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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RobRoy says:
June 20, 2013 at 5:25 am
I just point out that this site alone for skeptics who focus on spaghetti charts to argue with the consensus rather than point out the logical political associations that essentially manufactured the consensus to begin with.
I doubt most of the consensus would divulge at this point their political leanings, it could be mined but it would expensive and many countries don’t have disclosure rules on political contributions. None of this explains the typical skeptical position of not focusing on the political bias of AGW advocacy so obvious to many who follow the issue over the decades.
@Thon Brocket
‘Ever notice how “Lysenko” is hiding in “Lewandowsky”?’
No, but well spotted and how appropriate!
By the way, did you ever notice that Anthropogenic IPCC is hiding in GraphicConception?
William McClenney , perhaps this is the comment you were trying to link to HERE at a 2011 WUWT post An ironic juxtaposition of our elders and CO2
Posted too soon …
What Lysenko Spawned!
Thanks jorgekafkazar and Barry Woods.
Global Warming is brilliant! First it teaches you big words like anthropogenic and albedo then it improves your Latin e.g.”argumentum ad hominem, vericundiam etc” then it improves your anagram skills. I love it!
Bloke down the pub says:
June 20, 2013 at 2:22 am
Definition of DISSIDENT….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Good Idea. Then the rank and file Left, who support Dissidents would be utterly confused. /snicker
The article says:
I too made an innocuopus procedural objection that Ludicrous Lew would have made the same category error over,
More on Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., P.E.: http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/barbara-oakley-phd-pe
Recent Posts includes stuff like:
New York Times caught in unfortunate hoax? Say it isn’t so!
Beware the mob that advocates fairness
Each year, I get invited to Washington DC to serve as a pimp.
(I gotta read that last one)
graphicconception says:
June 20, 2013 at 8:51 am
“Posted too soon …
What Lysenko Spawned!
Thanks jorgekafkazar and Barry Woods.
Global Warming is brilliant! First it teaches you big words like anthropogenic and albedo then it improves your Latin e.g.”argumentum ad hominem, vericundiam etc” then it improves your anagram skills. I love it!”
It also made me understand the Hegelian dialectic, the true nature of NGO’s, the purpose of public media, and I learned about Plato, Kant, Edward Bernays, Cecil Rhodes and Carol Quigley.
All that the liberals learned from it was that screaming ever louder doesn’t achieve much.
Each year, I get invited to Washington DC to serve as a pimp. is definitely worth the read.
cwon14 says:
June 20, 2013 at 8:14 am
“I doubt most of the consensus would divulge at this point their political leanings, it could be mined but it would expensive and many countries don’t have disclosure rules on political contributions. None of this explains the typical skeptical position of not focusing on the political bias of AGW advocacy so obvious to many who follow the issue over the decades.”
How do you know what the typical skeptical position is. Mine is that the warmist movement is a tool and that the puppetmasters use science to push through their agenda because so many people still hold scientists in undeserved high regard.
Not that most scientists are not honest; but 95% of papers simply don’t stand the test of time for very long; yet again and again the media apparatus uses study XY to proclaim that Z should be done. No, not by a long shot; much more than one study is needed. And very often the flaws in the numbers bandied about become apparent within minutes after publication.
A typical example (not climate):
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/badgering-the-witless.html
With regard to climate science my own interest is to find the BIGGEST flaw in the models. That they are just complicated exercises in curve fitting is clear, but what is their BIGGEST single flaw? My current guess is that they assume the atmosphere to be hydrostatic.
cwon14 says:
June 20, 2013 at 8:14 am
….. None of this explains the typical skeptical position of not focusing on the political bias of AGW advocacy so obvious to many who follow the issue over the decades.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually the focus over the years has gradually shifted at WUWT to look at the political at times.
Please remember that commenters on WUWT runs the political gamut from left to right. By focusing mainly on the science with a few political comments tossed in (often by me) WUWT appeals to everyone with a sense of outrage over the trashing of the scientific method.
Political labels are, at least to me, a psychological weapon used against people.
Is there really that much difference between the Altruism as taught by the Christian Church of the Religious Right and the Altruism of the Socialist Left? Can that Altruism be used for good, to help your neighbor or send food and help to third world countries? Can it not instead become Pathological Altruism and used for gaining power over others?
I think Dr Evans nailed it in Climate Coup – The Politics The actual divide is the political class, including the academics and the rest of us who support them. The political labels are nothing but a means of control, an illusion to make the Sheeple think they have some control.
DirkH says: @ur momisugly June 20, 2013 at 9:26 am
….With regard to climate science my own interest is to find the BIGGEST flaw in the models. That they are just complicated exercises in curve fitting is clear, but what is their BIGGEST single flaw? My current guess is that they assume the atmosphere to be hydrostatic.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mine is they make CO2 the ‘Control Knob’ and have water as a feedback instead of a forcing. In other words Donkey-backwards. See: http://how-it-looks.blogspot.com/2010/03/infrared-spectra-of-molecules-of.html
Why, . . . that’s . . . paranoid!
I bet Lewandowsky might well smugly have included a another crazy/conspiratorial question:
If i was a student at Bristol University , given I would be paying thousands to be there, I would asked some serious questions about their recent employment of a person with such poor ethics and worse scientific practices. If I was of his student , i would have no hesitation to making it clear that I would expected to be marked on the ‘quality ‘ of my work to his ‘standards ‘ which mean could write any old rubbish and still pass .
To add to Alexander Feht at 12:03,
the website of someone who wrote his PhD thesis about abuse of psychiatry in the SU is
http://www.robertvanvoren.com/
For a good read: http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/the-real-bastards/
@DirkH
I once had a Hegelian dialectic, but the wheels fell off.
The batteries were expensive, too.
Those three words, “prevent climate change“, are really all you need to hear to understand this idiot. Leftists (yes, this is bigger than “Science” or “climate” ) have an apparent genetic disposition for Megalomania. It reeks from their very pores and manifests itself in all manner of crazy schemes and social engineering, and Lysenko was but one fleeting example.
In this case, Climatology, these people actually believe we must lock down the “current” climate ( whatever that is ) with its vanishingly smallish temperature increase above the Little Ice Age and preserve the Earth as if it is a museum. There is just so much wrong with this insanity that it is impossible to argue with them. We’re literally playing out “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. Or maybe “Idiocracy”.
AGW cult members and climatologists alike think we have God-like terraforming skills that just require a up or down vote in Congress ( actually they would much prefer to submit to a UN instead ) or a Presidential executive order. All this talk about psychiatric therapy for skeptics is beyond ridiculous, and they should be volunteering themselves instead!
Indeed. Many of us spoiled Americans need periodic reminders from Communist survivors of the very recent past ( and the present in some places ). Thanks!
Rather generous; I’d say more like attemptedskeptic-bashing, and clumsyattempts to pathologise criticism by an nth-rate academic and intellectual poseur. Poor Lew. He so much wants to be a climate player. Does anyone outside of his little echo chamber take him seriously? Now that would be worrisome.
Gail,
The Evans piece is spot on in regard to Warming motivations but it doesn’t explain a mainstream skeptical ambivalence in acknowledging the very motivations that Evans outlines. Privately it’s accepted but a standard of political correctness is maintained in the public arena by largely one side, skeptics.
DirkH says:
June 20, 2013 at 9:26 am
My thesis is that skeptics are too politically diverse to maintain a logical correlation of the political forces at the core of AGW ambitions. So much so it’s a problem.
Gail Combs says:
June 20, 2013 at 9:40 am
Gail, the Evans piece is very good technically but very indirect in assigning blame of AGW motivations on classical leftist Greenshirt themes. It proves my point again.
Warmists who matter don’t have this tact. It’s why they have dominated the debate.