This post will be a top sticky post for a day, new stories will appear below this one.
While this issue was covered previously on Climate Audit, I thought this needed the exposure that WUWT could afford.
There’s a famous quote from CRU’s Phil Jones to Warwick Hughes that pretty much sums up the entire issue of climate science, saying essentially that the work is above reproach and there’s no reason to allow it to be questioned by providing access to raw data for replication, especially by climate skeptics, even though it was done on public funds:
“We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
As readers know, a few people have been trying to get access to the poll data from Lewandowsky’s “moon landing hoax” paper (the one where he hid his involvement and the poll was mostly posted on climate alarmist sites, and WUWT wasn’t even asked) and have been stonewalled. This response about data access from Professor Paul Johnson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia takes stonewalling to a whole new level, and is a close second to that famous quote from Phil Jones.
Some foreword might be helpful to understand the context as to why this sort of behavior exhibited by Jones, and now Paul Johnson, is broadly damaging to the reputation of science.
The issue with Lewandowsky is unscientific and unethical behavior by creating an advance conclusion (all climate skeptics are conspiracy nutters) followed by attempts to hide his association with the study to people who were polled, selective distribution of the poll, mainly to websites who are advocates of climate action, then outright mocking of the very people who was supposedly studying, then actually writing in his own conclusions to an ethics investigation that was supposed to be done independently.
One cannot imagine a more egregious abuse of the scientific process as we have witnessed with Lewandowsky’s vilification of climate skeptics using the journal Psychological Science as a bully pulpit.
Dr. Judith Curry’s thoughts about Michael Mann’s behavior seem germane here, simply substitute Mann with Lewandowsky:
For the past decade, scientists have come to the defense of Michael Mann, somehow thinking that defending Michael Mann is fighting against the ‘war on science’ and is standing up for academic freedom. Its time to let Michael Mann sink or swim on his own. Michael Mann is having all these problems because he chooses to try to muzzle people that are critical of Mann’s science, critical of Mann’s professional and personal behavior, and critical of Mann’s behavior as revealed in the climategate emails. All this has nothing to do with defending climate science or academic freedom.
Barry Woods advises me of this gobsmacking response from UWA’s Vice Chancellor, Paul Johnson, and provided all the emails from the timeline to me for inspection. It is important to know that Lewandowsky has left UWA where his paper was originally approved, data gathered, written, and published from, and is now at the University of Bristol.
Barry Woods writes:
I wrote to Lewandowsky last September, & eventually got a response via a Bristol Uni press officer referring any concerns to UWA.
Woods also wrote to the journal editor Eric Eich, asking for access to data so that a comment could be sent to the journal:
I wrote to Maybery (UWA) in early March (and a couple of reminders), then received Paul Johnson’s email.
…
One of the lessons of Climategate was that even most scientists agreed on was ‘data transparency’. I can’t believe the VC of University of Western Australia’s response to me. AND that he would put it in writing! Four and a half years on from Climategate, and we still have universities refusing to share data with critics.
Here is the letter from UWA’s vice-chancellor as a screen-cap. The bolding was done by Johnson Woods:
I have pixelated the email address for Mr. Woods (which is private) so that he doesn’t get attacked/spammed, and the other email participants by cc: are not on display due to them being in Mr. Woods contact list, only their names display. Johnson’s email address is also pixelated for the same reason.
I also verified that the email is genuine, by looking at the email headers within it.
And, it appears that by the UWA’s own published policy they are quite open to data sharing:
In the “Code of Conduct for the Responsible Practice of Research”, it becomes clear that Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson’s statement of “It is not the University’s practice to accede to such requests” is a bald faced lie:
Steve McIntyre and others have suggested that some of Lewandowsky’s poll data may have been falsified, and they want to test that assumption. UWA Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson’s response puts him at odds with the 3.4 and 3.8 sections above.
We also have a clear case from UWA’s own records obtained via FOI law that Lewandowsky Ghost-wrote Conclusions of UWA Ethics Investigation into “Hoax”.
So, the “investigation” supposedly done by UWA into the research of Lewandowsky was actually done by Lewandowsky himself.
This episode is turning into quite an ethics quagmire for UWA, I can see why Johnson would purposely violate their own policy by telling Woods that UWA won’t share the data. The data itself must be damning for them to want to protect it this much in violation of their own policy; perhaps with data even showing that some of the responses to the poll that McIntyre wants to examine came from within the University itself, creating another, more culpable conflict of interest and violation of UWA’s own research policy.
When a university administrator decides that “It is not the University’s practice to accede to such requests”, because of the perceived ‘attacks on science’, it seems they believe the work of colleagues rather than check the issues being raised. It is clear Johnson is more trusting of a former colleague vs the ‘anti-science forces of denial’, as climate skeptics are often falsely characterized as.
No matter what you think about climate science, or science in general, I would hope that you would embrace the need for transparency of data as the most important issue of science, because it is within the data where truth lives. Without the verification and replication of science that data access allows, science runs the risk of falling victim to the human emotional condition of opinions, agendas, tribalism, and personal vendettas acted out via the process of noble cause corruption.
I believe that is what we see here and it is a sad day for science when administrators in two universities and a journal editor circle the wagons to protect a science paper that may not only be wrong, but is likely based on an emotional response turned into a vendetta by the principal investigator, Lewandowsky, we all lose.
In cases of public malfeasance, it if often the cover-up which gets more attention for prosecution than the original infraction, and this looks to be the making of just such a situation.
Perhaps we need to add, to be very clear to a casual reader.
Responses falsified/scammed by the anonymous online participants of Lewandowdsy’s survey, by readers of blogs that detest sceptics.. not the authors of the paper. There are even comments saying how much ‘fun’ some of the anonymous survey participants had with the survey at Deltoid, Taming, etc.
Nobody is saying the authors falsified responses.
REPLY: No, I’m not saying that, yet as I understand it, the survey was distributed internally within UWA, and that would be a strong conflict of interest. – Anthony
Why would anyone want to study at UWA??? Nice environment, wretched academics!
UWA needs constant berating for this attitude. The University of Whitewashed Academics?
of course something beginning with W and sounding like ‘bankers’ might be more appropriate…….
UWA students and alumni alike must be dismayed and somewhat embarrassed?
Time to defund the UWA. Stunning level of academic corruption, cover up and stonewalling.
If you are a student, get out now because your degree will always be associated with a corrupted Institution.
If you are a Faculty member, get out now before your career is stained by you ptofessional association with such a pathetic excuse for a university.
If you are parents, make sure your university bound children are steered clear of the UWA . . . their futures depend on it.
And if you are an Australian, register your disgust and a formal complaint with your Government.
As it’s Australian taxpayers who ‘pay the piper’, perhaps one of their Parliamentarians should make a formal request to UWA?
“perhaps with data even showing that some of the responses to the poll that McIntyre wants to examine came from within the University itself, creating another, more culpable conflict of interest and violation of UWA’s own research policy.”
Was this really necessary? The post considers the justification for providing actual facts about the paper., The speculation above does not help your case.
Of course, people are assuming there actually is data to access…
Circular reasoning;
UWA can’t trust their data to sceptics because sceptics will misinterpret it.
Sceptics will have to misinterpret the data as the data can only be properly understood in one way – UWAs.
That is proven as the data has only been understood in one way – UWAs.
So it can’t be trusted to sceptics…
I remember taking the Lewandowsky poll on WUWT. Were the results ever published? Don’t remember seeing the results…
REPLY: Your memory is faulty. Lewandowsky’s original LOG12 poll was never hosted here, and I never received an invitation to post it from Lewandowsky’s assistant. What you likely recall is a poll done replicating Lewandowsky’s here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/08/replication-of-lewandowsky-survey/
-Anthony
M Courtney says:
April 3, 2014 at 11:02 am
aah! so that’s exactly the same as the warmist/alarmists ‘method’ of interpreting climate science data then, is it?? i.e. ‘their’ way ! LOL
If it’s irreproducible, it’s NOT science PERIOD!
Correction/Clarification to:
“tomwys says:
April 3, 2014 at 10:52 am
Why would anyone want to study at UWA??? Nice environment, wretched academics!”
Why would anyone want to study at UWA??? Nice environment, but Vice-Chancellor/Professor Paul Johnson has provided evidence of some wretched academics!”
Sorry for first painting with a too broad a brush!!!
“Without the verification and replication of science that data access allows, science runs the risk of falling victim to the human emotional condition of opinions, agendas, tribalism, and personal vendettas acted out via the process of noble cause corruption.”
Social or political psychology rests on the results of self-reporting and so even the data is problematic.
Perhaps another way of looking at this is that the attempts to make all of the soft sciences have the look and feel of the hard sciences have utterly and completely failed. The empirical results are in: everything from comparative mythology, to social historicism, to psychology are just “opinions, agendas, tribalism, and personal vendettas” stated in the language of particle physics or chemical reactions.
My concern has been where the answer did not come from 😉
ie it was stated in the methodology that Skeptical Science posted the survey, and the evidence suggest it does not. and the paper made claims of a diverse audience, traffic volume and % of sceptics prevalent, solely on a content analysis of the SkS blog.
This is why I asked for the raw kwik survey data, meta data containing referring domains, would show Skeptical Science, IF it had been held there. (ie it might prove me wrong!)
The secondary question (for me, not others), which is also very interesting, is the possibility of participants that were included, from blogs not described in the methodology. Just the other week, The Scholars and Rogues blog said they had posted the Moon Hoax survey, Watching the Deniers blogger said somewhere on his blog, that he had directed people to it, Junk science had it (but not in the methodology). PLanet 3.0 had see it, etc,etc. I think Geoff Chambers has been pursuing this, where did all the participant actually come from, suspsecting that all these other possible referrers had been included, given it’s appearance in other locations (not described in the methodology)
The meta data (if they collected it, if they retained it, etc) would show this
but wasn’t every one berating lew for leaving namesw in the report?
So surely it cannot be right to give FULL data as McIntyre has requested (ip addresses names etc) to any tom, dick or Mcintyre that requests it.
What proof can be given that this data will not be spread all over the internet.
who will be at fault when the named names see their names in lights on the internet?
As long as some take the attitude of “We know better than you, and do not have to follow our own rules”, trust in all sciences will decline. While the examples are about climate science (jones and Johnson), what is the layman to believe when the next “wonder pill” comes out and people die?
Contrary to the quote by Dr. Curry, the defense of Mann, Jones and now Lewandowsky is damaging all of science. No one needs to attack it. They have done that already.
… it if often the cover-up which gets more attention for prosecution than the original infraction,
“I did not sleep with that data!”
SergemK – my interest was quite specific, I requested the data to see the referring domains
(ie linked from SkS, Tamino, Deltoid, etc) I even suggested they could exclude the participants IP addresses..
NOT, that there are not other legitimate reason to see IP addresses, ie different responses from identical IPs (lots form a university address?, (the authors said they excluded identical entries from the same IP’s) etc
“No matter what you think about climate science, or science in general, I would hope that you would embrace the need for transparency of data as the most important issue of science, because it is within the data where truth lives. Without the verification and replication of science that data access allows, science runs the risk of falling victim to the human emotional condition of opinions, agendas, tribalism, and personal vendettas acted out via the process of noble cause corruption.”
I trust that persons new to this topic will understand that, in science, replication of experiment is bedrock and that each scientist has a fundamental duty to assist others who wish to attempt replication of his/her experiment. (The first step in replication is gaining an understanding of what was done in the experiment. Sharing of data is essential for this step.)
Did Jones actually forget to put a question mark at the end of the second sentence?
Ah, instead of “It is the University’s policy to accede to such requests”.
A very clear case where UWA management absolutely refuse to practice what they preach.
No matter which way you look at it, if you had nothing to hide you would not behave like such a pompous, obstructive prig.
Of course, there is the other alternative that Lew has something on the vice chancellor and ……………..
More proof for my feeling that CAGW is an intelligence test, one that is revealing far too many of our taxpayer funded academics to be absolute failures.
Here is another one exposed, deer in the headlights, his incompetence displayed in its full magnificence.
Everyone who has dealt with career bureaucrats know they have 101 ways to not answer your questions. The response of Mr Johnson shows he is a failure of even the most basic civil service skills.
Every time one of these professional parasites attempts to defend the indefensible is another home goal on their part, tax payers are not as stupid as so many seem to assume.
I think that talking about replication in this case is a little out of place.
How can anyone “replicate” work that was done in this fashion? What does it mean to replicate results under these conditions? It would be like throwing another dart at a dart board and chancing to hit the same spot.
J. Philip Peterson says:
April 3, 2014 at 11:10 am
“I remember taking the Lewandowsky poll on WUWT. Were the results ever published? Don’t remember seeing the results…”
“REPLY: Your memory is faulty. Lewandowsky’s original LOG12 poll was never hosted here…”
Sorry – didn’t mean to imply that you hosted it, I was just curious what the WUWT respondents answers were compared to Lewandowsky’s answers.
And I do remember that it was changed to a 1-5 instead of a 1-4 question survey. Is there a tally of the results of the replicated survey, just out of curiosity?
Governments around the world could improve the standard of science overnight by defunding establishments that do not provide the data that the scientific process demands. The fact that they do not, high lights the fact that politicians and scientists are bed fellows.
Circling the wagons only works until you run out of ammo while the arrows keep coming in.
It’s obvious that scientific claims are not validated by peer review if the data are not freely available as a check on both the claimant and the reviewers. Refusing to release the data is, in effect, acknowledgement of a weak and indefensible claim.
Universities desperate for money will do just about anything now to bring in cash, even if it requires collusion with the government to keep the money pipe open by tapping student loans (“Peak Enrollment”?):
http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/university-tuition-revenue-falls-as-government-pos_13540.aspx#.Uz2wGqb94fM
The real alarm among climate scientists (and others depending on alarmism for revenue) is that even tenured academics will be summarily laid off if incoming funds shut down.
This is how ‘transparency’ is done, using Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (RATicals?). This is the way ‘transparency’ is done by Our Dear Leader Barack Obama also, a devotee of Rules For Radicals. Rules For Radicals abbreviated list attached:
http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals
Curiouser and Curiouser.
When this topic was covered last week at ClimateAudit.com I followed the links back to the UWA data page.
Under each header paragraph, (Benefits…, Sharing Options, Data Sharing at UWA) there was a ‘comment (0)’ that linked to a page where comments could be submitted.
So, being a very cooperative old rebel, I submitted a comment about VC Johnson wrongful and reprehensible actions. I also posted the links to that page in a WUWT thread and I tried to re-post the links at ClimateAudit.com only I seem to be banned from posting there. (Re-post in that ClimateAudit was where I had originally picked up the links)
Today, I followed the same links and noticed that the comment (0) links and wording were gone. Gone!
Just to verify, I visited the Wayback machine and sure enough, they had a screen pic from January 26, 2014. Clearly showing the ‘comment (0)’ options.
Well, now I know that UWA did receive my comment. I hope they received others too. Not that removing or avoiding comments makes their deceitful and now isolation actions any better for students, alumni or Australia.
“I did not sleep with that data!”
Ow! Uh-huh, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so you’re a rocket scientist. That don’t impress me much.
Only the data will keep me warm in the middle of the night!
Another thing the data would show is that none of the responses came from SkepticalScience, thus proving the truth of the point Barry Woods and I have been making since September 2012, six months before the publication of the paper, that the claim made in the paper that the survey was linked at SkepticalScience is false. It will also show how many responses came from Cook’s personal tweet. He had about a thousand Twitter followers at the time. Interviewing your fans in a scientific survey is not considered good survey practice.
You would think the other 97% of UWA academia would be disavowing the rogue 3%.
Behavior is compatible with Lew having fabricated some or all the data and the SkS link having never been there.
This is not more conspiracy ideation than fantasyzing about the warming pause as compatible with CAGW.
The Great and Wondrous Oz has spoken. There is no need to look at the data behind the curtain.
UWA’s inconvenient data disappearing act where the ‘comment(0)’ links vanished over the last few days is intriguing for another reason now that I notice it.
As Anthony’s screenshot above shows under the “Research Data Management Toolkit” opener; that this page was last edited “March 5, 2014”.
Well, shades of John Cook! Stuff vanishes yet the page wasn’t ‘edited’.
Does UWA Website always modify web pages without updating their edit time? No wonder Lewseranddownsky thinks it’s all right to fiddle with web page access and edit times…
I just remember the questions in the Lewandowsky survey were idiotic with nothing to do with climate science… copied a sample from the WUWT replicated one …this is supposed to be science?:
12. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr was the results of an organized conspiracy by US government agencies such as the CIA and FBI *
1 2 3 4 5
Absolutely True Absolutely False
13. The Apollo Moon landings never happened and were staged in a Hollywood film studio *
1 2 3 4 5
Absolutely True Absolutely False
14. Area 51 in Nevada US is a secretive military base that contains hidden alien spacecraft and or alien bodies *
1 2 3 4 5
Absolutely True Absolutely False
15. The assassination of John F Kennedy was not committed by the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, but was rather a detailed, organized conspiracy to kill the President *
1 2 3 4 5
Lewandowsky should try and get his ‘science’ published at the Journal of Irreproducible Results. As Louis Hooffstetter pointed out if other cannot be allowed the data to replicate your work then it’s akin to voodoo.
Lewandowsky is worse than Pons and Fleischmann who at least made some effort.
It’s looking more and more like UWA recruits Profs and Chancellors from the Yabba.
http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/10/04/welcome-to-the-yabba-review-of-wake-in-fright/
I know you’ve all seen this a hundred times; but personally I learn something new every time I watch it:
kev-in-uk: University of Western Australia Never Knowingly Entertaining Reproducible Science.
Is that what you were after?
I really can’t believe it. As I commented before, I work in Big Pharma and every bit of data, email, texting, IMing we do is completely open and available to every agency around the world at all times. If something goes on “legal hold” then destroying or deleting anything associated with the “hold” will get you into serious trouble.
What is wrong with these people? I was taught in school that science was about providing enough detail that someone else could replicate the work.
What if they kept their data and methodology etc. to themselves but still made the claim? They would never have won a damned thing. They would have been laughed at and mocked even though they did make the discovery.
Lewandowsky seeks to hide the data because he knows there is something wrong with it. No smoke without fire.
One of the tenets of scientific research is that ALL of the procedures followed, data gathered, etc, etc.,must be reported. In other words the researcher’s work MUST be replicable. And that means that a person reading the researcher’s report should be able to go out and replicate the research from that report. Period. Johnson is obviously not qualified to respond to questions about scientific research. He is clearly incompetent. But then, what else would we expect from a university that actually paid Lewandowsky and made him a faculty member?
Barry Woods April 3, 2014 at 11:25 am says he thinks I’ve been pursuing sources of survey respondents. Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t got any further than Barry. I did do an analysis a while back of comments at the seven blogs which linked to the survey, and I came to the conclusion that, given the feeble interest displayed by commenters at Tamino’s, Deltoid etc., plus the fact that it was impossible to register a “don’t know” or continue the survey without answering every question, it was highly likely that a large number of the responses were simply made up.
I’ve no positive evidence for this, and I know Jeff in a comment above says that we should avoid speculation. I disagree.
Surveys on conspiracy theories regularly turn up 10-20% “don”t knows” on any individual conspiracy. How many people could honestly answer questions on 10 different conspiracy theories without once ticking “don’t know”? (Particularly as some of the events happened 50 years ago) Yet this couldn’t be done on the Moon Hoax survey.
When I worked in market research, one of the jobs of the survey supervisor was to check for interviewers who made up the answers. It was often quite easy to spot, because it’s really difficult to randomise answers.
I strongly suggest that those who like statistical puzzles should download the partial data that is available at
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/8/31/lewandowskys-data.html
and see what you can do with it.
“Area 51 in Nevada US is a secretive military base that contains hidden alien spacecraft and or alien bodies.”
Secretive – True
The Rest – False, but it was a great diversionary story which the physicists and engineers working there had a lot of fun feeding 😉
@bonanzapilot
Yep! Everyone knows the aliens were transferred to Wright Patterson AFB! 😉
“Why would anyone want to study at UWA??? Nice environment, wretched academics!”
I know some of them – it seems to be compulsory to be a radical warmy. I wouldn’t say the environment is that nice though – unless you’re Saudi, you’re likely to find Perth summers well beyond your comfortable temp range.
The only reason I can think of is that UWA prepares you for a lucrative career filming cricket bowlers and then writing a paper about why their actions are legal (in return for a hefty fee).
It occurs to me that there is a *very* good chance that their is NO data at all – none, nada, zilch. How could that have happened? If Lewandowsky simply drafted the entire report as a piece of fiction backing his beliefs, and then manufactured the pretense of a survey in order to try to cover the fact that the paper and all of its conclusions were already written before the project was officially started it. And all of his partners knew about this from the start and applauded it, because it was “good for the cause”.
I think that’s the big secret Paul Johnson is trying to hide – he can’t release the data because he knows there is no data to release, but he doesn’t dare admit it. But he is stuck – he knows that if he admits that he has nothing, then he has to admit being complicit to a spectacular scientific fraud from the beginning, so he has no choice but to pretend that some “data” exists, but that he’s not going to let anyone see it.
Why not? What would have stopped any of them from doing this?
Science paper? Surely by now we all know it was a hit piece and not a science paper. That such silliness would come out of the halls of higher learning is a sad commentary on what has become of our universities. Sick em, Steve.
Those who would like to write to the Vice-Chancellor — as I have done — will find his email address on the University of Western Australia website.
Quote from an old friend who worked at Area 51: “Give a group of theoretical physicists an unlimited budget and a group of people who want to see strange things in the sky and by God they’ll see them. Those were the most fun days of my entire career.”
The UAW has moved from science to pseudo-science. But really folks, is anyone really surprised, and how many really care?
UWA has lost its way. The entire purpose of the Scientific Method is to falsify a conjecture or a hypothesis. That way, whatever remains standing after all attempts at falsification have failed, is our current level of scientific truth. There is no other way.
All raw data, and methods, algorithms, code, methodology, etc., must be provided to other scientists and interested parties at their request. This is extremely simple with current technology. It requires only a few minutes, and a few mouse clicks to post data and methods to a public server accessible to everyone — it is not like the old days, when scientists would have to run off multiple copies, and mail them out. Back then, that is what they did when someone requested information.
So, UAW, where is the Scientific Method in your stonewalling? Where is the science itself?
Where is honesty and integrity in what you are doing? I don’t see it.
I for one will no longer employ anyone if their qualifications are from this university. How can I have any confidence in the qualification if they take this attitude? I will also be looking at other establishments that take this bizarre attitude!
We’ve had our fun – now, what can be done about this? Can an Australian researcher request the data and put in an FOIA request? Can a sympathetic Australian MP request the data? What is the best way to go from here?
Who can file a complaint to the ministry of education in Australia, please?
It is my belief that government funded science can only be corrupt and subject to fraud and petty intimidations. The Universities are now so dependent upon grants and other welfare from the state that they have become just an arm of the state. This story is not surprising to me at all, nor should it be to anyone other than the committed collectivist.
It will only be through stories such as this one that someday the public will awaken and cut off government funding of this faux science. Only then will real science return. Remember that all major breakthroughs have always come from the “rebels”, outsiders, and the marginalized. Remember that next time anyone seeks to marginalize those with a “kooky” theory.
I remember when the idea that the continents moved was known to be put forth only by the cranks, kooks, and the stupid — or so it was said by the orthodox scientists.
What I get here is a good deal more heat than light – that is, the light that needs to be more widely shed on the innate deceit of this small scientific coven. Unless I miss my guess, Anthony Watts was writing while still very warm about Paul Johnson and the UWA. There’s nothing wrong with venting; it can be good for the soul,
The problem is a failure to more widely expose not only this one sadly commonplace instance but the shameless and endless shenanigans of the whole Climate fraternity. My first inkling of it was many years ago when I read the Wall Street Journal’s piece about Steve McIntyre’s efforts to get Michael Mann’s data. Now, that was meaningful exposure. Until then I, for one, was unaware of the problem.
It isn’t enough that WE know about cover-up as a way of life in climate science. It’s old hat for US. But, rightly, it should be aired – screamed aloud – in the mainstream media, or at least the media that still decries deception as a way of life, and especially scientific deception on so global a scale and at so fearsome a cost.
Does anybody have a friend at the news desk, somebody who is very hungry? This episode, and the whole tawdry history of the “science,” would make a hell of a feature. Read it and weep.
Do I sense blood in the water? If there are more hints of this (conducting and covering up for a fictitious survey), what a feeding frenzy will follow to get to the bottom of it, like the Watergate media frenzy once clues of Nixon’s misbehavior accumulated. There are notorious recent precedents for the use of invented data in the fields of sociology and psychology already. What a “beaut” for our side if Lew stooped to this too. Keep up the pressure.
In response to one critic above, I did not request original IP addresses. I suggested that they anonymize/transform the IP addresses so that one could see if two addresses were identical but did not request original IP addresses.
Geoffchambers at 12:58. Good idea. I do not have the guts to devote my time to this data. May I suggest to ask Uri Simonsohn for help? He is a specialist. See: http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/
In addition, as followers of this story are doubtless aware, there is a grey version of the data, from which Lewandowsky has expurgated some responses, some questions and the metadata. My interest is in the original data, not the expurgated version. UWA may well try to pass off the expurgated version (long available) as responsive, but it isn’t.
Some people here are very generously providing Lewandowsky with material for his next paper!!
Related material. Thanks Schtick!
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/04/koch-im-fighting-to-restore-free-society.html?m=1
One of the lessons of Climategate, that even most scientists agreed on, was ‘data transparency’.
I think it would be fair to say that a “consensus” of scientists around the world is in favor of and highly values transparency. It is also becoming clear that Lewandowsky and UWA are opposed to this “scientific consensus” to the point of defying UWA’s own published policy on transparency. Therefore, by their own standards, they are “anti-science” and guilty of waging a “war on science.” Is it not fair to judge them by the rules they use to judge everyone else?
Why is it important to share data with greatet scientific community? Two words. Cold Fusion.
tancred says:
April 3, 2014 at 12:13 pm
“Circling the wagons only works until you run out of ammo while the arrows keep coming in.”
Good point, but actually, when the going gets tough within the confines of their circled wagons, I wouldn’t be surprised if the the CAGW crowd actually get it totally backwards and they start firing their firearms radially inward. To them it would make perfectly good sense. . . afterall, they’d simply be following the dictates of their GCM models!
Dan
Jon says:
April 3, 2014 at 1:17 pm
Those who would like to write to the Vice-Chancellor — as I have done — will find his email address on the University of Western Australia website.
———————
Jon: That was my inclination also, but Steve McIntyre suggested that it might be counterproductive if hordes of people flooded the office of the Vice-Chancellor or anyone else at the university with emails. I’m not sure he still feels that way, but he did say that at one point. I think he feels there is still a chance he can get the data somehow.
“Damian says:
April 3, 2014 at 2:08 pm
Why is it important to share data with greatet scientific community? Two words. Cold Fusion.”
Actually the two words I would use are:
The Truth
Does anyone else remember Monty Python’s ‘Philosopher’s Song’?
“then outright mocking of the very people who was supposedly studying”
(mod) might need at least a “he” or “whom he”
if you are truthful you have nothing to hide and nothing to be afraid off… these people are hiding (somethings) so draw your own conclusions about their truthfulness.
One can be pretty sure that Andrew Bolt is following this and will publish an article on this topic in the next few days.
wws disagree all he had to do is admit that it was faked etc. It would have cleared him and the University. They have made it seriously worse and now will be learning the power of the internet and sites like these which will undoubtly end Mr Johnson’s career at UWA as well as Lew’s at Bristol.. No doubt whatsoever just watch what happens in the coming weeks…This will reach the press LOL
The great sadness is that Australia is now free from Lewandowskey’s obvious malfeasance which he has now brought to the United Kingdom via Bristol Univ. Doesn’t say much for the academic standard at Bristol, so I wouldn’t now send my children there.
I wonder if anyone else finds it ironic that, in a paper dealing with conspiracy theory, some people are speculating that he made up the data?
Quite a bit of research done by UWA is published on the website Science Network of Western Australia. I regularly check these out, and post here with my comments, they are climate change activists: http://pindanpost.com/?s=uwa%2C+climate+change
Follow the grant money, I would suppose is main theme!
There is rather a lot of irony, if you listen to his first few sentences….
“….most climate deniers avoid scrutiny by sidestepping the peer-review process that is fundamental to science…..”
Stephan Lewandowsky: – June 2011
Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review
from:
http://theconversation.com/climate-change-denial-and-the-abuse-of-peer-review-1552
I remember seeing these for the frst time, and thought the must be some sort of parody!
Stephan Lewandowsky: – June 2011
A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
Let’s face it folks, even if they released every bit of data, metadata, emails, snail mail, scratch pads and cocktail napkins that had any relation to this piece of rotten tripe, it would still smell bad enough to scare buzzards off a gut wagon. Anyone who even suggests this thing is worthy of the least consideration should head right to the tattoo shop and have “I am a complete and utter moron” inscribed across his forehead. Although promoting this paper would make such a banner entirely redundant.
@Dave Wendt
LOL! one of the best comparisons I have ever read!
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, academics are the latest criminal class
Like a poster above, I have had some market research experience… in the field, asking survey questions. Recently I agreed to do a survey and recognized immediately it was push polling. I laughed my way through the survey 🙂 because I knew the purpose from the outset!!
When I studied Statistical Methods at the University of Melbourne, we used a book on the subject that was/remains authorative because it pointed out the obvious and in this respect what is obvious to me is that Lewandowsky ignored good practices in the gathering of statistical data. Surveys are supposed to be random. For this reason, the method used was faulty from the outset.
Another criticism that I have is related to the actual questions as they were posted above. It is obvious that the people conducting the survey were after extreme responses. There was no possibility for saying “I do not know”. This shows that the survey itself had bias built into it.
A further criticism is the fact that it was conducted online, and I must add here that I do not like telephone surveys because I do think that it is easier to lie in the responses. True random surveys are conducted “on the street”, by going house to house until you fill all the forms (and yes it takes hours to achieve that result), or by conducting the surveys at a shopping centre, where the whole thing is transparent. With surveys conducted over the phone or online there is no way that people know whether or not the interviewer has marked the box according to what you said.
There are many reasons for being critical of this piece by Lewandowsky and I have tried to outline some of the criticisms that I have before even looking further into the methodology. It really does seem that Lewandowsky had formed a conclusion and then attempted to justify that conclusion through the dodgy survey methods used online, without any guarantee that the respondents were in fact who they said they were at the time. Online it is easy to lie about your identity!!
As far as UWA is concerned, I only have to look at who is employed there in the guise of being professors. One name sticks out – Carmen Lawrence. That institution has a reputation for being a sheltered workshop for failed ALP politicians. The University of Adelaide has the same poor reputation,,, only they go in for pay for play type tactics.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
I wonder if anyone else finds it ironic that, in a paper dealing with conspiracy theory, some people are speculating that he made up the data?
Irony barely covers it. Is Recursive Fury II: Conspiracist ideation strikes back in the works?
So Lewandowsky honed his research skills at UWA and now that they have reached such a high level, University of Bristol has recruited him ! Says a lot about that institution also.
If you parse the Journals statement regarding retraction, it’s not exactly clear who they fear. My guess is it would be Lewandowsky that would be suing, not skeptics. The journal avoided calling out the researcher or the skeptics. There is no no doubt that Lewandowsky would sue if the journal retracted based on his methods.
Professors are hired because the university thinks it can make money, not necessarily because their scribblings have scientific value.
Another Professor in the same department as ‘Lewandowski’ is former WA Premier Carmen Lawrence, and former Minister in the Rudd/Gillard Australian government voted out last year. As Premier of a lefty government, she was at the forefront of being forced into a corruption probe called WA Inc. into her predecessor, and will probably come under scrutiny at the forthcoming probe into Union corruption. She is a hard core lefty, and probably carries considerable weight at UWA with the Vice Chancellor. Also a founder of the left women’s group ‘Emily’s List’ along with Julia Gillard. Another ‘climate changer’.
http://pindanpost.com/2012/12/10/connecting-the-dots/
What will happen when the POTUS and his party see the coming change or lack thereof? Will they then focus on those that misrepresented the so-called science? The blame game is high stakes. This may be one instance where the scapegoat needs to be rightfully sacrificed for its own doing.
Let the chips fall and the heads roll.
I do wish I could remember where I saw this, the author is deserving of credit:
Academia is a good place for reasonably intelligent people who are completely useless.
It seems that academia needs an imposed court of inquiry system rather than insider stonewalling or whitewashing system. I don’t like imposing regulatory bodies over and above institutions of learning, but when research is used to politically socially engineer, or deliberately misinform, the research its peer review and conduct, should be subject to intense scrutiny to the level of a court of law to ensure the wider community get the truth, not lies wrapped in butchers paper.
A court of inquiry can address privacy issues.
My better suggestion would be for academia to seriously address perceived or potential issues before being compelled to be accountable in a public inquiry.
White hot hate for the skeptic because they are right.. Thats not science its human nature..
More worried about their cause than its effect.. Sad to see our academic leaders acting like a grade school bullies..
Studies have become the political arm of leftist politics.. Universities are ground zero here in the west.. Until this mindset is broken most of our intellectual capital will be as mismanaged as it is misplaced..
A severe problem..
Speaking of which, What’s the latest with Rossi, Ric? He said he’d have his firm’s factory running on E=cats by April.
No one’s suggesting that Lew conspired with anyone to do so. If responses were made up, he’s the lone ginman.
Vice Chancellor you need to heed the fine words on your university’s website(page shown above) so succinctly described thus-
Benefits of Research Data Sharing
By publishing/sharing datasets or descriptions of datasets researchers will benefit from-
* Reasearch Integrity. The validity of research results can be substantiated
As it stands now Lewandowsky’s research paper cannot be substantiated and is therefore invalid and you should issue an immediate press release to that effect. Either that or you and the University of WA are platitudinous dribblers and political hacks and not a genuine research and teaching institution.
I keep telling you, it is a religion, a cult actually, it is not open to being questioned. Any lie, any misdirection is allowed, even promoted, to keep the adherents dazzled.
What’s particularly sad is the acceptance by the public of logical fallacies such as “settled science”. It seems that nowadays many don’t understand concepts such as maxima, minima, local max or min, optimization, standard deviation, or even a normal probability distribution. They think in terms of black or white, good or evil, and all or nothing. They color grey does not exist for them; but to their manipulators, the color green appears incredibly bright.
Piltdown Mann or Nebraska Mann?
I have always thought they had to put out a warning that an ice age was not commeth. That is why I was alarmed when Gore started his tripe and got the Nobel prize for peace. That should be given back, all he has caused is mayhem. There were a few errors in Nimoys segment. Inuits did not come from Greenland, they came across the Bering straits between northern Europe and Alaska when there was an land bridge there. They had a different metabolic system than the rest of our European ancestors. They had adapted to hardly any carbohydrates in the diet, and like the Neanderthals survived on mainly protein, blubber and a soup made from the stomachs of seals, and a few berries each year. I got that info from Dr Neville Howard, my son’s endocrinologist. He’d worked in Canada. I queried it when my archaeology lecturer pointed out, that most Homo sapien sapien (modern humankind) could not survive in cold and alpine regions for any length of time if we depended on local food sources only. We would have to greatly increase our carbohydrate consumption to combat the cold. Cold weather does this to insulin dependent diabetics. The burn of energy keeping warm more so than in warmer months.
The ethics policies at all universities and probably all institutions period, are simply motherhood statements that no one actively pays attention to. In the old days, they didn’t seem to even need these ‘policies’. I never heard of such half a century ago. Moral degradation has made these necessary but it seems the degradation is too far advanced for the policies to have any effect. Honesty and integrity probably has to live in the individual to start with.
I am thinking here about reproducible demonstrative science. This is a benchmark of science as I understand. By correctly replicating the parameters of an experiment, anyone should obtain the same result as reported by the originator of said experiment. Proof. OK, here is a rub when we apply this kind of rigor and standards to psychology. Here we are not just dealing with the material object of brains and nerve endings and neuro chemical action. We go down the rabbit hole of mind. And the mind is a non-physical thing. Very hard to standardize a non-physical thing and quantify it due to infinite variables, i.e. experience, emotions, information or lack of information, chemical influences and the very slippery thing called personality. My thought here is akin to what the U.S. federal government did to Native Americans in the late 19th century, this was the wholesale committing of the entire native population as wards of the state due to psychological incompetence. This was the rational to abrogate treaties and force all native children into boarding schools called asylums. Lewandowski’s poll can not be regarded as valid in any context beyond humor in bad taste. To put his poll to the kind of scrutiny and competence of well informed critical investigators from many scientific disciplines such as found in the climate science skeptic community will certainly conclusively demonstrate Lewandowski’s poll as either fraud or severely absurd, in my opinion.
Dave says: “I keep telling you, it is a religion, a cult actually, it is not open to being questioned. Any lie, any misdirection is allowed, even promoted, to keep the adherents dazzled”
No doubt about it.
The greatest positive contribution to the biosphere and vegetative health of our planet the past 200 years, along with increasing crop yields and world food production by following the irrefutable law of photosynthesis. That fact has been twisted and turned upside down into CO2=pollution.
Though there is plenty of manipulation with regards to CO2’s effect on temperature and use of unethical methods to perpetrate this scam, nothing can match the mind boggling scientific fraud perpetrated by covering up the massive benefits of CO2 as confirmed by thousands of studies.
This would be like taking your teenager to his family doctor for a regular check up and the doctor discovering that he’s dehydrated, then insisting that he cut back on drinking water because water is toxic(yeah, right if you drink a gallon of it in an hour).
The 280 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere 200 years ago was severely deficient. Ideal CO2 levels for our biosphere and plant world would be double the current 400 ppm. All animals eat plants or something that ate plants.
Biological science is crystal clear that patient earth and its creatures would see increasing health with much more CO2 in the atmosphere than at current levels. To hide this intentionally is a crime the perpetrators, ironically, accuse people of, who want to see the data that supports their work.
Do you think the doctor that insists that water is toxic is beyond reproach, simply because he’s a doctor?
In a just world, the scientific quacks taking part in this fraud would be held accountable, not rewarded and given protection.
Hey Magma, no conspiracy ideation needed. A simple check of the news headlines makes it quite clear that fraud in academic psychology is far from unknown, including the manufacturing of data from whole cloth. Even the New York Times is aware of that, as they report in their story of one of the most respected academics in the field of psychology getting busted making up survey results. To ignore that possibility would be to stick one’s head in the sand about the real world. Why won’t the data be released? What’s so hard about doing that? The refusal to do so raises questions that go to the heart of the scientific method and how studies can be based on “secret” data that can’t be reviewed. In that case, it’s legitimate to ask: Does the data actually exist? Diederik Stapel’s (see link above) data did not, except in his imagination.
Here’s another example, also from the last two years:
http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/09/harvard-psychology-researcher-committed-fraud-u.s.-investigation-concludes
“Former Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser fabricated and falsified data and made false statements about experimental methods in six federally funded studies, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI).”
And here’s another case where there was no data. The whole idea was completely made up.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201401/the-mathematics-happiness-turns-out-be-fraud
“Puzzled by the absence of data explaining the equation and questioning the apparent simplicity of the happiness ratio, Nick Brown, a part-time psychology student in his fifties studying at the University of East London, investigated further and found that the scientific-sounding ratio came apart in his hands. Losada had in effect made it up. And Fredrickson, clearly impressed by the math but unable to challenge or reproduce it herself, not only adopted it wholesale but built an influential article and book around it.“
What makes Climate Studies different from all the other sciences and university studies? How is it that we have in Climate Studies the one science that is settled? Whereas, there is room for research in all other fields of university and private studies, we have closed the door on the future in climatology? I propose that we shut down separate climatology departments and simply include the settled conclusions in the ordinary department of meteorology.
Perhaps following the precedent set in so many universities in having settled at least one intellectual endeavor, that the principle should be extended to all other studies and simply declare all the rest as settled, and Universities be declared as only teaching institutions and the receipt of further grants, bequests, and any other source of funding for research unnecessary.
Perhaps even University operations should be converted from the present form and simply be established as hired bureaucracies whether of the public or private stripe. Perhaps reducing professionalism to mere bureaucracy is long overdue. We no longer need to permit the free exercise of judgement at all, since all matters are settled.
Isn’t it a wonderful sensation to apply the principle of settlement to all matters? Since establishing such a state of affairs removes any further need for free enquiry, therefore there is no call to teach such matters, merely the established and settled knowledge we have before us. And since all is settled there is no longer any requirement for policing University establishments, as their data is sacrosanct beyond any possibility of further scrutiny like settlement of authority on the FBI to deal with matters of insurance and political activity. The wonderful sense of human awe at the place he has in the universe can now be transferred to those holding title to settled matters.
If we can settle matters subject to science, what else is there around to settle? Lots and lots, starting with political control. Settling that matter provides a wonderful sense of security in that no further decisions are necessary,and those holding the reins of settlement are due the respectful envelopment of awe at such perfection in the hands of mere fellow human beings. Surely we will all hang pictures of them in our homes and work places. We no longer are required to engage in the messy and often nasty decision making so unsettling in a world where business stuck up its ugly head and demeaned simple work from its settled place in the scheme of settled life. We can all depend on Big Settlement, never mind who is doing the settling or why.
I am an Australian reader and have never heard of the term ‘circle the wagons’.
“it is a sad day for science when administrators in two universities and a journal editor circle the wagons”
Does this mean that they should be in their offices rather than out on the corral?
But great article, I think UWA will lose this one, data must be accessible to other researchers, it is the basis of science.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
April 3, 2014 at 3:15 pm
I wonder if anyone else finds it ironic that, in a paper dealing with conspiracy theory, some people are speculating that he made up the data?
—————————————————–
It’s more ironic that Lewandowsky, as one in a large group of true believers in CAGW, a group that regularly claims that there is conspiracy between Big Oil, “anti-scientists,” conservative think-tanks, polluters, automobile enthusiasts, and Denialists, would write a paper accusing people of “conspiracy ideation.”
Or, it’s more ironic that UWA would refuse to release data in violation of university policy in order to defend the integrity of a scientific paper written at the university.
It’s ironic that reputed “scientist” Lewandowsky would claim that climate science is settled.
It’s ironic that Lewandowsky and his followers think he’s being smeared after he wrote a paper smearing people by “proving” they suffer from psychological disorders.
There’s a lot of irony to go around in this controversy.
Hot of the press:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-intimidate-journal-into-retracting-paper-that-finds-they-believe-conspiracy-theories/
rogerknights says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Pretty lousy choice of a thread to hijack! OTOH, compared to Dr Lew stuff, it’s nice to add something about the world maybe getting to be a better place.
I don’t remember the running on E-Cats by April line, when he was working on the original low temperature steam model he used it for heating the lab.
Rights to the E-Cats were acquired by by a mysterious partner several months ago, the partner recently identified themselves – Industrial Heat in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Not the big company I had hoped for, but they seem reasonable. They’re also a lot quieter than Rossi used to be so it’s tough to gauge where they are. I think they have not yet hooked a unit on to a steam turbine to produce power, which might suggest they’re having issue controlling things, but could mean there’s no need to until they’re good and ready. Patience.
Rossi apparently is doing more research and is not involved much in the manufacturing efforts, so maybe they aren’t having control problems.
A 5-6 month test by 3rd parties should have concluded last month, but people be writing up the results and running it through peer review, so it may be months before we hear details. One hint comes from an Italian blogger who posted in Italian “Sources that I used to draw are now depleted, new sources (Italian, Bolognese but not) tell me that the report is completed and the performance certificate cat Rossi is remarkable!” A better translation would be nice, but the meaning is clear. Patience.
Meanwhile, other projects and efforts are moving along and I don’t have time to keep up with everything. A good summary, well, it doesn’t go into any details, it just summarizes all the projects, is at http://www.e-catworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Energy_Breakthrough_Powering-Up-1april2014.pdf
So, all sorts of stuff going on, but nothing I can spear and bring into the daylight.
Patience.
You must be very young thingadonta, it was an expression used in the older western movies, when the wagon trains were moving to another region, and they were attacked by North American Indians. “Circle the wagons! was to barricade themselves, as a protective ploy by placing the covered wagons in a circle. Unhook the horses etc. So they could hide behind and shoot down de ‘redskins’. Didn’t always work though. .
I agree refusal to produce research papers to others sounds a bit suss. It’s also not unusual for other academics to query an academic’s thesis? Especially a Ph.D candidate’s. They usually publish their findings in a professional or scientific magazine and invite others to comment.
Personally I think they would rather hide them forever forgotten, and throw away the key. Especially if the university was afforded a grant, gee, that is their life blood, is the research facilities.
There is one thing you can rely on here in Australia. It’s called the GAF (Give A F%$k) attitude. If you want anything from say a university, property management company, utility etc etc most of the time you are pushed from pillar to post and nothing gets done, all for a fee of course.
bushbunny:
Yeah I figured that’s what it meant, but i’ve never heard the expression in Australia.
This is an abbreviated version of the email I sent to Paul Johnston,
I am astounded that you have sought to protect the data of … from the analysis of Steve McIntyre. In science, open access and analysis is a basic scientific tenet. What do you fear? …
By your actions you have already brought unwanted attention to the generally declining standards of rarefied world of the academic ivory towers and have (further) trashed the reputation of a leader in that decline, your very own UWA (where I studied economic alchemy and numerology in the 1970’s). Who would have thought one pseudo-scientific ‘professor’ in one discipline could have wrought so much destruction on a whole university? Thank goodness he has gone to the UK as it will take them much longer to notice.
Einstein never feared challenges to his ideas or research, in fact he revelled in them as it made him validate his theoretical musings. Since when did the UWA feel it had the ability to turn proven and well-tried scientific principles into a new paradigm of secrecy and spin?
What does it say about the modern post-scientific world that the UWA, through you supports taking taxpayers funds then hiding the shoddy work and false conclusions from the world. …
Either become a realist seeker of truth and release the data or get out of the way …
There is another possibility for this reaction. I think elections are being held in Western Australia (WA) this w/e, or is it a re-run due to some ballot papers went missing a week or so ago. Not sure. One thing I am sure about is that the balance of power in the Senate will be determined by the WA result. I have a feeling the ALP and Green hold on power in the Senate will change as has most states and territories, excluding SA and ACT, to favour the Liberal National Party (LNP). Abbott and the LNP will then have control to rid this country of this kind of academic misconduct, rot and finally dismiss climate change alarmist fear mongering.
Well, it is quite clear (to me at least) that all requests for data have failed for reasons stated in Section 3.8, to wit:” 3.8 Research data related to publications must be available for discussion with other researchers.”
Obviously, if you are not considered to be a “researcher” (whatever qualification that entails), then you are not entitled to squat. Period. End of Story. Go away. Be Silent. You do not exist.
I think this is reaching just a bit. There is at least an equal probability that neither Paul Johnson nor anyone else at UWA has looked at the data in detail. The instant they do, they become responsible for any taint. As long as they don’t look they can maintain distance from potential scandal.
I think this is simply a rock UWA does not want to turn over. And why bother? Lewandowsky is no longer there so they can wash their hands of any responsibility for him; it’s ancient history. And his new employer University of Bristol can likewise evade responsibility because the work was not done under their auspices and they don’t have the data anyway.
It’s a neat arrangement; everyone who is in a position to release the data can, without obvious and undeniable duplicity, claim it’s not their problem and you have to talk to one of the other parties.
I suspect the UWA “Code of Conduct” is only enforceable by UWA, and then only if they chose to do so. Unless an accrediting body or government grant funding agency wants to get involved, this is probably the end of the line.
The expression is not used or I haven’t heard it used much. But doing an Ostrich (head in the sand) is similar. I am uncertain but I thought Flannery worked once for UWA.
Perhaps Magma can enlighten us as to a reasonable rationale for withholding the requested information. Other than “you just want to find something wrong with it”, of course.
No Flannery came to the UNE once to get experience in excavation, but he has been to USA
in Adelaide. He’s going to Harvard too for some reason.
cnxtim says:
April 3, 2014 at 3:57 pm
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, academics are the latest criminal class
——–
A friend of mine who is a former war correspondent and journalist got his PhD in history a few years ago. He comments frequently that he feels very comfortable in academia because it is the last refuge of scoundrels (he’s had a chequered life).
Suddenly the UWA website has no more information on VC Johnson: no results found. http://www.uwa.edu.au/university/governance/executive/vc What are they trying to hide?
@sergeiMK. You are correct, of course. Lewandowsky does not need to provide any evidence. Whatever he says, it must be true because he says it.
Jimbo says:
April 3, 2014 at 12:39 pm
Damian says:
April 3, 2014 at 2:08 pm
rogerknights says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:11 pm
I would humbly suggest that any of you that have already made up your mind because the consensus view regarding LENR (“cold fusion”) is that “the science is settled” might stop to consider where you’ve heard that refrain before…
If you feel the slightest twinge of discomfort at that comparison, take a look at the research results from some fellows over at that crackpot institution known as MIT…
Seriously…The moon landing really was a hoax….right? Guys?
In this particular SEARCH FOR TRUTH, TRUTH died a very long time back.
I actually think that UWA has played this all wrong they should have asked Carmen “I can’t recall” Lawrence for advice. For the non Australians Carmen has selective amnesia as per her testimony in the Mark’s royal commission she managed to escape the 3 perjury charges that followed by simply not being able to recall events and a case could not be proved. The full transcript of the Mark’s royal commission is available online (http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/intranet/libpages.nsf/WebFiles/Royal+Commissions+-+Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+into+use+of+executive+power/$FILE/Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+into+use+of+executive+power.pdf)
Her count: 14 ”I don’t recalls’, six ”I don’t remembers” and four ”I can’t remember”
Was probably not her finest moment and it forever haunted her political career. All but the staunchest supporters find the selective memory defense a constant source of humor and gave her the loving nickname.
UWA has untapped talent and the next step is clearly the Carmen defense they can not recall what they did with the data.
thingadonta is obviously to young to have watched “Wagon Train”
Some background to my suggestion above that many of the responses to Moon Hoax were made up (not necessarily by Lew):
In a comment at the Blackboard circa September 2012, someone said that Kwiksurveys had been hacked, lost a lot of data, and went bust. Was that irony? If true, it provides a useful get out for Lew.
My reason for thinking the survey was made up was that there were only about 90 commenters at the linking blogs, and 1300+ supposed responses. Filling in the survey was long boring and thankless. Posting a comment is quick and provides the gratification we all know about.
There obviously was a conspiracy of some sort between Cook and Lew. The FOI material obtained by Simon Turnill is clearly incomplete. Communication between Lew and his blog friends is limited in each case to a simple “Will you link this” “Yes”, except in the case of Cook, where the conversation goes “Will you link this?” “Yes, sometime, when I get round to it”. In September, when Barry Woods and I started airing our doubts about the link at SkS, it should have been clear to Lew that Cook had screwed up, and his paper was threatened. What does Lew do? He hires Cook to be co-author on the Recursive Fury paper!
Note that Cook and Lew exchanged a couple of emails about the accusations of non-linking at SkS in October 2012, as Cook’s data collection was coming to end, calling it a conspiracy theory.
29/10/2012
Cook: ..that batch of emails you sent me where you and I talk about me linking to you from theSkS blog, has that been released to the public yet? Considering the whole conspiracy theory that SkS didn’t link to you, I’m wondering how the denialosphere will chew on that email.
Lewandowsky: It’s been released. But they chew on ethics now. Links are soooo September 2012 now.
Yet it doesn’t appear as a conspiracy theory in the Fury paper. I suggest the five or six fabricated conspiracy theories in Fury are just a smokescreen to hide the non-linking – the one specific error identified in Moon Hoax. Why Lew hired Cook to do the analysis on Fury after he screwed up on Moon Hoax is a mystery. It sounds to me from the above email that Cook is pretending to Lew that he did link, which would explain his hiring.
I think the ethics only apply to science? So when they make up policy based science the ethics no longer apply?
AntonyIndia says:
April 3, 2014 at 8:37 pm
That webpage is up here.
All is explained –
‘The New Century Campaign is an ambitious and far-reaching initiative that will revolutionise how we educate, research and engage with our communities.’
http://www.campaign.uwa.edu.au/our-vision/paul-johnson/
Since the science is settled, I see no need for further funding.
“jimmi_the_dalek says:
April 3, 2014 at 3:15 pm
I wonder if anyone else finds it ironic that, in a paper dealing with conspiracy theory, some people are speculating that he made up the data?”
The real question as I understand it is not about made up data. Not by the researchers at least.
The sites the survey appeared on skewed the results because few genuine skeptics actually participated. The concern is that some of the respondents might have given answers they didn’t actually believe, but completed the survey in such a way to make skeptics look like crazies.
After all, if skeptics actually believed what the survey implies, why the outrage?
Look at the mileage Lewandowsky has gotten from this poll. How it resonated within the echo chamber and into the MSM. The glee with which they took it to the airwaves and said “see, they are all crazy.” It was designed, form, fit and function to give Lew a soapbox.
Simply from looking at the questions and the methodology it is apparent that Lewandowsky set out to prove what he already ‘knew.’
Why not redo the poll, with identical questions and responses, but only allow one per IP and spread the poll across a wider audience with genuine skeptics. See what the results are then. Should be quite interesting I think.
Paul,
Dude, if you don’t want your work criticized, you’re in the WRONG business. We call it science. There is no entitlement. It doesn’t matter how long you worked on it. It doesn’t matter what your title is. It doesn’t matter how much money you spent.
It is entirely PERFORMANCE based. No pass-fail grading. No points for good intentions. If you are WRONG, and every hypothesis eventually proves to be to some degree, you acknowledge the contradictory data and move on. This is how we learn. this is how we progress.
Hiding your data subverts the system and is just plain dinglenuts.
I have emailed the Dr Jenkins (MP) advising him of the situation. Used my academic letters etc.
Doubt much will come of it though, the Liberal Party (that’s sort of the opposite of US liberal) are pretty gutless about this sort of thing. 🙁
I know I stepped once in some Professor Lewandowsky.
I’m beginning to suspect I stepped in some Vice-Chancellor Johnson as well….:o)
Every time I read “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. ” I think, “Gee, too bad you didn’t share the data, maybe someone would have helped out and you wouldn’t be SO WRONG!
Doesn’t matter how you spin it… predictions are all failing. Too bad the universe is skeptical.
LdB says:
April 3, 2014 at 9:57 pm
——————————–
Ah, old memories … Lawrence of Amnesia, minister for memory loss 😉
I am an alumni of UWA. I have to say I am extremely embarrassed by this. I think it undermines the credibility and the reputation of the university, which, in my day at least, was a fantastic place.
My father, also an alumni, has written to prof Barry Marshall. I think it’s worth quoting a small section but the whole letter is very good IMO.
Why am I writing to you in particular? Well, in 1982 my eldest son, then aged 12 was diagnosed as suffering from a stomach ulcer. There is no doubt that he had it – we have a photo taken by endoscopy. In those days everyone knew that stress was the main cause of such a condition. So the whole family – me, my wife and all three sons were sent to a clinical psychologist for counselling. My wife and I were devastated by this affair. How could we not know that our son was suffering stress acute enough to cause an ulcer? Or worse, could we have been the cause of the stress? Well, after two sessions the psychologist said “This is a waste of time. There’s nothing wrong with any of you. There’s no point in further consultation.” So we went away and my son got better.
Then you came along with your research into helicobacter pylori and the ‘stress consensus’ evaporated. Since then and with advancing years and experience (I’m now 70) I have been sceptical of consensus science. And this is where the UWA situation comes in.
He has written in the hope that prof Barry Marshall, himself a victim of consensus science for some time may have a personal perspective and some influence he might be able to bring to bear.
too funny:
3 April: Detroit Free Press: Indiana official draws heat for global warming text
by John Russell, The Indianapolis Star
INDIANAPOLIS — Keith Baugues is not a scientist, but that didn’t stop him on a recent wintry day from expressing skepticism about global warming – something that is broadly accepted in the scientific community.
After weeks of heavy snow and freezing air, he had had enough. He took to a government message board one day in February, complaining that his normal 45-minute commute had turned into a painful three-hour slog. “Anyone who says global warming is obviously suffering from frostbite,” he wrote.
Baugues would later say he was only joking. But he wasn’t just any government bureaucrat. Baugues is assistant commissioner in the Office of Air Quality in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the man in charge of cleaning up Indiana’s air…
Reaction was swift, according to remarks posted to the message board reviewed by The Indianapolis Star. Several Environmental Management staff members wrote that the comment flew in the face of nearly unanimous scientific consensus and offended and embarrassed them.
“Either support consensus science or please keep your opinions to yourself. The rest of us are embarrassed by your unwillingness to accept what is happening,” one worker wrote…
Another said that Baugues “should not speak on such matters until he is better informed.” Then that person, who was not named, took pains to point out that recent extremes of cold weather were caused by warming global temperatures. That resulted in more water being absorbed into the atmosphere, pushing the arctic jet stream farther south.
“The fact that (Baugues) disparages the exact kind of science that disproves his statement only further illustrates how out of touch this administration is with the current environmental crisis facing not only Hoosiers, but the entire world,” the person wrote.
Baugues studied engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute and has spent six years at the Department of Environmental Management and nine years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency…
Baugues wrote to his staff on March 19 trying to tamp down the outcry. But he stuck by his position. “I am a skeptic on global warming,” he declared…
He said if staff members thought they had “important facts about global warming,” he would be willing to discuss it during lunch hours…
But some scientists and environmentalists note that Baugues’ comments are at such odds with overwhelming scientific opinion that they wonder whether he is the right person to lead Indiana’s efforts to regulate air polluters.
Dick Van Frank, a former member of the Indiana Air Pollution Control Board, was momentarily speechless when he heard of Baugues’ comments. “Is he kidding? Is that a joke?”
Although January was unusually cold across much of the United States, it was actually the fourth-warmest January on record worldwide, said Lonnie G. Thompson, an Ohio State University professor of earth sciences who has researched the climate for more than 30 years…
http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/7287855
One of the many problems with the politicisation and near-total alarmist bias of the academic climatology community is that no statistician will go anywhere near projects such as Lew’s, even in the unlikely event of being asked. The risk is too great. A proper design and analysis would likely give the “wrong” result, with the consequent smear campaign resulting in impairment of the statistician’s reputation and/or career. Just look at the unspeakable hatchet job done on Wegman, for example, or on a lesser scale, the garbage McShane and Wyner had to put up with.
There is probably some protection for statisticians in that studies which come up with the “wrong” answer are either quietly dropped, or fail pal-review. Still, no sane, neutral statistician will want to have anything to do with climate “science”, and who can blame them? Which leaves the field open for drivel like Lew’s to become part of the peer-reviewed literature, with the climate community acquiescent in their silence.
3 April: Washington Times: EDITORIAL: Global-warming musical is scored by taxpayers
This song-and-dance “science” costs taxpayers $7.3 billion a year
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/3/editorial-global-warming-the-musical/
Some time ago I advised Steve McIntyre not to waist his time on Lew’s research. He has all the rights to check his data, of course, but I think that he will not find easily elements in this kind of research, warranting retraction. The problem is well articulated by the Dutch committee in their report after discovery of fraud by social psychologist Diederik Stapel. They wrote in the introduction to the fifth chapter
‘Another set of explanatory factors for the extent and duration of the fraud, alongside those set out in Chapter 4, reside in the general manner in which the research was performed both within and outside Mr Stapel’s working environment. It involved a more general failure of scientific criticism in the peer community and a research culture that was excessively oriented to uncritical confirmation of one’s own ideas and to finding appealing but theoretically superficial ad hoc results. This picture emerged, among other things, from the interviews with the Committees. These ‘sloppy science methods’ were found on a large scale in the work of Mr Stapel and his co-workers’.
https://www.commissielevelt.nl/wp-content/uploads_per_blog/commissielevelt/2013/01/finalreportLevelt1.pdf
@Mindert Eiting – waste – the waist you used is where you put your belt. But it did give me a chuckle.
(2 pages) 4 April: Harvard Crimson: Harvard Should Change
By Kelsey D. Wirth and Timothy E. Wirth
Early last month, Harvard President Drew Faust wrote an open letter to the Harvard community about proposals that Harvard divest from fossil fuel companies. In a decision with which we strongly disagree, President Faust wrote that she and the members of Harvard’s governing board “do not believe that university divestment from the fossil fuel industry is warranted or wise.”
We will discuss why the opposite conclusion would be both “warranted and wise,” but first we will lament the absolutism of the President’s statement and policy, which left no room for even gradual progress towards divestment…
President Faust would do well to reopen discussions with students and alumni regarding divestment, explore common ground, and make Harvard a leader in developing responsible investment policies that are consistent with meeting the challenges of climate change, the greatest moral threat of our time.
Timothy E. Wirth ’61, former Harvard Overseer and U.S. Senator from Colorado, is President of the United Nations Foundation. Kelsey D. Wirth ’91 is the founder of Align Technology and founder and co-director of Mothers Out Front: Mobilizing for a Livable Climate.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/4/4/President-Faust-Divestment/
4 April: Yale Daily News: Fossil Free Yale’s mistake
By Alexandra Barlowe
When I returned from Washington, D.C., after having been arrested for tying myself to the White House fence in protest of the Keystone XL pipeline, people were shocked…
While Yale has maintained some semblance of activism on campus for the past few decades, students seem less willing to make sacrifices for causes larger than themselves than previous generations…
Today we have cause to be furious. We now face the increasingly harsh reality of global climate change, a problem that we have brought upon ourselves. It threatens our existence as a species on this planet; the situation has never been more urgent. An IPCC report from this week reaffirms that the planet is warming at an alarming rate with dangerous implications…
That’s why I joined Fossil Free Yale (FFY) as soon as I got to Yale. Thus far, FFY has drawn up a convincing policy proposal for Yale’s Corporate Committee on Investor Responsibility and has invested much time and energy into securing private, exclusive meetings with corporation members. Although FFY has made a great deal of progress with the administration by gaining influential allies, this seems to be the extent of the tactics FFY is willing to take.
Unfortunately, its conservative approach is holding us back…
We should respectfully negotiate with the administration, but we cannot hesitate to antagonize the Corporation members if we want them to make decisions they are uncomfortable with. We also need a sizeable and strong coalition of determined students to be respectful and even formal in certain settings, but also to prove our willingness to make real sacrifices to get what we want — and ultimately, what we need to have a future on this planet.
Finally, our varied approach must include more radical strategies. FFY’s lack of bold action only reflects what has become the student body’s general attitude…
Tuesday’s action demanding divestment is a great start. The risks of climate change are scarily real, so we must start taking risks of our own. If civil disobedience in front of the White House seemed risky for your future, it’s nothing compared to what lies ahead.
Alexandra Barlowe is a freshman in Branford College. Contact her at alexandra.barlowe@yale.edu .
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/04/barlowe-fossil-free-yales-mistake/
Even the locals didn’t think the ‘deniers’ would fall for such a transparent survey…
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/#comment-44097
“Yeah, those conspiracy theory questions were pretty funny, but does anyone think that hardcore deniers are going to be fooled by such a transparent attempt to paint them as paranoids?
”Also, here are two words that, when put together, ought to make anyone critical of this research: “online” and “survey”.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/#comment-44061
“You missed the long series of questions about various conspiracy theories. Those were fun!”
Actual links to the original survey articles below, read the comments, lots of these people thought the survey design rubbish, and it’s intent obvious (especially at Deltoid/Tamino)
these were the links I found in July 2012:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/29/survey-on-attitudes-towards-cl/
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2010/08/counting-your-attitudes/
http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/opinion-survey-regarding-climate-change/
http://hot-topic.co.nz/questionnaire/
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/take-a-survey/
some comments from Deltoid: (August 2010)
“Eh, it was pretty easy to figure out what they were looking at. Perceived SES vs. support of “free market” ideology vs. subscription to conspiracy theories vs. acceptance of well formed scientific consensus.”
“I agree with Tony; at first, I thought the survey was bogus. Of course, I haven’t seen the thinking behind the survey so I cannot comment with much authority, but some of the questioned seem rather ill-posed. And why no 5-point Likert scale? The whole online survey format is also methodologically suspect.”
“On the other hand, I think the “conspiracy theory” section is too heavy-handed to be useful. There’s no chance that people won’t figure out what the survey is looking for here, and everyone knows that “conspiracy theory!!” is pejorative.”
It is a seriously weird questionnaire. I stopped doing it when I realized that the UWA logo directed one to the kwiksurveys site rather than UWA. Is it some sort of attempt to spish? Quite apart from the inept conspiracy questions that don’t allow “no idea” as an answer, and the two-part questions where you might have different response to the two parts.
BTW – they say the experimenter is Charles Hanich, not Stephan Lewandowsky as you put Tim….
“a “don t know” button might have been a good idea, but isn t really necessary.
the good thing about conspiracy theories is, that you will recognise it, even without ever heard about it! i am looking forward to the results of this one. but i fear very few denialists will take it.”
“The survey is a tedious and transparent piece of agit-prop, designed, no doubt, at a UWA struggle meeting.”
“On the other hand, I think the “conspiracy theory” section is too heavy-handed to be useful. There’s no chance that people won’t figure out what the survey is looking for here, and everyone knows that “conspiracy theory!!” is pejorative. ”
“I would have thought that inviting Deltoid readers to participate in a questionnaire of this sort is likely to produce statistically skewed results since it likely to encounter a preponderance of respondents who are “pro-science” rather than “skeptical of science”.
——————————————————-
NASA faked the Moon landing therefore (climate) sicence is a hoax,
An Anatomy of the motivated Rejection of Science – Lewandowsky et al – Psychological Science
is a paper with a title designed to grab newspaper headlines and soundbite (which it did, as is still doing, with the obligatory ‘moon photo’ in the banner of the articles.
out of over a 1000 respondents, 4 results ‘rejected climate science strongly, and ‘believed’ in the moon conspiracy. of the ~200 anonymous people catergorised as sceptics, 95% rejected the moon conspiracy. 2 of these 4, strongly ‘rejected climate science and strongly ticked every single conspiracy going..
Just maybe 1 or 2 or 4 of those people were anonymously having a little fun with the survey?
Take a look at the comments below 6 of the blogs that took the survey above, these blogs all hate sceptics… Lewandowsky’s involvement is revealed on some of them. All of these blog owners have contributed to Skeptical Science in one way or another (ie authors, including Lewandowsky of course) – so it basically as the FOI shows, just sent out to Cook’s mates, and they sent out survey to ‘sceptic’ blogs afterwards for some reason or other?
Yet we have a headline based solely on a few anonymous participants, from blogs that hate sceptics !
! Lewandowsky, Marriott and Cook got the research period for Recursive Fury wrong !
They should have started 2 years earlier, at the sceptic hating blogs that took the survey!!!
look at all that ‘conspiracy ideation’ at Deltoid/Tamino’s, etc about how bad the survey was 😉 LOL
One word………disgusting!
The attraction for sending your son or daughter east for a degree will increase after this piece of unbelievable philistinism.
That a Vice-Chancellor would perpetrate such peasant bog-ignorance is beyond all comprehension. Instead of expecting him to be right onto Lewendowsky’s behaviour and by so doing protect the reputation of the UWA, we now have the unedifying spectacle of the barbarian within doing its damnest to tear the place apart.
There are one or two Royal Commissions in operation in Australia at the moment.
Surely this matter could be subject to such an investigation and have the players, especially including Johnson, hauled up to explain themselves.
Patrick says:
April 3, 2014 at 7:42 pm
There is one thing you can rely on here in Australia. It’s called the GAF (Give A F%$k) attitude.
I do believe you mean, DILLIGAF (Do I Look Like I Give A…….fire truck)
No data = Fiction. End.
“BruceC says:
April 4, 2014 at 2:38 am”
Maaaate, as you and I know, everything is truncated here. Five extra initials (Is that the right word?) for words cuts in to beer drinking time…
I am not a scientist but know the mechanisms of politics pretty well.I would arrange for a question to be raised in Parliamentary question time to the Federal Minister for Science Dr Jennings,who by the way is a scientist. (this should come from a local Federal MP ).The question would go something like this:
Is the Minister for Science aware that contrary to its own guidelines and ARC Funding Guidelines that the University of WA has refused to share scientific research data with other scientists? I refer specifically to the case of (…) and the response provided by the VC (fill the gaps). Does the MInister believe that tax payers’ funds should continue to be directed to academic institutions that operate contrary to agreed Australian and international standards and and if not can the Minister advise what steps will be taken to rectify this situation? A good MP and I am sure the Minister for Science will love to address this one. A pity it wasn’t raised last week prior to Senate elections tho.
NASA Faked the Moon Landing – Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax
18 June 2014 12:30 – 13:30
BS1 4QA Bristol | View map
BIG Green Week Festival talk by Prof. Stephen Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology at Bristol University, in partnership with Bristol…
http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/big-green-week-festival-3387614462
http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nasa-faked-the-moon-landing-therefore-climate-science-is-a-hoax-tickets-10738026727?aff=eorg
I was personally refused data by the VC as well.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/03/a-stunning-revelation-from-a-uwa-vice-chancellor-paul-johnson-over-access-to-lewandowsky-poll-data/
oops – I meant to post that comment at Australian Climate Madness !!
http://australianclimatemadness.com/2014/03/29/uwa-closes-ranks-behind-lew-refuses-access-to-data/
@ Patrick.
Gone past the beers…….now onto the burbs (JB)….. 🙂
BTW, don’t forget to set your clocks back tomorrow night.
That ‘extra’ hour of daylight during summer plays havoc with climate change/global warming. /sarc
I get the impression that some postings are being sent her on purpose to distract (long irrelevant etc) Just to note me thinks
You’d think they would be begging someone to look at the data for confirmation that there was no academic malfeasance.
There’s only one inference from their reluctance…
An the straw man of threats of legal action as the cause of the retraction is out again…they only need to prove they didn’t lie and any libel will go away.
But unless MSM start getting involved this will all be forgotten next week…
“But unless MSM start getting involved this will all be forgotten next week…”
I hope everyone reading here realizes by now that the MSM are paid shills for the other side.
Barry…..I couldn’t help but think that the post code for Bristol in your post summed up the feeling about Lew exactly: BS1 4QA (BS numero uno for Q and A)
I listened to a snippet of one of the videos that Barry Woods embedded in his post of April 3, 2014 at 3:26 pm. Lewandowsky immediately struck me as an angry, even hateful, fellow during the interview. If that’s the case, then I’m sure he’s downright apoplectic having had his paper retracted due to the outcry coming from the skeptic community.
But, to quote Mosher: “Free the data. Free the code. Data wants to be free!”
I recently wanted to comment on a paper about population trends for amphibians. The authors sent me the data in a few days. Questions arose and they answered them. Conversely, I have recently had a lengthy (20 emails) correspondence with someone who is auditing my climate sensitivity paper. He replicated my calculations and got the same result (though he does not agree with all my assumptions). This is how science works.
Hmmm…fudging and/or hiding data sounds vaguely familiar:
Very important new statement from Frontiers the publisher
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Retraction_of_Recursive_Fury_A_Statement/812
Did Frontiers just threw UWA & the authors under a bus?
this sounds harsh?
“One of Frontiers’ founding principles is that of authors’ rights. We take this opportunity to reassure our editors, authors and supporters that Frontiers will continue to publish – and stand by – valid research.”
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Retraction_of_Recursive_Fury_A_Statement/812
Retraction of Recursive Fury: A Statement
(Lausanne, Switzerland) – There has been a series of media reports concerning the recent retraction of the paper Recursive Fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation, originally published on 18 March 2013 in Frontiers in Psychology. Until now, our policy has been to handle this matter with discretion out of consideration for all those concerned. But given the extent of the media coverage – largely based on misunderstanding – Frontiers would now like to better clarify the context behind the retraction.
As we published in our retraction statement, a small number of complaints were received during the weeks following publication. Some of those complaints were well argued and cogent and, as a responsible publisher, our policy is to take such issues seriously. Frontiers conducted a careful and objective investigation of these complaints. Frontiers did not “cave in to threats”; in fact, Frontiers received no threats. The many months between publication and retraction should highlight the thoroughness and seriousness of the entire process.
As a result of its investigation, which was carried out in respect of academic, ethical and legal factors, Frontiers came to the conclusion that it could not continue to carry the paper, which does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects. Specifically, the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics. Frontiers informed the authors of the conclusions of our investigation and worked with the authors in good faith, providing them with the opportunity of submitting a new paper for peer review that would address the issues identified and that could be published simultaneously with the retraction notice.
The authors agreed and subsequently proposed a new paper that was substantially similar to the original paper and, crucially, did not deal adequately with the issues raised by Frontiers.
We remind the community that the retracted paper does not claim to be about climate science, but about psychology. The actions taken by Frontiers sought to ensure the right balance of respect for the rights of all.
One of Frontiers’ founding principles is that of authors’ rights. We take this opportunity to reassure our editors, authors and supporters that Frontiers will continue to publish – and stand by – valid research. But we also must uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects included in a study or paper.
Frontiers is happy to speak to anyone who wishes to have an objective and informed conversation about this. In such a case, please contact the Editorial Office at editorial.office@frontiersin.org.
Costanza Zucca, Editorial Director
Fred Fenter, Executive Editor
@Barry Woods – Re: “Did Frontiers just threw UWA & the authors under a bus?”
it sounds more like they yelled “bus”, but Lew and UWA ignored their warning.
“it is within the data where truth lives”
THAT is a nice quote !!!
geoffchambers says:
April 3, 2014 at 12:29 pm
Another thing the data would show is that none of the responses came from SkepticalScience, thus proving the truth of the point Barry Woods and I have been making since September 2012, six months before the publication of the paper, that the claim made in the paper that the survey was linked at SkepticalScience is false. It will also show how many responses came from Cook’s personal tweet.
You may be right. Unless the data is made available and shows the contrary we have all reason to believe it is the case.
Why would somebody want to hide it?
Unfortunately in post-modern “science” “data” is no longer data but a tool for the high priests who know the conclusions and only use “data” to support it.
Without transparency – data sharing and clear description of methodology to allow for reproducibility of experiments – science is just about that: religion.
It doesn’t surprise me that most people who believe the moon landing was a hoax would believe global warming is a scam, not based on science obviously since if you understood science well enough you’d recognize the moon landing hoax arguments are based on bad science. But if you like to put down people or push them off their high horse, and have that general “you think you’re so smart” attitude towards scientists you probably will jump on the bandwagon of anything putting down things supposedly based on science. So if you took a survey that first asked “Do you believe the moon landing was a hoax?” If the answer is no, survey over. If you answer yes, then you ask “Do you believe global warming is a scam?”. You will get more than 50% yes responses from that, so you could conclude, based on the data you have, most people who believe global warming is a scam also believe the moon landing was a hoax.
I think you need to challenge your assumptions.
When Johnson says, “It is not the University’s request to accede to such requests”, you may be assuming you understand what he means by “such requests”.
What does it mean, “such requests”?
A clue might be in the University’s policy on Data Access and Sharing. It seems to detail the sharing of data among colleagues and between researchers.
So, who is this person making a data sharing request? Is he a colleague? Is he a researcher? Does he have any relevant academic qualifications? Does he have any academic publishing record in the the relevant field? Does he have a history of good faith participation in the relevant academic debate?
Reading between the lines, I’d say we can see what Johnson thinks the answers are to all these questions.
If Lewandowsky’s results were supported by genuinely-sourced and properly processed data, it would be far easier and more persuasive to release all data as soon as OR BEFORE any questions are asked.
The same goes for Mann, of course.
The cause of those promoting (C)AGW would be so much stronger if they were open and honest in their activities. The fact that the most important two planks of their argument
1) Recent warming is unprecedented
2) Nearly all scientists agree that humanity is to blame
rest on unscientific studies (for this is what they are unrepeatable or improper) beggars belief. It’s this that should raise the suspicions of absolutely everybody, from the greatest intellects to the most average of Joes. If someone’s strongest arguments can’t be defended even by themselves, they’re a write-off.
OK in my example you could only conclude that most people who believe the moon landing was a hoax believe global warming is a scam. Not the same as the reverse being true but lets face it, not everyone who is a skeptic of global warming is that way because they look at data, some are just pro-conspiracy or anti-science and a properly worded survey could easily connect the moon-hoax and global warming denier view points together.
mem, well done. Dr Jennings is a skeptic, and the only minister with a Sc.Deg. Well Ph.D., I think I will do the same with my MP. What a great move.
I love ‘Hide the decline video. Is that still running? I thought it was removed by Mann.
Keith, your assertions do not bear up. Researchers base their research on whatever data they have to hand. If the data is sparse, then the research is based on sparse data.
The best way to argue your point would be to gather an alternative data set, hopefully show that your data is better quality, and present your results.
But first, what is your thesis?
As they say, never ask a question if you don’t know the answer – so what do you hope to prove?
Do you want to contend that those people who do not accept the overwhelming scientific consensus on the causes, effects and reality of human-caused climate change are otherwise entirely rational beings?
Oh, and a good start would be to stop talking about “CAGW”, whatever that is, because that isn’t a scientific issue and immediately sidelines you as somebody not approaching the science seriously.
Craig Thomas at 8:39 pm
If researchers have sparse data they can only draw sparse conclusions. In LOG 12 for example L. et al draw conclusions about the global population from highly biased, limited samples and poor quality questionnaires (and in that case the sparse data is of their own making).
L. makes a habit of this. You should read through his work and ask yourself “How did he make the inference from the data he had to the grand statements he concludes with?”
But I don’t think L.’s interested in the science, that’s why he recommended a journalism student to review Fury.
Steve says:
April 4, 2014 at 1:48 pm
It doesn’t surprise me that most people who believe the moon landing was a hoax would believe global warming is a scam, not based on science obviously since if you understood science well enough you’d recognize the moon landing hoax arguments are based on bad science.
Steve that “moon landing hoax arguments are based on bad science” I would agree with you on that.
However the rest is missing a logical argument.
Global warming – especially the catastrophic spin-off theories – is bad science and you fail to recognise it.
What does the data tell us? This is how skeptics think. First look at the data, then interpret it logically.
The data tells us that the moon landing is there – we can see the data:
http://www.space.com/12796-photos-apollo-moon-landing-sites-lro.html
And also we see the 17 years of no warming. Just look at the data first:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/04/no-global-warming-for-17-years-6-months/
Steve says:
April 4, 2014 at 5:35 pm
OK in my example you could only conclude that most people who believe the moon landing was a hoax believe global warming is a scam. Not the same as the reverse being true but lets face it, not everyone who is a skeptic of global warming is that way because they look at data, some are just pro-conspiracy or anti-science and a properly worded survey could easily connect the moon-hoax and global warming denier view points together.
The anti-science argument is another fake fake argument. If one digs deeper one finds that many try to stretch science to cover for bad-science and put any argument against climate science as “anti-science”.
With arguments like: one should not fly an aeroplane as they are built on models and so on, failing to recognise the specific critique to BAD models. Who would fly an aeroplane based on models that reflect reality so badly as climate models?
Lets face it, many who believe in global warming do believe in big-oil, fossil fuel financed skeptics conspiracy theories and do not want to look at the science based on their conspiracy ideation views.
Craig Thomas says:
April 4, 2014 at 8:39 pm
Keith, your assertions do not bear up. Researchers base their research on whatever data they have to hand. If the data is sparse, then the research is based on sparse data.
The best way to argue your point would be to gather an alternative data set, hopefully show that your data is better quality, and present your results.
Keith assertions do bear up.
There are alternative data sets which are better quality and show a different story:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/ruti/highlights.php
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/temperatures/rss-temperatures.php
Researches should make their data available and the methodology, else one cannot reproduce the results – which is what is science about. If you miss that you need to rethink what you stand for.
Frontiers asked for the UWA to supply information which in my opinion would have included the data. The fact that the data was probably refused by the UWA and Lewindowsky similar to the current requests would have upset the magazine editors who suddenly realised they had a major problem on their hands as the information would have been issued if all above board.
UWA possibly refused to release it realising the legal issues they were running into. Frontiers has behaved responsibly as soon as it realised it had a problem.
Best advice to UWA would be to open up as soon as possible and if mistakes have been made issue an apology and cautions to those academic staff who have been thrown under the bus by Lewindowsky. I would hate to see them fired for initially just doing there job.
wrong journal
the data being refused by UWA is for:
‘NASA faked the moon landings, therefore [climate]science is a Hoax. An anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science – Lewandowsky et al.
in the journal Psychological Science, is still very much published
The Frontiers paper – Recursive Fury- Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation – Lewandowsky, Cook, Marriott et al
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/full#sthash.i0aDdgOq.dpuf has been retracted for ethics reasons..
Carmen Lawrence.
Need I say any more?
Actually I read in a prescribed Astronomy book, that the Russians actually landed on the moon before the Americans, but crashed. You never hear anything about that do we? (I was thinking of sitting a unit on Astronomy, but could not work out the science calculator.)
I wonder if any other universities have made a comment. I recall one university scholar in Australia, strongly criticized Mike Morwood et al research on Flores. He was strongly reprimanded by his university. Publically.
From her grave, Dorothy Sayers— through the mouth of Lord Peter Wimsey— has this to say to the Vice Chancellor: “Are you going to be afraid of the facts?” he said. “And you a scholar?” -Gaudy Night
Logic suggests that NASA spent billions that proved to be ONLY a hoax? Why the hell would they bother. We know in Australia our Parkes radio dish, picked up and was responsible for sending the images to everyone on TV. That’s hardly a hoax. Why not ask if people believe in Santa Clause. Well I do, he is the ‘spirit’ of Christmas, but I don’t believe he actually personally does deliver presents to children from a flying sleigh. Tony Windsor sent a poll questionnaire to his constituents for New England, he was and is a supporter of the IPCC. One of the questions was do you believe in climate change. I said No, but actually it should had read ‘Do you believe in AGW causing climate change? Because I do believe in climate changes, who doesn’t but it is the causation factors that from the very start have be faulty and misinformation given to the masses, for the glorification of an ideology from which some will or hope to financially benefit.
It occurs to me that the type of behaviour we see from those who believe they are completely above reproach in the lofty climate science academia world, is better suited to a cautionary Aesops Fable than anything else.
What I think is going on is an active attempt to discredit science ****in general****, by trying to put wings on a pig and telling us it can fly.
Once science becomes politicized, its credibility is greatly reduced. Look at many once venerable scientific institutions that were told to come up with the “right” answers to problems.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Its rubbish, we know its rubbish, people if they have a scrap of decency or nobility in them should come clean and own up. Although we are talking about a desperate power grab by the hard left, so morality never seems to come into it. Ask the Russian Czars family about that one….
I have just had a call from Barnaby Joyce’s office, and there is no Dr Jennings in parliament, so my letter about UWA will be sent to Ian McFarlane, whose portfolio includes science, and also Christopher Pine minister for education.