No smear psychological categorization mission is too offbeat for Lew. Now he’s on about “leakage”. Try to stifle the images that conjures up while thinking about your choice of preventative antiemetics.
s mac says: in WUWT Tips and Notes:
Anthony, there is a YouTube video (link below) of Lewandowsky giving a talk at the AGU Chapman conference, and its very revealing and your readers would enjoy, he’s equal parts clown, bully, and circus performer.
He’s desperately trying to find a footprint for what he does – categorize the pigeonhole people and surmise their intentions, motivations — and find a place for it (and himself) in the “save the world” ethos of climate change activists. Video follows:
From the video description:
============================================================
AGU Chapman Conference on Communicating Climate Science: A Historic Look to the Future
Abstract Title: Scientific Uncertainty in Public Discourse: The Case for Leakage Into the Scientific Community
Uncertainty is an unavoidable part of science. In the case of climate science, any uncertainty should give particular cause for concern because greater uncertainty usually implies greater risk. However, appeals to uncertainty have been used in public debate to forestall mitigative action. Uncertainty has been highlighted in many situations during the last 50 years in which vested interests and political groups sought to forestall action on problems long after the scientific case had become robust.
We suggest that the prolonged appeal to uncertainty in the public arena has “leaked” into the scientific community and has distorted scientists’ characterization and self-perception of their own work. Although scientists are well trained in dealing with uncertainty and in understanding it, we argue that the scientific community has become unduly focused on uncertainty, at the expense of downplaying solid knowledge about the climate system. We review some of the historical and empirical evidence for the notion of “leakage”, and we identify the psychological and cognitive factors that could support this intrusion of ill-informed public discourse into the scientific community.
To illustrate with an example, the well-known “third-person effect” refers to the fact that people generally think that others (i.e., third persons) are affected more by a persuasive message than they are themselves, even though this is not necessarily the case. Scientists may therefore think that they are impervious to “skeptic” messages in the media, but in fact they are likely to be affected by the constant drumbeat of propaganda. We review possible solutions to the undue leakage of biased public discourse into the scientific arena.
==============================================================
There you go folks, proof positive that we are having an effect.
“Try to stifle the images that conjures up”
You say that like it’s an easy thing…
The more uncertainty the greater the (potential) risk. Also the greater the (potential) benefit or at least potential for being completely harmless. What a maroon!
Bill_W says:
April 17, 2014 at 4:08 am
The more uncertainty the greater the (potential) risk. Also the greater the (potential) benefit or at least potential for being completely harmless. What a maroon!
*******************************************************************************************************************8
I think you meant moron
Steve B,
In some old Bugs Bunny cartoons and other places as well, it is a kind if joke
to pronounce it that way. Bugs Bunny himself says it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo
So, when I visit that apocryphal crowded theatre, the less sure I am that there is a fire the more inclined I should be to shout: “Fire!”
Have I got that straight?
Is Lew a front man put up as a distraction to lure our attention away from focusing upon the Science or lack thereof ? This twerp has had far too much attention in the media and blogosphere of late with his sermons to the converted.
“Uncertainty has been highlighted in many situations during the last 50 years in which vested interests and political groups sought to forestall action on problems long after the scientific case had become robust.”
There are numerous case histories listed in a book called ‘Scared to Death’ which show the precise opposite. In pretty much every case the uncertainties are played down even though the scientific case was anything but robust. Governments have then taken decisive action which later turned out was completely unneccesary and caused numerous problems as well. Climate change alarmism seems to be following the same script as all of these earlier scares but on a far far grander scale.
Curiouser and curiouser. Down the rabbit hole he goes: ” . .we argue that the scientific community has become unduly focused on uncertainty . .” A surpassingly strange speculation.
Fellow Propagandists! To the barricades! Tomorrow is ours!
Confirmation, if it was needed, that we do need some sort of ‘plain pages’ platform to protect teenage and young adult researchers from taking the wrong path. See our infographic here: http://livefromgolgafrincham.org/2014/04/05/plain-pages/
You know whats really sad about this guy, he probably spends his whole day trying justify his existence, trying to justify that he is a good guy, that the world is against him. Hard to feel sorry for someone who just keeps digging their own hole.
Hey Lew, it’s what you know about yourself inside that has you most concerned. And I’ll bet you can’t stand it.
I have noticed that when someone is about to be confronted by an accusation, it pays to use it first in a preemptive surprise attack. Preventative retaliation is a favourite of those who are about to lose an argument. Hence the accusations of ‘vested interests’ and ‘intrusion of ill-informed public discourse’
It is a characteristic of a group which is failing to convince ‘converts’.
What was it Gandhi said? First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
So, skeptics are being accused of taking a leak on Lew?
Uh, not going there. Wouldn’t be prudent.
🙂
Lew should worry that his retracted paper will have the leakage effect and find himself in court trying to defend the indefensible libel .
OMG
The SHIFT (by the “scientific” community) in ALARMISM to being LESS ALARMED is because skeptics have pointed out past FAILURES IN ALARMISM and NOT because of FAILURES IN ALARMISM???!!! THAT sounds like denial.
Is THAT the take away?
Bristol, we have a problem!
He is a Cultist. Think of it as a Cult Elder would see it. He must protect the Cult members from hearing anything that would put into question their beliefs. Lacking the ability to silence those questioning the cult’s beliefs he must denigrate either the facts or the speaker. Arguing with such a person is a distraction from presenting more facts to the cult members. Remember that there have been cases of loving family members having to kidnap cult members and subject them to harsh de-programming to get them to come to realize that they had been programmed. It is all about mind control. Eventually these duped scientists will realize that they have been duped. Some will freak and propose lynching the Cult Elders, some will wander off into obscurity. None will ever be the same. Pity them for they have lost their will to be skeptical, the core trait of a scientist.
The scary part here is not that he is a demonstrable sociopathic nutcase, it’s that his colleagues and fellow inmates don’t recognize him as such. He is hell-bent to destroy any vestige of intelligent cred for the field of psychology.. Single-handedly, he’s knocking all of the science out of the term “soft-sciences”..If this is what psychology has come to, what’s left for its country cousin, sociology?
He’s definitely a cult.
yay!
take a leak on lew – call it peer revue. him and his psychological olestra too.
He doesn’t even listen to his own advice. If it’s possible that sceptic ideas are seeping into the scientific community is it not more than possible that the wash of catastrophism and anti oil, anti industry, anti west propaganda has warped scientific thinking even more?
I love the way he brings up the MMR scandal. The Wakefield paper was peer reviewed in a prestigious journal and only retracted over a decade after publication on the persistence of a journalist who unearthed the abysmal data the paper was based on and the dodgy behaviour of the scientist. He only got his hands on the data when Wakefield tried to sue the journalist and had to give it up during discovery. Very apt.
He is doing more damage to the Psychological profession than any 100 skeptics of the profession ever could. ALl you have to do is point to his unethical, immoral and incompetent actions to taint the entire profession. Because none of the other idiots are speaking out against him!
And that is the problem with CAGW as well. It is not that some rational voices are not getting their message out. It is that actions speak louder than those words. So when John Q. Public hears a Phil Jones, they see that Phil is not speaking out about the idiocy of Algore or 10:10. Silence is consent, and so the louder, hysterical voices are the ones the Public hears and associates with the “cause”. And they ignore it. And those not taking a stand against the “death trains” rantings of the less stable advocates.
Back in July, 2013 Gavin posted at Real Climate: “A couple of weeks ago, there was a small conference on Climate Science communication run by the AGU. …It was very notable that it wasn’t just scientists attending – there were also entertainers, psychologists, film-makers and historians. There were a lot of quite diverse perspectives and many discussions about the what’s, why’s and how’s of climate science communication. There were a couple of notable features: the conference had a lively twitter hashtag (#climatechapman), and almost the entire proceedings were webcast live (schedule).”
All BS and no science. AGU conferences have become a complete waste of money and time.
Its like watching a warm up act for a touring band visiting some hick town and the local comedian/clown/protest song singer is all fired up convinced he is now on the world stage. As CN says above “a cult”, a one man cult who only drinks the cult kool aid. I must admit the scadenfreude is starting to wear off and his videos are not nearly so awfully mesmerising. He is a pretty crappy act, lets face it. I think I am just moving on which is good cos he really is a waste of time and space.
“Scientists may therefore think that they are impervious to “skeptic” messages in the media, but in fact they are likely to be affected by the constant drumbeat of propaganda.”
So they are essentially saying the scientists are not capable of being objective in their research?
If a skeptic asserted the opposite, that all the alarmist media leads scientists to question non-alarmist results, would it be received in the same way?
There you have it. Lew just seeped into me and now I believe in CAGW. lol
But in all seriousness I look at the data and the data says big whoop. We might be 0.5 degrees warmer by 2100. Big Whoop.
Hahaha, glad I watched it all the way through.
==========
Except that he doesn’t understand what uncertainty is. It is just as likely that it means NO risk as additional risk.
So my take on this boiled down is, that if we look from his point of view at the AGW crowd and their science we come up with a look at AGW behavior.
A. AGW believers rarely think they hallucinate.
B. AGW believers happily confabulate memory of something they never saw….
C. Even when the data shows that they hallucinated.
So in conclusion, does the AGW believer trust their perception or the data and what do they do in response to their denialism?
1. point finger at others
2. call them names
3. adjust the data to justify hallucination
4. adjust theory to justify perception
5. make a good living while doing it
So life is still good even if you hallucinate, as long you believe in the greater good.
And of course their own data has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Not the data on models versus reality. Not the data on extreme weather. Not the data on snow converage. Not the data on hurricains. Not the data on the pause. Not the data on oceanic or atmosphereic oscillations. Apparently, if I follow the above piece of logic, if scientists hear or see, often enough, climate alarmism words, they begin to believe it, regardless of what the data is showing.
Okey dokey. Good presentation.
I have of course added “leakage” to http://eric.worrall.name/kant.cgi 🙂
graphicconception says: “…the less sure I am that there is a fire the more inclined I should be to shout: “Fire!” Have I got that straight?”
No, but few people commenting here have managed to get it straight so you are not alone.
The key part that repeatedly is ignored is the range of consequences the uncertainty covers. If increasing uncertainty means the smoke you smell is more likely to include the possibility of a serious fire, you shout “fire!” If decreasing uncertainty allows you to rule out a serious fire, you don’t have to shout “fire!” That is what is being described.
Obviously if you become more certain there *is* a serious fire, you also would shout “fire!” This is because, once again, the range of consequence still includes a serious fire.
It is a standard idea common in the insurance industry. It isn’t just the probability (ie, the uncertainty) that matters. It is the probability together with the range and seriousness of the potential consequences.
I made the mistake in watching the entire presentation (act). What an absolute load of claptrap from a supercilious and self-aggrandising clown.
When will you people learn …….
http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001459493/1055406112_AttentionWhore_xlarge.jpeg
If you stop showing him so much attention this guy will just disappear.
“the Scientific Community”
So, Lew’s argument is that the folks that pay the bills should not have a say in the running of the “ivory towers”. That science should not be contaminated by such frivolities as honesty and accountability. After all, scientists are so much smarter than everyone else, they are above making mistakes. Us lesser mortals should just accept what we are told by our betters.
Message to Lew. The Ivory Tower is not the real world. You are still in school. But unlike your pupils that need to tow the line to get a passing grade, you are not our teacher. Rather we are the ones giving you the pass or fail.
Unlike the Ivory Tower scientists, who can spend the day on any number of fantasy notions without consequences, there are plenty of scientists at work in the real world. When we get it wrong there are consequences.
As a result, we have learned the difference between fact and fiction. Something that has escaped those in the Ivory Tower, where pals support pals, regardless of how much the research smells. We see you for what you are and it is not a pretty sight.
When a scientist becomes persuaded by rhetoric, he ceases to be a scientist.
‘Uncertainty is an unavoidable part of science’ What ever ‘settled science which for years we been told climate ‘science’ was , and dare anyone question it?
In the case of climate science, any uncertainty should give particular cause for concern because greater uncertainty usually implies greater risk. ‘
Actually it more likley you simply do not know enough to make any judgement or what you thought was true turned out to be wrong. Once again climate ‘science’ tires to pull the 1984 trick , were the only options are good or double good , bad not even existing as a concept for the cause. The lack of the proof of gods’ existence is becasue of like of belief in god, therefore the more you believe you more ‘proof’ there is.
Two things climate ‘science’ will never be short of , people with massive ego’s and those that pratice projection on epic scale. Shame its so short on integrate , common sense , honesty and a commitment to good scientific pratice.
This is why the term “behavior science” always makes those who deal in observable phenomena, cringe. What cannot be observed in behavior is thinking. Motivation. Feelings. Memory. Conscience and subconscience thought. One walks on thin ice to paint observed behavior with unobservable variables as if the two have equal weight, or worse, suggesting that unobservables are somehow “weightier” than what can be directly observed, counted, and measured.
However, the worst of it is when those we entrust with the care and protection of observable data archives, seek to adjust or correct that data to their own liking (irregardless of whether or not the adjustment is right or wrong), and then “disappear” the original. That, in my mind, is a crime. Thus at the very base of the climate science movement is a crime. That the dog ate it is nonsense.
@Leo Geiger You’d be right if he was talking about actuarial science, but he’s not. He’s trying to unify projection and the precautionary principle into one. His “uncertainty” is a straw-man. It’s just a device to defend his position on the “uncertainty” of skeptics.
“In the case of climate science, any uncertainty should give particular cause for concern because greater uncertainty usually implies greater risk.”
Actually I would disagree. It depends upon what the uncertainty actually is. The uncertainty here is that throughout the paleo-geological history, we have had no evidence of a runaway greenhouse affect to the planet when the planet has experienced many times more CO2 in the atmosphere than their is today! To then proceed to draw the conclusions that a runaway greenhouse affect is a likelihood as a result of a doubling of atmospheric CO2, is bizarre to say the very least. To conclude that surface temperature rise is unprecedented & rapid, when the ice-core data shows otherwise is equally bizarre! When the models show temperature rises for given amounts of atmospheric CO2, when there is no evidence that it causes atmospheric warming from the evidence presented in the paleo-geological record, is just plain daft! Why have such conclusions been drawn from this weight of evidence or in the face of such evidence?
the constant drumbeat of propaganda.
==============
Isn’t Lew’s chosen field is the manipulation of populations to achieve a desired effect? Isn’t his specialty propaganda? It is such an illustrious field, with a fine history. The Ministry of Truth.
Paul Coppin – “his colleagues and fellow inmates don’t recognize him as such” – In a test, some students were admitted to a mental asylum and tried to convince the staff that they were sane. Not one succeeded, but all the inmates picked it instantly. Similar syndrome perhaps.
greater uncertainty usually implies greater risk.
==================
Greater risk of what? Lew has it backwards.
Uncertainty implies greater risk of taking action. He is trying to twist the meaning, trying to imply that uncertainty implies greater risk of inaction.
If you are uncertain of the consequences, there is increased risk in making a change. Industrialization has generated wealth and improved the lives of those people reaping its benefits. People living to day in the industrialized countries enjoy a better standard of living that the kings and queens of a few hundred years ago.
Lew is proposing that we change this. In an a climate of uncertainty, he believes that industrialization will lead to disaster, so we should change course. Return to the idyllic past, where storms never happened, where floods never happened, where things were never too hot or too cold. A time before industrialization, when everything was so much better,
If Lew is so certain of this, why not lead the way. Why don’t the Lew’s of the world swear off fossil fuels? Go a year without using any fossil fuels to show us how it can be done and the benefits we will receive? Otherwise, isn’t this the hypocritical minister preaching against sin, while shagging the faithful behind closed doors?
Quoting Naomi Oreskes? What an incestuous bunch.
And to think that previous generations thought that Chicken Little was a *Cautionary* tale.
Uncertainty in the realm of science? Say it isn’t so! You mean there are actually scientists out there who are uncertain about the universe? Gosh. Thank you Mr. Loo for working so hard to put the thick back in the brick. You’ll get these timid scientists back into working order! The nerve of some people! Letting the taint of others infiltrate such a closed system.
I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t believe in writing comments into these sorts of blogs and similar but, in all the garbage that I have read and seen about global warming, and all the demeaning criticism that I have read about dyed-in-the-wool sceptics like myself, I have NEVER, EVER, seen such total pseudo-scientific, pseudo-pychological CRAP as in this Lew video. It is utter rubbish from start to finish and I wish I hadn’t wasted my time listening to it.
You can dress it up any which way you like Lew, but people like me have looked at the evidence (huge amounts of it in fact) over many years, and we just don’t believe your story at all! Further, we are not morons being (mis)led in line to hell like sheep by other, equally misinformed, but manipulative people. Actually, we are intelligent, increasingly knowledgeable and we are making up our own minds not to agree with you for a multitude of very good reasons.
It is really sad to think a scientific body can give this fool a platform to air such insulting and condescending views about his fellow man.
Psychology and psychiatry were always about jargon and BS. Talk, talk talk, making sure to use words that sound technical and esoteric, but mean zilch. The fact that studies showed the disciplines incapable of doing 1/10th of what they claimed hasn’t stopped the media from viewing them as experts on human behavior. They should watch the activities in court when both sides present experts that testify exactly the opposite about the same defendent. Or the experts who assure the probation folks that Joe X is no longer a threat, and then two days later wipes out everyone at his old workplace. Or the studies that show mental inmates as more likely to get better if they don’t receive “treatments” from these phonies. Of course you don’t see many such studies, since psych professionals aren’t about to display their discipline’s own incompetence for the world to see, It’s all about keeping these junk scientific disciplines unblemished. And Hillary Clinton’s health plan included “mental health care.” Now THAT would have made all other govt waste look small. Very, very small. I have several advanced degrees in psychology. Mostly I learned that psychology is no science, or at least not a worthwhile science. My elderly aunt had panic attacks and visited a psychiatrist, who told her she had a “chemical imbalance,” and prescribed tranquilizers. AND a session every couple of weeks, scheduled to extract the maximum amount from Medicare. I asked her why, if her problem was a “chemical imbalance” (not specified by the doctor) , did she need to have sessions with the doctor? She had no answer.
To me psychiatry/psychology is, in large measure, fraud, pure and simple.
This is rich. The guy tries to stereotype and shame climate skeptics, all the while warning of the danger of stereotyping to affect rational thinking.
Suppose that I am playing Russian roulette with a revolver. One chamber is loaded and five are empty. I have uncertainty as to the outcome, and a risk of death.
Now suppose I load all six chambers. I have less uncertainty. According to Lew, I therefore have less risk.
Idiot.
Question: if fossil fuel use is so harmful, why do the Lews and Gores of the world continue to use fossil fuel? Rather than tell us to change our ways, why not change yours first? It is quite simple, don’t use anything that relies on fossil fuel.
Actions speak louder than words. I see all sorts of rich and powerful people telling us to change, to mend our ways, to “stop using fossil fuels”. What it really looks like they are saying is “leave more for us”.
When we were kids we did the same thing. Pile of bacon on the table, we’d tell all the other kids how awful it tasted, hoping to get more for ourselves.
Now we are grown up, nothing much has changed. Want to buy waterfront? Tell everyone they are going to be flooded out by rising sea levels. No surprise how many climate guru’s preach one thing and do the opposite. They see the pile of bacon on the table.
Leo Geiger
No, but few people commenting here have managed to get it straight so you are not alone.
The key part that repeatedly is ignored is the range of consequences the uncertainty covers. If increasing uncertainty means the smoke you smell is more likely to include the possibility of a serious fire, you shout “fire!” If decreasing uncertainty allows you to rule out a serious fire, you don’t have to shout “fire!” That is what is being described.
Where is your evidence there is actually any problem? You can play this ridiculous uncertainty game ad-infinitum, but unless you have actual observational evidence there is some kind of problem, its a complete waste of time.
I have given an example of this in my compelling theory post. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/10/why-a-compelling-theory-is-not-enough/
The set of compelling theories which are not backed by evidence is probably infinite – unless you apply Occam’s razor to weed out the junk, including the unsupported theory that we are threatened by dangerous climate change, there is no end of shadows you can jump at.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/22/occams-razor-and-climate-change/
“We suggest that the prolonged appeal to uncertainty in the public arena has “leaked” into the scientific community ”
Well, as the modelers were so certain of the predictive skill of their models, somebody HAD to tell them that that’s a cr*ck of sh*t.
We have to thank the idiots for exposing the MSM / state media as the propaganda tools they are. Many good people have been driven out of the media and replaced with IPCC lickspittles and we know now that Western media are completely corrupted.
If no rebuttal to the absurd Moon Hoax paper appears in the peer reviewed literature of psychology, that says a lot–negative–about the peer reviewed literature of psychology. And its practitioners.
Will the Lew papers ever pass Pee Revue?
DirkH
Well, as the modelers were so certain of the predictive skill of their models, somebody HAD to tell them that that’s a cr*ck of sh*t.
Climate alarmists are now like witch doctors shaking their rattles while trying to explain to people that their truth is still the only truth. After a while, the evidence becomes so overwhelming that they are wrong, its just downright embarrassing to go on, even though their livelihoods depend on it. Thankfully they’ve got Lewandowsky to help fan the dying embers of their commitment.
I’m sorry, my eyes glazed over there for a bit…does he actually consider himself a scientist?
I realize that the bar has sunk quite a bit these days concerning science, but is it really that bad?
BTW, the last time I heard the team “leakage” it was in conjunction with a certain brand of potato chip that had to be pulled off the market (i.e, retracted) due to a rather unfortunate side effect.
“[G]reater uncertainty usually implies greater risk.”
WT very F??! Practically the first words of his abstract and already he is uttering eye-popping nonsense.
I read no further.
So, the take-away message from Lew himself is that we skeptics/climate realists are winning. Yes indeed, the truth is far more powerful than any lies the Warmists tell, especially a “certifiable fruitcake nutter and total frigging as*hole” like Leaky Lew.
If increasing uncertainty means the smoke you smell is more likely to include the possibility of a serious fire, you shout “fire!”
============
that means the less information I have, the more reason I have to raise the alarm, because if I don’t know the cause, then I can’t rule out the possibility of a serious fire.
Under that prescription, those that know the least should be the first to shout the alarm. While those with the most information should be the last to raise the alarm.
Which pretty much describes Climate Science. Gore and Lew are shouting the alarm. One’s a divinity student, the other a social scientist. The engineers are too busy out in the field finding oil.
Thus, Lew has done the Science Community a great service. He is arguing that those the know the least are the ones shouting the alarm the loudest.
What would be the term equivalent to “theocracy” but entailing science instead of religion? That is what Lewandowsky is striving towards.
His video reminds me of this scene:
I think Lewandowsky, in actually pushing the idea that greater uncertainty only equals greater risk, is now ready to move from the University world to the UFO abductee world.
… greater uncertainty usually implies greater risk. However, appeals to uncertainty have been used in public debate to forestall mitigative action.
===========
by Lew’s own argument, uncertainty increases the risk of mitigative action. He is trying to argue that since we don’t know what will happen if we stay the course, we should change course.
Now apply that logic to your own life. You are going along and enjoying a reasonably happy life. Since you can’t be sure about tomorrow, you should change what is working for something you have never tried before. Lew-tard comes to mind to describe this sort of logic.
Scientists love to wrap the world in complication, so that the nonsense in their work is not so obvious to all.
@Jim Stevens, the word you are looking for is either positivism or technocracy.
Strange, I can’t recall any of the alarmist scientists ever mentioning uncertainty …
Pointman
Just a word of appreciation to all the commenters here saying the video is not worth watching: thanks!
@Daniel G
“@Jim Stevens, the word you are looking for is either positivism or technocracy.”
Thanks.
When I was in college an oft-heard put-down was that Psych majors had the lowest IQ of all the sciences, and Lew does not disabuse.
Any impartial viewer (someone not familiar with Lew’s recent escapades) of this talk would likely ask:
“whatever does this subject matter, and this guy, have to do with a scientific conference on the physics of climate and CO2? Why is he on the stage?”
And after watching it through, I conclude that Lew’s whole schtick is to find a foothold in the climate science debate wherein “other” sciences unrelated to the measurement and analysis of the atmosphere and the physical climate (for example his specialty, experimental psychology), can also “contribute” to the save-the-planet cult and share the wearing of its mantle, that “we psychologists are saving the world too”.
Lew’s presentation (note his comfortable use of the word “deniers”) is framed in a shared discourse of the cult: Lew’s presentation assumes — at this meeting of career geophysicists — that 100% of the audience entirely equates scientific skepticism of climate modeling and CO-2 with “denying the undeniable”.
As for the experiments that he cites and summarizes, in essence he posits that they stand as proof that any climate scientist who expresses a lack of scientific certitude, based on their exposure to competing arguments and data, is expressing pathological cognitive behavior, “leakage”.
The ability to consider alternative scientific hypotheses is, in effect, a pathology. (So much for the sentiments of ‘Nullius in verba’)
One cannot leave his performance without the impression that he’s inadvertently framed himself as clownlike in relation to the “real” scientists, akin to the court jester, except Lew’s is the mean clown rather than the funny clown.
This approach to uncertainty is frought with danger for Dr. Lewandowsky:
Since it is uncertain if he is suffering from a psychotic breakdown, he should be treated with powerful anti-psychotic meds stat. And since it is uncertain if the meds will work, he should be given a round of electroshock therapy. And since that may not work, he should be considered for a lobotomy, simply because the uncertainy is too great.
Can we validate his word test? Let’s try:
fraud
fake
con
phony
sham
mountebank
charlatan
quack
Let these words percolate. Back in a second with part 2.
That settles it!
Lew has Munchausen Syndrone by proxy.
No BS, read it for yourself.
Time to petition for his treatments.
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/factitious_disorders/hic_munchausen_syndrome_by_proxy.aspx
Latest Russel Crow film Noah .More over hyped CGI Climate Change porn.Typical modern religious take dont dare even mention god.The main Character.
Lewandowsky very similar an Australian putting on a bad American accent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy
“Observers have criticized the involvement of mass media in the controversy, what is known as ‘science by press conference’,[41] alleging that the media provided Wakefield’s study with more credibility than it deserved. ”
[41] Moore Andrew (2006). “Bad science in the headlines: Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media?” http://embor.embopress.org/content/7/12/1193
@ Leo Geiger says:
April 17, 2014 at 5:32 am
You assert that Lew is simply talking about normal risk management.
You would be completely wrong.
Uncertianty means “we don’t know”.
We don’t know if weather is actually going to get worse in a world of increasing CO2.
We don’t know if sea levels are going to ise faster in the future than they have over the past ~100 years or so.
We don’t know if the ideas of the CO2 obsessed are implementable, much less if they will actually change the weather for the better.
(in fact we know they are not implementable and won’t help the weather, actually)
And on that basis lunatc Lew wants us poor citizens to stfu and let the pals he like run the world?
I don’t think so.
– – – – – – – – – –
Alan Robertson,
Lewandowsky and Oreskes have the same scripted message.
Lewandowsky’s message => the scientific community has become unduly focused on uncertainty & skeptical scientists are con$piracists causing it with motivated influences.
Oreskes’ message => the IPCC is way too conservative in assessing the dangers of CAGW & the IPCC is being influenced to reduce the assessment of danger by a con$piracy of fossil fuel interests fronted by skeptical scientists.
Michael Mann has adopted their scripts (mostly Oreskes’) when asserting his conspiratorial self-serving myths of being the victim of big fossil’s attempt to defame what he promotes as his planet saving work effort.
Oreskes is the intellectual originator of the three. Her original ideas have become their prototypical ideas. Lewandowsky and Mann are following her intellectual path.
John
“Return to the idyllic past, where storms never happened, where floods never happened, where things were never too hot or too cold. A time before industrialization, when everything was so much better”
Oh I’m bound to go
Where there ain’t no snow
Where the rain don’t fall
The winds don’t blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain
Part 2: Which of the following words were NOT on the list?
moonbat
looney tunes
nutter
If you guessed all three – you’re right! Otherwise you may have “hallucinated”. Maybe he’s on to something!
Leaky Lew is merely using the idiotic anti-science, and illogical “precautionary principle”, which turns the scientific method upside down. They have not, nor can they show that the Null Hypothesis, (which is that natural climate forces are driving our climate, just as they always have been) is no longer operable. The burden of proof is entirely on the Alarmists.
The bogus analogy to a possibility of fire in a crowded theater is sometimes used. But fire is real, and can sometimes happen in crowded places. The concept of manmade warming of any sort is still merely conjecture, and the idea that we are harming our climate or creating some sort of catastrophic future climate is nothing more than wild, irresponsible speculation.
Is this an attack on Judith Curry? She is the biggest name in the uncertainty debate and also a “climate scientist” who is not firmly in the alarmist camp (god forbid, she might even be a skeptic!).
Lew is moving away from diagnosing bloggers with psychological disorders and going after academics now!
In Lew’s case, the image conjured up by ‘leakage’ depends. Just Depends.
Tom Chivers arguing for the Prevention of Dissent in The Telegraph, pinpoints the source of the Lew’s leakage. Skeptics are “urine stained alcoholics”.
(See caption under picture) http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100189497/the-bbc-isnt-balanced-in-its-reporting-of-climate-change-but-the-facts-arent-balanced-either/
Steven Goddard posted the following:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/state-of-the-climate-report-3/
This Lewandowsky guy has an advanced degree and some government funded university pays him to spread ignorance to the young. I think it says all that the above list is compiled from the official sources and yet Lew boy thinks that being skeptical of the Magical Mystical Molecule (CO2) is somehow not a good thing.
Goddard also pointed out that Knut Angstrom figured out 100 years ago that almost all of the LW radiation at CO2 absorption wavelengths is already absorbed by the existing atmospheric CO2. This means that adding more CO2 has minimal effect on the earth’s radiative balance. (assuming is has any at all)
We are in a battle against idiots, the deluded, con artists, and morons. There is no list of facts that can sway these fools. 5 km of ice over the northeast U.S. would not slow them down. Fools.
Boil Lew’s narrative down to two sentences: “The science is settled, and skeptics [are paid industry money to] manufacture doubt out of thin air.” Al Gore’s sheeple must, of course, never question this.
But the reality of the situation is that skeptics have been pointing out the pre-existing doubt in the idea of AGW ever since Gore’s initial foray into the issue, thus a need arose way back at the start to have “Merchants of Smear” who could manufacture doubt about the credibility of the skeptics. Doggy treat and a pat on the head for Lew in shoving this quarter century-old stuff further along.
Eric Worrall says in response to Leo Geiger: “You can play this ridiculous uncertainty game ad-infinitum, but unless you have actual observational evidence there is some kind of problem, its a complete waste of time.”
If you start with the premise that there is absolutely no evidence of a problem, if you hold that opinion with virtual certainty, if it is “settled” in your mind, then yes, it is a trivial matter to then argue that all this talk of uncertainty and risk is a waste of time. You might even write an essay on a blog comparing the risks posed by doubling atmospheric greenhouse gas to the risks posed by an alien invasion, just to illustrate your views with colourful metaphors.
A great many people don’t start with that premise, nor do they share the same conviction that allows them to hold this opinion with your virtual certainty. For those people, discussions about uncertainty, consequence, and risk are relevant in the context of climate science.
@Leo Geiger, lack of evidence isn’t an “opinion”, nor is it a “premise”.
You are correct, though, that low-information and/or low-IQ folks are more apt to accept the bogus ideas with regard to climate of “uncertainty, consequence, and risk”. These are folks who tend more towards irrationality and emotionalism. They do not have the either the mental capacity nor the curiosity to seek out what is actually true, being content merely to accept the pap that is spoon-fed to them.
Another circular argument from Lewandowsky: If you ignore the uncertainties, the scientific case for climate change is robust. Because the scientific case is robust, climate scientists should ignore the uncertainties.
If I remember correctly, there were some minor uncertainties about how space-shuttle o-rings would function in cold weather. Because of the success of past launches, the o-rings were considered to be “robust,” so the uncertainties were ignored. As a result, Challenger exploded, and lives were lost. Ignoring uncertainties is the act of a politician, not a scientist. Lew is a politician.
Cult Lew
“In the case of climate science, any uncertainty should give particular cause for concern because greater uncertainty usually implies greater risk.”
Not so, Lew. You portray the “uncertainty” in climate science as a median prediction, that everyone agrees with, with equally wide bands, on either side in which actual observations might fall. In this fantasy of yours, it is just as likely that temperatures will increase more than the median as it is that they will increase less than the median. But that’s not how the uncertainty works in climate science, Lew. We have nearly 20 years now of the observations falling BELOW the median, and not only below the median, but below the lower limit of the certainty range. This is not the kind of random, bi-directional prediction error you see “uncertainty” as. This is a prediction BIAS, an error that only goes one direction. A consistent OVERprediction of temperature by the methods and models used. This is not caused by stochastic, chaotic, or unpredictable perturbations around a mean. It is a complete failure of the models to even get the mean prediction right.
Say the band of temperature predictions around the median trend represents a 90% confidence interval. What that means is that, even allowing for random fluctuations, 90% of all obervations should fall within +/- X decgrees of the median trend. If, over twenty years, one or two annual temperatures fall outside of that range, well, we expect that; that’s why we’re only 90% confident in our range. But if, over twenty years, twenty annual temperatures fall outside of that range, well, we have to wonder whether that range is correct. And if all twenty of those fall BELOW that range, we have to wonder whether the prediction trend is correct. You see, it’s possible (remotely) that 20 out of twenty observations would be outside of a 90% confidence range, and that range still be correct. The odds of that happening are 0.1^20, or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000. So take heart, there’s still a 0.000000000000000001% chance that the range is right. But if the prediction trend is correct, then observations that fall outside of the range would be just as likely to fall above the range as below it. But they all fall below the range. The odds of that happening, for a given year, are just 5%, or .05, since the 10% chance of falling outside the range must be equally split between above and below the range. So the probability of 20 out of 20 observations falling BELOW the range is .05^20, or about 1 in 10^26. Or 0.0000000000000000000000001%
I got off on a computational tangent there, Lew, but the point is, in climate science, ALL of the uncertainty is on the NEGATIVE side, and by “negative” I mean lower temperatures, not bad. The only “risk” associated with this uncertainty is that temperatures will increase less than the “science” predicts they will (or, Gore forbid, not increase at all, or even go down). And at this point that “risk” is a statistical certainty.
(Note, I admit to rounding up the 17 years of no global warming to 20, to make the calculations easier. If you like, knock 4-5 zeroes off of my calculated probabilities. Makes little difference. The odds of the models being correct are still way less than one in a billion.)
Trevor
I would like to reply to this. Knowing I will be snipped refrains me from doing so.
Calmness, what part of science does it say that your theory can’t be debated?! Dumbass.
Lewandowsky inhabits an interesting fantasy world where he sees delusions that don’t exist and misses his own that do.
You realize of course that most of you are mentally incapable of being cult members. How will you be successful in this modern world without that capability?
In that lecture, Lewandowsky is so embarrasingly conceited, smug, full of himself, and above all, unscientific, that he makes me deeply ashamed of being a cognitive psychologist.
Has Dr. Lewandowsky considered a switch to marketing, because that’s what he’s trying to do. He’s branding people and trying to persuade them not with facts, but with messages.
When Lewandowsky says “Although scientists are well trained in dealing with uncertainty and in understanding it, we argue that the scientific community has become unduly focused on uncertainty, at the expense of downplaying solid knowledge about the climate system.”
I dont think he actually understands the issues that are in play here. He’s fed from people like Cook who have an unshakable belief that (for example) models represent future climate and Lew cant think for himself on what the implications of those models failing to represent that future climate are, when all the inputs are “better known than ever” and not unexpected.
The models are not just “a bit” wrong, Cook, they’re simply not fit for purpose. No amount of tweaking will get them to model any subtle changes in our atmosphere and oceans and this is slowly being realised.
Leakage? No, Lewandowsky, you misdiagnose this as “self doubt” when in fact its “better understanding”. The more I know, the more I know that I dont know it all. Its not surprising, though because you haven’t got to that point yet. Nowhere near it in fact.
They are changing the language again. The science is no longer “settled”. It’s “robust”.
And I’m getting the feeling that Lew is stating that the uncertainty is in the impact of the consequences, not in the theroy itself.
The really worrying thing is not that there are people like Lewandowsky having these kind of embarrassing conspiracy / ad hominem theories, but rather that the scientific community does not massively and loudly question the validity of their arguments.
“… in the case of climate science, any uncertainty [riskiness] should give particular cause for concern because greater uncertainty [riskiness] usually implies greater risk …”
============================
It’s nonsense of course as others have noted, it’s a rhetorical tautology
‘Rhetorical tautologies state the same thing twice, while appearing to state two or more different things …’ (Wiki).
Lew considers himself to be a scientist?
The man is a self-deluded charlatan and his pointless and utterly boring little lecture with pointless visual aids tells me that he is nothing more than a charlatan whose every public utterance is utter specious nonsense. The fact that he is part of a community speaks volumes about that community.
Fruitcakes all!
I couldn’t help but notice, when watching that appalling presentation, that old matey boy could hardly wait to starting using the term ‘deniers’ – he started with the phrase “so-called skeptics” as a little nod to his acolytes, dropped in a reference to “denialists” to get the old juices flowing, and then “DENIERS”. What a noisome old fart.
He’s “hearing things” if he imagines there’s a constant drumbeat of skeptical propaganda. Sounds paranoid. Someone should write him up.
Hey, “It’s not even a claim”, so let’s just end it right there, ok? But no, it might-could be the case, therefore it is the case! No uncertainty there……Oops, “We are the Metrons”: Star Trek episode where Kirk and the Enterprise are pursuing what turns out to be the Gorns and all of a sudden both ships come to a complete stop because, “We are the Metrons!” Hey, it’s only Science Fiction. But now let’s look at some words on the screen…
I will never trust any climate “scientist” who uses “denial” or “denier” to describe those whose opinion differs from his or hers. There is no place in science for that type of ad hominem attack on others. It suggests motives far removed from discovering and disseminating facts.
I noticed his first graphic looked like probability density function for CO2 doubling with a miniimum of about 2 C with a skewed tail out to something around 7C. Is that the “data” he is referring to that we deny? It seems like the true deniers are those who confuse their models with the real world.
But, wait. That’s common. They are only hallucinating.
And why is the question always only “Do you believe in climate change?” How unscientific can one get?
Paul Coppin says: @ April 17, 2014 at 4:51 am
The scary part here is not that he is a demonstrable sociopathic nutcase, it’s that his colleagues and fellow inmates don’t recognize him as such. He is hell-bent to destroy any vestige of intelligent cred for the field of psychology.. Single-handedly, he’s knocking all of the science out of the term “soft-sciences”…..
>>>>>>>>>>..
Do not forget the earlier knock the field took not long ago: NETHERLANDS: Dean may face data fraud charges
Does the field want any more black eyes…
Here is another: PSYCHOLOGY TODAY: Are Psychiatrists Betraying Their Patients?
Yahoo is running this article. It’s surprising when you consider the number of CAGW articles they run.