Steve McIntyre makes a point about Lewandowsky’s duplicity in the emerging “Lewgate”
Lewandowsky made a huge fuss about people being unable to locate emails. The only reason why people were unable to locate emails was because Lew had concealed his association with the survey and then used the concealment to score points.
Source: http://climateaudit.org/2014/03/24/lewandowsky-ghost-wrote-conclusions-of-uwa-ethics-investigation-into-hoax/#comment-523285
He also has another point worth mentioning. In dealing with University types who tend to circle the wagons at the first hint of trouble, the best offense might be bureau-speak rather than succumbing to the natural tendency to want to unload on the bureaucratic stupidity on display:
In earlier incidents, readers of various blogs piled onto early criticism of Lewandowsky and submitted a number of complaints that generally were too angry and poorly focused. These were easily dismissed by the University and built up resistance, diminishing the effectiveness of my own complaint.
Unless readers feel that they are in a position to file documents that are at least as good as mine, I would prefer that they not contact the University. This would be worth conveying to WUWT readers as well.
Source: http://climateaudit.org/2014/03/24/lewandowsky-ghost-wrote-conclusions-of-uwa-ethics-investigation-into-hoax/#comment-523113
Since my complaint to UWA was included in the recent FOIA release, I plan to publish it here, un-redacted, so that readers can see it in full context.
Steve also reports he was in an auto accident yesterday:
I was in a car accident yesterday. I’m OK but was very lucky. Hadn’t been in an accident for years.
We join thousands of others in breathing a sigh of relief and wishing him well.
Paul in Sweden says:
Which colored rose petals do you require cast before your feet?
There are not many people I would agree with re: Mc’s statement. He is one of the very few.
If you think you can write as effective a letter, why not post it here? You may get some helpful criticism.
There’s more duplicity in the other paper:
http://skience.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/lewandowsky/
I don’t endorse eating our own. I think John West stated things nicely:
John West says: March 25, 2014 at 1:15 pm
How exactly do I determine goodness? It’s too subjective a metric. How about: unless you’re going to make a civil, well thought out, well documented, and academically correct complaint please don’t provide them with fodder for dismissing “skeptics” as being Neanderthals.
Rud Istvan, Turney is at UNSW, not UWA.
I concur with Steve M.’s point about the tone and content of correspondence, although it’s a bit cheeky of him to tell Australians who they should or should not write to in their own country unless their “documents” meet some unknown standard that he has set. In this democracy, we reserve the right to contact whomever we like about whatever we like, thanks very much.
But it is certainly true that rants get short shrift from bureaucrats and politicians. In the case of universities, they are not in the least bit interested in people’s “opinions”, as they are essentially bureaucracies. The only things that matter to them are legal, procedural or financial in nature – especially the latter. In other words, you need to bring something concrete to the table, and it needs to be something that has not already been brought by somebody else.
“Burch says:
March 25, 2014 at 1:51 pm
Aieeee! Can we PLEASE, once and for all, ban the use of the term -gate!”
Great idea, let’s call it Bangate! 😉
Upon further reflection, perhaps “Lewgie Awards”, or “Lewgies” for short would be better. More nuanced.
johanna says:
March 25, 2014 at 3:44 pm
[…]
But it is certainly true that rants get short shrift from bureaucrats and politicians […]
—————————————————————————————————————
The problem is that it’s worse than that (worse than we thought, anyone?)
If the recipients of “rants” just gave short shrift to the rants then there wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
But they don’t. They use those well meaning but ill-conceived complaints to characterise the whole of the sceptical movement, effectively allowing them to ignore the well presented and valid points raised by others. To be scrupulously fair, it may not even be entirely deliberate. It’s fairly natural for someone faced with a baying mob to not notice the quiet voice of reason coming from the guy 4 to the left in the 5th row back.
Even if they do notice (and i believe they do), the fact that it [i]is[/i] reasonable to miss that voice amongst the babble is the perfect cover for them ignoring it if they want to!
It must be frustrating for people like Steve M to raise solid points only to have them glossed over by people who can characterise the response as “angry rants” instead. I agree that his phrasing was maybe a little unsubtle, but he’s only human too y’know and it must be more than frustrating to see high quality submissions continuously drowned out by Outraged of Tunbridge Wells 😉
Joe says:
March 25, 2014 at 4:27 pm
[…]
I think there is a greater problem here. Imagine how people who were concerned about Sandusky’s behaviour in the showers of Penn State would have brought up the issue. They were dismissed for, what, 20 years?
Academic and governmental organizations cannot deal with problems. It’s not what they’re there for. It wasn’t until I had Human Resources reporting to me that I realized the HR department is there for senior management, not for the common worker. How to sweep something under the rug is usually the default response, not whether to or not.
Among his many traits, one I admire greatly of Steve McIntyre is his ability to be very dispassionate in his communication with bureaucratic bubble heads. (you can see that I do not possess that quality). I am glad he is fine and wish him well. And I will keep my hot head to myself. 😉
to me this is just one of the many abuses that have been documented in the name of promoting propaganda in regards to climate issues in Australia. The present Government is methodically working their way through a litany of such pushed social issues and agenda that have attempted to destroy our economic growth and prosperity. We lost respect for the C.S.I.R.O with their political pushing of dire warnings and our temperature records and historical veracity were abused by outside influences in the name of this warming agenda. Time is fast approaching where such well documented abuses can be aired in a government sponsored inquiry into the whole climate sorry mess . There are many academics in Australia who would welcome such an inquiry, perhaps it is time they had a venue and voice to restore science and education to a point where propaganda no longer has the position it attained under previous governments.
“In dealing with University types who tend to circle the wagons at the first hint of trouble…”
Don’t they all do this? UEA, Sandusky-State Pen… oops…Penn State, UWA, UNSW – ship of fools, scientific societies: AGU (Gleick’s in charge of their ethics committee), Royal Impropriety Society – whitewash work, handing out awards to felons, UN, Nobel Committee…. Indeed, it is a total oxymoron to call any group in these organizations an ethics committee. It’s like a mafia ethics committee – they are the arbitres of ethics and fair dealing. The committees are really rapid response cleanup/cover-up officers.
‘Off with their heads” only joking.
“Science” has become powerful . . .
. . . and corrupted.
People who think that policy is affected by the presence or absence of rants are missing the point – take it from one with decades of experience in various bureaucracies that deal with sensitive issues.
On any high profile issue, you get rants and you get correspondence which has to be taken seriously, especially if it is backed up with evidence, from both sides.
Rants are ignored (maybe they get a standard reply) and have no other effect one way or the other. Serious correspondence is at least noted, and very often is given a great deal of attention. The attention may well be focused on potential damage to the organisation, but nevertheless it does have an impact.
At least 80% of non-official correspondence (i.e. from the public) is a rant. Apart from perhaps tallying the numbers for or against something, it is primarily therapy for the writers, and is treated accordingly. But one of the main functions of a bureaucracy is winnowing the wheat from the chaff, and the amount or proportion of chaff is irrelevant to the treatment of the wheat.
Johanna, so what is your point in relation to this discussion? That we will be ignored even if we are right? Forgive me I haven’t found this with my dealings with bureaucracy. Accept Conroy with NBN or climate change alarmist science with Tony Windsor.
let me clarify my request. My beef and request arises only when it’s an issue and analysis that I’ve developed, such as the Lew affair. On some occasions, readers send in complaints before I’ve finished a series and before I send in my own position. Such complaints are frequently very animated, but tend to immunize the agency.
If readers are doing their own analysis and wish to communicate with whoever they want, then far be it from me to discourage people. I, of all people, cannot and do not argue against people having their say. i’m only concerned with complaints based on analysis that I’ve posted.
Steve. The thing is when you put up an alternative view or report, one should then examine the evidence the writer is submitting. Some people jump to conclusions before you have even completed your report. And a bit of trivia, one of my ex’s used to jump in before I even answered a question or finished sentence, and told me I was wrong. It was a self defense ploy, and I was always saying ‘Can I finish!’ then this often interfered with my thread of thought. We soon parted.
March 25, 2014 at 12:23 pm | Graeme W says:
———
… and then we have the behemoth Australian Broadcasting Corporation which is a state subsidised mouthpiece of the anti-conservative socialist movement … you don’t get a hearing with the abc unless you are on song with their political aspirations.
March 25, 2014 at 7:38 pm | johanna says:
———
Quite right, Jo. In a previous GFC job, I had the honour of sifting through infrastructure works complaints and drafting ministerial responses. As these Ministers were not ‘my cup of tea’ it made for an unpleasant task covering up political nepotism.
bushbunny said:
“Johanna, so what is your point in relation to this discussion? That we will be ignored even if we are right? Forgive me I haven’t found this with my dealings with bureaucracy.”
But how do you know that you are right, and that the equally passionate letters from others are wrong? They are sure that they are right, too.
The only thing that matters is evidence, and if it is a policy decision by an elected government, even that doesn’t necessarily count for much, as Streetcred illustrated.
Anyway, thanks to Steve for clarifying his point. As I said above, you need to bring something new to the table, and indeed I agree that shouting loudly based on someone else’s partly completed work just potentially undermines that person’s credibility.
“But this obvious conclusion that those believing in global warming are very subjective and change their interpretation to fit their beliefs in sharp contrast to skeptics who tended to base their views only on the data and not what they were told the data showed, was not only omitted from the paper, but instead it was replaced with a conclusion very strongly suggesting the opposite.
As such not only does this paper show that members of the public who believe in global warming change their perception of the global temperature graph to fit what they believe it shows, but it is also strong evidence that at least some academics are so strongly influenced by their beliefs regarding global warming that (to put the best possible interpretation on their actions) they are “blinded” to obvious conclusion that do not fit their world-view.”
http://skience.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/lewandowsky/
Steve make sure the other driver gives you his own name, and not that of his assistant
My experience with a US National Lab was that they protected managers (ie the administrators protected each other) no matter how incompetent or dishonest and had no interest in quality of the science UNTIL it came down to financial self-dealing — then heads would roll.
Johanna, I did send evidence, I even spoke to him, I knew him very well. But he believed the IPCC even visited them. Also one of his best friends owned a solar panel company. I supported that initially too, as I felt it would make electricity cheaper and for years supported solar thermal generators. But what has happened is installing solar is initially very expensive and the cost does not relate well to the end result. So they felt if they say it saves the climate then people wouldn’t be more likely to buy them. My girlfriend spent over 5,000 dollars installing some. I said well have you saved any money, she said not that much as it is only servicing my lights. (The lowest electricity cost of course) She had not got it to heat hot water or any heating? I sent him Richard Courtney’s report on alternative energy supplies, he compiled for the British government. His PA rang me and thanked me, but warned me that Tony was fixed in his ideology on climate change caused by human kind. I told him and showed him reports on wind turbines being an expensive way to create energy supplies, and it would be better to erect a nuclear reactor. Not they I support nuclear. He anyway, sold his property to a coal mining company but leased it back, and several other properties out of the electorate that were in a gas mining zone. He retired
and his solar energy mate stood in his place. Of course he received more preference votes from the Greens and Labor supporters, but not primary. It all boils down to politics and money which side one supports, and Tony and I fell out over this one thing. After a 13 year political relationship and my support. I felt Tony was being conned and hoped my EVIDENCE would be helpful to him. Sustainability yes but for the good of the land and people.
Good work, bushbunny. I dips me lid. But none of your fevered narrative helps in understanding how complaints are handled in bureaucracies.