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.
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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
“I found the behavior of the publisher already highly objectionable at this stage.”
Objectionable related to “Recursive Fury” or other unrelated behavior? Could just be a crank who was looking to resign for other reasons. Might have even been an unpaid position.
Not a burr. More likely an organic inverted pine cone sustainably implanted. What he wrote are the screams of a self-flagellating monk at the alter of AGW trying to pass his nugget of belief.
This was funny. It reminded me of my online gaming days when a player would rage quit.
To which other players would ask, “Can I have your stuff?”
“Intention to resign.” Yeah just like Eric Holthaus “intended” to have his vasectomy.
RE: April 9, 2014 at 4:37 am
Andrew says:
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”
Or better, don’t let your data hit you on the way out.
Resign what? His contributing editor status? I gather that he still has his full-time job and has suffered no significant loss of income.
Poor Ugo. Wrong about so much, so loudly, for so long.
Oh diddums. Little Ugo is taking his marbles and going home
Jimbo says:
April 9, 2014 at 5:33 am
There was also James Cameron’s threat of shooting at high noon but I think you left him out because he turned yellow and ran:
http://s1039.photobucket.com/user/kulaki/media/Cartoons/JamesCameronatHighNoon.jpg.html
Storyline:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/08/23/filmmaker-james-cameron-backs-out-global-warming-debate-he-organized
Good, good. Perhaps it will give him some time to take a remedial English course, wherein he could learn things such as writing “risk to do” something is incorrect. The correct format is that you risk doing something. So, instead of saying “risks to do great damage to”, he should simply have said “risks doing great damage to”, and instead of “risks to deteriorate”, he should have said “risks deteriorating”.
Of course, unfortunately for him, he’d still be an idiot, but at least he could be a somewhat educated one.
He sounds … furious. Hey, wait a minute. That gives me an idea for a new psychology paper. Working title: Recursive Fury Remixed, Its Turtles All The Way Down. Ok, I got to work on the title a bit more.
mpaul says:
April 9, 2014 at 9:03 am
Recursive Fury Reanalysed. With an “s” so it sounds more worldly.
Back when I worked at a large aerospace company one old timer taught me a good lesson. He said, stick your hand in a bucket of water, now pull it out. How long did the hole last? That’s how long you’ll be missed.
Buh-bye. And I really hope the door was designed by Acme and installed by Wily E Coyote.
“Lewandowsky is a part of the non-scientific exaggerationist clique that is causing the decline in public trust in science.”
That’s the sad/funny/ironic part. He and the other exaggerationists think they’re helping their cause. In reality, they are just bringing shame and embarrassment to it and therefore damaging it.
What actual effect does L think that nitpicking internet blog comments is going to accomplish? It’s such a petty little idea of what science is. It would be fine as a one-time political riposte in a blog or newspaper, but wasting time in an academic journal on it is just embarrassing. Thirty years from now, looking back, that paper will have no meaning at all, whether AGW turns out to be true or false.
(Well, it might possibly be a signature example of AGW hysteria run amok, but nothing more than that.)
So Bardi is Club Of Rome too, icky, a de-populationista as well. Hmmmm. Kinda like Ted Turner who publically espouses that all the worlds problems are solved by removing 87.5% of the human population because we all use up too much “stuff”. I guess the problem for me is who gets to stay and enjoy all the “stuff” that we are using today and subsequently in the future? Looks to me like the plan is to get as many people to agree to self terminate and not procreate ( unless you are one of “them”) so “THEY” can have all the stuff along with trout streams and beachfront mansions and of course a remnant human population living on some veganesque mandated diet “for the world”. I have my own ideas about a lot of things and I am insulted that LEWs’ paper even dared to psychologically profile a whole diverse population of very smart people as fringe lunatics. So Bardi only INTENDS to fall on his own nerf sword… baw haw haw boo hoo hoo , maybe more of these kind of editors will follow him and more younger honest truth seeking editors will replace the lot. I for one simply want the truth, good or bad. One thing I learned from some wonderful native elders was how important truth was to the ancient traditional peoples. Lies were as bad a crime as murder. Why? Because an untruth could lead a people off a cliff and hurt or kill many. Speaking figuratively here, but you get the idea.
From Lew’s latest STW post: “Although we have destroyed all correspondence and documents involving the allegations against us at the request of Frontiers…”
I don’t understand how destruction of information can be treated with such a blasé attitude amongst the warmist set.
– – – – – – – – –
kcom1,
I intentionally used the word ‘clique’ to describe them because they publically act like the puerile cliques found in American high schools. Specifically I think Mann, Oreskes and Lewandowsky appear, in public as intellectually close associates, to behave with similarly styled cliquish antics.
John
If you can stand it, the following Bardi blog is a worship of Obama, the Savior. The savior is stopping the evil American destruction of the world because of our demand for oil.
However, the Italians are not fooled. One says he is not convinced and calls this “populist Ecodemogoguery”
Another “Obama was voted in by idiots and after his destruction will not be re-elected. Pay attention to what he passes {in secret/behind the scenes} quietly with decree-law (pen and cell phone}. We will see the outcome of any leader who takes his nation in destruction. This will be the positive outcome for the world {to be aware}.
We will see that any junkie sociopath can sit in that chair. If he is, we will see in 10 years looking back the level of destruction he has caused.
Looks like Bardi didn’t have very much success ramping up his paying supporters in Italy either.
http://aspoitalia.blogspot.com/2010/06/god-bless-you-mr-obama.html
Ugo’s 15 minutes are up. Who’s next?
My other laughingstock is a Ugo.
rogerknights says:
April 9, 2014 at 7:13 am
That image of Lewny reminded me a bit of the March Hare.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That image consistently reminds me of Bill the Cat… “ack!”
Ugo wrote “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.”
This smear probably originates over twenty years ago with S. Fred Singer. Mind you, Singer did not doubt that smoking and cancer were linked – only that second-hand smoke did. (And as an environmental scientists myself, I agree with him to this day because the best evidence does not support the claim: the real motive of banning “ETS” – environmental tobacco smoke – is political, ie, to make smoking socially unacceptable.)
As for HIV-Aids, during the 1980s and into the 1990s, there was a small but informed and often prestigious contingent of skeptics, the so-called “Aids denialists.” Having studied them in detail, including one Nobel laureate in medicine, I can only say that these people’s skepticism rested on an error that HIV-Aids ought to function like bacterial infectious agents, ie, rather simply and on contact.
Their mistake rests on not understanding that a virus is unique infectious agent, more akin to mineral than old-fashioned Aristotelian definitions of “life” for biologists. Accordingly, most of these scientists tended to be rather old – their training and scientific work pretty much removed from modern genetic sciences – and thus reflected out of touch judgements.
But Ugo’s conflation of “Aids denialism” with AGW skeptics is not a stance born of understanding criticism but of politically driven opportunism. Ugo Bardi’s connection with the Club of Rome and other extremist enviro-Nazi movement nicely illustrates the fact that Ruper Darwall’s recent history “The Age of Global Warming.” AGW-Believers are anti-industrial and anti-human. And very dangerous in power.
Wow, what an ugly character. Just UGLY. I need to wash…
This is a better link (the other adds ?m=1, which doesn’t show all of the comments):
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/04/climate-of-intimidation-frontiers.html