Seems there’s a little too much emotion with this one, Ugo Bardi, who seems to have a burr up his butt for WUWT (in comments to his own article) while completely ignoring complaints like this one.
It is important to note that Mr. Bardi is NOT the editor of Frontiers in Psychology, where Lewandowski’s Recursive Fury paper was published, then retracted. He’s just some guy that works for the same publisher on another publication. His resignation would be akin to some middle level division manager at a company resigning because some other division manager made a decision he didn’t like, even though the decision doesn’t even affect his division.
He writes:
After the recent events in the saga of the paper titled “Recursive Fury” by Lewandowsky et al., I am stating my disappointment by resigning from Chief Specialty Editor of the Frontiers journal
You may have followed the story of “Recursive Fury“, the paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and others that the journal “Frontiers“ had published in 2013. The paper reported the results of a survey that showed that the rejection of climate science was often accompanied by a similar mindset on other scientific areas. So “Climate skeptics” were also found to reject the notion that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus and that smoking causes cancer. A result not at all surprising for those of us who follow the climate debate in detail.
As it might have been expected, after publication, a storm of negative comments was unleashed against both the authors of “Recursive Fury” and the journal. What was unexpected, instead, was the decision to withdraw the paper taken by the editorial board of Frontiers.
I found the behavior of the publisher already highly objectionable at this stage. However, I could at least understand it (if not agree on it). They stated that “[Frontier’s] 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 themselves seemed to share my opinion when they said, “The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article”
Unfortunately, now Frontiers has issued a new note where they backtrack from the previous statement and they seem to indicate that they found substantial problems in the paper. The new Frontiers’ note is discussed in detail by Lewandowsky himself in a post titled: “revisiting a retraction“.
…
The climate of intimidation which is developing nowadays risks to do great damage to climate science and to science in general. I believe that the situation risks to deteriorate further if we all don’t take a strong stance on this issue. Hence, I am taking the strongest action I can take, that is I am resigning from “Chief Specialty Editor” of Frontiers in protest against the behavior of the journal in the “Recursive Fury” case. I sent to the editors a letter today, stating my intention to resign.
=============================================================
You can read his full statement here: http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/04/climate-of-intimidation-frontiers.html?m=1
h/t to Barry Woods via Twitter
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Don’t
Let
The
Door
Hit
You
Where
The
Good
Lord
Split
You
FYI
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/4/9/ethical-confirmations.html#comments
And check his supporting cast!
“I sent to the editors a letter today, stating my intention to resign.”
OH! So he has not actually resigned. He’s just said he “intends” to.
What’s the betting he’ll still be there in 6 months, when he realises his little shit-fit does not make any difference.
” So “Climate skeptics” were also found to reject the notion that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus and that smoking causes cancer. A result not at all surprising for those of us who follow the climate debate in detail.”
We actually they were “found to” it was made up. That’s why the paper got retracted.
If you can’t see that then it’s a damned good move that you resign from any position where you may have influence on what gets into any journal.
You go, Ugo. We’re right behind you on that one.
Oh, you are really going , aren’t you? No just “intending to”.
“The climate of intimidation which is developing nowadays risks to do great damage to climate science and to science in general. I believe that the situation risks to deteriorate further if we all don’t take a strong stance on this issue. “
How many decent, scientific method observing scientists have lost their incomes if they happen to attempt to have a sceptical paper published? How many good journals have been closed due to pressure from alarmists?
How many good scientists have had to wait until they have retired, before they felt safe to comment on how poor, and anti-scientific, climate science is.
It is about frikken time that real scientists stood up for scientific integrity and enforcing a scientific method in it’s entirety. Something which Lewandowski completely failed to do.
If that forces out editors who wish to abandon the scientific method, and who defend the shoddiest of science, then good!
So they’ve been intimidated into saying they weren’t intimidated, even though the people claiming intimidation weren’t the originally intimidating ones, just some interested intimidating parties who align themselves with those who would intimidate skeptics with calls for war trials and imprisonment.
And they say we’re conspiracy theorists????
Of Lewandowski et al. 2013 Bardi writes:
“So “Climate skeptics” were also found to reject the notion that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus and that smoking causes cancer. A result not at all surprising for those of us who follow the climate debate in detail.”
The trouble about Bardi is that he did not do what any sensible person, particularly for one who has a scientific background, should have done. Before defending Lewandowski’s paper he could have invited a number of climate sceptics – and there must be some amongst his acquaintances – whether they believe that AIDs is caused by HIV. Since the paper was published I have spoken with somewhere between forty and fifty friends, all of whom are CAGW sceptics but all of whom believe that AIDs is caused by HIV. OK, a relatively small sample but enough to throw doubt on Lewandowski.
Incidentally, one would have expected Bardi to know that HIV stands for “human immunodeficiency virus” and hence his reference to the “HIV virus” is nonsense.
My wife often asks me why do so many still believe in CAGW in the face of all the evidence? I think that there are two answers. Many of us do not think for ourselves, something that the late Josef Goebbels exploited to the full. And of those that can think for themselves, most have a political or a financial reason (or both) for espousing the false conjecture.
“We must all note the comment from IPCC chief, Christiana Figueres on January 13th – Democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China is the best model.””
Odd since China’s main scientist expressed doubts about AGW not long ago. China is building
mostly hydro and nuclear low carbon power because of their air pollution, not because they
believe it wil affect the climate. And referring to China as a Communist country is quite a stretch.
Cuba and North Korea are the only bona fide Communist nations these days and neither of them
is doing anything with respect to climate.
These guys are clearly unbalanced and should be remanded to the custody of the brilliant Dr. Lew where they can plot the demise of civilization and a return to simpler times when humankind dwelled in caves and foraged for nuts and berries.
Editor my a**!…this is an activist who (judging by his support for the slimy Dr. Lew) was predisposed toward abusing his editing position for “the cause”.SEE YA!
Oddly enough, I am a ‘Climate Skeptic’ who also happens to have a daughter that is a Doctor involved in AIDS research and I most decidedly believe that AIDS is related to HIV ( I also do not believe that AIDS was developed by the CIA and deployed in Africa as a bio-weapons test). I also do not believe that the moon landings were faked, nor do I believe in ‘chem trails’, or that the US government was behind 9/11, rigging the World Trade Center with explosives.
If Mr Lewandowsky wants to look for ‘conspiracist ideation’ he need look no further than folks like Mr Bardi, who clearly has a firm conspiracy belief regarding ‘climate skeptics’.
nice article http://highflyersarena.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/the-solutions-to-africas-problems-lie-in-africa-prof-george-ayittey/
Why did it take so long? Did another journal offer him a job if he resined? Who cares?
“He’s just some guy that works for the same publisher on another publication.”
LOL! “just some guy”. Ha ha, that cracked me up, thanks!
http://highflyersarena.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/the-solutions-to-africas-problems-lie-in-africa-prof-george-ayittey/
The Peter Principle at work, Or maybe he is just using it as an excuse to get out while the getting is good.
Don’t let the door hit your a$$ on the way out.
This is the second piece of good news from that journal in recent days. At this rate they may get some respectability.
Does Frontiers live up to what is advertised on the label?
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out
Oh yes? Intention to resign??? Not actually resign?? Hmmmmm. What a weak-kneed man of no moral virtue. If you are really resigning in protest, go ahead and resign. Be done with it. Otherwise stop being a drama queen and turn up for work on Monday and collect your pay cheque like the wages slave you probably are.
Says a lot for Dr Bardi that he even gets the overview of the retracted paper wrong:
“The paper reported the results of a survey that showed that the rejection of climate science was often accompanied by a similar mindset on other scientific areas.”
If he can’t even refer to the right paper (Recursive Fury, which purported to be a study of the responses on sceptical websites to the ‘Moon Hoax’ paper, which IS the one reporting the survey results and has not to date been retracted or significantly amended), why should we take any of the rest of his commentary seriously?
Here’s the thing.
HIV causes AIDS. This is something that can be PROVEN. Nobody with AIDS doesn’t have HIV. Before there was treatment, the vast majority of HIV positive patients went on to develop AIDS. That is called “a valid conclusion”.
Cigarette smoking dramatically increases the chances of getting cancer. This is also easily documented (not secondhand smoke, that’s NOT documented). Also, there is a huge amount of junk science associated with smoking, including doctors that put down “smoking” as cause of death no matter what a smoker died of.
Human influence, however, cannot be shown to cause climate change, global warming, global cooling, bigger storms, smaller storms, more rain, less rain, drought, floods, earthquakes, meteorites, comets, communicating with the dead, more snow, less snow, record snow, average temperatures, NONE OF THOSE. And to go one step further, the weather is NOT outside norms, neither are temperatures. Neither is ice melt, or freeze, or sea level rise or fall. NONE OF THOSE.
So really, which side of this absurd exercise is scientific, and which is voodoo?
I think we should be grateful that a person so ignorant of the facts has moved on to where he will (hopefully) do less damage.
U Go Bardi!
“Solomon Green says:
April 9, 2014 at 3:57 am
… Since the paper was published I have spoken with somewhere between forty and fifty friends, all of whom are CAGW sceptics but all of whom believe that AIDs is caused by HIV. OK, a relatively small sample but enough to throw doubt on Lewandowski.”
If memory serves (and I’m sure someone here can correct me if I’m wrong), your data sample is many times the size of Lew’s. I recall that he used a sample of 10. Have you considered publishing?