Journal takes Lewandowsky and his supporters to task on 'threats' over retracted 'Recursive Fury' paper.

Done. Posted at :
http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/04/reviewer-journal-wilts-under-climate-of-intimidation/
This is where a reviewer of the Lew paper was already being taken to task for her errors and omissions.

Once again skeptics are vindicated. Lewandowsky and Cook are sleazoids.

Feh. [Any] “retractions” will be under the fold, page 16 in 8 point type with so little context as to be meaningless.
REPLY: Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. -A

Judging from the contents of the statement, Frontiers’ singular objection relates to a failure to protect identity of survey respondents. Essentially, they are taking the high road, as we all know, most of the respondents are phony in the first place. Lew has been convicted of a lesser charge…he should keep his mouth shut and be glad it wasn’t worse.

Wow. I mean, really, Wow. Talk about a straight shot to the solar plexus. Lew is bent over trying to breathe right around now.
That said, Frontiers set themselves up for this by not “identifying” any ethical or academic problems with the paper in their first statement.
As I surmised at the time, that statement was so carefully parsed as to be meaningless. The lawyers probably worked on it for months. It allowed Lew to claim his academic reputation was intact. That no longer is true. Rather than keeping his mouth shut, they started claiming Frontiers “caved in to threats.” Big mistake. I’m going to find out if it was Lew who actually used that phrase. If he did, he probably violated the agreement between them.
This puts Paul Johnson in a particularly difficult position, which he fully deserves.

Louis: I [submitted] the Frontiers [retraction], and so did Eve.
Lets see if they stay.

blah blah blah blah blah blah…..
…and legal factors

I tried I tried. The “Threat” Conspiracy is running rabid in Australia.
Also, here at Kos, it is posted by a person who claims to have ‘peer reviewed it”.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/04/1289517/-Overnight-News-Digest-Teabaggers-are-long-in-the-tooth-Edition#
If someone can help post to Kos. I had no luck getting a comment in.
Seems like the usual thing: blame everyone else for the very skanky thing they do every day.

I just tried to submit this to Scientific American only to discover that I have been blocked. I hope others will submit if for me. – Thanks
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Welcome to the club. SCIAM is now blocking and removing any comments that they disagree with. They have sunk to the level of a pathetic and irrelevant sci-porn mag. Anybody remember Bob Guccione’s Sci-porn mag “Omni”? No?? There goes SCIAM down the same path to obscurity and bankruptcy.

So the question now arises as to why Frontiers In Psychology accepted the paper in the first place. The rule that individuals being studied must not be identified should be fairly easy to enforce.

It would be helpful to know which sites are talking about threats. I haven’t followed this craziness closely, but I’d love to fulfill the favor.

Not to rain on the parade, but the new statement from the publisher is not consistent with its initial retraction note.
“This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.”

Edward Teller (I think):
“Scientific American is neither scientific, nor american.”

wow, just totally wow to Louis and to dbstealey.
Not to worry Louis, a lot of people are commenting at SA. I suspect mine will be deleted shortly as will others. We will need to keep up the comments.
One tactic, especially at Kos or Huffpoo. is to post so many comments on top of an unfavored so that it is buried into older pages. I am watching and noting the same behavior at SA. Keep posting.
Abuse of science and politicizing of research has to be stopped.

CLAIM

Guardian – 21 March 2014
Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper
After threats of frivolous libel and defamation lawsuits, a journal will retract an academically sound paper

COUNTER CLAIM

Frontiers – 4 Apr 2014
Retraction of Recursive Fury: A Statement
…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….

Alan Robertson
i got your crumby joke, there.
good one!

“Fury” defined:
intense, disordered, and often destructive rage
or
extreme fierceness or violence
or
a state of inspired exaltation : frenzy
================
Don’t even retract the paper, just retitle it Recursive Projection.

Give them all enough rope…

Arstechnica had the threats in their article on the retraction.

@Louis Hooffstetter
I posted the link to the journals statement with no cometary. Well see how long it stays up.

Psychology and altering worldviews is seen as the latest means of combating skepticism. You have education go directly to the prevailing mental models. It tracks to Chapter 20 of the new IPCC report and what Adaptation really means. The adaptation is really psychological via primarily education and Chapter 20 says so. I started a Trilogy on it yesterday.
This paper from American Psychologist in 2011–“The Dragons of Inaction: Psychological Barriers that Limit Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation” came up as a cite in my research on altering Worldviews. http://psychologyforasafeclimate.org/resources/The%20dragons%20of%20inaction%20Robert%20Gifford.pdf
When you hear terms like Growth Mindset during a conference with a teacher or principal, this psychological level is precisely what is being targeted. Makes students amenable to fundamental change or anxious for it at an unconscious level.
Psychology is indeed the new frontier.

Cook chose unwisely to be Lewandowsky’s faux-psych water boy.
I envy those of you who escaped the painfully embarassing spectacle at the 2013 Fall AGU meeting in SFO where John Cook (Lewandowsky’s co-author of ‘Recursive) gave several incoherent talks where he hyped his research in the ‘Recursive’ paper. I was not so lucky to escape it. I felt a moment of fleeting conflicted pity for Cook at the time.
John
REPLY: I decided not to go, mainly because I didn’t have any rotten fruit or cabbages to throw 😉 – Anthony

Dr Lew’s timing is as priceless as is his mastery of logic and scientific detachment.
He posts just prior to his evisceration by a journal lambasted by him and his good buddies as cowardly and spineless speleologists (caver-inners!)
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rfmedia.html
Read it and smile or chuckle or, more likely, ROTFLYAO.
Dr Lew, meet Mr Nemesis. He would like a quietword in your ear
🙂

Am I the only who doesn’t care about the results of some sociologist regarding climate change? Come on, this is not the science that has to be discussed, no matter if the methology is done right or wrong. Don’t focus on that bs.

Spot the difference.
“…the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics.”
If she weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood, and therefore, a witch!.
The latter one doesn’t hide the data or methodology.

We remind the community that the retracted paper does not claim to be about climate science, but about psychology
Best part of the whole letter. Made my day!

Max Erwengh says:
April 4, 2014 at 3:55 pm
“There might be a correlation, actually I would even bet on a clear correlation between the believe in conspiracy theories and the refusal of climate science.”
Highly unlikely. Nearly all leftists believe in conspiracies when it pertains to the Bush presidency but willingly accept everything from the IPCC. Destroys your correlation completely.

Robin says:
April 4, 2014 at 2:34 pm
“Psychology is indeed the new frontier.”
Nope; integral part of the imperial project since about 1917 (Bernays, advisor to Woodrow Wilson and nephew of Siggi freud, uses his Uncle’s techniques to present Wilson as bringer of democracy to war-torn Europe; 1933: Goebbels uses Bernays’ techniques, installs nation-wide propaganda media network; 1945: Allied start reprogramming Germans, keeping Goebbels’ propaganda network in place to this day; prohibit said network from reporting about war crimes committed by the Allied, at least until 1990, maybe even today – don’t know whether that particular SHAEF law is currently in force; bit sketchy there; you gotta track the layers of “negation laws” that declare an earlier law invalid, but are sometimes themselves rendered invalid by later laws).
Also, and complementary to Freud: Wundt’s research into conditioning, continued by Pavlow, Skinner. Humans as reprogrammable automata. Also : experiments to wipe out “defective” personalities with “electroconvulsive therapy” in the 1950ies, 60ies, and reprogram “blank” humans.
A “frontier” it might be, but not so new.

Magma says:
April 4, 2014 at 12:16 pm
Not to rain on the parade, but the new statement from the publisher is not consistent with its initial retraction note.
“This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.”

Unless they explain the discrepancy, we’ll have to speculate. Personally, I would read the original retraction as being diplomatic to save offending the authors. The blog entry has decided that being diplomatic hasn’t worked and they need to be more blunt.

Graeme W on April 4, 2014 at 5:15 pm
Unless they explain the discrepancy, we’ll have to speculate. Personally, I would read the original retraction as being diplomatic to save offending the authors. The blog entry has decided that being diplomatic hasn’t worked and they need to be more blunt.

– – – – – – – –
Graeme W,
I think what you said is what the journal meant when they said in the latest statement (in lead post above),

‘Frontiers’ said,
“[. . .] 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.
[. . .]”

Also, I think it is certain that higher level journal leadership stepped in to handle the ‘Lew’ paper situation between their first retraction statement and the second. It was a an effective move for the sake of the journal’s reputation, I think.
John

The University of Woolamaloo, sorry the University of WA actually is standing by the paper. Here’s the link.
http://www.psychology.uwa.edu.au/research/cognitive/?a=2523540

Only one comment so far in support of Lew. Of course, it’s not actually in support of Lew, but rather an ad hom against Barry. Churlish. It’s all they have remaining.

“Jim Bo says:
April 4, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Oh dear. Surely Wikipedia, that bastion of truth, will be shortly updated….
Study retraction
[snip]
After some climate change d____r bloggers accused the paper of being defamatory, it was retracted on March 21, 2014.”
———————————————————————————————————————-
wiki’s “climate change d____r” page is a real hoot
Yeah, seems a little unbalanced doesn’t it? For example, were is the page for?????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_advocate
And interesting that Wikipedia inserts a quote from Peter Christoff,, who is not only a colleague of Lew, he’s also a Climate_change_advocate, and is on the board of the ACF.
http://www.acfonline.org.au/about-us/governance/acf-council
According to The Conversation:
“He is also currently a Board member of the Australian Conservation Foundation and was its Vice President for eight years.”
Phew! Here I was thinking this page about vested interests would be written by people without a vested interest, oh well.
http://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-christoff-2050/profile_bio
I hope by the time wiki gets around to adding the climate_change_advocate page, it inserts plenty of quotes from skeptics!
Two wrongs make a right
-Homer

I’ve been reading Hayden Washington’s and John Cook’s ‘Climate Change Denial-Head in the sand’ book. If you want to know where the kind of trash in Lewdonsky’s journal article is coming from, this book is a pretty good start, if you can weather it.

Regarding the various papers designed to indicate that expressing a contrary point of view to ‘Climate orthodoxy’ is somehow to be evil, delusional, or even a sign of mental illness; I can’t help feeling that those making such assertions are indulging in a great deal of psychological projection.

Wikipedia watch out! An attitude of “we don’t care” may warrant a legal opinion.
When Wikipedia talk pages are edited with comments based on valid physics, which point out errors in their various articles, they take a “we don’t care” attitude. They deliberately introduce greenhouse talk, even in an article about Venus, where the surface temperature cannot possibly be raised by the small amount of radiation reaching it. All they do is cite 1980’s literature which contains nothing but assertive assumptions that the carbon dioxide atmosphere is “obviously” the cause of the high temperatures.
I’m just making a suggestion as to what I believe Wikipedia administration ought to find out for themselves from their lawyers, because I don’t think they can hide behind the cover of an encyclopedia (in the eyes of the law) and excuse the propagation of fictitious propaganda about the greenhouse effect, now disputed by hundreds (if not thousands) of scientists and academics. But I’m not a lawyer and I’m not suggesting that I would be involved, unless called to address some committee investigation or court hearing.
Just suppose, for example, when the truth comes out about the carbon dioxide political hoax, that large companies (affected by elecricity and carbon tax costs) pool their funds to mount a global class action against those parties who have contributed significantly in the promulgation of biased “information” likely to be read by voters and politicians alike, and likely to have led to corruption in numerous ways pertaining to research funding, and also likely to have wasted many billions of taxpayer funds.
The radiative greenhouse conjecture is false. It is a part of a sinister political agenda. It does not stand up to the rigors of valid physics theory, such as (ironically) WP does also publish. Nitrogen and oxygen hold about 98% of the energy in the Earth’s atmosphere, and they slow the surface cooling. But the cooling stops at night where the gravitationally induced thermal gradient supports the surface temperature. Carbon dioxide and water vapor cool by radiating energy (mostly from nitrogen and oxygen) out of the atmosphere, and also lowering the gradient so that lower surface temperatures result. The key fallacy in the radiative greenhouse effect is assuming that all the radiation from the surface is transferring thermal energy out of the surface, when in fact most of it is just scattering the back radiation.

hacktivist cranks like this one are turning up around the web, railing against “threats” toward the journal and slinging the “denier” label around freely:
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/04/journal-that-retracted-conspiracy-ideation-climate-skepticism-paper-says-it-did-not-cave-into-threats/#comment-89295

4 April: San Francisco Chronicle Blog: Caroline Lochhead: Stanford economists say social cost of carbon too low
In an article published Friday in the journal Nature, Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow and Lawrence Goulder, both of Stanford, along with six other law and economics scholars, said the controversial “social cost of carbon” calculations developed by the federal government are too low, not too high, as conservatives argue…
The Nature authors list four reasons why the cost of carbon is likely to be higher than the administration has estimated…
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/04/04/stanford-economists-say-social-cost-of-carbon-too-low/
meanwhile, in the real world:
2 pages: 4 April: Reuters: EU carbon slips 3.7 pct on weak power, gas
“(Carbon) volumes have been pretty weak so it hasn’t taken much to move prices lower,” a carbon trader said….
Many large utilities sell power forward several years in advance, buying the fuel and carbon units needed to generate the electricity at the same time to lock in margins.
However, if power prices drop, those companies may choose to buy the power back, earning them a profit but meaning they are also likely to sell the fuel and carbon permits back into the market…
Firms regulated by the EU Emission Trading System will get 6.6 billion free allowances between 2013 and 2020 to help them compete with rivals in other regions which have looser environmental regulations.
Seven countries, including Poland and Romania, have still yet to award the 2014 allowances, the Commission data showed.
(Reporting by Susanna Twidale; editing by Keiron Henderson)
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5N0MW37A20140404

The editors at FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY retracted Recursive Fury because Lewandowsky did “not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects”? THAT WAS THEIR REASON???????
The paper was not science — it was a hatchet job
Was there ever a more blatant example of junk science? How could any editor begin to read Recursive Fury and not immediately recognize it for the absolute claptrap it is? Yet the editors of FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY published it! And now the editors tell us it was retracted because it did “not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects”?
Eugene WR Gallun

The Impaired Peers
When I came first into climate change, one of my first really eerie feelings I got was when I realized that so much money, or sinecure, is behind it. And everyone with such a sinecure tried to silence critics by saying that this or that was „peer-reviewed“, thus insinuating that it ist scientifically sound.
So, well, I thought, there is money involved, but hey have had at least their work crosschecked by someone who ist at par with them, who can act as some sort of referee and sees the standards are met. Everything was yet OK with me.
I now have to realize that Peer Review is often, not always, a hoax. It seems to be worst in matters relating to climate sciences. This may be due to the unholy influence of the consensual science concept of the IPCC and its various „reports“.
Manus manum lavat
Scientific articles are published in scientific magazines and on the internet, paywalled of course. These publishers and their staff make a living from that.
So they have to see that they sell well. The more reputable the authors are who submit their articles, the better.
How can these magazines attract authors of high reknown? They have to pamper that clientele at the first place.
Therefore, the editors make it easy for them. Do you need Peer Reviever? Who is on top of your list? Are there any reviewers you don’t want at all? Consider your wishes fulfilled.
Ah, you know your reviewers pretty well? Invite them to submit their publications here. And let them know that you’ll be glad to review their papers occasionally. There is still some honour among thieves…
Publish or Perish
It is obvious that scientists who do not publish will perish, rather sooner than later. I think that this is the reason why articles of dubious content are submitted. They go to the press without much questions asked. Hey folks, these are peer reviewed papers, that should do, shouldn’t it?
Who checks the checkers?
Actually, nobody seems to do that on a regular basis. And nobody actually can but the public on the internet(thank you, Anthony, for providing such a platform), where citizens with some knowledge can exchange thoughts and opinions. But better than knowledge is common sense and logical thinking. That alone can stop many of the weirdos in science in their tracks.
What we need are really independent critics who don’t take evil crap at face value. One great example for that is Lord Mockton, once an editor himself, and a Viscount to stop the Peers.
It is time to look behind the scenes of academic behaviour and misdemeanour. Scrutinize the CV of every Peer Reviewer. Search for hidden connections of personal or financial matter. Make research transparent by giving unconditional free access to the databases. And get peer reviewers expelled from academic grounds that do not stick strictly to the rules. Hirelings of the like of McKewon are, in my opinion, far too many.
Special thanks go to Tony Thomas for
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2014/04/climate-papers-without-peer/

Non Nomen: There is something rotten in the State of Denmark. When an Editorial Board has admitted a paper, they cannot say at a later moment that they just regret their decision and retract the paper. Like in court proceedings new evidence is needed, e.g. shown beyond reasonable doubt that it is Stapel-work (Stapel is a former Social Psychology Professor and by this word the moderation queue can be avoided). In Lew’s case we already have Stapel-work in disguise: there is no need to make up data if you can fish everything you want from the internet. For me and some others here the question remains why Frontiers initially did not return the paper. Why did it survive peer-review?

@ Mindert Eiting
I love awaiting moderation. That’s the poor man’s peer review….

As I noted over at Steve’s blog, this is going to make the UWA look a lot more deceitful and foolish….

Anthony, good catch — wow that’s wild, looks like Dana N. really trimmed down his comment! I approve of him wanting to avoid the more adolescent and whiny elements he likes to vent, although there should be an indication that the comment has been edited. I didn’t know that users could edit their comments at RetractionWatch?? Maybe he asked the Mod. to do it when he realized he had embarrassed himself (again). Maybe RW edited the comment to conform with their comments policies?? (still, it should be indicated when that has been done)

Stephan Lewandowsky post here
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf3.html
ends with the words
…
This brings into focus several possibilities for the reconciliation of Frontier’s contradictory statements concerning the retraction:
First, one could generously propose that the phrase “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects” is simply a synonym for “defamation risk” and that the updated statement therefore supports the contractually-agreed statement. This is possible but it puts a considerable strain on the meaning of “synonym.”
Second, one could take the most recent statement by Frontiers at face value. This has two uncomfortable implications: It would imply that the true reason for the retraction was withheld from the authors for a year. It would also imply that the journal entered into a contractual agreement about the retraction statement that misrepresented its actual position.
Third, perhaps the journal only thought of this new angle now and in its haste did not consider that it violates their contractually-agreed position.
Or there are other possibilities that we have not been able to identify.
This lengthy post of apologetic character makes things worse, not better. It seems to be a red herring.
Quote Lewandowsky: >>the phrase “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects”<<, who himself quoted the Frontiers.
A mere „threat“ is not enough. If every threat to search justice in court would become real, the courts would be completely booked out until kingdom comes.
But it means that means someones right(s) must have been infringed in a manner that might carry the risk of some successful legal action against the Frontiers. That's the legal reason. Bad enough. But if there is only a risk, how large is that risk, what are the chances of getting away scot free in court or, lets say, with a black eye? The Frontiers must have sought good legal advice to come to a conclusion. The conclusion, obviously, was that the infringements are so severe, that the chances of losing in court are larger than those of winning.
A. There was an infringement of the rights of others. Responsibility for that is with Lewandowsky et al . There are the legal reasons
B. The control mechanism in form of peer reviewing were circumvented or did not work. There are some academic reasons
C. In consequence, that means a considerable risk for the publishers of losing if it goes to court. Frontiers was negligent, to say the least.
Result: bad science plus bad peer review plus editorial incompetence means heavy trouble. Or Frontiers had been the obedient, willing servant of a man who had an axe to grind with somebody. It took some time to realize that…
Consequence: opuscule retracted and Lewandowsky now obfuscating and bumfuzzling with all his waning might but still with considerable trouble ahead. It serves him right.

“tsunami of deceit”
Alan, I am so stealing that!