Today has been entertaining to say the least. On Twitter, Ben Pile of Climate Resistance has been telling us all about how he learned that the Lewandowsky-Cook Paper#2 – titled ‘Recursive Fury’, which detailed all manners of conspiratorial ideation theory, was retracted, or was retracted and put back up, or is about to be, or something. Nobody seems quite sure of the behind the scenes machinations going on at “Skeptical Science” and Lew-world.
Pile pointed out that Cook’s buddy and SkS Tank Commander Dana Nuccitelli (context here) authored a post at Skeptical Science announcing the paper’s retracton/demise/flushing, but then, that post was inexplicably removed from SkS. But, it is still on Google cache here. I’ve saved a PDF of the page here.
The puffed up embargo notice for the SkS blog post is a hilarious touch, as it is now March 21st in Australia.
Some excerpts of that “disappeared” SkS post:
EMBARGOED UNTIL 20 March 2014
Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper
Posted on 20 March 2014 by dana1981
Given that fewer than 3 percent of peer-reviewed climate science papers conclude that the human influence on global warming is minimal, climate contrarians have obviously been unable to make a convincing scientific case. Thus in order to advance their agenda of delaying climate solutions and maintaining the status quo in the face of a 97 percent expert consensus suggesting that this is a high-risk path, contrarians have engaged in a variety of unconventional tactics.
- Funding a campaign to deny the expert climate consensus.
- Harassing climate scientists and universities with frivolous Freedom of Information Act requests.
- Engaging in personal, defamatory public attacks on climate scientists.
- Flooding climate scientists with abusive emails.
- Illegally hacking university servers and stealing their emails.
- Harassing journals to retract inconvenient research.
That final tactic has evolved, from merely sending the journal a petition signed by a bunch of contrarians, to sending journals letters threatening libel lawsuits. Unfortunately, this strategy has now succeeded.
NASA Faked the Moon Landing
The story begins with the publication of a paper titled NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science. The paper was authored by Lewandosky, Oberauer, and Gignac, and published in the journal Psychological Science in 2012. Using survey data from visitors to climate blogs, the paper found that conspiracy theorists are more likely to be skeptical of scientists’ conclusions about vaccinations, genetically modified foods, and climate change.
…
Frontiers Bails Out
However, nobody likes being called a conspiracy theorist, and thus climate contrarians really didn’t appreciate Recursive Fury. Very soon after its publication, the journal Frontiers was receiving letters from contrarians threatening libel lawsuits. In late March 2013, the journal decided to “provisionally remove the link to the article while these issues are investigated.” The paper was in limbo for nearly a full year until Frontiers finally caved to these threats.
In its investigation, the journal found no academic or ethical problems with Recursive Fury. However, the fear of being sued by contrarians for libel remained. The University of Western Australia (UWA: Lewandowsky’s university when Recursive Fury was published – he later moved to the University of Bristol) also investigated the matter and found no academic, ethical, or legal problems with the paper. In fact, UWA is so confident in the validity of the paper that they’re hosting it on their own servers.
After nearly a year of discussions between the journal, the paper authors, and lawyers on both sides, Frontiers made it clear that they were unwilling to take the risk of publishing the paper and being open to potential frivolous lawsuits. Both sides have finally agreed to retract Recursive Fury.
It’s unfortunate that the Frontiers editors were unwilling to stand behind a study that they admitted was sound from an academic and ethical standpoint, especially since UWA concluded the paper would withstand a legal assault. Nobody wants to get caught up in a lawsuit, but by caving in here, Frontiers has undoubtedly emboldened climate contrarians to use this tactic again in the future to suppress inconvenient research. Academics also can’t be confident that the Frontiers staff will stand behind them if they publish research in the journal and are subjected to similar frivolous attacks. Frontiers may very well be worse off having lost the confidence of the academic community than if they had called the bluffs of the contrarians threatening frivolous lawsuits.
Hopefully editors of other climate-related journals will learn from this debacle and refuse to let climate contrarians bully them into suppressing valid but inconvenient research.
We are all scratching our heads at the “threat of libel” narrative. As far as I know, nobody in the climate skeptic community has instigated a libel lawsuit or even gotten a lawyer involved over the Lew paper. Mostly we just laugh about it. But I do know that some letters were sent to the journal about the procedures involved in the paper, where people that you are studying for psychological evaluations/studies must be notified and/or give consent, something that apparently wasn’t done.
There’s another oddity; Ben Pile gives details about a notice at the top of the online version of the paper at UWA which floated up today (last edited March 18th according to the PDF properties) which explains that Courts in the USA have ruled that foreign libel rulings are unenforceable in the USA:
And to top it off, the original paper can still be seen at the journal, Frontiers in Psychology.
Seems like some serious randomness is going on. Given the unreliability we have witnessed from SkS in the past, maybe they are simply mixing things up in this pea-and-thimble game to keep us guessing. If so, have at it SkS kidz, we’ll watch with amusement.
Or, maybe they are just incompetent. Who knows?
As Johnny Carson used to say “That is some weird, wild stuff“.
UPDATE: Steve McIntyre leaves this note in comments
Anthony, you say “But I do know that some letters were sent to the journal about the procedures involved in the paper, where people that you are studying for psychological evaluations/studies must be notified and/or give consent, something that apparently wasn’t done.” This gives an incomplete picture,
The Lewandowsky article made a variety of defamatory and untrue allegations against me with malice. I accordingly sent a strongly worded and detailed letter to the journal formally requesting that they withdraw the allegations and retract the article. I didn’t “instigate a libel lawsuit” or get “a lawyer involved” but the letter was a formal one. It was my hope that the journal would recognize the many defects of the Lewandowsky article and behave responsibly, as they eventually did.
UPDATE2: 3/20/14 10:00PM PDT. Now the paper at UWA that was available earlier at http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf has been removed from the server. Quite amusing that these guys can’t seem to find a permanent place to house their paper, which seems to be toxic now.
UPDATE3: 3/21/14 7:45AM PDT The paper at UWA that was available earlier at http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf seems to have been put back on the server. No explanation given.
UPDATE4: 3/21/14 10:20AM PDT Retraction Watch says:
Controversial paper linking conspiracy ideation to climate change skepticism formally retracted
A year after being clumsily removed from the web following complaints, a controversial paper about “the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science” is being retracted.
…
The release of the news about the retraction has been a messy affair, with a Google cache version of an “embargoed” post about the situation circulating on the web yesterday, and then the story apparently breaking on climate skeptic blog Watts Up With That.
More here: http://retractionwatch.com/2014/03/21/controversial-paper-linking-conspiracy-ideation-to-climate-change-skepticism-formally-retracted/
Note: WUWT didn’t break the story, that honor goes to reader Barry Woods, who advised Ben Pile, and Andrew Montford at Bishop Hill had it before WUWT did.
UPDATE5: 3/21/14 10:35AMPDT The formal retraction is up on the Frontiers of Psychology Website. http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00293/full
@David Blake
Quoting The Lew (lots of puns today)
“The U.S.S. Skate surfaced on 17 March, which is before sunrise at the North Pole…”
I take this statement as proof that The Lew has never visited the high Arctic and seen how ‘dark’ it is shortly before sunrise in a place surrounded by reflective surfaces. This is yet another example of just how ‘knowledgeable’ The Lew is with his ‘cleverly’ picked ‘facts’ and ignorance of the real world.
@David Blake
Thanks for the quote:
Lewandowsky doesn’t know the difference between solstice and equinox (March 21st and Sept 21st when there is equal sun/dark). In any other branch of knowledge, this would be crass ignorance. For Lew it’s a condition of entry.
In social science today, a correlation of 0.1 is thought to be pretty good considering all the confounding factors at work. Don’t forget, second-hand smoke was proven to be a health risk with a correlation of 0.04.
Gone are the days when a RR of 200%+ was necessary to publish. Ever wonder why most experimental results can’t be replicated?
All that wasted water every time the Lew Paper gets flushed…..
UPDATE3: The paper at UWA that was available earlier at http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf seems to have been replaced on the server.
@Seth Roentgen
Well, you are sort correct but at the pole the sun goes round and round, rising higher, not going up and down. On the 17th of March the sun would indeed have been below the horizon but it would have been as bright as any other place on earth a few minutes before sunrise. Consider a deep winter’s day with snow all around and the sun just about to rise over the horizon on a clear day. It would very bright even though the sun is below the horizon.
That smoke you see is the stupid burning in Australia.
Bertram Felden says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:13 am
I’ve made similar observations about the distribution of opinion among my friends and acquaintances but I cannot confirm a correlation to graduation rates you mention above. I’m not sure if it’s a testament about the current state of higher education or simply the nature of man, but I lean towards the latter. Comparable idiocies were popular through the history of our civilization.
Correct, Crispin, agreed.
But then:
Brightness isn’t darkness (unless you’re a psientist).
The only conspiracy is the one Lewandowsky & Cook are involved in. Projection is their main weapon, and like Medusa need a mirror. Floaters often need sequential flushing.
[snip – off topic and out of bounds -mod]
I simply cannot believe that 1) Lewandowsky himself doesn’t want this paper stricken from the record. His career may well depend on this not being commonly available. And 2) That any journal would publish this in the first place. A voluntary internet survey as a data source?
Would any sociology undergrad get away with that?
I think not.
Allow me to paraphrase Frontiers: “The paper is ideologically-infested, defamatory trash.”
Prof Lewandowsky writes about the retraction here:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html#3166
mine is the first comment (sks mods no longer moderating it seems)
[snip – off topic and out of bounds -mod]
Barry Woods: I just read Lew’s post – and the responses you got from ‘Nathan’ – who does seem to like to put lots of ‘sic’ (sic) in his comments. I have to say, I think I need a damn good shower now to get clean. Yeuch!
[snip – check your email -mod]
I don’t get the point of these Lewandowsky studies, even if they had been conducted correctly. The conclusion: some people who reject the theory of global warming also believe in improbable conspiracies. If that’s true, what do you have? Raw material for an ad hominem argument, an obvious fallacy. But it’s even worse. Let’s say there are two individuals, A and B. The study confirms that A doubts global warming and believes in improbable conspiracies. From this are we to infer that B, who doubts global warming, also believes in conspiracy theories? Let’s say that A is an anonymous reader of climate blogs and B is Steve McIntyre. Such an inference would be a second fallacy.
Well, suppose that these fallacious uses of Lewandowsky’s materials are avoided. Then what do you have? A study that shows that some people from a not very well-constructed sample believe improbable things. This is hardly Nobel Prize winning work.
It seems a large number of CAGW proponents believe in a huge conspiracy to keep the public informed about contrarian evidence showing the AG extremists are making stuff up. Who’s the conspiracist then?
If the survey were to show anything real, it would be that CAGW believers also believe, in huge numbers, that there is a huge conspiracy by ‘large corporations’ to debunk their pronouncements. As is amply proven by the preponderance of evidence, it does not take a ‘large corporation’ to debunk the alarmist narrative. Any competent Gr 10 student could do so. It is interesting how projection takes over a world view of an alarmist.
(Conflict of interest declaration: I do not now and have never been employed by any ‘large corporations’ and I am not involved in any conspiracies to prevent people learning the truth about the influence, if any, of CO2 on the climate.)
PS Love the word ‘psientist’!
Lets not forget, Lew wasn’t the only author – one of the other authors of the paper was Mike Marriot, the idiot who recently accused Anthony Watts of photoshopping NSIDC graphs.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/07/watching-the-deniers-makes-hilarious-goof-while-accusing-wuwt-of-doctoring-nsidc-images/
Sanity prevails.
Of course, the three “97%” papers are also either provably wrong or don’t say what 99% of the people citing them claim they say, but at least we can have a good laugh at this one.
Crispin in Waterloo: Just ask any alarmist about the billions we skeptics get from fossil fuel companies. We’re all rolling around in gold bars, you know.
Is this a conspiracy theory?
97% of those who believe in CAGW, also believe fracking is evil/bad?
Put another way, those who want to destroy economies to solve a non-existent problem also want to make matters worse by stopping the flow and discovery of low cost, reliable, energy.
Presumably, Lew would put an interesting, albeit absurd spin on this.
In the graphic and link (from Watching the Deniers blog – Marriott – co-author) shown in my first comment, were a few weeks before the ‘research’ period of the Recursive Fury paper..
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html#3166
Here is another graphic, in the middle of the ‘research’ period by Fury, co-author Marriott. Where Marriott is attacking Anthony Watts, who was later named as a ‘source of conspiracy ideation in the paper and the WUWT graphic shown, is adulterated by Marriott to say “Verified Bullshit” (the article in question is my authorship)
https://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/
Marriot and Cook were brought in because they were supposedly independent of LOG12, yet Mariott was cheerleading Lewandowsky, and attacking LOG12 critics.
I don’t care what was said by Marriott on his blog, the issue is that ethically, how can a researcher be seen to be publically attacking his research subjects, before after, or especially during the research period of the paper. (I am even interacting with him in the comments!)
Nuccitelli’s disappeared SkS post has now been republished in all its glory at the Guardian’s website:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/mar/21/contrarians-bully-climate-change-journal-retraction
Crispin in Waterloo says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:31 am
On the 17th of March the sun would indeed have been below the horizon but it would have been as bright as any other place on earth a few minutes before sunrise.
Technically you are correct, but only if we had no atmosphere. According to my newspaper in Alberta, Canada, the sunrise on March 17 was 7:43 AM but the sunset was 7:42 PM. Even though the sun did not cross the equator until a few days later, refraction due to the atmosphere allows the sun to be seen an extra few minutes than would normally be the case.