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