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.
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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.