Guest essay by Brandon Schollenberger
As most people reading this blog know, a paper by Stephan Lewandowsky, Recursive Fury, was recently retracted. This is a big deal as scientific papers are rarely retracted, and merely being wrong doesn’t cause it to happen. One would instinctively assume that means there was something very problematic with the paper.
That’s not how people are portraying it. Quite a few people have spun this retraction of a paper criticizing skeptics as demonstrating skeptics are in the wrong. One of them is Elaine McKewon, one of the peer-reviewers for Recursive Fury. Unfortunately, she does this by making things up.
McKewon recently published an article you can find here and here. The article contains numerous errors, to the point it grossly misrepresents Recursive Fury. This can be seen in its very first sentence:
In February 2013, the journal Frontiers in Psychology published a peer-reviewed paper which found that people who reject climate science are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
Recursive Fury did nothing of the sort. It didn’t claim to examine relative amounts of conspiratorial ideation in any groups. It didn’t attempt to compare or quantify levels of such ideation. There is no way to read Recursive Fury as doing what Elaine McKewon claims it did. She has simply made this up.
What does it say when a peer-reviewer of a paper makes an obviously untrue claim about what the paper shows? I don’t know. What I do know is it should make everyone question McKewon’s judgment when she says:
Recursive Fury was theoretically strong, methodologically sound, and its analysis and conclusions – which re-examined and reaffirmed the link between conspiracist ideation and the rejection of science – were based on clear evidence.
But that’s not the only basic point McKewon got wrong. She also misrepresents an indisputable fact. Her portrayal of the events leading up to Recursive Fury being retracted is:
Shortly after publication, Frontiers received complaints from climate deniers who claimed they had been libelled in the paper and threatened to sue the journal unless the paper was retracted.
After taking the paper down from its website, Frontiers began its investigation and arranged a conference call so that the journal’s manager, legal counsel, editors and reviewers could discuss how to proceed.
…
Before the call ended, three academics, including me, argued that scientific journals must not be held to ransom every time someone threatens litigation. In response to our concerns, we were assured by the journal’s representatives that the legal matter would be considered settled once the two sentences had been amended as agreed.
Yet the paper remained in limbo while the journal’s investigation into the academic and ethical aspects of the study dragged on for more than a year.
The important part is where McKewon says “the paper remained in limbo.” Her portrayal holds “the paper remained in limbo” because of threats of legal action regarding two sentences which could be amended to address the complaints. That is a figment of her imagination. Here is what Brian Little, editor for the journal says happened:
The article was removed on February 6th because of a complaint about a factual error. We did due diligence, contacted the authors, had it corrected and it was put up again.
Notice the last part. Little clearly states the paper was put back online after it was amended. McKewon’s portrayal pretends this never happened. This means she can only claim “the paper remained in limbo” because of those supposed “threats of legal action” by ignoring the fact those complaints had actually been resolved.
To see what actually happened, we can simply ask the journal itself. It explains:
I think there’s a misunderstanding: the manuscript was accepted for publication by Frontiers on Feb 2, and the provisional (i.e. non proof-read) PDF was made available immediately, as we do in most cases. Because there was subsequently identified a need for authors, reviewers, editor and associates to review and Chief editors to agree on the modification of one specific line in the text, the provisional PDF was hidden on Feb 6 while this modification was agreed. The paper was then published in the agreed form on March 18, and as you know was subsequently unlinked while we deal with all the complaints and allegations.
In other words, the paper was first taken offline to address the complaints McKewon refers to. Once they were addressed, it was reposted. It was then taken offline a second time in response to other complaints. Those later complaints are what led to the paper remaining in limbo for nearly a year.
Given that, when McKewon asks:
Just how clear would the legal context need to be for Frontiers to stand up to intimidation and defend academic freedom? First, the two sentences discussed in the conference call had been amended as agreed, which satisfied the journal’s lawyer even under the former libel laws.
She shows she has no idea what she’s talking about. She’s created a story which ignores basic facts nobody disputes, facts which even the simplest of research would have uncovered. All she had to do was look at the Retraction Watch article about the paper’s retraction and follow the first link it offers for background. Or she could have asked the journal.
Only, if she had done that, she’d have found the journal says her entire argument is bogus. She claims the paper was retracted because “the journal’s management and editors were clearly intimidated by climate deniers who threatened to sue.” The journal disagrees. It says:
Our decision on the retraction of this article was taken on the basis of a number of factors. This decision had nothing to do with caving in to pressure and was driven by our own analysis of various factors and advice received.
The journal directly contradicts Elain McKewon’s argument. Had she questioned the journal for her story, she’d have known that. Had she investigated or researched the story, she’d have known the paper wasn’t placed in limbo because of the complaints she referred to. And had she reread Recursive Fury, she’d have known it did not find “people who reject climate science are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.”
But she apparently didn’t do any of that. Even though she describes herself as a “journalism PhD candidate,” she didn’t do any of the basic journalism that goes into doing a story.
And she is one of the people who approved Stephan Lewandowsky’s work for publication.
Go figure?
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Just my opinion but she sounds a lot like a modern day Joseph Goebbels in the making; just needs a few more years and a bit more power.
This is like Nate Silver having Dana Nuccitelli (remind me – is he Superman or the Nazi?) check Pielke Jr’s work. You can’t make this stuff up. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/fivethirtyeight-to-commission-response-to-disputed-climate-article/
Meanwhile, Kerry Emanuel has grabbed the ring and is beating Jr over the head with it: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mit-climate-scientist-responds-on-disaster-costs-and-climate-change/
I glimpsed the type of set this so called scholar moves about with. You know what I mean. Lattes and chardonnay by the gallon. Backs bruised from slapping each other on the back. One time doing it tough on the streets, I saw a man down on his luck whose eyes made my heart so heavy, approach a table of chardonnay sipping academics around the corner from UTS in Sydney and ask for a dollar. What still haunts me is their reaction. Or should I say their lack of reaction. They sipped and chomped as if the man was invisible and inaudible. And that friends is how climate doom sayers would wish that those who believe in asking questions should be. Invisible and not worthy of their attention. Ok gotta get back to reading how Abe Lincoln was working for J. Edgar Hoover who was really a time hopper from the planet Covert. Interesting read.
So I guess is peer review depends on the bias and quality and value judgements of the peer? Who’d have thought?
I think I could help Elaine McKewon with her research, she could watch a recent screening of the History Channel “Love hate and Propaganda” closely, watch Goebbels whip up the crowd to a frenzy at a time when they were suffering their worst losses and see how his propaganda effected the crowd, reality and common sense was pushed aside as they cheered! Now consider the recent resounding defeat of the Labour party and the Greens in Australian elections especially Tasmania where both defeated leaders made 20 minute speeches that had all the hallmarks of Victory except they had to concede they were defeated. If Elaine then views the speeches made by the Labor Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten addressing a crowd in Western Australian just before the re-run of the W.A. Senate vote (the last election was declared invalid due to a lost or misplaced parcel of counted votes) the same Goebbels propaganda effect is clearly there as he works the crowd whipping them into common agreement. Techniques the same, scares and fears introduced and the theme, we didn’t really lose, this time we will win. Forget the economic mess we left you, forget our muddling disarray, we are really, really the winners.
Now that is a subject crying out for examination! Similar with the Greens leader who is thumping the same drum, forget our culpability we deserve? your vote of confidence in us!! Scares and propaganda. Delivering a similar theme, that is driving those who believe in Catastrophic warming.
There is NO attempt at “conversation” just their view, their right to rule, others must be silenced and you need political power to achieve that ultimate level of censorship and control. The power to exclude!
Her rather conventional media studies advisor writes health related articles for The Conversation and doesn’t seem to otherwise be a climate related academic.
( http://theconversation.com/profiles/catriona-bonfiglioli-890/activities?filter=articles )
Geez I wish I knew that one could get a PhD simply by reading the newspaper when I did mine. I could have spent more time sitting in at home drinking beer and reading the paper rather than trying to come to grips with quantum mechanics and high temperature reaction theory. Bugger, looks like I wasted my time then eh.
It says that she didn’t understand it, and perhaps that she never actually read it.
Next question: Since when is a journalist a “peer” within the field of psychology? An astrologist, maybe. A phrenologist, certainly. How does a journalist rate? Was her undergrad in palmistry?
Her path to her PhD takes her down the rabbit hole into a interest conflict wonderland.
John
Brandon Schollenberger said in the article here:”…One of them is Elaine McKewon, one of the peer-reviewers for Recursive Fury…”
What she actually said is “…The paper, which I helped to peer-review,…”, and this MAY well be distinct from her being an official peer reviewer. It could mean anything, – a large or a small contribution.
It is not unusual for a professor who receives a paper for review to send copes around for his/her graduate students (WITH appropriate admonitions) to be aware of, and to comment on. This could even be useful and proper. However such “delegation” must be scrupulously chaperoned, and perhaps that did not happen here (on the part of student and/or adviser), as the remarks in McKewon’s article seem carelessly assembled and arrayed, and incautiously released.
Two of my comments were removed and the following notification sent to my email. There was no explanation of which specific rule of the forum I had breached.
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Comments such as these are permitted as long as they are addressed to the correct side of the fence of political correctness. I suppose it’s because they add substantial information to the conversation.
“Like that manic spray is just so totes QED’ed.”
“whole lotta balone there helen, enough to fill all hot-dogs in a stadium.”
“Dumbfounded”
“Oh look over there. Greg North has found a squirrell.”
Shouldn’t peer reviewers be disclosed in the interests of evaluating the level of scrutiny that a publication gets? Reviewers might be more careful if they know that bad research will reflect poorly on them as well as the author? It would also become pretty clear who is covering for each other. Peer Review would thus have to be something of a “certification” like when your accountant signs your tax return and attests to its accuracy. Likely far fewer studies would be published, but perhaps they would be of better quality.
My respect for a PhD just went into the tank. I didn’t think it could go much lower, but alas it has.
I am wondering in the broader picture, how prevalent and endemic all ‘fraudulent science’ actually is?
With the enormous sums of money being poured into all branches of science and research,, it appears to me there is an opportunity for a comprehensive journalistic expose of all activities that can be classified as suspect, or at lease ‘items of interest’.
Looking at the variety of extraordinary tactics applied against those who question or oppose;
emotive images, threats of criminal action against those who dare to ‘deny’ coupled with the revelations of the massive incomes of certain people in the vanguard of CAGW, it seems quite possible that the ‘get the denier’ programme of attempting to muzzle or denigrate is possibly the MO of many of these heavily funded qualified scientists.
So it begs the question, is science the newest criminal activity?
Just a thought….
Cold in Wisconsin said in part: April 1, 2014 at 10:59 pm “Shouldn’t peer reviewers be disclosed in the interests of evaluating the level of scrutiny that a publication gets?…..”
Yes – but that won’t happen. Keep in mind that “peer review” means next to nothing. Search “peer review is bogus” (or supply your own invective in the search term) and you will see the sorry state of the review process. Few if any reviewers would brag about their contributions.
“And had she reread Recursive Fury, she’d have known it did not find “people who reject climate science are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.”
How about ‘read’ to begin with?
Excellent takedown, Brandon.
And remind me to never, ever argue with Willis. His deconstruction rapier is far too formidable for a lightweight like either Elaine McKewon, or the truly despicable Lewandowsky.
But it’s fun seeing the corner they and their enablers have painted themselves into, using their own words and fake accomplishments…
@Willis, 952pm.
And they accuse us of believing in conspiracies? It is to laugh …
It would be if it was not so sad. (but thanks for the comments above!).
This comment (borrowed from Retraction Watch, has a nice summary:
http://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/28/why-publishers-should-explain-why-papers-disappear-the-complicated-lewandowsky-study-saga/#comment-52861
“This may be one of a tiny handful of cases in which a journal might be justified in erasing, rather than withdrawing, an article. The circumstances here are almost unique.
The lead author is a psychologist. He reports that he has recorded and analyzed the responses of a number of people to a particular event. On the basis of that analysis, he draws certain professional conclusions about the psychological and cognitive status of his subjects. He writes up his data, analysis, and conclusions and submits them for publication. Whether he did so well or badly, this is simply the paradigm of academic psychology. Forget climate politics. Forget “provocative” titles. Don’t even worry about whether this is good science or not. Measure it only against the professional obligations implied by the paradigm.
First, the senior author has an extraordinary conflict of interest. The behavior under study is precisely public criticism of the author’s professional competence. Psychology in particular has a deep concern with the distortions caused by even relatively trivial conflicts of interest.
Second, it is probably safe to assume that Prof. Lewandowsky did not write his Psych. Sci. paper simply to create the experimental conditions for the Frontiers paper. Still, negative reactions to the Psych. Sci. paper were entirely predictable. This was not a “natural” event. On the contrary, the experimental set-up (the contents and release of the then-unpublished Psych. Sci. paper) was completely under the author’s control. Thus Prof. Lewandowsky created, controlled, conducted, analyzed, and published a psychological experiment without any disclosures to, or consent from, the subjects.
Third, regardless of whether consent was required for the experiment, the authors published individually identifiable information about, and analysis of, the mental health and cognitive status of their subjects. This is not simply bloggish, lay opinion. This is, mind you, published as objectively determined, scientifically verified, analysis by professional psychologists for publication in a professional journal — concerning named individuals who were not willing subjects and did not consent to participation in a study, or to the release of personal mental status information.
Fourth, some of the information then turned out to be wrong.
Perhaps, despite appearances, this is all ethically acceptable in psychology. But, if not, Frontiers has a hard choice. They really shouldn’t proceed to publication. It’s an ethical minefield. But retraction or withdrawal, with detailed explanations, would look like an attempt to cast blame on the authors or others — and might make things worse. Having gotten this far into the process, duck and cover may be the best, and perhaps even the most ethical, choice among rotten alternatives.”
C’mon everyone, let’s go easy on Elaime. After all, she’s practically 97% of a doctorate.
Do these strategically shaved apes realize how desperate and narcissistic they appear with that ‘I <3 CS' mantra? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that they managed to find room on a napkin to crank out that insipid doodle.
The whole lot is revolting.
davidmhoffer says:
April 1, 2014 at 10:16 pm
Just think how many PhD’s Steve Goddard would qualify for by this standard!
My pride in being an Aussie is diminished daily by these w@nkers.
ROTFLMFAO … Elain McKewon has a disturbing fascination with prostitution in small country towns … I guess that figures.
2 April: SMH: Peter Hannam: ‘Conspiracist’ climate change study withdrawn amid legal threats
Climate change academics say the decision by a publisher to retract their paper examining the links between conspiracy theorists and denial of global warming because of legal threats could have a “chilling effect” on research…
“Sadly, it has turned into a routine for outsiders with no scientific standing to approach, bully, or intimidate journals, editors, and academics,” said Professor Lewandowsky, now at the UK’s University of Bristol.
One person commenting on the Frontiers’ website asked for the ‘‘full details of the investigation,’’ saying the paper had been ‘‘derogatory and insulting’’ by naming people as conspiracy theorists who were ‘‘merely pointing out errors in the previous paper’’…
John Cook, a researcher at the University of Queensland and a co-author of the second paper, said the Frontiers’ decision to retract the work might have a “chilling effect” on research.
“It means that if a paper is published that the climate deniers don’t like the look of, they can bombard the journal with complaints or threats,” Mr Cook said.
“Knowing they have had success once might embolden them to try to retreat the strategy again.” (Mr Cook also helms the Skeptical Science website.)
Kim Heitman, a lawyer for the UWA, said the university had done its own risk analysis before publishing the paper online. “There’s no reason to take it down,” Mr Heitman said.
The university had also received complaints from some groups. “It’s quite relentless,” he said.
“There’s always a close interest in everything that Steve (Lewandowsky) does,” Mr Heitman said. “We are conscious that we are going to be targeted by people opposed to his works.”
The university, though, had also received plaudits from around the world for its decision to publish the paper.
“I couldn’t list them,” Mr Heitman said. “And I wouldn’t list them, having regard to the fact that anyone who issues a ‘thanks UWA’ will probably get their own enquiry.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/conspiracist-climate-change-study-withdrawn-amid-legal-threats-20140402-35xao.html
1 April: Brookings Institute: Adele Morris: An EPA-Sanctioned State-Based Carbon Tax Could Reduce Emissions and Improve State Finances
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing a proposed rule due out in June that could allow states to use carbon excise taxes or fees to limit the one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that come from power plants…
A national price on carbon currently has little traction in Washington, but EPA’s power plant rule could open the door for a straightforward state-based tax…
Here are some potential benefits to such a system: … (LIST OF TWELVE)
(Adele Morris, Fellow, Economic Studies, Climate and Energy Economics Project
Policy Director, Climate and Energy Economics Project)
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/04/01-epa-carbon-tax-can-help-environment-state-finances-morris
2 April: Guardian: Kelly Rigg/Wael Hmaidan: Seeking the political will to secure a carbon-free future
Global leaders must see the IPCC report for what it is: one last chance to stop catastrophic climate change
Don’t believe anyone who tells you that a 100% renewable energy-powered future is unrealistic…
(Kelly Rigg is the executive director of the Global Call to Climate Action, a network of more than 400 non-profit organisations. Follow @kellyrigg on Twitter.
Wael Hmaidan is director of Climate Action Network International. CAN is a network of more than 850 NGOs from 100 countries working together to fight the climate crisis. Follow @whmaidan on Twitter)
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/apr/02/ipcc-report-climate-change-carbon
When journalists come to believe they qualified to give opinions about scientific
subject matter, I’d say they have disqualified themselves as journalists. Repeat after me : journalists are not scientists. Journalists are not scientists.