Bishop Hill Lewandowsky and Cook in spectacular carcrash
Mar 21, 2013 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other There has been great hilarity overnight, with Stefan Lewandowsky and Skeptical Science's John Cook making complete fools of themselves again.
It started when Barry Woods was examining the supplementary data to Lewandowsky's latest paper, the one that analysed sceptic reactions to his previous carcrash paper on various blogs and tried to present these as evidence of "conspiracy ideation". Among the comments categorised as "Espousing Conspiracy Theory" was this one:
The thing I don't understand is, why didn't they just make a post on sceptic blogs themselves, rather than approaching blog owners. They could have posted as a Discussion topic here at Bishop Hill without even asking the host, and I very much doubt that the Bish would have removed it. Climate Audit also has very light-touch moderation and I doubt whether Steve McIntyre would have removed such an unsolicited post. Same probably goes for many of the sceptic blogs, in my experience. So it does appear to that they didn't try very hard to solicit views from the climate sceptic community.
Unfortunately, this was written by Richard Betts, the very mainstream head of climate impacts at the Met Office. Oh dear.
Richard seems somewhat taken aback, quizzing Skeptical Science's John Cook, a coauthor on the paper:
Hi @skepticscience, why was my comment here http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/8/31/lewandowskys-data.html … "espousing conspiracy theory"?! That's just crazy. http://www.frontiersin.org/personality_science_and_individual_differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/abstract …
Cook, a winner of the Eureka award for advancing climate change knowledge, offered this hilarious response, pretending that a comment that had been categorised by him and his coauthors was "raw data":
@richardabetts supplementary data for Recursive Fury are any comments *related* to particular theory. It's raw data, not final paper.
The Universities of Western Australia and Queensland must be very proud.
The final word should go to Richard:
@wattsupwiththat @lucialiljegren @aDissentient Here http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/8/31/lewandowskys-data.html … at Aug 31, 2012 at 9:00 PM. Lewandowsky et al clearly deluded!
Bishop Hill
Further interesting discussion at Geoff Chambers' blog.
Reader Comments (82)
"It's raw data, not final paper."
Confirmation bias, anyone? Raw data if it is unsupportive, and to be deleted, finished data if it is supportive.
What a show.
Is not revelation of the names of real people used in a study considered an ethics violation in his field? He certainly seems to be publicly diagnosing them.
I second Bob Koss's question. And I find the conspiracy of 'Paper isn't going to be published' quite ironic since, as far as I know, the Moon Landing paper never was!
Why would anyone make up conspiracy theories when the conspiracies we know of are so pathetic*? Far more damaging to climate "science" is the idiocy, folly and the individual petty acts of dishonesty that we know of. Indeed in many cases the CRU leaks indicate that far from conspiracy with malfeasance the climate alarmists acted like schoolgirls. They often bickered and sniped to each other or behind one another's backs.
* It is hard to call me a crank for saying that there was a conspiracy to delete emails subject to a FOI request when the author of further emails that constitute this mean little plot admits to having written them. We know Lewandowsky has been dishonest in his quoting before, but it would be deeply ironic if he were to twist this.
Paul Matthews
I don’t know the psychological term, but the political term is totalitarianism, as described so well by Orwell in “1984”.Assuming that Cook and Lewandowsky are stupid or psychologically “touched” in some way is the easy way out. They feel themelves immune to criticism, protected by - what exactly? The peer review system? Academic respectability? The 97% consensus? The left-wing media? The climate science mafia?
The reason why I devoted a whole article to five comments by two professors and a university official on an obscure blog was to demonstrate that it’s not just Lew and Cook. People with scientific reputations to protect are quite happy to make absurd, mendacious claims publicly on the blog of a serious academic publisher, secure in the knowledge that their academic reputations won’t suffer. How can this happen?
Lew’s paper has been publicly shredded, not just here, but on a public blog of the University of West Australia, and on the public blog of the publisher of the paper. Result - zero.
This immunity to evidence, to rational thought, to elementary intellectual justice if you like, is something which has been encountered time after time, in the science, the political decision-making, and the media coverage.
Only an idiot would think it’s a conspiracy. It’s something much more interesting, which neither we nor “the other side” - the keepers of the Holy Hotwaterbottle of Warmism - understand. Our advantage is that we intend to find out.
Geoff: I don't think it's totalitarianism - not yet - but it is tenure. And the result of the shredding of his earlier paper (thanks to you, Leopard and others immensely) seems to have been greater than zero in that it hasn't been able to be published.
About twelve years ago I suggested that we should talk more in terms of conspiracy density than a binary yes-or-no it-exist-or-it-doesn't (big) Conspiracy. Some organisations, like the Stasi, have actively boasted that they are a conspiracy. But (I say) some of what goes on within them is not conspiratorial. They have a high conspiracy density. Healthy organisations in a democracy have a low conspiracy density - but it's never zero. It's another way to frame these things. Having said which, I'm not convinced Lew and his circle are so low on the spectrum than their obsession with the subject might suggest they want us to feel.
Mar 21, 2013 at 8:10 PM | geoffchambers
I think they are immune really. They have their bubble. I think the only approach that could possibly have any traction would be the Sokal one where they are led and encouraged to make such a big fool of themselves that no amount of academic wallpaper could cover it. And yes that basically means ridiculing them and if some don't want to see them as funny - ha! ha! - at least show how funny peculiar they are ;)
Trouble is I think only a small group of people really notice this level of academic inadequacy at the moment, and this leads me to think that currently this low level of skill must be pretty common throughout the social science academic sphere.
@Richard Drake
Your quote:
" ... in that it hasn't been able to be published"
Sorry, Richard, but that is completely irrelevant
Lewandosky et al have been all over the populist "meeja" in Aus. That the paper is unable to be published because it's pure spiteful bunkum is NOT all over the said meeja
The warmista know their greatest achievement is to convince a majority (bare) of the populace that we have a climatic crisis. To do that required willing help from the meeja over several decades. So Lewandosky et al are safe from public scorn. NOT publishing some paper is completely irrelevant to this
Leopard
Lew and Cook have already fallen into a Sokal style trap. See
xhttp://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/lews-crews-loose-screws-by-brad-keyes/
But, as you say, “only a small group of people really notice this level of academic inadequacy at the moment”. Attributing this to the “low level of skill” in the social science academic sphere is like Philip Bratby’s comment on my blog about the dumbing down of modern academia. It states, but it doesn’t explain.
As you know, this story has got traction because a small number of us - Barry Woods, Foxgoose, Brandon Shollenberger, Joanna Nova and others - have worked hard at it. Thanks to the Bish, Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre, this story has reached ten times, a hundred times more people than before. But where has it got us? The University, the academic publishers, Lewandowsky’s peers, are absolutely impervious to criticism. It’s shrugged off, just as the BBC could shrug off the criticism of 28Gate, or UEA could shrug off Climategate, Or Mann and co can shrug off practically anything. This doesn’t happen on any subject other than climate. It’s the magic shield against criticism. Why?
gc @ 8:10 PM: 'much more interesting'. True dat. Neither side understands, even truer. The difference, as you so eloquently point out, is curiosity.
===================
Geoff, I can see why it is disheartening. But, there is a lag between what happens in the esoterica and the real world. In the real world, voters are steadily less enthused about climate catastrophism. It is a slow process of osmosis through many filters. Take courage from the fact that the trend has constantly been in the same direction.
Johanna: very well said. The lag can go both ways, of course. The Thule Group in Munich in 1919 didn't look like they were going to influence much - the tragedy being that nothing like enough critical light was shed on such esoterica and their obsessions from the wider culture. Geoff spotted something in Lewandowsky of real concern and, to my mind, worked wonders. And you have looked out wider and seen the writing on the wall. Not that anything is set in stone, not just yet.
@ Buffy et all, Irony is a many faceted thing, not all of us have 110% perception to the style of every person commenting, I do so apologise for appearing dim and or lacking in humour. (sarc)
I think John Cook is probably a genius.
He already has a stronger publication record than Wittgenstein....
I note without comment that Cook and Lewspew have a new post at SkS Iit's written in first-person and seems to be really from Cook, but both names appear with title):
Cook and Lewandowsky at SkS
I see Professor Richard Betts has his uses :)
Bish
Will you allow me to repost this comment I just made at the Tomorrow Belongs to Lew blog, pursuing my complaint against them (just in case it doesn't survive there).
Leopard in the Basement:
"pungent"? You're too kind! :-)
steveta_uk:
I respectfully disagree.
The possibility that he was referring specifically to Doug Cotton did occur to me—but I excluded it (to my own satisfaction) before publishing my comment.
First of all, you yourself are grossly unjust to accuse Lewandowsky of being “quite clear” on this or any other topic! ;-) He writes and speaks the easy, sleazy weaselese of the lifelong academic mediocrity. Ultimately we may never know beyond all doubt what answer, if any, Lewandowsky had in mind to the question, “engagement with whom? Whom am I talking about, exactly?” After all, an “intellectual” like Lewandowsky is in the business of being as explicit as absolutely necessary and not one bit more. To be clear and committal is to be falsifiable, and why on earth would an “intellectual” want to risk being proven wrong? What do you think he is—some sort of scientist?
LOL :-)
Second, as far as I can tell he never deigned to mention Doug Cotton, by name or even by pronoun. (If his comment was meant to be so narrowly construed, he should have said so—I’m not going to lose any sleep over the possibility that he was being careless and lazy.) The reasonable reader can only be left with the conclusion that Lewandowsky means “engagement [with them].”
Thirdly, the next comment by Lewandowsky on the same topic reinforces that conclusion:
In a third comment on the same page, Lewandowsky yet again passes up the opportunity to be specific:
Fourthly, follow Lewandowsky's spoor to “the pro and con arguments about engagement” and you'll find an article about engagement with skeptics/deniers which, yet again, makes no mention of Doug Cotton.
Fifthly, Lewandowsky does not engage with skeptics/deniers.
That’s the empirical reality, steveta. As you know.
Foxgoose—
that letter is a thing of beauty. A lot of people are silently thanking you.
It's serotonin though ;-p
Damn!
I suppose I can forget my application to join the Institute of Climate Psychology now.
foxgoose:
Don't get me wrong—I didn't mean to suggest Lewandowsky would know the difference. :-)
Seriously though—as I may have mentioned before—one member of the Institute of Climate Psychology I'd actually brake for is Dan Kahan, the Yale prof who's most notorious for demonstrating that lay deniers are every bit as scientifically-savvy as lay believers. Regardless of the fact that he's on the other "side," Kahan is a top bloke and a conscientious objector to 'punitive psychology.' I reckon you could do worse than getting his counsel in l'affaire recursive. If the blog section of culturalcognition.net doesn't afford you an overture for correspondence, I'd be happy to write to him.
Since the authors of Recursive Fury seem to read this blog, here's what I think they need to have regard to:
They have taken a range of valid opinions and collapsed them into essentially two: the orthodox, or approved opinion, as adopted by themselves and their allies, and the "denier" position, which is that adopted by anyone who disagrees with them. Instead of a range of opinions, there is now "right" or "wrong."
The first point to note about this is that it assumes infallibility on the part of the researcher to "deny" the possibility that *their* position might be the wrong one.
Secondly, it means that holders of perfectly respectable opinions are lumped into an "outgroup", which are labelled as "deniers" of plain fact.
The fury seems to exist in the minds of these two researchers. My theory of how such fury might develop is this:
Researchers develop certainty about some debatable feature of the Universe
Researchers are at first bemused that others hold other opinions
Researchers try to persuade the others to their view
Researchers fail to persuade the others
Researchers become increasingly angry - at the failure of others to see the light in part, but psychologically at themselves for their failure to "press the right button."
Researchers' efforts become ever more irrational - they lose sight of objectivity in an increasingly desperate push to "nail" the opposing voices and finally silence them - leading to errors of judgement in experimental design, analysis, etc
Researchers' certainty on this matter is by now walled off from normal thought and consideration - it becomes part of their identity, and as such it would now be impossible to change their minds even if overwhelming evidence was brought to bear. Opponents who query the evidence base of their work are not listened to.
I think this is plausible. We all have to pay heed to the way our opinions "firm up," and the way we deal with those who disagree with us.
Finally my advice to the authors in question would be to work on something on which they DON'T already have a strong opinion. I think papers on psychology work best this way.
jorge,
As for sara's comment, at first glance I almost thought it wasn't sarcasm for the reason you mention. Reading again, I thought it became clearer.
I agree that it can be hard to tell when one considers some of the stuff that gets said. I'm still amazed at what comes out of Lewandowsky's mouth.
Hmmm. Using pseudo-science to prove a mental disorder. Where have I heard that before?
I hope you guys all realise these comments are being harvested for 'Recursive Fury III: Third Time Lucky'.
I hope you guys all realise these comments are being harvested for 'Recursive Fury III: Third Time Lucky'.
Hell, yah!
Anybody can play this game.
Yeah, Joseph Stalin's really for it next time.
Re Jit
Pretty good explanation.
Much better than theirs anyway.
You need a title: I humbly suggest 'The Impotence of Certainty- Disappearing Up Your Own Arse by Infinitely Regressed Research '
Went over to SS to look at Cook's latest. He uses "scholarly" as though he knew what it meant.
Puke.
Yes Jit, but why do you call them 'reserachers'? Absolutely nothing in their endeavor suggests any wish to resarch anyting nor any curiosity about the nature of things. and they both failed already before your first point:
Neither of them possesses any real knowledge or understanding of their chosen topic for their posturing: the climate, what governes it and what changes it and makes it vary the way it does.
JonasN
I think, following Geoff Cruikshank, he meant to type “*rsereachers”.As an official representative of the Alumni of Adelaide University I contacted the UWA and my enquiry wasn't even acknowledged. I have since forwarded all relevant emails to the Independent Commission against Corruption.
They say explicitly that they expect other researchers to rely upon the "data" in their SI in future studies, but by presenting quotations ripped from all original context and nestled into the classification scheme of their SI,
http://upboardresult2014x.in/
the "Recursive Fury" authors have greatly misled any readers of their study and any future researchers who mistake what Lewandowsky et al. have presented as "raw data" -- for instance, any future researcher who accepts the scheme as presented, absent independent information, would take the Richard Betts quote as something intended to substantiate a conspiracy theory.