A new paper by Stephan Lewandowsky once again projects his own conspiracy ideation onto skeptics
Extract:
One known element of conspiratorial thinking is its ‘self-sealing’ quality (Keeley 1999, Bale 2007, Sunstein and Vermeule 2009), whereby evidence against a conspiratorial belief is re-interpreted as evidence for that belief. In the case of ‘climategate’, this self-sealing nature of conspiratorial belief became evident after the scientists in question were exonerated by nine investigations in two countries (including various parliamentary and government committees in the U.S. and U.K.; see table 1), when those exonerations were re-branded as a ‘whitewash.’ This ‘whitewash’ response can be illustrated by U.S. Representative Sensenbrennerʼs published response to the EPAʼs endangerment finding.
The paper:
Conspiratory fascination versus public interest: the case of ‘climategate‘
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/11/111004/article …
Basically, the gist of it is that being interested in Climategate, makes you a conspiracy theorist.
What a wackadoodle.
h/t to Barry Wood.
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Anthony, I know you are fair and try to present a variety of issues, but you are wasting valuable space and readers time if they read Lew’s stuff. If I wanted to read psychological matters I would select a more credible source than Lew.
So, if someone want to read his junk, go to the kidz zone.
This is part of the ongoing AGW phenomenon. I for one find such updates very valuable.
The greater significance of all this is that this fellow isn’t someone sounding off from some remote community college or as a homegrown autodidact. This guy is very well connected within mainstream contemporary psychology. And that’s interesting.
I think what Anthony and others are trying to do is knock this nonsense down before it becomes widely accepted as fact. Like the 97 % and to some extent the 9 inquiries.
When I was a kid we spent a week in school talking about early American History and at one point we had to memorize and recite a poem called Grim Cotton Mather by Stephen Vincent Benet. I couldn’t help but think of Lew while remembering that today…
Poor Lewandowsky was always seeing skeptics,
Daylight, moonlight, they buzzed about his head.
Pinching him and poking him till he chugged neuroleptics.
Skeptics on his website,
Skeptics by his bed.
It seems this link was so whacked they removed it themselves!
I think you hit the nail on the head when you suggested he was insane. He clearly has a problem – several sandwiches short of a picnic, if you take my meaning.
Bad link in the article. The correct link is:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/11/111004
Pretty nonsensical paper. Not sure how or why this would get published or why anyone would care. Simply comparing how quickly the public lost interest “climategate” to the number of times it’s used on “skeptical” blogs in the years since 2010 is research??? Really?
Hmm, http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1212063122.txt
“>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
>
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
> have his new email address.
>
> We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
>
> I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature
> paper!!
>
> Cheers
> Phil
Nothing to see here, move along…
This and much more like it in my Climategate iPhone app or Climategate Android App
Have you considered making a Windows Phone app?
http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#d-community
I thought about it, the issue is I haven’t got a windows phone to test it on. I develop mobile apps for a living, but there is very little demand for windows apps, except in niche industries such as some public sector bodies.
Bloody Sensational -thanks for the App.
Seriously, Anthony, why do you waste your blogspace on this guy?
As a UK taxpayer, I am paying to have him tell me that I must be mad to believe that anyone ever conspires against the public interest.
That is worth commenting on.
Yes, the guy is pitiable But he is still a danger to the public good.
Because like Mann he’s a gift to the sceptic side?
evidence against a conspiratorial belief is re-interpreted as evidence for that belief.
You mean, for example: expansion of the Antarctic icecap is re-interpreted as evidence for global warming?
Lew is a low-road / high horse guy.
Conspiratory fascination versus public interest: the case of ‘Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky’
I am looking forward to an article on this ‘case’ by a well reputed psychiatrist as Lewandowsky is always in for more self publicity.
it’s a pay to publish journal, so I’m sure the paper has been through a rigorous review
for the record, does anyone have a list of the “investigations” that Mann et al were subjected to? Seems to me as I remember from the time,, none of them addressed the science itself.
When CAGW people come forward with defenses of Climategate, I always ask them if they have actually read the emails in their original text. They never have and revert to appeals to authority, just like Leu does. Reading them converted me from an AGW believer to a skeptic.
My biggie was harry read me file and how data was treated.
I will never believe they are telling the truth about global temperature history and therefore I will most likely always doubt their climate predictions.
What conspiracy resulted in the letters in WHAT LYSENKO SPAWNED being an anagram for a prominent conspiracy theorist?
More Lew paper. Lew should go and see a psychiatrist.
Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky of Bristol University looks exactly like what he is….a complete brainless deluded fool.
Mr Lew must be an emperor at least in the psycho babble world.
You guys are wayyyyyy too hard on the good Doctor Lewandowsky.
We should encourage him to testify on behalf of the respected Dr. Mann in the Mann/Steyn case.
I am sure he would aid Dr. Mann in a fitting manner.
Working link:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/11/111004
It’s a Strawman argument. Nobody is denying climate change just how much is actually caused by man.
“In a representative Australian sample, (Leviston et al 2013b) found that only
around 6% of respondents denied that climate change was happening, whereas the
publicʼs estimate of the prevalence of that opinion was in excess of 20%—more
than three times greater.”
Nik
November 12, 2014 at 11:57 pm
“t’s a Strawman argument. Nobody is denying climate change just how much is actually caused by man.”
With regards to the “global average temperature anomaly” there has been no change over 18 years and counting.
There have been changes in weather patterns (lots of blocking highs in the past few years).
This is doubtlessly not caused by anthropogenic CO2. (The warmists have never predicted it nor did they ever even hint at the idea)
good qoute 🙂
Interesting comparison – watch the same liberal commentators and media reject the official investigation of corruption in the Qatar World Cup bid. Apparently only some thorough official investigations are whitewashes.
Nut it is true, Only some thorough official investigations are whitewashes. Hillsborough got there in the end.
Maybe we will find someone who isn’t a pal of Leon Brittan to investigate his losing the evidence against the child-abusers. Maybe we won’t. But if all official investigations were whitewashes Cameron wouldn’t have so much trouble in getting that whitewash going.
So Qatar’s bid may not have been substantially more corrupt than the rest of football.
Typo, “Nut” should be “But it is true…”
Sorry.
Where there is money to be made, there are conspiracies, and people who want us to believe conspiracies are impossible. A conspiracy is two or more persons (secretly) acting in concert to perform an illegalsubversive, immoral or otherwise impopular act.
” acting in concert to perform an illegalsubversive, immoral or otherwise impopular act.”
doesn’t have to be ANY of that.
” acting in concert to perform SOME act.”
really? Then I guess almost everything is a conspiracy then.
I thought conspiracy was reserved for unpopular deeds.
Anyway, the climatagate emails proved infamously that climate science is jam packed with conspiracies. The most evil I suppose was the blackmailing of journals who published non alarmist papers.
And all of the “tell everyone to destroy data before FOI gets them!”.
A person like Lewandowsky, Mann or Oreskes who is in possession of the faith** has an unpersuadable intellect. The signposts on the one way road into the unpersuadable zone are covered with their strange graffiti.
** ‘the faith’ is the blind belief in the premise that the fossil fuel industry must be con$piring with any person critical (skeptical) of the observationally unsupported theory of significant AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels.
John
The Consensus here appears to be that Lewandowsky has a serious psychological or psychiatric problem.
It is probably an “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” defined below as from the “Psychology Today” site.
“Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions).
Often the person carries out the behaviors to get rid of the obsessive thoughts, but this only provides temporary relief.
Not performing the obsessive rituals can cause great anxiety. A person’s level of OCD can be anywhere from mild to severe, but if severe and left untreated, it can destroy a person’s capacity to function at work, at school or even to lead a comfortable existence in the home.”.
That guy needs treatment and soon.
It is interesting that a Psychologist shows a bias in his own paper. How will this get through the review process.