Cook, still cannot now after many more months, provide a precise, accurate accounting of the details of their own studies and email correspondence pertaining to such work.
This is incompetence of a peculiar kind, drowning in hypocrisy, malice, and ignorance. The Cook-Lewandowsky team can be proud!