A good day to bury bad science
May 7, 2015
Bishop Hill in Climate: Sceptics

The University of Bristol has a high tolerance for hoary old tosh, but you have to wonder if they have not been just a bit embarrassed by Stefan Lewandowsky, whose oeuvre could best be described as "Goebbels with graphs". How else do we explain the fact that they have elected to do the press release for the great man's latest psychological petard on the day of the general election? A good day to bury bad science?

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and colleagues from Harvard University and three institutions in Australia show how the language used by people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists’ discussion of the alleged recent ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ in global warming, and has thereby unwittingly reinforced a misleading message.

What insight! What erudition!

What a waste of money.

Update on May 7, 2015 by Registered CommenterBishop Hill

Observations about the UK election don't apply to this paper published today, which is written by two Americans, but it's just as bad as Lew's by the looks of it:

Environmental communication researchers have focused on the role of media frames in the formation of public opinion. Yet, little is known about how citizens incorporate such frames into everyday conversations. We address this issue by examining the stream of Twitter conversations about climate change over two years. We demonstrate that hoax frames that question the reality of climate change prevail in the US, particularly in “red states” compared to the UK, Canada, and Australia or “blue states” in the US. We also investigate the use of terms, “global warming” and “climate change.” We find that red states prefer “global warming” to “climate change” compared to blue states and “global warming” is particularly associated with hoax frames

 

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