Bishop Hill The Secret Science Society
Nov 1, 2013 Climate: Mann FOI ;)
Michael Mann and Stephan Lewandowsky have a typically overwrought article at the website of the Association of Psychological Science. Also on the roster of authors are Linda Bauld and Gerard Hastings - anti-tobacco scientivists from the University of Stirling - and a psychologist from the University of Irvine.
One of the principal themes in the article is that bad people keep asking to see scientivists' data and correspondence. This, apparently, is unacceptable behaviour - not a position for which I have much sympathy, or indeed any sympathy at all.
However, it's interesting to see this cross-disciplinary enthusiasm for secret science. Perhaps these paragons of scientific integrity should form a "Secret Science Society" (although the name is already taken). Most of the scientific establishment would sign up.
Reader Comments (141)
This is simply a rallying call to the faithful, and a warning to waverers that the True Church of Climatology is still active.
It may solidify a few nitwits in their delusion, and of course promote funding for these clowns, nothing more.
Naughty Psy Science puts my comments with their specific accusations against the author up on my screen, but apparently not on yours, so I can go on believing that the world is is reading them, when in fact it’s only me. This is what they call “continuing the conversation”, or “talk to your screen - dummy.”
It’s like those leaflets that tell you “Dear X, You have won one of the prizes on this page. Just write in..” Which you do thinking you’ve won the sports car or the TV, when in fact you’ve won the biro in the hand of the lady in the photo. It’s like the editor in chief of Psychological Science telling me they were taking my complaints seriously and waiting for Lew to reply to my accusations, while their news editor is writing articles sayng they have full confidence in him.
Naughty naughty peer reviewed professors.
The most important paragraph is at the end:
So next time you meet a chugger from the BHF or CRUK you know where the money will go...
JH,
Never in the field of human conflict was so much paid by so many to so few.
Lew is one hell of a networker, isn’t he?
He knows he’s toast the moment some curious journalist looks into his work. But he’s teamed up with the First Martyr of the Holy Church of Global Warming for a tearful rendition of “Stand by your Mann”, plus a load of worthy beyond-criticism health lobby groups.
With hostages like that, he must think he can withstand a long siege.
You learn something every day.
Today I learned that a paper which says "Waaah! A boy was mean to me in the playground!" is capable of being published in an allegedly academic journal, and funded by health-related charities. ("Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute of Health Research, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged.")
Well spotted, Jack Hughes. For UK readers, decisions about which charities to support are being made easier all the time by a process of elimination.
TLITB & Geoff Chambers,
Sorry Leopard, your comment at APS obviously still displays to you but it doesn’t to me (or anyone else?). All the other comments you list at Nov 2, 2013 at 6:08 PM show, but not your one. So, I think we must assume that you’ve been moderated out. Along with all comments from you, Geoff. Comments submitted by Barry Woods and Adam Gallon also don’t seem to have made it. Anyone else? I wonder what the moderation criteria might be. Surely it couldn’t be anything to do with criticising previous Loo papers, could it?
@Nov 3, 2013 at 8:57 AM | Registered CommenterLaurie Childs
Cheers, Thanks for confirming I did wonder when I saw Geoffs comment. Interesting filter they have there!
Yes, I now notice there are some comments on that “filter” over at Geoff’s own blog. To not even display a message telling you your comment is still awaiting/has failed moderation is just downright dishonest in my view. Speaking of Geoff’s blog, he has posted his follow-up letter to the journal editor. Worth reading. This is getting good ;)
Also seems Nottingham academic, Warren Pearce, who works in the science communication field is being filtered too. He has just tweeted he can't see his comment either.
I think everyone would agree his comment was totally inoffensive so I am further bemused.
We will moderate your comments even if we have to redefine the meaning of the word "offensive".
"Sounds as if a certain climate enthusiast, who had best remain nameless, might be in danger of making him/herself ill.
Nov 1, 2013 at 6:28 PM | Registered Commenter Foxgoose"
Don't go there. We're winning this convincing real scientists like chemists, geologists, mathematicians and all the physisists. Let them have their crap science of pshycology, in all it's worthelessness.
- Almost 3pm Sunday and no new comments visible since LITB posted a copy here at 6pm yesterday
so vibrant discussion there NOT
@Jack Hughes, @johanna : Big UK Charities fund Mickey Mouse science Report ?
- I don't think the chariities will be aware of how Lew is using their names
Seems the abstract writers are using rhetorical tricks again. Two of the study authors work at the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies.It is probably that that is funded by the charitities like : British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK
stewgreen - you may be right. But, someone should ask them (I would, but live on the other side of the world and have no standing). WTF does research into heart disease or cancer have to do with these ramblings?
@johanna -nothing . It seems the loose words on that abstract would appear to add credibility to that article by making it appear that those TOP charities partly funded it, when in reality they actually just coincidentally fund the day-jobs of 2 of the scientists not the abstract work directly.
Warren Pearce has posted his comment on a new blog entry at Nottingham Uni Making Science Public
http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/makingsciencepublic/2013/11/03/the-subterranean-war-on-science-a-comment/
stewgreen - that depends on whether they did this on their own time, or their employers'. It might be worth asking the question. And, if they did it on their own time, why were their employers' names used?
Dont forget it's the weekend!
I expect some more comments will appear on monday, afternoon ourtime probably.
I will compose something and post here and there later.
Briggs is on to this latest output from the troubled, feeble, and febrile brains of Lew and Mann, and a few others:
But he ain't finished yet:
To which one can only say 'good'.
More here: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=9800
Athelstan (1:42 AM):
Surely nobody thinks you spoiled the thread. I think my response to you was a bit naff, for what it's worth, because I wrote too fast, having thought for quite a while about what I wanted to say in response to Marion (2:39 PM yesterday) then having seen your post and not thought enough about it.
Mann and Loo have tried to hide behind the complexity factor of so many very different areas of science and indeed wider social debate. I think Bishop Hill is pretty remarkable in dealing both with detail (at times) and the wider sweep of what is being raised. I had no objection at all to what you said. All I would hope (and this has been said many times before) is that we avoid labelling every bad thing we see in the climate con as leftist. Not just because of our need to form a broad front including valued allies who self-identify as left, left-liberal or even left-libertarian. But because with the involvement of some of capitalism's finest in the wider con I don't think such narrow labeling helps us get near enough either to the truth or the most effective means of persuading others.
Of the comments published (so far?), only one seems to be even remotely favourable to their whines!
Adam Gallon - If that "positive comment" is the one I think it is, it's almost certainly classic spambait.
The poor spelling and content-free praise should give it away to anyone who spends any time moderating comments on a blog. I wonder how it passed moderation (he asks innocently)?
Richard, calling AGW a Leftist con is as you say, going too far, not helpful, but it does seem to be shot through with assumptions that those on the Left would feel quite comfortable with, notions of government solutions, even global government solutions to a problem which is necessarily the fault of capitalism. And as we look at the somewhat debatable science, never forget Lenin's axiom that truth is a bourgeois construct (ie why shouldn't I make up data/distort if it serves the cause which is necessarily good because I say so because I am anti-capitalist and therefore necessarily good/right?).
Here is the comment I posted at the APS website.
It is delightfully ironic that the author of papers labelling other people as conspiracy theorists should write this paranoid piece claiming that there is a "subterranean war on science".
Lewandowsky's paper was criticised because it was junk. Briefly, in order to find evidence to support his preconceived notion that climate sceptics were conspiracy theorists, Lewandowsky concocted a survey with such a transparent agenda (a sequence of questions on absurd conspiracy theories followed by questions on climate change) that any results coming out of it would have been meaningless. Worse still, the survey was only posted at activist blogs (referred to by Lewandowsky as "pro-science"). One of the blogs named did not post the survey at all, a basic factual error in the paper that has been drawn to the attention of authors and editors, to no avail. A link to the survey could easily have been placed in a comment on sceptic blogs, but this was not done, showing that the authors were not seriously interested in getting sceptics to take the survey.
When the errors were pointed out, the authors wrote a second paper, labelling those individuals who had dared to point out the flaws as conspiracy theorists - a gross violation of the ethical principles of the field. When this was pointed out to the editors of that journal, they pulled the paper.
Similarly with Mann's work - it was criticised by many of his own colleagues, as we know from the leaked emails. They described it as "sloppy", "dodgy", "suspect", and worse. It was Mann, not his critics, who violated statistical conventions (the so-called decentered PCA), and it was Mann and his colleagues who engaged in bullying and intimidation of journal editors who dared to publish any dissenting papers.
Re: Nov 3, 2013 at 6:56 PM | Richard Drake
Richard, I think we should be very concerned at any attempts to stifle debate lest we achieve voluntarily exactly that which Loo and Mann have set out to do in their paper.
It seems to me that the CAGW edifice is a direct result of attempts to provide a political figleaf for unpopular policies of 'world governance' (even as referred to in Van Rompuy's inauguration speech as EU president).
"In a November 2009 press conference, Van Rompuy related to global governance by stating: "2009 is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of a financial crisis; the climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet."[28] Van Rompuy referred to the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Van_Rompuy
Nor can we pretend that this is not a leftist trait.
We also need to distinguish between free market capitalism and the crony capitalism of 'Big Government'. It is the latter that has caused the major problems we are currently experiencing and so cannot be resolved by even bigger government!!
"What we have today is not the free market but “crony capitalism,” an altogether different matter. Government and business are in a predatory partnership that extracts wealth to its own benefit."
http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2013/09/the-american-economy-is-not-a-free-market-economy/
Indeed the good Bishop has himself highlighted multiple occurences of 'conflicts of interest' here in the UK, where business and government would appear to be in collusion, the solution to that would be less government, not more.
So I absolutely agree with Athelstan and would much prefer to read any counter arguments that may be proferred rather than a simple attempt to stymy discussion.
Re: Nov 4, 2013 at 11:52 AM | Paul Matthews
Excellent comment, Paul, thanks for publishing here.
And how refreshing to see it published against the article on the APS site.
If only the Guardian would follow suit and do similar with the comments they receive!
On the wisdom or otherwise of calling CAGW leftist, note I said I thought bill's contribution 'very well put' and he's replied that 'calling AGW a Leftist con is as you say, going too far, not helpful'. Nobody is trying to stifle debate but when such matters can be talked about so amicably I'm very happy.
In his travels recently Robin Guenier pointed some of us to a website from which he'd come across CAGW-believing people called therules.org. Have a look and ask yourself if such people are likely to want to self-identify as right-wing? Surely they ought to be concerned about the deceptive transfer of wealth from poor to rich that results from almost all climate policies? Or to reprise Bernard Donoughue on WUWT in May:
I fully agree with Marion about the role of crony capitalism in cahoots with 'Big Government'. But there we have a clear historical model to help us: fascism. Something that I'm sure therules.org supporters know that they're against. We can go with Jonah Goldberg in explaining that fascism was originally seen as of the Left but as we do we should be mindful that this wasn't the left of George Orwell and many others in the UK. I'm saying we need to qualify our use of Left, if we do use it. That's all. And that should inspire debate not stifle it.
Paul Matthews comment is up on the APS site now and Geoff Chambers' from Nov 1st too
Talking of debate, Jeremy Poynton commented back on Saturday at 6:31 PM:
Eugenics being a key link between the two forms of the revolutionary cults of the day, fascist and socialist.
But the UK Labour movement was bigger and indeed better than this, as Jeremy implies. It has been trying to find its roots ever since, I think one could fairly say. The desperately bad Ed Miliband-Climate Change Act episode doesn't have to be the end of the road on that.
Leopard: Yep, it seems the APS really did want the feedback. Good on them for that.
Nov 4, 2013 at 5:37 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake
Still not showing Warren Pearce's though
Poor old Warren! Martin Lack being persuaded by Jonathan Jones to back complete openness of climate data and code on Warren's thread is quite an achievement by the Nottingham man all the same.
Re: Nov 4, 2013 at 5:17 PM | Richard Drake
"We can go with Jonah Goldberg in explaining that fascism was originally seen as of the Left but as we do we should be mindful that this wasn't the left of George Orwell and many others in the UK. I'm saying we need to qualify our use of Left, if we do use it. That's all. And that should inspire debate not stifle it."
Oh, indeed I do go along with Johan Goldberg! And I certainly agree that definitions frequently get manipulated. It is always best to go back to source where possible rather than relying on updated accounts. In fact there is quite an apt discussion of Nazism as left wing in an Amazon review of Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism"
http://www.amazon.com/review/RR2OK3107J7JH/ref=cm_cr_rev_detaep2?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1V9LGT37B4F5L&cdMsgNo=2&cdPage=1&asin=B000W917ZG&store=digital-text&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx3D8N3SNLNCMST&cdMsgID=Mx20E3MQYMGNO7Z#Mx20E3MQYMGNO7Z
Posts on BH are seldom 'unhelpful' (unless from one of the resident trolls where the sole aim appears to be to derail), even where erroneous the responses to it tend to increase understanding.
Indeed I rarely find posts 'uninformative' in one way or another!
Jonathan Jones is also complaining at Warren Pearce's:
I only got involved in Warren's thread because I distrusted the moderation at the APS and saw a statement from Martin Lack that I thought was amusingly dim in the first comment. It's interesting the psychology of all that. Some people take the risk despite their lack of trust in the overarching blog management. I admire their persistence - but from a distance!
Of course it's always possible that the APS eds have been looking around the blogosphere and feeling increasingly isolated - before they opened the floodgates.
Or is that just my conspiracy ideation kicking in again?
It seems to be a very strange moderation process they have over there. Still no sign of the comments of TLITB, Warren Pearce, Jonathan Jones, Jeff Id, Barry Wood and, no doubt, many others. All very strange.
Foxgoose, I'd been wondering the same thing. Does that make us fellow ideationists? Or does it make us co-conspirators? I'm confused now. Buggered if I know.
Geoff Chamber's comment calling Lew a liar is still there - but others I'm sure I saw earlier have gone again.
Is Dr Evil messing with our minds?
@ foxgoose:
"Or is that just my conspiracy ideation kicking in again?"
Of course it is.
Really, foxgoose, you should know by now ('cos Dr Loo has told us so) that any comment we make is a function of "conspiracy ideation." :)
Geoff Chambers wrote, "Naughty Psy Science puts my comments with their specific accusations against the author up on my screen, but apparently not on yours, so I can go on believing that the world is is reading them, when in fact it’s only me."
Geoff, this is called "Shadow Banning" and it's been used against Free Choicers for years. The Augusta Chronicle has Shadow Banned me, as has Topix. It can be really nasty if you don't realize it: you could theoretically be posting your heart out for months and never know that it was invisible to the rest of the world. It was developed to be used against spammers, not to be used politically.
I describe its use in detail in the Censorship section of TobakkoNacht -- The Antismoking Endgame. It's one of the more cowardly weapons being brought into play to destroy the "level playing field" that those without funding to fight the mainstream can't achieve anywhere else. The New York Times is at least a bit more honest about their censorship: they simply try to avoid running comment sections on any of their smoking stories. Dunno how they handle the climate ones though... are you able to make comments to them usually?
- MJM
Interesting add-on to this in a post by Steve McIntyre -
"I’ve been mildly interested in Lewandowsky’s claims about people subscribing to contradictory beliefs at the same time, as for example, the following:
"While consistency is a hallmark of science, conspiracy theorists often subscribe to contradictory beliefs at the same time – for example, that MI6 killed Princess Diana, and that she also faked her own death." [Lewandowsky]
Lewandowsky’s assertions about Diana are based by an article by Wood et al. entitled “Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories....The most cursory examination of the data contradicted Lewandowsky’s claim. One can only presume that Lewandowsky did not carry out any due diligence of his own before making the above assertion.
A Subpopulation of Zero
Within the Wood dataset, only two (!) respondents purported to believe that Diana faked her own death. Neither of these two respondents also purported to believe that MI6 killed Princess Diana. The subpopulation of people that believed that Diana staged her own death and that MI6 killed her was precisely zero. "
http://climateaudit.org/2013/11/07/more-false-claims-from-lewandowsky/
Exactly the sort of pseudo-science we've come to expect from these people - the data simply didn't support their assertions, indeed in the case highlighted was the exact opposite!!