ESSAY: The shoddy science of sceptic-bashing LOG12 paper by Lewandowsky attempts to turn rational criticism into a psychological illness.
“As the influence of environmental thinking has increased its hold over the political establishment, the failure to win the public support that might create the basis for decisive action to save the planet has also increasingly been blamed on climate sceptics operating on the internet.
On this view, bloggers have thwarted international and domestic action to prevent climate change. Accordingly, the nature of the blogosphere and the workings of the minds of climate sceptics have become the focus of academic research, just as the mechanics of the climate system have been the subject of climate scientists. But this attempt to form a pathological view of a complex debate says much more about the researchers than the objects of their study.”
http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13716/
h/t to Ken G
For reference:
Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
In the twentieth century, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place in the Soviet Union.[1] Psychiatry was used as a tool during the reign of Leonid Brezhnev to eliminate political opponents (“dissidents”) who openly expressed views that contradicted official dogma.[2] The term “philosophical intoxication” was widely used to diagnose mental disorders in cases where people disagreed with leaders and criticized them using the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin.
more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union
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All true scientists are skeptics. A scientist who says he is not a skeptic is not a true scientist
[I] bloggers have thwarted international and domestic action to prevent climate change[/I]
The whole idea that they, or anyone, can prevent the climate from changing, is as arrogant as it is ludicrous. It sustains my skepticism.
I read the paper off a link on Judith Curry’s site. Very well done analysis of Lewandowsky’s abuse of the term science (since he uses none) to justify his persecution of those he does not agree with.
Where are of course, after at least 30 years of intense left-wing activism focused on climate, the detailed studies of the political make up of what for lack of a better word the “consensus”?? Their voting record, political contributions etc.?
We know more about the operatives in the media than the key operatives in science. Many skeptics seem to get upset when this point is pressed.
“Yes, if you take “Lysenko” away you are left with “WADW”. ”
Or WWAD… What Would Adolf Do?
Lewandowsky sounds like the Catholic Church during the Galileo trials.
The phrase used in the Second Amendment community is PSYCHOLOGIZING DISSENT. A naive search on that phrase will lead one deep into conspiracy theory.
I have always treasured Václav Havel on dissent in ‘The Power of The Powerless in his 1986 Living in Truth.
Scientist is indeed an epithet.
There are mathematician, statisticians, philosophers, but the self-assigned-epithet scientist may be an oxymoron. Eschew authoritarianism and credentialism. Believe nothing one reads or hears without verifying it oneself unless it Weltanschauung congruent.
John Greenfraud says:
June 19, 2013 at 8:31 pm
“Pathological altruism” = “Do-gooders” explained.
All here should visit the site offered by John Greenfraud.
Excellent information, Thanks for the link..
I knew it, I knew It had to be so. There had to be a definition for the “I know what’s best for you” malady.
[blush].. well, my fellow bloggers and I would like to take credit, however the public at large are failing to swallow the ever-shriller bleatings of AGW soothsayers, druids and fearmongers – apologies to other soothsayers and druids etc – because they’re not STUPID!
For some hundreds of years – if not thousands – the 97% consensus was witches were to blame for the weather. Sadly, nothing has changed – not even the weather.
cwon14 says:
June 20, 2013 at 4:18 am
“We know more about the operatives in the media than the key operatives in science. Many skeptics seem to get upset when this point is pressed.”
Indeed Chief (?) the main stream mass media is the crux of the CAGW hoax. They drive it.
Popular opinion will be difficult to sway against this current of propaganda.
Until and unless the MSM starts behaving as journalists instead of activists, the hoax will continue.
Alexander Feht says:
June 20, 2013 at 12:03 am
Alexander: Thank you for reminding people.
Ok, let’s get a government grant to map out the future behavior of “Climate Dissidents” ravaged by the dreaded condition: “Philosophical Intoxication”.
As the old USSR’s gulags warm up, The “Pathological Altruists” can de-tox them (us) all there.
Barry Woods says:
June 20, 2013 at 2:18 am
Anagram of “Stephan Lewandowsky” = “What Lysenko Spawned”
Very clever, Sir.
Dyslexia pays
I have sex daily too.
I mean, I have dyslexia too.
It had to happen sooner or later. Leftist academics have for years been saying conservatism is a psychological (mental) disease. When the facts run counter their worldview, leftists jump on their moral soapbox and argue the mental stability of their opponent, especially when the petulent child defense stops working (right Michael Mann?).
It beggars belief that these fanatical activists can call themselves scientists. The very basis of science is scepticism, allied to adherence to the facts. They employ neither
They have a desparate need to shut down debate, or indeed anything running counter to the Climatist dogma. But, their ideology is in serious trouble now, and they know it, so the fangs and claws come out, as evidenced by Loonydowski’s obvious attack on the Skeptic/Climate Realist side.
Whether we got it right or just a lucky guess, we skeptics have been sayin it and sayin it, that cooling is coming. Then sure enough here it is. Since climate alarmists are convinced that humans can control the weather, I would think the honor of preventing the Earth from frying should be bestowed on skeptics!
Thanks for the pointer to this article. I think the key paragraphs are:
Farmers found this was true when the WTO came up with the Agreement on Agriculture in 1995. Instead of quarantine and testing to assure food safety ‘Traceability’ would be substituted. The USDA decreased testing on imported food from 8% to less than 0.6% while the amount of imported food doubled.
In addition in 1996 the USDA substituted an international paperwork system called HACCP and food inspectors moved to inspecting paperwork instead of inspecting and testing food. USDA testing labs were then shutdown. For example in 1995 before WTO AoA California tested 10,576 for bovine bovine tuberculosis by 1999 testing was reduced to 1,425. Dr. Logan. pointed out that…”the disease is extremely rare in U.S. herds. However, more TB-lesioned cattle are being detected at slaughter, and ear tags indicate that many of these animals are of Mexican origin.” A USDA pdf from 2001 stated “Cattle crossing facilities on the U.S. side of the border are operated primarily by private firms…. However, at Santa Teresa, NM, Chihuahuan cattle producers operate both sides of the cattle port-of-entry” (Sorry links are stale)
Thanks to the internet people were informed about these new policies that compromised food safety and with ‘Traceability’ would allow large corporations to shift the blame to farmers. (CDC stats showed the food borne illness doubled after implementing HACCP and WTO AoA.)
The Federal Register where the new traceability standard was posted (under Bush) received over 5000 comments (a huge amount) most if not all saying HE!! NO!!! (I read most of them) Even Change.org had Traceability as a top concern of people back in 2008.
So back to the drawing board.
The USDA decided to have ‘Listening Sessions’ about Traceability. However these were not actually about listening but about a dog-n-pony show for the public.
The farmers were so angry about the repeated hammering on the traceability issue the USDA actually had armed guards in the room during the last go round in 2011!
Unfortunately despite a valiant fight AND the change from Bush to Obama we lost. (Money and Power win over the peons as usual no matter who we vote in.)
Will we ‘win’ the Carbon Tax battle? Given how unpopular Traceability and the Bank Bailouts were and how they were passed anyway, I rather doubt it. The peons voice really doesn’t count and I doubt if it ever has. All Global Governance à la the EU does is make it so the bureaucrats don’t have to waste the time and effort using propaganda to convince the peons they are acting in their best interest. They just use UN sanctioned NGOs to serve as the ‘Peons Voice’ and tell us they ‘heard’ what we wanted.
Marginalizing climate change sceptics using bogus papers like Lewandowsky’s and Cook’s is just part of the Dog-n-Pony show for public consumption.
There’s probably an explanation for all this Lewd behavior by the warmists in the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a French philosopher, social theorist, historian of ideas, and literary critic. His philosophical theories addressed the nature of power and the manner in which it functions, the means by which it controls knowledge and vice versa, and how it is used as a form of social control
“The theme that underlies all Foucault’s work is the relationship between power and knowledge, and how the former is used to control and define the latter. What authorities claim as ‘scientific knowledge’ are really just means of social control. Foucault shows how, for instance, in the eighteenth century ‘madness’ was used to categorize and stigmatise not just the mentally ill but the poor, the sick, the homeless and, indeed, anyone whose expressions of individuality were unwelcome.”
Philip Stokes, Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers, 2004.[199]
For those who get angry before clicking, the linked article is well worth a read and an excellent summary of the whole Lewendowski debacle. It is also a great analysis of the wider failure of AGW proponents to understand their opponents and their arguments before lapsing into incoherent political manipulation.
This is a trend I have been noticing in recent years amongst liberals. The idea what they believe is so evidently true that anyone who disagrees is either doing so for evil motives, or they are deluded.
I agree. I wish it could be posted here in full.
With the Labor Govt disintegrating in the polls, facing a train wreck at the September election and the Conservative Opposition running on abolishing the Labor/Green coalition carbon tax, the usual suspects are showing their true colours in backing the Greens to try thwart such a move in the Senate-http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/university_staff_vote_greens_pity_the_poor_students/
Our universities too are filled with leftist political hacks like Lewandowsky now and as you can see they make no pretence anymore about commitment to science and learning.
The idea that we have to “save the planet.”
I can’t help but think of Gollum in Lord of the Rings trying to hold the One Ring above the lava.
His desire and his actions to “save the ring” cost him and others their lives.
Of course the fictional ring was evil and our planet is not fictional or evil. But the desire to “save the planet” at the expense of those living on it is.