Bishop Hill Exploring the fascist borderline
The Patterns in Physics affair has been exercising many in the climate blogosphere in recent days. I missed the initial furore as I was somewhat under the weather. My impression is that those involved in the journal left themselves open to criticism. It was inevitable that their every move would be scrutinised and a squeaky-clean approach should have been adopted. In some ways though, the affair just increases my general dissatisfaction with the peer review process as a whole. The papers that have appeared in the journal will stand or fall on their own merits rather than the identities or sympathies of the peer reviewers involved.
But I've voiced thoughts like this before.
Perhaps more interesting are the reactions to James Annan, who has identified himself as the person who initiated moves against the journal. Mutterings about eco-fascism have ensued. Similar thoughts have emerged in the wake of the decision of the Frozen River Film Festival in Minnesota to cancel a screening of Phelim Macaleer's Fracknation, apparently "after pressure from their partner film festival Mountain Film in Telluride and the Sundance Film Festival".
Does any of this amount to ecofascism? Private organisations can publish what they like of course, so is it wrong to make suggestions to a publisher about what they should and should not publish? And does it make a difference what those views are? So is it acceptable to suggest to a publisher that views you merely disagree with are disseminated? Is there an argument that trying to prevent publication of dissenting points of view on global warming or hydraulic fracking is simple ecofascism while trying to prevent dissemination of racist views is something different?
What do readers here think?
[I don't want the thread to head off into a discussion of particular extreme views. Could commenters please try to stick to environmental issues or refer to extreme or non-PC views, so we don't get diverted]
Reader Comments (81)
It is important to point out how silly the conclusion that the papers in the special issue "sheds doubt on the continued or even accelerated warming claimed by the IPCC project".
Very few of the papers even have anything to say about that. Nothing in those that do offers serious challenge to the enormous body of work examined by the IPCC.
So really, including that statement just offers a huge, flashing arrow pointing to the agenda of the authors.
This is about the publishing company protecting its own scientific reputation, surely? Being associated with "science" that bad just damages the reputation among people that might *publish* with Copernicus (like me), rather than those who will simply read the journals.
I'll bite :) I think there is a certain core "bien-pensant" thinking that currently has had its sway on some media and science publications for a while but may be now exposing its shortcomings lately by exposing their authoritarian ways. I think there is a huge lack of awareness by this core of how narrow minded and bigoted they are, and when scrutinised outside the climate bubble this disturbs most non-aligned people.
In a way their blundering censorship helps illustrate their flaws better than any critic could.
For instance, regarding the PRP, I personally came to that with no real knowledge, or caring either way, but was struck by the wording of the termination letter. The letter clearly gave a greater emphasis to that fact that a paper included a critical statement about the "IPCC project" and had felt it needed to say nothing more about the alleged "potential misconduct during the review process" as if the former was enough.
This indicates to me that merely announcing the quiet closure and explaining the mundane misconduct wouldn't have been enough, and this emphasis on making sure that its climate apostasy was highlighted and seen was to be the main message. I have hopes that such crude shaping of the debate will be increasingly seen by most people as disturbing and wrong.
Why choose to use the term 'fascism' and not simply 'censorship'? The latter would seem to be a more accurate and less incendiary label for discussion.
It has become well established that scientific progress is only ever possible when there is broad and unbreakable consensus. I was therefore bemused to witness such vehement disagreement between different factions of sceptics.
Leopard - the critical statement about the IPCC was basically unsupported by the content of the journal. Unsupported statements of whatever nature are frowned upon by reputable journals.
The scientific community blindly refused almost for a whole centurty to accept what we now consider extremely obvious evidence of complex life forms before the Cambrian.
Things haven't changed. Conformism before discovery. Doug's naively following the old saying, "it's all about reputation", as uttered in "White Men Can't Jump".
The trouble is, those words were uttered by the mafia.
Unsupported statements of whatever nature are frowned upon by reputable journals
Stand up comedy to ensue.
Doug, I remember the Marcott et al paper's conclusions being not supported by their data. Should we close down Nature?
@omnologos
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit
@Jan 22, 2014 at 10:11 AM | Unregistered CommenterDoug McNeall
Maybe true but that isn't what they said in their termination letter.
Saying one is"alarmed" by an "implication" is nothing like making a statement informing them exactly what it is they did that was "unsupported".
I.e. The letter is disingenuous and vague, to me this exposes some of the latent, knee-jerk authoritarianism behind their initial thinking.
Totalitarian ad-hoc reasoning like this is quite familiar when you have to stamp down on something in a hurry and in a public way ;)
Commenters
Is it ever acceptable to write to a publisher and ask them not to publish someone? Or someone who holds particular views?
@ Doug. The comment about the IPCC in the conclusion certainly appeared to be a stretch (to my eyes), and was clumsily worded to boot. Of course, if this had been peer reviewed (which the conclusion apparently wasn't *at all*), this might have been remedied.
Was closing down the journal the right thing to do? It seemed a little odd to me, but as Copernicus had got themselves into this mess they didn't have any good options left I suppose. Who has the power to have papers retracted? This would seem a more usual way of dealing with these issues.
The problem was the peer review process. The IPCC comment was a symptom of this main problem, not the problem in itself. In initially focusing on the IPCC rather than peer review in their closing down letter, Copernicus probably increased the amount of egg on their face. However, the outcome probably suited all the other interested parties....
[PS obscure output from a publisher wouldn't be far up my priorities when considering where to publish. The *journal* is the important variable. However if the EGU is the jewel in the crown of Copernicus, then they would presumably feel motivated to act if the former's members lobbied about PRP. ]
The entire affair is an effort to intimidate which is good, in a way, because it shows that those that dissent are more in number than the "consensus" claims and that what they have to say is of sufficient merit to be influential if allowed to be made public, no matter how small the venue. In other words, they can't be ignored on merit so they must be silenced.
Anyway, the authors of this paper were surprisingly naive. Unpopular papers should always written defensively or they are torpedoed. It's the 101 of academic/scientific publishing. Those of us that regularly read journals know that the most idiotic papers are always those the fit the fashionable paradigm (no matter the field). Rigor is generally only required when the research challenges what's established. It's not even a conspiracy, just the mediocrity of humanity.
@Andrew
Surely a more germane question is "Is it acceptable to write to a publisher, and point out that the quality of their journal is poor?". I imagine most of your readership would say "yes".
Doug, in his post, James Annan provides no reasons for his actions. All he has to say is "problems" with the journal were brought to his attention by Thingsbreak, an IPCC/climate orthodoxy supporting blogger. Secondly, Annan is clearly pleased with the shutdown of the journal.
So, the question is, what exactly did Annan write to his various colleagues?
Brute
"It's not even a conspiracy, just the mediocrity of humanity."
That may need to be quote of the day.
Doug
Yes, that seems fair. However, in the PiP affair, the correct approach would have been for Copernicus to have a word in the ear of the editorial board and tell them to get their peer review up to scratch, not to close it.
Do we know why they closed it?
Mistakes on all parts.
The editors should have known that a journal stands or falls with its first issues. They should have invited excellent and relevant papers that would set the tone. Starting with a special issue is just bad.
The special issue editors should have known that their stuff is controversial. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and care.
Copernicus is not the publisher. It is only the printer.
Acting as a printer, Copernicus did not mentor the editors to prevent the above mistakes.
Acting as a publisher, Copernicus did take exception with the quality of the special issue. Acting as an activist, Copernicus took exception with the contents.
But then, because they really are the printer, Copernicus had no editorial control so they only could distance themselves.
Bishop,
"Acceptable" is every bit as problematic a word as "unacceptable". Both are context and culturally sensitive and in this arena have no useful meaning, so let's leave them out.
A private publisher is totally entitled to print whatever it likes, or not. If we applied your criteria universally would we have entertaining (to some) trash like "Dolly", "Nexus", "Playboy" etc. ad nauseam banished?
If it's your party, you call the shots. However, the initial stated "reason" for the publisher's decision was quite revealing.
I doubt that James Annan has read the papers. Therefore, how can he support them being spiked?
Doug - you have completely misunderstood my point. It wasn't about any "Galileo gambit". It was about the push for conformism, aka reputation, aka mafia-style executions.
The mafia-style of peer-review control, from Jones to Annan, sees that journals are killed, journal editorship careers are killed (see Wagner), scientific "official" publishing careers are killed (see McIntyre). You know it, I know it, every young scientist knows it.
In the preCambrian case, at least two scientific careers got killed in the process.
Darwin was right to marry rich and remain independent. Imagine if his projects were to be approved by the Authorities of his time, including, erm, the Church...
I think that the main reason a person would have a paper rescinded or a journal cancelled would be because they believed that just by publishing it would start to spread "untruths".
That's the state climate science is in. Anything published is Holy verse.
Personally I think the special issue should have stood. But then the review rules weren't followed so maybe not. It doesn't seem to matter that the reviewers comments could be published or that the journals review guidelines are crap. it doesn't matter if someone knows you, they can still review objectively provided there is a clear process. I currently work with aircraft flight systems and DO-178B. My colleagues review my work. Airplanes are flying because friends review each others work.
What counts is a clear and transparent process to verify the work, not necessarily who does it. It just needs to be independent. As in you don't sign off your own stuff.
Bishop Hill asked:
Yes. It is fine by me if complainants want to make themselves look petty and dictatorial.
I wrote to a publisher and said due you really want this ethically challenged paper in your journal, where the authors have vested interests in attacking people they actually name in the paper, and have publically attacked people prior, during and after the paper was being 'researched'..
I also was personally involved in this one as:
I was named in the paper, yet whilst the authors were researching, they had written public blog article attacking me (and Anthony Watts) and even interacted with me on their own blog (and this was psychology)
Others on this website also wrote to them (but I think my phone call explaining ethics finally made them see the ethics mess they were in, let alone the factual errors)
The paper disappeared in March 2013, and is still in limbo
I can't wait to read Doug's letter to the Royal Society explaining what kind of pseudoscience they are supporting with Lew.
Really, I can't.
right to raise concerns, journal handled it very badly.
Question to all here, including Doug and Warren, was I (and all the other that complained, and were named in the paper) right to complain about -'Recursive Fury' - Frontiers..
a comment at Retraction Watch put the reasoning more eloquently.
"This may be one of a tiny handful of cases in which a journal might be justified in erasing, rather than withdrawing, an article. The circumstances here are almost unique.
The lead author is a psychologist. He reports that he has recorded and analyzed the responses of a number of people to a particular event. On the basis of that analysis, he draws certain professional conclusions about the psychological and cognitive status of his subjects. He writes up his data, analysis, and conclusions and submits them for publication. Whether he did so well or badly, this is simply the paradigm of academic psychology. Forget climate politics. Forget “provocative” titles. Don’t even worry about whether this is good science or not. Measure it only against the professional obligations implied by the paradigm.
First, the senior author has an extraordinary conflict of interest. The behavior under study is precisely public criticism of the author’s professional competence. Psychology in particular has a deep concern with the distortions caused by even relatively trivial conflicts of interest.
Second, it is probably safe to assume that Prof. Lewandowsky did not write his Psych. Sci. paper simply to create the experimental conditions for the Frontiers paper. Still, negative reactions to the Psych. Sci. paper were entirely predictable. This was not a “natural” event. On the contrary, the experimental set-up (the contents and release of the then-unpublished Psych. Sci. paper) was completely under the author’s control. Thus Prof. Lewandowsky created, controlled, conducted, analyzed, and published a psychological experiment without any disclosures to, or consent from, the subjects.
Third, regardless of whether consent was required for the experiment, the authors published individually identifiable information about, and analysis of, the mental health and cognitive status of their subjects. This is not simply bloggish, lay opinion. This is, mind you, published as objectively determined, scientifically verified, analysis by professional psychologists for publication in a professional journal — concerning named individuals who were not willing subjects and did not consent to participation in a study, or to the release of personal mental status information.
Fourth, some of the information then turned out to be wrong.
Perhaps, despite appearances, this is all ethically acceptable in psychology. But, if not, Frontiers has a hard choice. They really shouldn’t proceed to publication. It’s an ethical minefield. But retraction or withdrawal, with detailed explanations, would look like an attempt to cast blame on the authors or others — and might make things worse. Having gotten this far into the process, duck and cover may be the best, and perhaps even the most ethical, choice among rotten alternatives." - Toby White
http://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/28/why-publishers-should-explain-why-papers-disappear-the-complicated-lewandowsky-study-saga/#comment-52861
and for the record, UWA saw absolutely nothing wrong with this........
Nice rhetorical technique from @omnologos there: create an impossible expectation* for the person you are arguing against, and them call them out for not doing it.
*If it wasn't the Royal Society, it could be a number of other things.
"under the weather"
Hope it's just weather, Bish.. :-)
The reputation of a journal depends on the quality of the papers that it publishes. This means that it publishes papers written by the perceived elite and the content meets the approval of those who constitute the consensus.
Sadly, none of this has anything to do with science. It is a control strategy aimed at promoting the beliefs of the high priests and keeping out the dissenters who may have other views.
At the other extreme, no journal would wish to be associated with papers produced by cranks and those who present flawed science. However this argument should not be used to suppress genuine but unwelcome contributions to the debate. In my view, scientific progress is often advanced by the introduction of different views and novel perspectives and that should be a major function of any scientific journal.
Climate science, yet again, shows itself to be more concerned with maintaining its CAGW message than debating the factors that may actually influence our climate.
@Barry Woods Of course you are right to complain about the Frontiers paper if you think it is unethical. I am increasingly interested in online research ethics so will be returning to this issue at some point, but I confess I have not pored over that paper enough to provide an informed comment here (sorry). I am a bit surprised it's still in limbo. What would be the practical difference between retraction and 'erasing'?
As I'm sure you know 'unethical research' is part of CoPE's retraction guidelines. Faulty peer review practices are not listed, which perhaps shows how PRP is an unusual case. One could argue that the PRP reviewing practices were unethical, but don't think that's the same as unethical research. The problem comes back to Copernicus - why did they let a journal be launched by an editor with a paltry publication record?
Doug
I agree in practical terms with that last comment though Maurizio is making a reasonable theoretical point. Sauce for the goose ..
On the substantive question ...
Having spent a fair amount of the morning following the links on this, to WUWT and comments and elsewhere, it would certainly appear that, as Watts put it, the authors signed up for the sandpit and then complained when they were called out for breaking the rules.
My own layman's view is that "peer review" has been well and truly corrupted by the climate science community who saw nothing wrong in reviewing each others' work largely because, as several people have made clear, the community is a small one. To dispute that most of the leading lights in climatology have used it as a justification to diss anything they don't like is not to have been living in the real world for the last decade. I'm not even sure that in the age of the internet, peer review is even relevant any more. There are plenty of people well-qualified in the disciplines needed to judge the worth of a paper on this site alone, for a start to make the formal review unnecessary.
Though it does give the usual suspects the opportunity to bleat "but it's been peer-reviewed" or "but it hadn't been peer-reviewed".
The argument that one of the problems with this paper was that the reviewers were "known sceptics" is breathtaking! When the "pro" side do it, it's OK but when the "anti" side do it, it isn't. Have I got that right?
I agree that two wrongs don't make a right and it is essential that those people who are quick enough to criticise the professional climatologists for sharp practice need to be doubly certain of their own probity but the hypocrisy being demonstrated in this episode is nauseating.
Maybe there's a gap in the market for a publication "Pattern Recognition in Publishing"?
It is obvious that Doug's "Unsupported statements of whatever nature are frowned upon by reputable journals" wasn't empty rhetoric.
Or maybe it isn't.
Well I'm reminded of Michael Moores reported (by him) difficulties in publishing and promoting critiques of Bushbaby and his Iraq adventure so it is not exclusively a lefty-greeny thing. Clearly quite a lot of people like to brook no dissent - justified by their own warped perception of the greater good, mob-rule, political correctness or even as a threat to a lucrative income stream. Witness too the intense flack from smug faux patriots that the guardian received just for trying to (correctly imo) expose the dirty tricks of the NSA and GCHQ. Other good examples of intolerance to published criticism that i could mention involve religion (which is always out of the bounds of reasonable discussion) so I self-censor.
In all seriousness, not one member of the RS has seen fit to protest against the support given to Lew's pseudoscience and pseudoethics.Not one professional scientist in the whole of the UK, or Australia. Not one "reputable" journal editorial board, not one student, lecturer, visiting professor at any University. Not Doug.
We know why, for those that should have an interest in keeping the fields of climate science and psychology clean from unsupported statements. Their careers would be killed on the spot (anybody said a peep about the Tyndall Centre's unsupported we-are-all-going-to-die conference? Nobody at all).
Copernicus has simply caved in to the white-gloved mafia that pushes people to change field and sometimes continent, or to leave research completely. The only amazing thing is that discoveries are made at all. One real funeral at a time, as the saying goes.
"[I don't want the thread to head off into a discussion of particular extreme views. Could commenters please try to stick to environmental issues or refer to extreme or non-PC views, so we don't get diverted]"
This of course is also censor intolerance along the lines of 'I don't want to hear things that I don't want to hear'. Alas censorship is a tightrope.
@warren
Morner has a publication record. The problems however are as listed by Tol.
I'm with omnologos. Brandon's recent posts are utterly devastating to the bad science perpetrated by Lewandowsky.
It is very disappointing that sceprics are at the throat of sceptics and worse still that 'magasines' still bow to the pressure of the consensus team.
The most worrying thing to me is that, according to James Annan's blog, it took just 24 hours from his first taking action to the closure of the journal. Inadequate time for anything other than bullying and threats, and certainly no mature consideration by anybody.
Stephen Richards
I don't have a problem with sceptics disagreeing. The problem I have is with the six-foot thick, barbed-wire-topped wall with the electrified fence that the climatologists use to keep their cult members in and anyone applying their critical faculties out.
If anyone cares to use the tactics that the cultists use when publishing a paper then they deserve to get slapped down. I am less concerned about that than about the quiet censorship that exists on some (sceptical) sites whenever anyone suggests that certain aspects of the science might be open to question.
Consensus is not healthy whichever side of the fence you're sitting on.
It is vaguely fascist as those putting pressure on the journal tend to mainly be those funded by state extortion.
@Warren
The editor acts on behalf of the publisher and can always be overruled by the publisher.
Copernicus, however, is not the publisher of this journal.
Copernicus does publish other journals.
This is muddled. They have no editorial control over a journal that nonetheless could damage their publisher's brand.
I'm nonplussed by the PrP chaos. The journal can go somewhere else and no article has been rejected. Expect more hit-and-runs in scientific publishing.
Peer review died when McI and McK were blocked by Nature. Reasonable well grounded scientific climate skepticism has prospered since and without gatekeepers.
Annan is like the cavalry wrecking havoc in the enemy's field camp not noticing the machine guns are being pointed at them.
Barry,
Question to all here, including Doug and Warren, was I (and all the other that complained, and were named in the paper) right to complain about -'Recursive Fury' - Frontiers..
I don't know if you were 'right' in the sense that your complaints were justified as I haven't followed the arguments over Lew's paper, but I certainly have no problem with you complaining if you felt the paper shouldn't have been published.
Richard Tols comment puzzles me. Normally, the publisher stands by the editor in these sorts of situations. The editor is usually appointed by the publisher so to admit he's an idiot is not the preferred strategy. Why in this case is Copernicus only the printer and not the publisher? Why does (presumably) an on-line open access journal need to be printed? Open-access publishers don't get money from selling their wares in the market place, they get 'funding'. Where does Copernicus's 'funding' come from? Surely not from some chums of the IPCC - say it ain't so, Joe!
Some commenters here are stating as if a fact that reviewing rules were broken or not followed. This is disputed by the authors of the papers, who have pointed out that the reviewers were competent people with relevant scientific backgrounds.
All we've heard so far from the publishers is innuendo, nothing specific.
Borderline, because there are 2 different countries : Warmistland and SkepticREALITYland and 2 different sets of laws apply.
warmistland : "By any means necessary" laws apply; anything that promotes the cause is acceptable .. so there are lots of free passes
Anyone mentioned the ursus-bogus Polar bear picture being used again recently ? again.
eg. On BBC & aunty media Climate Scientists must be patsied rather than challenged, cos they are speaking known truth.
- Skepticland must abide by all laws PLUS
eg. - banned from media
- banned from open science publishing
- banned from forums/debates
- banned from accepting all funding. Warmists can take oil money, but skeptics can't They certainly can't have tax money, whereas EU dtirectly funds eco-lobbyers.
- exempted from laws of been named called/defamed
- there are more I am sure
Oh yes when it comes to this journal event, all that needed to happen was DUE PROCESS should have taken place,
- but skeptics are exempt from due process in a negative way . Whereas in journal laws alarmists again get free passes
BH (10:25 AM): JoNova has also followed this, to which I made comment. While I retain reservations at the implications for free speech, after more careful perusal of the situation, I am inclined to side with you, here.
In a similar vein, the Graun is being particularly censorious.
Here is my original [sic?] comment:
I can accept the final paragraph is somewhat aggressive, so resubmitted without it, to no avail.I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it Voltaire?
This shoild apply to Entropic Man, Chandra and others who post here. BB was an exception as he asked the question.
Is it ever acceptable to write to a publisher and ask them not to publish someone? Or
someone who holds particular views?
Seems to me an individual can do what he likes. Why a publisher would want to take any notice is a different matter.