UPDATE: It seems another poll/study flies in the face of what Lewandowsky claims about “Free Market Thinkers” Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. See below. NOTE: The section after the graphic has also been updated for clarity by contributor A. Scott. – Anthony
From the “if you keep saying it enough people will believe it”department and the patron saint of conspiracy ideation, Stephan Lewandowsky, comes yet another paper which tries to make people believe that a good portion of climate skeptics think the moon landing was faked, and that free market advocates are likely to be climate skeptics. It also looks like he recycled questions from previous Lewpaper efforts.
The paper data gathering effort supposedly polled 1,000 Americans.
A. Scott writes:
Lewandowsky’s “Recursive Fury” work referenced a new paper undergoing peer review at the time –that used a professional survey firm to survey a random panel of 1,000 people in the US.
That new paper; “The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science,” has recently been published in PLOS ONE.
This new paper is comprised of 39 questions, including approximately 20 of the original questions from the Lewandwsky “NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax…” (LOG12) paper.
In addition to adding questions on GMO foods, vaccines etc., the new paper makes another significant change. The LOG12 paper used a 4 point Likert scale for its answers, while this new paper converts to a 5 point Likert scale. This change addresses one of the criticisms of the LOG12 paper, that the 4 point scale Lewandowsky chose purposely forced ‘either/or’ answers by failing to provide a ‘Neutral” answer option.
While PLOS ONE is a ‘pay to publish’ journal it does have positives, including that papers are not firewalled and are readily accessible to all, and they have an open data policy. It appears Lewandowsky has complied – the paper includes the aggregated response data in a table, and Lewandowsky appears to have made the raw data available at his site as well (link below).
PLOS ONE outlines a defined peer review process, which uses “Academic Editors” who “work together to orchestrate the peer-review process.”
The AE evaluates the paper and decides whether it meets the editorial criteria for publication:
“AEs can employ a variety of methods, alone or in combination to reach a decision:
- They can conduct the peer review themselves, based on their own knowledge and experience
- They can take further advice through discussion with other members of the editorial board
- They can solicit reports from further referees”
There are no peer reviewers listed on the paper – only an Editor, Tom Denson, from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Professor Denson kindly and quickly responded to my inquiry, noting the paper was sent to multiple reviewers who provided anonymous feedback to himself and the author, that the paper was revised in accordance with those comments, and was eventually accepted for publication pursuant to meeting the PLOS ONE criteria. He indicated it was PLOS policy that reviewers remain anonymous.
Although anonymous, at least the paper received outside review. Prof. Denson also appears to be qualified as Editor.
PLOS ONE notes that after publication:
“… all articles are opened up for interactive discussions and assessment in which the whole scientific community can be involved”
It will be interesting to see how that works, but it does open the door Lewandowsky and the other authors needing to professionally to engage with their critics.
Comments are currently open at the PLOS One page for this paper noted below.
In the “Moon Landing” paper, Lewandowsky set out to obtain responses regarding the beliefs of climate change “skeptic’s.” Unfortunately Lewandowsky’s methods and protections were seriously flawed, and as such his data collection effort was rightfully challenged.
Although they collected approximately N=1300 responses, these were almost entirely obtained thru promotion at sites openly critical of the skeptic positions and beliefs. Analysis of the data they obtained identified that only approximately N=150 of the total could be considered legitimate skeptic responses.
In this new paper, Lewandowsky uses a professional U.S. survey firm, and a random “panel” of 1,000 U.S. citizens. Ignoring the findings themselves for a moment – this new survey data should provide a professionally and independently obtained “base line” data set.
Lewandowsky’s email comment to Guardian on the new study:
”There are some other more subtle differences, and despite all that, the results are pretty much identical: Free-market worldviews are strongly associated with rejection of climate science and conspiratorial thinking is associated with the rejection of all scientific propositions tested, albeit to varying extent. This is a pervasive pattern now that has been shown multiple times in the literature by a number of different authors. I am now fairly convinced that wherever there is science denial, there is also a conspiracy theory waiting to be aired.
I cannot be sure of the causality, but there are multiple lines of evidence that suggest that the involvement of worldview, such as free-market principles, arises because people of that worldview feel threatened not by climate change or by lung cancer, but by the regulatory implications if those risks are being addressed by society. Addressing lung cancer means to control tobacco, and addressing climate change means to control fossil-fuel emissions. It’s the need to control those products and their industries that is threatening people with strong free-market leanings.”
Setting aside the analysis and findings, it would appear to me, supported by Lewandowsky’s comments noted above, that my past stated beliefs he would use this new paper – with its independent data collection source and methods – to try to rehabilitate the serious deficiencies and compromised work he has published to date in this series.
I would note the Lewandowsky “Recursive Fury” paper was removed by Frontiers in Psychology in April 2013 due to numerous complaints. Going on 7 months later, no action has occurred regarding Frontiers promised swift review of the issues.
I would also note Lewandowsky’s original LOG12 paper – “NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax…” was finally published online after a long delay. This paper was received by the journal Psychological Science May 22, 2012, accepted by them July 7, 2012, was released by Lewandowsky to the media in August 2012, but was not actually published online by the journal until March 26th, 2013.
Both the Moon Landing and Recursive Fury papers received significant exposure in the media, being used to smear those skeptical of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming claims.
And the ever reliable Guardian, continues that process with this new paper.
The paper is open access, you can read it here:
The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science
Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles E. Gignac, Klaus Oberauer
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0075637
DATA for the paper available fro Lewandowsky site here:
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/PLOSONE2013Data.csv
”FAQS” on the paper at Shaping Tomorrows Worlds:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyFAQPLoS1.html
Here is a Guardian Article on the Lewpaper3 – headline: “Climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists and free market advocates, study claims”
UPDATE:
==================================================
Politico – Study: Tea partiers know science
By Tal Kopan
10/17/13 2:04 PM EDT
A finding in a study on the relationship between science literacy and political ideology surprised the Yale professor behind it: Tea party members know more science than non-tea partiers.
Yale law professor Dan Kahan posted on his blog this week that he analyzed the responses of a set of more than 2,000 American adults recruited for another study and found that, on average, people who leaned liberal were more science literate than those who leaned conservative.
However, those who identified as part of the tea party movement were actually better versed in science than those who didn’t, Kahan found. The findings met the conventional threshold of statistical significance, the professor said.
Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him.
“I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.
To view online:
Hm. Lewandowsky is not the only person to align belief or otherwise in AWG with a left/right political stance. I have commented on this before on this site. Forget left and right, and look at the evidence.
@jeremyp99 October 18, 2013 at 3:42 am
French Revolution set the precedent …
Without a doubt. The durable innovation of the celebrated son of Georgia was applying this assembly shortcut for ancien régime to his modern rabble-rousing competitors.
I wonder if the painted letters still exist on the same mountain or if Stalin’s old and new admirers found a more stately place.
Prior to Lewandowsky bringing up the moon landing conspiracy I had never heard of it. Does that make me a “believer/denier”?
Ref my posting yesterday on the twin towers….steel framed buildings have never collapsed to fire and if they did they would not come down at free fall speed into their own footprint.
james griffin says:
October 18, 2013 at 10:59 am
Richard has answered your post above:
richardscourtney says:
October 17, 2013 at 9:13 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/17/another-plonker-from-lewandowsky/#comment-1451073
As many have highlighted above, Lewandowsky does several dishonest tricks here using:
“- the role of conspiracy …. rejecting the science.”
Alarmists talk of climate science as “the science”. The climate-science church scripture is known as “the science”.
Skeptics have pointed out point out that much that comes in climate science is poor science, not using properly the scientific method, hiding the data, truncating etc etc. Gergis comes to mind, Marcott and so on – starting from the emblem, the hockey stick.
But this for Lewandowsky is: “rejecting the science”.
And instead of looking at the arguments that skeptics put forth he is “studying” the skeptics, trying to find common traits on points in an obsessive quest to mudden the waters.
Oh my, poor students who have such a person as teacher.
james griffin said on October 18, 2013 at 10:59 am:
Oh look, it’s a 9/11 Truther.
Your previous post shows you are woefully ignorant of the common heat treating processes of heat-treatable steel, as most assuredly construction beams would be of such rather than common low-carbon steel, even at your hypothesized 850°F max much of the original strength would be lost from tempering too hot, if the steel was cooling from that temperature.
But the beams were not cooling. You are apparently ignorant of how much strength is lost from steel when heated and kept hot, by the way your previous comment was harping on the melting point. Newsflash, a bar of steel does not have to heated until it splatters for it to start sagging. And you’re also apparently ignorant of decarburization, scaling, how steel is corroded and destroyed by exposure to fire.
Seriously, I have now learned to never again get a propane BBQ grill with stamped steel grids, no matter the coating. Despite the thermometer assuring me it does not get beyond 850°F in the enclosure, after only two years the cooking surface is trashed and starting to break up.
I was watching the news that day. I’m a machinist, know heat treatment of steel, studied forging and welding. I saw the roiling never-ending fires. I knew the towers would fall. As I said then, “Steel can only withstand so much.” Knowing the inevitable, I waited for the evacuation order.
…
You, sir, are a moron.
Thus Spoke The Economist….
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-science-goes-wrong-2013-10
kadaka … don’t forget – steel that was support a myriad of loads – including the simple load of dead weight … a single failure causes a cascading failure which destroyed the structural strength and integrity of the towers.
As the steel failed at the fire levels it collapsed, taking out floor below – initially inside the structures shell …after a number of floor failed the structural integrity of the shell failed and the massive weight of the floors above cause the entire tower to collapse.
That it would fail in the same way as a controlled demolition makes perfect sense. A controlled demo destroys key structural points causing collapse by its own weight.
Seeing [windows] blowing out at lower levels – which the conspiracy people claims shows controlled explosion – was a function of the interior [collapse] which proceeded the exterior collapse, and of the pressure changes blowing out windows.
james griffin says:
October 18, 2013 at 10:59 am
OK. How many hours/days/years have YOU spent cutting, burning, welding, machining, heat-treating, building, erecting. fabricating, lifting, demolishing, exploding or designing steel? I do NOT request you give me your Professional Engineer registration number nor your engineering or architectural degree and university pedigree, just the number of years YOU have spent working with steel.
Have YOU seen the drawings or photographs of exactly how these Trade Center floors were supported?
Do YOU realize that each concrete floor was a horizontal concrete slab, supported only on the ends by a simple bent steel wire truss between the inner and outer vertical steel framing members?
Do YOU realize that this steel bent-wire truss was made up of small, 1/2 inch diameter stiff wires bent into a complex “weave” between a small 3/16 inch thick upper and lower 1 inch x 3/4 inch channel, covered only by a blown-on (painted) fire-proofing insulation intended to provide 1 hour fire protection against “paper and office” fires (wood, paint, paper, carpets, plastic, and interior decorations and coverings?
Do YOU know how far a 1/2 inch dia wire 30 feet long bends under its own weight, even when at its maximum strength at room temperature?
Do YOU know how far a welded wire and channel truss 30 feet long bends under its own weight, even when at its maximum strength at room temperature?
Do YOU know how far a welded wire and channel truss 30 feet long carrying a concrete slab and a full “dead load” of a commercial office spaces and occupants bends under its own weight, even when at its maximum strength at room temperature?
Do YOU know how far a 1/2 inch dia wire only ten feet long bends when it has been heated to only 750 degrees for an hour? Would you like a photograph of that 10 foot long, 1/2 inch dia wire rod after it has been heated to a “mild red” glowing heat of just 750 degrees for 30 minutes?
Do YOU know how much strength a bent-wire truss has after it has been heated to 850 degrees in a fuel-fed fire that blew off ALL insulation and fire-proofing for 2 hours?
techgm says:
“Besides the error of attributing emotion (trust) to something that is inanimate (science), the article errs in that the decline in trust has been with scientists (not “science”) – that people believe that (many) scientists have been corrupted by grant money and a lust for recognition, and/or that their skills are 2nd-rate.”
This is exactly correct. The whole concept of “trust in science” is absurd. I myself am perhaps politically retarded. Whether a view on any topic is considered to be “conservative” or “liberal” seems to me to be arbitrary. I find it difficult to sort people into one of these categories, even if they themselves will declare themselves to be one or the other. Reality is too complex and multidimensional for me to get my head around being able to look at it all from just two discrete political viewing points. On the other hand, I have no problem whatsoever sorting people into the categories of “smart” and “stupid”. Smart people don’t take other peoples word for things. They evaluate the evidence and arguments themselves, and draw their own conclusions. Stupid people do take peoples’ words for things, since they are not comfortable thinking for themselves. When dealing with the Russians, Reagan used the phrase “Trust but verify”. This was a politically brilliant statement because it pandered to both of the voting constituencies — “trust” to comfort the stupid, and “verify” to satisfy the smart.
Many stupid people view “scientists” as being some sort of oracles, with profound knowledge conferred upon them through some sort of magical learning process. Smart people realize that in reality, scientists are just ordinary folks like you and me, subject to all the same human strengths and fallibilities as the rest of the population. Some are selfless and sincere, others are ruthless and self serving. Most of them are smart, but you’ll find that some of them are indeed stupid. One thing that they all are, is human, meaning that each and every one of them errs once in a while. So there are many scientists that I admire, many that I respect, many that I like, but none that I “trust”. When scientist-A presents a conclusion to a scientist-B, scientist-B will generally say something like “Very intriguing — walk me through how you arrived at it.” Scientist-A is not offended by this request, since it is the normal thing for a smart person to do. If scientist-B judges that Scientist-A’s case is sound, he or she may then wish to perform their own experiment to see if they can replicate the results. If they are successful, they will likely conclude that the theory is valid. Smart scientists don’t even fully trust themselves, and will always be open to new evidence that arises in the future that may throw a wrench in the theory.
I myself have concluded that the astronauts truly landed on the moon based on decades of evidence that it actually happened, with no compelling evidence that it didn’t. I have not reached this conclusion simply because I “trust science”. “Science” screws up once in a while. Just ask women who took thalidomide to reduce morning sickness, 50 or so years ago.
So do liberals blindly “trust” or better truly believe what is told to them by “experts” when it aligns with their world-view, apparent this is true especially with the word ‘climate’ attatched. They sure do reject all peer-reviewed paper to the contrary, that is also true as this paper shows.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
— Dr. Richard Feynman
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong”.
— Dr. Richard Feynman
I’m definitely not a liberal, a free market thinker in physics, and will continue to stick with Feynman’s proper view of “science” and not Lewandowsky’s (who ever he is).
The skeptic community forgets there are loons on both sides of AGW: it’s either a catastrophe or a government hoax. If you are anti-corporation the former and if you are anti-government the latter. Skeptics recognize the government’s role but don’t believe AGW was “invented” to control us, but the paranoid do.
If your survey identifies AGW beliefs on an spectrum, you should find the extremes on both sides correlate to paranoia in other fields.
Lewandowsky misses to define science. This allows him to put whatever he wants in that place and drive the conclusions he wants.
To my understanding science is defined by the use of the scientific method.
From wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
“Science (from Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”[1]) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.”
(my underlying)
As Wayne has just posted above:
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
– Dr. Richard Feynman
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong”.
– Dr. Richard Feynman
As Craig above mentioned:
““Immune to falsification” precisely defines mainstream climate science. ”
So Lewandowsky’s replacement of “science” with current “mainstream climate science” is wrong.
Skeptics have repeatedly pointed out the failures to use the scientific method, the drift of climate science away from science.
Each paper without proper raw data release and clear description of the methodology, thus not allowing duplication of the results is a drift away from science – see above “tested”.
Clearly, Lewandowsky does not understand what science is or willfully ignores it.
I cannot believe he is doing this on purpose, so my only option left is that he does not know, which begs the question how can such a person who does not understand what science is and how science works find a harbor in a scientific organization?
At least 36 of the questions in this paper were trialed in a survey at
http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/take-this-test-please-uni-of-wa-survey-on-science-and-values/
This I evaluated a few hours later at http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/06/07/australian-climate-science-opinion-survey-confirming-prejudices/.
When LOG12 was published two weeks later I at first thought this was the paper.
Two things that failed to make the cut for the final questionnaire. First were 15 questions on Christianity and Evolution. Imagine the outcry if Lewandowsky had tried to link Christian belief to “denial of the climate”.
Second were 13, very similar, questions on corporations, written by someone with an extremely anti-business viewpoint.
Given that one of the co-authors of the “Recursive Fury” paper is the proprietor of “Watching the Deniers” blog, there is a backstory awaiting to be pursued.