Saturday
Sep172011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Sep 17, 2011 Climate: IPCC Sci blogger Martin Robbins:
Has anyone coined a handy term for the tactic (favoured in alt med) of haphazardly citing 100s of papers and hoping people won't check them?
Barry Woods:
IPCC working group 3
Reader Comments (14)
Nice one Barry! Thanks Bish
Ouch.
A bit below the belt no?
And why only IPCC WG3? Martin Robbins doesn't know how science perhaps works either ("alt med"). The problem he points out is common to large swathes of medical and environmental literature.
It is the fog of citations effect.
Shub - Retraction Watch do a nice category search which would help as a first cut at the fog:
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/?cat=61802435
The total number of retractions which appear to be due to deliberate tampering is sadly high, followed by those which are not reproducible.
Apologies if already aware.
Try "pareidolia" (n), defined as "apprehending or discerning coherent images or patterns from random stimuli." Pareidolics thus engage in what psychologists term "apophenia" [1958], "The spontaneous [unmotivated] perception of false patterns," a borderline psychosis attributing causal connections to mere "uncorrelated coincidence(s)".
In Warmist terms, "pareidolic apophenia" [some mouthful] usefully accounts for the Green Gang's projective persecution mania, not only perceiving scientific facts as "enemies" but the purveyors of such facts as conspiratorial heretics worthy of extirpation as were Albigensian Cathars and Knights Templar, nevermind Basilidean Gnostics, Manichaeans, and all manner of latter-day dualistic brethren.
It is a favored tactic of trolls. I cannot imagine the number of times I have stated an argument on a blog and found that the response is a list of URLs. Sometimes, the list of URLs is annotated. Does that amount to the deception of focus in the fog of citation in the misdirection of forums?
Sadly, nothing new in any of this. "Publish or perish" was the mantra of academics forty years ago when I was contemplating such a career and the abuses we have today were common then. The solution, of course, was Peer Review -- real peer review, not the peer pal review we have today in too many disciplines.
That clearly has failed. Probably 90% of the scientific articles I read are grossly flawed. In particular, I am deep into hematology and particular the effects of Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids on hemolysis. Most of those articles are pure speculation and opining.
However, there is a difference when it come to "Climate Science". People such as Al Gore use this misuse of the scientific method to not only line their own pockets but also waste countless billions and trillions of whatever currency to build a "better" world in whatever shape or form they imagine. Years ago, people simply smiled when they read a publication that seemed a little controversial, put it down and waited for the rebuttal. Today the gear up for mortal combat, particularly where there is so much money at stake.
UN Science?
Follow the money.
Everything else is just conversation.
The Monckton Gallop:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/i_think_that_they_might_have_t.php
Err, that sounds more like my dissertation than it does IPCC working group 3.
I once read a paper which was 12 pages in length of which 7 contained references. Its the academic version of death by power point .
Snow job is the generic term. Perhaps schmo fob is more specific.
Many years ago when I was in law school (in the US), there was a famous law review article written by a student which was a wonderful satire on how ridiculous all the footnotes had gotten in such publications. On the first page the word "the" was footnoted twice with appropriate citation to a dictionary and the subsequent 'ibid'. Regardless of the academic field, the temptation to try to cover up weak analysis with a blizzard of footnotes and citations seems to be overwhelming.
"Unscientific Propaganda Op."
In "Who Stole Feminism" Christina Hoff Sommers documented this tactic by "gender feminists" as her primary point. Either the cites for the alleged facts did not say or support what was claimed, were not intended to have any bearing whatsoever on the question, said the opposite, or sometimes did not even exist.
Enter the TAR a few years later with its strange lists of non-specific references at the ends of some Chapters, and which didn't even "read like science" to me right from the start.