Bishop Hill More Lewdness
Apr 7, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Journals The Lewandowsky affair shows no signs of dying down. Following Frontiers' decision to kill off the 'Recursive Fury' paper once and for all, Lewandowsky has responded by setting out his thoughts in a post at his own blog.
In this version of events the original retraction notice was agreed between the legal teams of Frontiers and the authors (is it normal to get the lawyers involved for this kind of thing?) and Lewandowsky is highlighting discrepancies between what was said in that document and what Frontiers claimed in its subsequent clarification notice.
For starters he notes that the retraction notice said that the journal's investigation of the paper did not identify any ethical issues, contrasting this with the position in the clarification that the paper did not sufficiently protect the rights of the subjects - an apparent reference to Lewandowsky's decision to enable the subjects of his research to be identified against his cod diagnoses of their psychological disorders. His observations about the contradiction between the two documents appear reasonable and I conclude that one of the statements must be wrong. My money would be on the first.
His second point is that although the clarification said that there had been no legal threats against them, BH reader Foxgoose has said that he had in fact issued such a threat. However, its seems that there is less to this point than meets the eye. Foxgoose's threats against the journal resulted in the removal of the offending passage from the paper which was subsequently reissued. His actions can therefore have played no part in the ultimate decision to take down the paper.
Lewandowsky says that the only issues that were ever discussed were legal threats and that no concerns over the ethics were ever discussed. Unfortunately, unless someone publishes the correspondence between the two sides we will never be able to verify this.
It seems to me, however, that there are two questions in play here. Firstly, were there ethical problems with the paper and was the journal right to take it down? The answer seems to me to be "yes". Secondly, has Frontiers dealt with the issue well? At the moment there is a possibility that the answer is "no", but no doubt there is more to be said on this question. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that it was agreed by the lawyers that Lewandowsky would be able to save face by means of a "legal threats" formula but that the journal has now resiled from this agreement in some way.
But this is mere speculation. We will have to wait and see.
Reader Comments (48)
Re: your point about correspondence: One has to wonder if the lew legal team did not discuss several different possibilities, each of which would have somewhat different wording. They could then claim that the version 'agreed' to does not match what Frontiers is saying, because they floated several versions and the one they wanted most is not the way things went.
(is it normal to get the lawyers involved for this kind of thing?)
Well I think it would be a wise step for the journal to ask the author for their comments and their agreement to it, to forestall subsequent problems, including the possibility of the author coming back and saying that the announcement constituted a defamation.
Lew's text is meaningless without even a redacted verbatim of the agreement document to see. His obsession with secrecy is failing him again.
What I find interesting here is the extent to which Lew et al were involved in the year-long process. By his own admission, the original retraction statement was written as a collaborative effort between the journal and the authors and their lawyers - something that the journal did not make clear at the time, though I suggested the possibility in a comment at CA, or was it here.
In contrast, those who complained to the journal were not involved in the process at all after the initial complaints sent in a year ago. In fact, Frontiers have not even written to me to inform me of the outcome.
He's just had his ass handed to him and he's squirming.
Lew has more moves than a ruptured duck but I really do hope he sues Frontiers.
This could all turn out funnier than a barrel full of monkeys.
"but this is mere speculation - we will have to wait and see"
Why bother speculating or indeed waiting. The broader issue of AGW is inevitably shifting from "mitigation" , which is a manifest failure, towards "adaption", which is very much the "sceptical" position. The next fight will be over AR5 WGIII which will mirror the reception and content of WGII, I look forward to the inevitable leak. In any case Lewendowsky's Hypothesis that scepticism = paranoid ignorance is dead in the water and this current debate is an irrelevance about to be subsumed in the manoeuvres towards Paris 2015. To start speculating on and pursuing the correspondence between Lew and Frontiers is simply a waste of time and effort.
Legal agreements of this sort usually include clauses regarding what the parties are allowed to say about the affair.
Lew and his cohorts had quite a bit to say about the retraction so it is possible that they infringed the agreement and as a result the journal published its second statement.
I think that the statement from Frontiers will now be forcing the UWA to revisit the ethics approval process for the paper. SL can bluster as much as he wants but the circumstances have now moved on.
Up to now the University position has been that the paper underwent formal ethics approval, was identified as low risk and that SL is conducting legitimate research on scepticism. Frontiers will have needed to work on the basis that the paper underwent a legitimate ethics approval. However the use of qoutations from named people classified in the way it was done should have raised alarm bells and will result in push back.
The reality is that according to the documentation released to Simon Turnill via FOI we can observe that SL had a cavalier attitude to the ethics approval process and apparently spawned 3 different papers from one initial risk assessment. The assessment for the 3rd paper should have resulted in different answers which would have flagged the paper as much higher risk. Changes that should have been reflected included the need to identify and quote named people along with the use of different researchers from outside UWA. Each of the papers also used different research methods and protocols. In addition the Fury paper itself describes a conflict of interest and mitigating action that should have been reflected in the risk assessment and reviewed with ethics officials. SL has a professional resonsibilty to conduct a proper risk assessment and that he convinced the ethics officer to bypass the need for changes is still his responsibility.
Based on the released FOI the process for reviewing conflict of interest at UWA looks to be virtually non existent. SL and his co authors are widely regarded as political activists on the subject of climate change with an almost pathological hatred of their political opponents. They are perceived to have a huge conflict of interest which is a different one to the conflict mentioned in the paper. Until UWA recognise this they will continue to have problems.
Also it is clear from the FOI material that SL takes every opportunity to "poison the well" during emails conversations with UWA collegues. That includes promoting one of the "inaccuracies" addressed by the following statement. In using this kind of tactic SL also shows his lack of objectivity.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140312161035/http://theaimn.com/2014/03/12/an-apology-to-dr-david-evans/
Lew better be careful, although he may think his ‘king of the hill ‘ in practice he will find it hard to get journals to deal with him if they think that at the first sign of trouble, which given his difficulties with reality or more likely than not , he will throw them under the bus.
Climate ‘science’ lacks many things, honesty, integrate* and good scientific practice amongst others, but one thing it really has massive amounts of is ego of its prophets. Which means when they fall there will be serious levels of Schadenfreude, that day could not come soon enough.
[*integrity? BH]
His Grace:
"...cod diagnoses ..." = especially fishy?
But surely any possible "legal threats" were intrinsically linked to the "ethics".
If there was a substantive "legal threat" pertaining to the identification of individuals and the attribution of psychopathological traits to those people this was cleary an "ethical" issue.
clivere, the University and Lewandowsky's formal position is that there are no ethical issues with the paper. Note however, it is not that the paper underwent a formal ethics review. They actively prevented the ethics documentation from becoming public. From all available indications, the paper did not undergo a formal review.
Examine the Desmog FOI documents. Why would Readfearn, who never wrote anything much about the Fury affair other than the one time, request these documents? Note that Lewandowsky always applies his riders that he cannot assure the confidentiality of various documents arising from people complaining to him, if they were requested under FOI. But note, how the University wanted the Fury ethics documentation to be kept under wraps. So they are ok for everything else to be released except for the main body of evidence that would conclusively establish the ethics process of the paper is in their favour? Remember how Lewandowsky had contested the release of ethics documentation relating to the Moon Hoax paper, which had to be over-ruled for their release.
Although the ethics documentation for Fury was withheld from the original SImon Turnill FOI, Simon appealed aspects of the original decision and Lewandowsky's ethics documentation for Fury, slight as it is, was produced in a later tranche of documents which Simon obtained just prior to the filing of complaints by me and others. I had not had occasion to revisit these documents until relatively recently and thus was unaware of this documentation in the later release until recently. I plan to publish this documentation at CA today.
Which side in the climate debate has integrity ; alarmists or skeptics ?
..both sides would say arguments depend on evidence and for my question, it seems evidence points one way.
shub at this stage its worth remember ‘how’ the review of its ethical issues was done. By Lew telling the VP want to say, there simply was NO INVESTGATION, which is why their ducking and diving for all they are worth over producing the information produced during the alleged investigation. Make it up or having it made public that they lied neither of these options are good for the VP and the universities reputation. And at this stage you can only laugh .
Knr, absolutely. This was the first thing I wrote on seeing the draft version of the paper:
@skepticscience Where is the ethics approval for your recursive fury paper? Can't find any mention in paper draft @BarryJWoods @JoanneNova
This was March 6, 2013. If everything were to be laid out in the open now, unless what we currently know about the Fury ethics is drastically incomplete, there would be a gaping hole in the paper, and the university's case with respect to their formal processes for protection of human subjects.
The broader picture is very interesting: Lewandowsky imagines he's scrubbing names from his paper in order to protect the journal from legal threats. Not once does it strike him he should be doing it as a matter of ethics, and that the journal might be requesting it for protecting human subjects!
The latest Lew-blog is discussed at RetractionWatch. A comment from Neuroskeptic claims that CA and WUWT are not respected blogs 'even within the climate-skeptic sphere' :)
CA "not respected?" Wow.
I feel Neuroskeptic is going to need a rigorous internet poll from the likes of Cook and Lewandowsky to substantiate that claim.
Narcissists are NEVER wrong. Don't forget that. Anything they say is the truth, even if it contradicts what they have previously said. They are slippery, mendacious, and dangerous. I'd love to see Lewy downed.
"Lewandowsky says that the only issues that were ever discussed were legal threats and that no concerns over the ethics were ever discussed"
OK, but it's hard for me to imagine a scenario in which a paper with no ethical problems would invite discussions of legalities, along with attendant concerns about possible lawsuits....
My impression is that Frontiers contacted Dr.Lew at the first occasion and took his argument that they were just a bunch of deniers who believe in conspiracies, after all he's the academic, right?
But after more complaints arrived at the Frontiers office and they actually looked at them, it occurs to them that the case was completely different and it became clear that Dr.Lew had fooled them and scr3wed things up. So they had to make a 180 degrees turn.
So Lew wrote the findings of the investigation into his own ethics investigation, AND he wrote his own retraction notice. Good work.
Lots happening in the comments under the new Frontiers statement Steve Mcintyre, Lucia and myself join in, they were named in the paper) and a SkS fan turns up Barry Bickmore (who actually hosted the Moon Hoax survey..
my 'brief' thought's on the obvious ethics and conflicts of interests of the authors.
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Retraction_of_Recursive_Fury_A_Statement/812
In 2010 Lewandowsky organised John Cook to write a book called 'A skeptics guide to the Sceptics Handbook' as a counter to Jo Nova's a Sceptic Handbook. and organised students to hand it out at Anthony Watts/Jo Nova's lecture at the University. He even organised a counter event the same week.
I suppose it was only fair, as in 2009, Jo Nova handed out copies of the 'Sceptics Handbook' 7 months previously at a debate about climate science with Professor Lewandowsky on the panel.. (bitter opponents then? , absolutely)
Cook writes that Jo Nova and Anthony Watts are his direct opposition (Yale forum 6 weeks after the Moon survey) and as for Marriott - the Watching the Deniers blogger - one look at his website should be (and appears to be, because I sent links to Frontiers) should give any journal a very serious reason for concern, that the authors might be PERCEIVED as using the journal to go after critics/opposition.
MY point, Lewandowsky, Cook and Marriot, are just way to close to the subjects they are observing(and are publically atagonistic towards them), any reasonable person can see this, any journal can see this.
What is not amusing is perceptions that a climate activist professor is naming people in psychology papers, that they have had a long standing very public media battle with (a reader of the paper, would have no clue about this, as it appears that Lew is just an observer) Prior to that event he had slides labelling Jo Nova as a hyper emotional irrational conspiracy theorist.( misogyny as well? white male 50 something privileged Australian Professor).
He was pontificating in the media about sceptics being conspiracy theorists, linking to Aids denial, Princess Di's death, etc months before the survey, his own pet prejudices? and a little bit of confirmation bias, and surprise he goes ahead and 'proves' it, with a very dodgy anonymous online survey, (and he and UWA refuse to release the raw kwik survey data for the 'Mon Hoax' paper!) held at blogs that hate skeptics, where the intent was so obvious, that people comment - they did not think the hardcore denialists would fall for it......
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/#comment-44084
"These surveys are designed for an outcome, which as was apparent from the reply in first post, and thus in this case for either entertainment or wind-up, or a learning point on who ordered the survey for correct slotting. They’re so transparent." - 'Moon Hoax' surveyed blog comment
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/#comment-44097
"Yeah, those conspiracy theory questions were pretty funny, but does anyone think that hardcore deniers are going to be fooled by such a transparent attempt to paint them as paranoids?
Also, here are two words that, when put together, ought to make anyone critical of this research: “online” and “survey " - 'Moon Hoax' surveyed blog comment
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/survey-says/#comment-44061
"You missed the long series of questions about various conspiracy theories. Those were fun!
What makes it really fascinating is clearly Professor Lewandowsky and John Cook do not see this!
Get some neutral researchers to investigate the blogs, and I have participated in research myself, interviewed by the very 'warmist LSE, for a research project 3 hours of interview. A number of other UK sceptics were also interviewed), a tonnes of consent forms to sign, an absolute right to pull out and full transcripts to be provided.
The perception any neutral observer would get, I believe is Lewandowsky et al, are too involved to be perceived as neutral observers.
Barry - if I may add - John Cook authored the 2011 book "Climate Change Denial" with a Dr Haydn Washington (self-styled "environmental scientist, writer and activist"). In the Q&A for the book, Cook reported Washington as declaring Denial is a delusion that has become a pathology. No sign of any doubt about such a statement uttered by a person with no medical qualifications.
Since Recursive Fury is dated 2013, one wonders if Cook (another completely self-taught amateur in pretty much any scientific field he has been speaking in) was the right person to involve in a paper where the findings could be interpreted as medical diagnoses.
Thanks, Barry. That seems like a good summary of what I've read to date.
Michael Marriott (co author) is just an attack blogger called - Watching The deniers - (he also is an insider at Skeptical Science, writing rebuttals)
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/lewandowsky-dismisses-bloggers-but-they-are-his-research-team-who-is-mike-hubble-marriott/
http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/about/
About me
I’m Mike Marriott, a 40+ year old living in Melbourne. I work as an information manager for a large professional services firm. I have no affiliations with any political parties, NGOs or activist groups. My politics could be best described as “centre left” or “centrist” (I’m pro-market, but supportive of progressive social policies).
Have we got any experimental psychologists on this blog?
I would really like to know what their view on Lewandowsky's psychological disorders are.
Don Keiller: We used to have one, I think an elderly guy from the USA. Used to take the rise out of ZBD a lot. I forget his name now and haven't seen him post for many years now. Have wondered if old age has caught up with him.
Don Pablo de la Sierra has not been around for a while...:(
diogenes,
something we did offended him and he stomped off. Too bad, too. :( +1
I, too, miss Don Pablo's comments, but he posted a farewell note here a couple of years ago which did not suggest his departure had to do with age or illness. I think he was simply tired of the intractable nature of debates that seem to make no progress, IIRC.
Have we got any experimental psychologists on this blog?
I would really like to know what their view on Lewandowsky's psychological disorders are.
Apr 7, 2014 at 4:51 PM CommenterDon Keiller
====
Lewandowsky may very well have serious psychological disorders but I doubt that it would be revealed/discussed here.
Don Keiller no experimental psychologists needed, his an ars* with massive ego , or in other words a typical climate 'scientists' HTH
Still his students must have the easiest life going in trying to 'live up to his standards ' so its not all bad.
The motivation for Recursive Fury is evident.
All psychologists know the best defence is to accuse your opponents of being defensive.
I've posted these quotes already on CA. The first two are from Nuccitelli and the rest are from Lew in his response to the clarification from Frontiers.
It is the epitome of cheek for Lew to go from bitc-ing about threats of a lawsuit from the victims of his "psychopathological" analysis when it's now clear that he's been lawyered up for most of the past year pressuring Frontiers. The victims did not hire lawyers, to my knowledge. He did and now he's threatening Frontiers in public. From what I remember, all the subjects of the study that were slimed wrote private letters of protest. In the "contractually-agreed retraction statement" Frontiers never said they were threatened in those letters and in the clarification said unequivocally that they were not.
So now we know that Lew et al are the ones who've apparently been issuing "threats" all along. And the threats initially produced an agreement that Lew's acolytes (one of whom was an unqualified reviewer of the paper!) thought they could trash with impunity, e.g. Nuccitelli in the Guardian. The attacks obviously caused the agreement to be cancelled by Frontiers for non-compliance of some kind. Given the complete about-face in the clarification, they have definitely had more than they can handle and now they don't care anymore.
Who bank rolls this shizzola? Seriously. What is going on with this crap?
Diogenes, jferguson, skiphill: Indeed it was Don Pablo de la Sierra and apologies for forgetting his name. I missed the farewell note - thanks for the update and I am glad my fears are likely unfounded.
Do I recall correctly he was a behavioural psychologist?
thinkingscientist,
Don Pablo wrote that he was a behavioral psychologist. I believed him because he shared some insights which seemed familiar to me. I spent a year (1964) as a research assistant in a place run by behaviorists - a subset.
I wonder if there might be some way to entice him back. Maybe his Grace can email him.
I don't find it that surprising that someone would abandon a blog, although maybe not this one. I've pretty much given up on WUWT - too many idiots. Similar with Judith's - too many uninteresting repetitive comments - rehashing same poorly understood PsOV. I would give it to WUWT that a good technical post elicits good technical comments. If Don Pablo ever comments on any other sceptic blog, i haven't picked it up.
cheers,
jferguson,
It would be good to hear from Don Pablo again.
I have found WUWT of lower quality recently and tend to only follow the well written data driven stories, eg by Roy Spencer or Bob Tisdale. Willis Eschenbach also rather dominates and is very bombastic and can be rather high-handed.
I still lurk at Climate Audit - Steve McIntyre has done more to shine the light of truth on poor statistical practices and scientific reasoning than any other blogger. And he is so careful what he writes, very precise. A joy to watch him eviscerate Lewandowsky, who seems to be one of those people (like the SkS crowd) who are convinced of their own superiority and so lacking in self-awareness its almost funny reading their hastily written and inconsistent statements.
Not only does the Lewandowsky et al. approach to "uncertainty" (his most recent two papers) give them carte blanche to spend trillions of dollars in re-shaping the world to their preferences, but they have previously announced that they aim at .... "Shaping" .... "Tomorrow's" .... "World" .... (that is the very title of their blog):
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/
So what skeptic could possibly be sufficiently grandiose in "conspiracy ideation" to deal with people who have already announced their explicit intentions to (re-)shape the entire world?? Lewandowsky et al. have interfered to widely influence the very circumstances they purport to study objectively and scientifically.
[the following cross-posted with Climate Audit]:
A general point that I have not seen emphasized (I may have missed it): Lewandowsky et al. intervened pervasively in the materials of their "research" by first founding this blog with the grandiose title "Shaping Tomorrow's World".... They announce that they intend to shape (re-shape) the world, then pretending that they had not provoked the very critical responses they pretend to "study"....
Merely that title, never mind the many vitriolic and alarm-oriented screeds which they published there before and during their so-called research, propounds their comprehensive goal of.....
"shaping" ...... "tomorrow's" ....... "WORLD"
So first Lewandowsky, Cook, Skeptical Science moderators, et al. issue declarations of their intent to "shape" the very "world" in which we all live.
Then they attempt a study which is supposed to be scientific analyzing critical responses to their own grandiose pomposity.
Talk about injecting themselves and their ideas into their own subject of study, and then pretending to "research" the critical responses.
Another perspective on grandiose plans for "Shaping Tomorrow's World" --
a different example:
Karl Marx famously said, "“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."
("Theses on Feuerbach")
These words are even inscribed on his gravestone.
Now suppose that Marx or any of his followers had started railing against anyone who objected to their plan to "change" the world by publishing pseudo-scientific "research" in psychology journals etc. (well had such existed at that time...during most of the 19th century psychology was still treated pretty much as un-empirical philosophy)
Suppose such Marxist psychologists had raged that anyone who objected to their grandiose plans to "change" the world must be in the grip of "conspiracist ideation" with delusions of "nefarious intent" ... "unreflexive counterfactual thinking" .... "must be wrong" .... "nihilistic skepticism" .... "nothing by accident" .... etc.
My oh my, such Marxian psychologists would have a field day giving pseudo-psychological explanations for every form of intellectual and scientific criticism of their plans.
Even more Lewdness. Chief Specialty Editor of Frontiers journal resigns in protest http://bit.ly/1qod4JU (tweet from Scott Mandia).
And now Dr. Lewandowsky announces, "...we have destroyed all correspondence and documents involving the allegations against us at the request of Frontiers..."
He seem to be going off the rails in this most recent post at his blog.
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rfSpeech.html
Having just read Lewandowsky's post referred to by DGH, I can only say the guy is quite bizarre and, as DGH says, appears to be going off the rails.
That's an awful lot of lawyerly stuff going on. I have never seen a contract with a journal, let alone legal stuff going on in respect of papers being published (or retracted).
He is claiming (a) they have destroyed all documents and correspondence, at the request of Frontiers (really? why would a journal, or anyone else, request this? What does the FOI data retention policy of his employers have to say about this?) and (b) "our recollection of those events is minimal". Really? A convenient attack of amnesia and evidence removal before the facts adversely affect your career, perhaps?
Well, I am unsure about the criminal hack (anyone else recall the incident?) but vile commentary is vile commentary, whether public or private. Presumably if the KKK were to make vile racist statements in private, to allow them to have "open and completely uncensored discussion among a small group of collaborators", with no expectation they were going to be made public then that would be ok, would it? They would still be racist, whether those statements were made privately or publicly.
Nice rhetorical flourish, and implies only people clever like Lewandowsky can see the truth.
Quite frankly the man is a prize chump who is not as clever as he thinks he is.
Thinking...
Dr. Lew also implies, rather explicitly, that Anthiny Watts hacked the SKS private forum and then trolled the stolen pages for the malicious content. It's rather unlikely that Anthony hacked the site. Accordingly Dr. Lew's claim is both malicious and defamatory.
Talk about recursion!
Removed -posted in wrong thread.