As if there could be any more ludicrous antics from this plonker, we now find that Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky pulled a bait and switch on ethical approvals for his psychological research papers at the University of Western Australia that were designed from the start to smear climate skeptics. It’s so unreal, it can only be called science fiction, or perhaps Lewdicrous SciFi.
Steve McIntyre observes in More False Claims from Lewandowsky:
…I’ve been mildly interested in Lewandowsky’s claims about people subscribing to contradictory beliefs at the same time, as for example, the following:
While consistency is a hallmark of science, conspiracy theorists often subscribe to contradictory beliefs at the same time – for example, that MI6 killed Princess Diana, and that she also faked her own death.
Lewandowsky’s assertions about Diana are based by an article by Wood et al. entitled “Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories”.
He goes on to say:
…nowhere in Wood et al 2012 is there any explicit statement that only two respondents purported to believe in the Faked Death theory that was highlighted in the abstract. Had readers been aware that only two people purported to subscribe to this theory, then they would obviously not expect “many people to give high endorsement to both theories”. Unfortunately when zero people subscribed to both theories, one cannot justifiably assert that “In Study 1(n= 137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered”.
Got that? Zero.
A new FOIA on the ethical approval process for Lewandowsky’s research has been obtained by Australian Climate Madness.
Simon there has done a Yeoman’s work in getting to the bottom of Lewandowsky’s machinations, and it illustrates vividly why FOIA is so important in verifying if researchers have behaved ethically and professionally when nobody is watching them.
Shub Niggurath has done a summary of the whole affair laid bare by Simon’s work and it is a case study in noble cause corruption in my opinion:
The now-withdrawn Lewandowsky Fury paper (link) is possibly one of the egregious examples of ethically compromised research encountered.
…
The approval was granted as a “follow-up” study to the ‘Moon’ paper. The ‘Moon Hoax’ paper was itself was approved under an application for “Understanding Statistical Trends”. As recounted here, “Understanding Statistical Trends” was a study where Lewandowsky’s associates showed a graph to shopping mall visitors and asked questions (link pdf). This application was modified to add the ‘Moon hoax’ questions on the day the original paper was accepted for publication. The same application was modified for the ‘Recursive Fury’ paper. Each modification introduced ethical considerations not present in the previous step. Nevertheless, three unrelated research projects were allowed to be stacked on to a single ethics approval by the university board. In this way, Lewandowsky was able to carry out covert observational activities on members of the general public, as they reacted to his own work, with no human research ethical oversight.
Complaints to the University of Western Australia have been deferred, complaints to journals (including mine) have been ignored.
Won’t somebody, anybody, in a position of authority stand up for decency, honesty, and integrity when it comes to Lewandowksy’s bogus ‘science’? Or are you all too timid and complicit in protecting one of your own?
Jquip says
“Do you consider asking questions, like this one, human experimentation?”
That depends- are we having a conversation or are you trolling for comments to use in your next “research” paper?
Lewandowsky stated his case to the ethics committee in precisely the way that was required to establish that it would not be regarded as human experimentation that needed to be evaluated by the committee. Opinions voluntarily made public without interaction between the researcher and the subject do not fit the definition of human experimentation. Of course, he actually did directly interact with human subjects and named them, which fits the definition of human experimentation and violates one of the central tenets of ethical human subject research, not revealing the identity of the subjects. Therefore, he violated an important ethical principle in human experimentation and violated policies shared by virtually all universities. At my university, this would definitely result in some type of sanction, possibly dismissal.
With regard to previous comments painting scientists with a broad brush as self-serving, cowardly, and caring only about their funding, I have not found that to be the case for scientists in other fields and it probably isn’t true for most climate scientists. Most of us are scientists because we have a passion for science, and we realize that our objectivity and credibility are essential. The reason I became skeptical of CAGW was that the climategate emails and subsequent defense of them by a relatively small group of climate scientists were so unlike the attitudes and actions of any scientist I know that it was instantly clear they weren’t acting like scientists. So, why would I trust their science?
Lewandowsky and its interests have not risen to my level of interest. I don’t care what it does or who it talks to or what it writes or if it reproduces. It is like a noise like a tray dropped in a busy cafeteria. Quickly ignored and of no consequence.
I am more interested in the Tera watts of energy that just dumped into the earth’s atmosphere from the huge flares we are encountering.
Lewandowsky only has a voice because A Watts gives it a voice. Shun it.
Won’t somebody, anybody, in a position of authority stand up for decency, honesty, and integrity
http://bit.ly/19w1c3D
As a person with some education in clinical psychology I would recommend to rather ignore Lewandowsky et al. Developing mental disorder is not uncommon in the field. And tell me, who will take too seriously somebody, who has a paper provided by bold investigation disclaimer even by a journal of a second class quality and without resolution so long? His publication list looks obsessed by cognitive psychology of disinformation, computer modeling thereof. People usually think psychology is science trying to find out how the human mind works, but sometimes, not completely rarely it is rather more about manipulation of the mind and Lewandowski has pretty close to the psychological manipulation field throughout his career. Even it is not primary intention, When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Even he maybe thinks he successfully deconstructs climate skepticism and generally the “conspiracy nuts” and gaining support (– which is rather result of his rather indecent attention seeking at the edge of open slander, to put it mildly, without actually presenting any evidence, and maybe also protective behavior of those in the field who share his extreme views, media attention snowballing and halo effecting it), the mind usually works differently and in result he actually rather popularizes the climate skepticism by seeding cognitive dissonance – which almost inevitably must arise in normal person, when reading his pushy, unrestrained, emotionally saturated texts, not speaking if seeing his characteristic directive talking demeanour which almost evokes a fanatical preacher. He looks like actually having quite protruding typical technocratic, false-objectivist type of reasoning – which is so typical with people of mediocre, not too high intelligence with underdeveloped emotional part of it, seeking only-truth, never able to concede it can have different facets, because such mindset is unable to handle pluralist notions without uneasiness – that’s likely what attracted him to the field of disinformation research in the first place – for his own cognitive dissonance and uneasiness he likely felt towards manipulation products present in everyday life (because world is simply not the place of ultimate truth and happiness) not able ignore it, motivated to research it, find the weakpoints and overpower (although so much futile it can look from normal person point of view) -maybe for then minor personality problems of his own character tending to manipulation by projective identification, which one can see marking of in his discourse. And because people of this type apriori assume control over themselves the more they project – he thinks that also other people must think the way as he thinks and who don’t he deems deviated, dangerous, worth to be feared, labeled as such and ultimately eliminated from public discourse as likely mentally challenged, but without ability to actually diagnose them, because there is (at least so far) no diagnosis reserved just for different opinion (-which is classical fallacy of Dunning-Kruger effect often occurring with psychologists, who don’t have any specialized education in clinical field and only assume they can evaluate mental health by association, without actual empathic talent, training and skills developed for it – which btw is almost impossible with the personality type of Lewandowski to successfully achieve without major therapeutic break-trough during training therapy), so he actually doesn’t realize, that majority of people don’t suffer from emotional problems he has with imperfect reality (although he desperately tryies to project such identity there and manipulate it to realize it and solve it for him by “magic power” of mass), so it will not take his labeling at face value without facing compelling evidence – and if not provided it will actually polarize against his point of view – of course if even able to understand what he actually means, which sometimes is not easy.
This is just what falls into my mind.
Perhaps we should all read Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals:
1 “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
2 “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
3 “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
4 “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
5 “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
6 “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
7 “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
8 “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”
9 “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
10 “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
11 “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”
12 “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Do any of these look like they could describe Lewandowsky?
Deception and misinformation can be powerful tools if wielded correctly.
However, Truth is something far more powerful. It will crack any armor, see through any subterfuge.
Once Truth glances over and sees what is happening, it is only a matter of time before all the lies and misinformation is swept away .
You can tell just by looking at their photo that these two were the repulsive creepy loner geeks in their childhood schools who were beat upon mercilessly by the cool kids. They are now getting even with the world in any way that their limited intelligence and skillset allows.
Someone had to say it.
I received the EXACT same reply from UWA as Steve McIntyre…
http://www.climateaudit.info/correspondence/uwa/20130501%20uwa%20reply.pdf
which of course did not address ANY of the concerns I raised with UWA.
A copy of my complaint is here (sent to UWA and Frontiers)
http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/makingsciencepublic/2013/11/03/the-subterranean-war-on-science-a-comment/#comment-282971
not the best, (Frontiers had imp[osed a stupid deadline) could have done with a good edit, but I was on holiday, and wrote it on a tablet, with my family being annoyed wasting my time on it.
Ethics issues: ‘Recursive Fury’ Lewandowsky, Cook, Marriot et al
I had directly interacted with Lewandowsky via email (for LOG12). I had also commented on his blog Shaping Tomorrows World..
Worse. I had interacted with Michael Marriott (‘Fury’ co author), on his blog Watching the Deniers… Asking him to tone down – his attitude towards me. publically labelling me (and anthony), Denier, Disinformer, Verified Bullshit (red rubber stamp on a Watts graphic – on my article) and worse (for a psychology researcher) Dunning Kruger..
http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/watts-explains-why-lewandowsky-paper-on-conspiracy-theories-is-wrong-its-a-conspiracy-between-john-cook-and-the-prof/
http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/here-we-go-again-watts-up-with-that-pushing-the-no-consensus-myth/
labels also applied by Marriott to Anthony Watts.
Marriott also had had a very public battle with Jo Nova (also named in ‘Fury’) and Marriott was behind the smear of Jo’s husband as being an anti Semitic conspiracy theorists! (language that Lewandowsky repeated in one of his videos)
hardly a wise choice by Lew as an independent researcher for Fury.
Marriott was attacking Watts Up and Jo Nova’s blog posts about Lewandowsky and LOG12, and directly interacting with me.
(Cook’s conflicts are even worse, ie a vested interest, with Sks’s involvement with Al Gore’s climate reality project, for starters)
Marriotts behaviour alone, I believe, when I spelt out to Frontiers in a telephone call to Frontiers, resulted in the paper being pulled the same afternoon for investigation. up to that point they had recived complaint for over a week. and were treating it like an academic spat, not ethics violations.
Robin Hewitt says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Peter Miller says: “Plonker” Definition: A peddler of pseudo-science
Is that right, I always thought it meant someone drunk on cheap wine. ie: drinker of plonk
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Is there a difference?
Oh sorry the peddler of pseudo-science is drunk on power.
Just one point…the link to Frontiers in the Shub Niggurath quote says this:
“The article has not been retracted or withdrawn.”
Contradicting Shub’s assertion.
Jim Cripwell says: @ur momisugly November 8, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Markstoval, you write “But we do have a slingshot; and that would be mother nature.”
You are correct. However, we have to wait for Mother Nature to give us the right ammunition. That is taking a long time, and I am not sure how much more time we have, before irreparable damage is done.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It already has been done. We have a whole generation (or more) of people raised with psuedo-science instead of science in high school and grammar school. Kids who haven’t learned to read properly much less reason. Many of these state crippled kids have gone on to get useless degrees in fields that will no longer exist if CAGW collapses.
The only question is whether they will wake-up and there will be a back lash or their brainwashing will last a life time and they will just hop on the next psuedo-science bandwagon manufactured by the power mongers. So far in just my lifetime we have gone from “the Price of Progress” to pollution control to the ozone hole to global cooling to global warming.
“Woodrow Wilson, the nations 28th president, believed that the scholar and the policymaker were engaged in a common enterprise. – http://www.wilsoncenter.org/about-us
Seems Ike was a bit late in his warning.
Woodrow Wilson is the US president who signed the Federal Reserve Act in December 1913, almost a hundred years ago. He also said:
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” from his book The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People (New York and Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913) Pg. 24 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14811
or see excerpts of the book @ur momisugly : http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/WWilson_NewFreedom.html
They have to throw around the word “Conspiracy Theorists” and indicate they are “Mentally Ill.” This is to counteract the curiosity of people. There is now a tremendous amount of information floating around on the internet, much from primary sources such as that quote above, all at our finger tips. Worse you do not even have to go to the library and spend hours digging for it. (Also public libraries can easily censor material.)
How many times have we seen Anthony called all sorts of names so the herd will not bother to read what is written here? Labeling someone a ‘mentally ill conspiracy theorist’ is the quickest way to censor someone. On other boards it has gotten to the point I dare not link to this website.
The worse part is connecting conspiracy theorist to mental illness which allows incarceration without trial and once your record contains involuntary admission to a mental institution all credibility is lost. It happened in the Soviet Union and it is happening in the “Free World” today.
SEE: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/22127/ or for an example of ‘Friends’ conspiraring to get someone committed because he believes in ‘conspiracy theories’ : http://ask.metafilter.com/227005/Unhealthy-conspiracy-theories
If you really want to become ill read the article : Electroshock for Children and Involuntary Adults
by Dr. Breggin. “In June 2005 in south Carolinia, I was the medical expert in the first ever malpractice trial in which a jury found a doctor negligent for referring a patient for ECT.”
http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=273
My above comment may seem ‘way-out’ because I could not find the actual illustration I was looking for. So consider this, many states hare laws which permit the involuntary commitment of people for mental illness alone. It is not necessary to show that the person has ever committed an illegal act. One of the targets are old people who are placed in mental hospitals just to get them out of the way. First it is cheaper than a nursing home and second it allows relatives to ‘Inherit’ without murder since the mentally ill are incompetent to manage their own affairs. (Easy to get a court order for power of attorney)
Many statutes authorizing commitment for mental illness do not define mental illness but let professionals define it any way they see fit.
This is where the danger of what Lewandowsky is doing comes in. If you get enough of these crap papers it becomes justification for claiming mental illness in the minds of the ‘Professionals’ especially since the ‘patient’ has to pay for treatment.
So all it takes is the word of a cop and a nurse to sign off on the involuntary examination paperwork and sent you to a mental hospital for evaluation. If you then refuse treatment that it is considered a sign you are ‘mentally ill’ Nice catch-22 :>)
Jquip says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:20 pm
…Fair cop, let’s try you out. Ah wait, we cannot as you didn’t address the substance of the post. One might accuse you of an ethical lapse by misleading things rather than addressing the topic. So short bus words for you:
Do you consider asking questions, like this one, human experimentation?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are missing the entire point. It is not the “asking questions” that is the problem it is using the internet and sites such as Sceptical Science where skeptics would not be caught dead after the first couple tries an have been censored or if persistent have been outright banned as the SOURCE of his ‘Statistics” It is the worse than going to Orthodox Jewish Synagogues to study the beliefs in Jesus among Christians! Actually you would get a lot better information from the Jews.
Barry Woods…. Thank you.
The article has been taken down at the journal publishers’ website. Per Lewandowsky, the journal is trying to publish it (again) without setting off legal issues. Which means, if and even if it comes back, it won’t be in the same form. For the state the paper’s in right now, ‘withdrawn’, ‘taken down’ etc are distinctions without a difference. If it is not withdrawn or retracted, where is it?
In limbo?
Clovis Marcus says:
November 9, 2013 at 1:40 am
Just one point…the link to Frontiers in the Shub Niggurath quote says this:
“The article has not been retracted or withdrawn.”
Contradicting Shub’s assertion.
Frontiers actually state:
“Frontiers has provisionally removed the link to the article while these issues are investigated”
I actually have original link to the article fulltext from March:
http://www.frontiersin.org/Personality_Science_and_Individual_Differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/full
-and as anybody can check the link is redirected back by the site to the abstract.
So directly contrary to the claim in the note it is not only link removal it is article full-text removal. Which is even worse than withdrawal or retraction, because it usually implies a legal responsibility is involved – as clearly in this case. Also there were complaints not only about slander, but also, if I remeber it well, about research ethics and fraudulent data use, so if the article full-text access was completely removed, not only hidden, it practically means retraction too, though maybe provisional, of the article under publication standards, despite the contradictory claim in the note “not been retracted or withdrawn” – which could be there for practical reasons, because if the Frontiers would not expressly state this attached to the article official abstract and at the same time wouldn’t make the article accessible, it could be (despite in legal sense it is published under Creative Commons) withdrawn from scientific databases, because they recognize only original publishers, so they could deem the article retracted, especially if retraction reported, which is quite easy and which I think Frontiers – a relatively very young journal most probably really wouldn’t be happy about because it could pretty mix up its ranking.
In my opinion Frontiers can’t afford ever restore the accessibility of the article full-text. The risk of legal repercussions given the authors approach and the whole parade of names slandered in the article – and not only bloggers, but including for example US senator – for calumny is in my opinion quite high in this case – because there of course would be motivation to seize opportunity and make some political points on the potential suit, not speaking that swiss laws are rather not very favorable for potential defendants, which good to note of course would include not only publisher but all authors of the article if anything like that initiated and would be pretty expensive for them, not speaking if found guilty, which I think is not impossible in Switzerland, it would pretty sure mean end of their career – which as I look into the article they maybe deserve, because such parody on science one sees not quite often.
Well, you’re on his list of conspiracists now along with us the rest of us.
Normally, your advice to ignore us would be good advice; i.e. ignore the offensive person till they mature. Only, it is unlikely that lunaticdowsky will mature much.
Which leaves us with the necessity of combating lies with the truth.
Lunaticdoozy’s lies are combatted by the continual search for truth performed by the science minded Anthony, McIntyre, Willis, JoNova, Donna, the Good Bishop, and many many others. Yes, as you state, when sensible people get to perceive honest science and compare that against the fire and brimstone and ad hominem mouthing’s of lunaticdoozy and his anti-science illogical herd.
Surely not…?
Isn’t limbo much too temperate? Must be located where sun doesn’t shine and torment is eternal as the denizens read that and similar work to each other, forever.
Our slingshot is logic but it needs to be assembled and used out in the battlefield of public and scientific opinion, not merely spoken of within a blog that only skeptics delve into. Lewandowsky is a skeptic’s delight, since the very title of his study is trivial to ridicule:
(1) A popular study debasing skeptics is called: “NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax.”
(2) Astronauts themselves are outspoken skeptics, so the paper fails the laugh test: http://a2.img.mobypicture.com/8e1234d649766adfef528feb438395b9_large.jpg
(3) The Internet allows anybody to quite magically post (1)/(2) for free, to news and science sites and then follow up with details of the deception. The dozens of fatalistic posts here represent a vast opportunity cost, thus.
In English English slang, ‘plonker’ has an earthier meaning, referring as it does to the male organ of generation. Often used as the description of a fool. Shorter words are also available.
We can give Lewandowsky a new blog handle.
Dr.
Stephan LewandowskyConspired.John
Logic Slingshot Mark II, thanks to Willis’ plot and Mann’s Facebook account:
This year the journal Science published a headline grabbing “confirmation” of the revolutionary history-reforming temperature Hockey Stick in which a simple Peer Review 101 plotting of the included spreadsheet format proxy data falsified instead of supported what a co-author led NY Times reporter Revkin to describe as a “super hockey stick” and which Mike “Hide The Proxy Data Decline” Mann repeatedly celebrated on Facebook:
(A) Plotted Proxy Data: http://s17.postimg.org/mvmsorb2n/image.jpg
(B) Snoopy Dance: http://s15.postimg.org/5x1hmvhcr/Mann_Celebration2013.jpg
Marcott 2013…look it up, to discover the bizarre doublespeak nature of climate “science.”