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:
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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.
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There you go folks, proof positive that we are having an effect.
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.
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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.
@Leopold Danze 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.
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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.
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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.