19 August 2016

It's a small world

I am a co-author on an article that was published (open access!) yesterday (2016-08-18) in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, along with Stephan Lewandowsky, Michael Mann, and Harris Friedman.  It has an amusing twist to it that illustrates how small the world is.

The idea for this article was floated by Stephan Lewandowsky back in 2013.  He got in touch with Harris Friedman after our article (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013; full text here) was published, causing some ripples in psychological circles, in American Psychologist.  Steve saw the story of the BSF article as a good example of how people from outside science ought to go about trying to correct problems in the literature, in contrast to the ways in which certain people attack scientists, verbally or even physically, especially when it comes to controversial areas such as research using animals, global warming, genetically-modified organisms, nuclear power, and vaccines.

For various reasons, it took a while to get the drafting process started, but I'm pleased the article has been published now, and not just because it includes Monty Python's The Meaning of Life in the references section.  (I have previously cited This is Spinal Tap; if anyone has any good ideas for ways to cite either Wayne's World or Pulp Fiction, I'm all ears.)

Actually, I didn't know much at all about Michael Mann until I saw his name included in the e-mails at the start of the project.  I was aware that there was something controversial in climate science to do with hockey sticks, but I tend to steer clear of the global warming debate anyway; there are many other people working on it, and I feel I can be of more use (to whomever) elsewhere.  As I read Mike's faculty page, though, a light bulb fizzled into life at the back of my brain; I was sure I'd seen that name before.  So I went searching and found what I had dimly remembered, in the form of the name of the conservative blogger, Mark Steyn. I won't go into any more detail because that's what Google's for, but here's something you definitely won't find there(*): As well as authoring with Michael Mann, I have also authored with Mark Steyn.  We were exact high school contemporaries (although only he could tell you how he went from a grammar school in Birmingham, England to worldwide fame as Canada's leading neocon blogger), and in 1973, in what would be about the eighth grade in the U.S. system, he and I collaborated on a cartoon strip for a school magazine, about a superhero called "Mini-Man".  Mark drew the pictures and I contributed some of the "humour".  One thing I remember is that Mini-Man's height was specified very precisely; it probably wasn't 2.9013 inches, but it was something rather close to that.

So yeah, it's a really small world.



(*) Until about an hour after this blog post appears, of course.

105 comments:

  1. Lots to agree about..

    How does a lay person respond to a journal. And follow the scientific process in a peer reviewed journal to correct an error in a paper. Which has yet to be published..

    yet a pre-publication copy has been sent to the media with a press release. Which gained world wide publicity..

    The paper was criticised on blogs.. the author and future co-authors criticised the critics via the authors own blog many times and wrote media opinion pieces and gave interviews about it. And it all got quite acrimmonious.(on both sides) 7 months after the media and all the blog battles started. The paper finally got published.

    And then a criticism of the previous pre publication paper,finally was able to be made as formal complaint to the journal. As a key part of the methodology was shown to be false, this was made known to the authors in the interim, but they failed to correct it prior to final publication

    By then. Polarisation between authors and critics was severe. Not least because the lead author decided to analyse the critics comments made in the interim in a psychology paper. He obtained ethics approval to observe comments (no interaction of any sort) , but he and his critics publicly interacted with the critics, goaded the criticsand even correspond with dome of them. On the very issue that comments were being harvested on. Then he named them in the 2nd paper being associated with psychopatholoigical trait's. Whilst another co-author was publicly abusing the people named in the paper by name on his own blog,during the research paper. This paper got retracted..

    Back to the 1st paper. Now the paper was formally published in the 1st journal. The critics outside of academia (and some within) could finally start following the scientific process of dealong with the peer reviewed journal... civility might have warn a bit thin by then and willingness to work with the author. . (Who had by then received ethics complaints and the 2nd paper retracted) and the author with his critics.. was rather low

    Three years on. Scientists in the field also take a look at the 1st paper. Some blogged about it. Calling it outright fraud,calling for retraction. DR Jose Duarte. Other have published describing it as politically motivated with conclusions effectively just fiction.Prof Lee Jussim (as a footnote. The founder of the journAl that retracted the 2nd paper, described the author actions in that paper as "activism abusing science as a weapon" (Prof Henry Markram))

    How is this relevant. Retracation Watch is full of papers that get retracted for not just innocent errors. But scientists that have behaved badly,fraudulently,etc. And have very good self preservation reason not to follow the method you describe.

    How to deal with that.

    The author in question in the 2 papers mentioned above. Is your co-author Prof Stephan Lewandowsky.

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  2. Sorry for odd typo. I'm holiday with just a smartphone and just came across this blog post.

    Where it says "he and his critics". It should say "he and his co-authors"

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  3. "… people from outside science…" Perhaps we should create a proper definition of what is science, and what is not, and how you can be “inside” or “outside” science. Certainly, there was a well-known and highly-respected scientist (now deceased, to the world’s loss) who would regard much of what this paper is about as not science; he would have called it a pseudoscience. In his opinion, science has to have hard, reproducible, incontrovertible, empirical evidence; anything that was based around individual interpretations is not science, and to call it so is pseudoscience. This paper, I am afraid, falls under that label; it is more about carefully crafted words around personal interpretations of pseudoscientific studies, relying upon the reader to be so in awe of the author(s) as to not question the conclusions, as, to do so is to warrant the label “denier”, a term no TRUE scientist would ever countenance the use of, but is one that at least two of the authors are happy with.

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  4. You say you are pleased this paper has been published. What you are pleased about is not made clear. Are you pleased to have your name on a paper that contains obvious falsehoods? It claims that "LGO discovered a computational error..", a short phrase containing two untruths, as can be verified simply by following the link, which apparently the authors and reviewers did not do. The error was not computational and was not discovered by LGO but by other bloggers, who employed the strategy of looking at the LGO data file, something that LGO clearly neglected to do before writing their paper.

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  5. Hi Nick
    nice to have open access to the paper for us the public

    from the paper -

    "Notwithstanding the public’s entitlement to be involved in issues that are scientifically informed, scientific debates must still be conducted according to the rules of science. Arguments must be evidence-based and they are subject to peer review before they become provisionally accepted. Arguments or ideas that turn out to be false or imperfect are eventually discarded or updated—a process that may sometimes seem to take (too) long but that appears to have served science and society well overall (e.g., Alberts et al., 2015).
    Although these strictures may appear rigorous, it is important to recognize that they do not exclude the public from scientific debate. Unless it can be shown that the public can participate in legitimate scientific debate, the denialist activities just reviewed might acquire a sheen of legitimacy as the only avenues open to the public to question scientific findings."

    "People who deny scientific facts that they find challenging or unacceptable, by contrast, are by and large not skeptics. On the contrary, they demonstrably shy away from scientific debate by avoiding the submission of their ideas to peer review. Instead, the discursive activity of those individuals is largely limited to blogs and the media,accompanied by complaints to institutions and journals which can have no purpose other than to stifle, rather than promote, scientific debate."

    are you(or co-authers)saying the "public can participate" only if they go thru peer review (in other words - not participate in a public/open debate at all) ?

    if so how do you square it with this statement ?

    "Given that scientific issues can have far-reaching political, technological, or environmental consequences, greater involvement of the public can only be welcome and may lead to better policy outcome."

    also the statement -
    "the denialist activities just reviewed might acquire a sheen of legitimacy"

    which "denialist activities just reviewed" - is this the reference to the tobacco lobby ?

    not sure what to make of this paper, seems a mess to me, just read this at the end -

    "Finally, skeptical members of the public must be given the opportunity to engage in scientific debate: We have shown how two of the present authors—an academic and a member of the public who had been to three evening classes before his skepticism was aroused—teamed up to critique a widely-cited finding and showed it to be unsupportable. None of their activities fell within the strategies and techniques of denial that we reviewed at the outset, clarifying that denial is not an “avenue of last resort” for members of the public who are desperate to contribute to science or even correct it, but a politically-motivated effort to undermine science."

    again, thanks for giving me "the public" free access to this paper & realise you may/probably can/will not respond to these points directly, but any feedback would be appreciated.

    thanks d.f.hunter

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  6. To Anonymous / d.f.hunter: I don't think we are trying to stop anyone from doing anything. The point is, perhaps (I'm only the third author on this article!) that there is a continuum of ways to communicate with scientists, from fire-bombing their houses because you don't like them doing experiments on animals, to asking, listening, pointing out what doesn't make sense to you, and then asking and listening some more. I am happy to admit that I got very lucky in writing to Sokal and Friedman and finding two excellent academics who were prepared to listen to my ideas, although to some extent you make your own luck by how you approach people.

    In a vaguely related way, I found this post quite interesting: https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists

    Nick

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reply Nick

      as the 3rd author I give you credit for responding to my questions/comments - they were not aimed at you but the paper & how the public can get more involved/or divorced -

      "Given that scientific issues can have far-reaching political, technological, or environmental consequences, greater involvement of the public can only be welcome and may lead to better policy outcome."

      as I see things the public are more divorced (they can only be talked down & berated for so long, in the west at least), and some of the public like me find climate policy costing billions unwelcome & futile/unproven.

      the related post you pointed to is also interesting for these comments -

      "Sociologists have long tried and failed to draw a line between science and pseudoscience. In physics, though, that ‘demarcation problem’ is a non-problem, solved by the pragmatic observation that we can reliably tell an outsider when we see one. During a decade of education, we physicists learn more than the tools of the trade; we also learn the walk and talk of the community, shared through countless seminars and conferences, meetings, lectures and papers. After exchanging a few sentences, we can tell if you’re one of us. You can’t fake our community slang any more than you can fake a local accent in a foreign country."

      and

      "but I’ve stopped thinking of our clients that way. They are driven by the same desire to understand nature and make a contribution to science as we are. They just weren’t lucky enough to get the required education early in life, and now they have a hard time figuring out where to even begin."

      cheers
      d.f.hunter (member of the public)

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    2. yes - if all scientists are nice, etc, etc

      What of the scientists that are reported at Retraction Watch of behaving less than honourably, professionally scientifically, incompetently or fraudulently.. they have a huge incentive to game these recommendations. (or perhaps to even create these 'rules' in the first place... this paper)

      I've tried engaging with one of them. It went well at first, exchange of emails, etc, some data released..

      Until I pointed out an error. a big one..then the wagons circled, no further responses, raw data request refused (despite chief editor inviting me to submit a comment to the journal) Formal reporting of error to the authors, ignored, until a follow up to the Press Office camed a third hand reply, referring me to his ex-University journal dumping responsibility to authors/university.

      Then this was ignored and when I followed with a reminder - I received an email from the VC of research of the University, telling me they refused to lease the data for the purpose of me submitting it to the journal, and the copied their legal counsel (which I found rather intimidating)

      I think you and Friedman are being used.

      Both of your co-authors make substantial use of blogs, social media and opinion pieces in the mainstream media and internet media to promote themselves, their politics and their version of their science and 'events' with their critics , and have had their work come under scrutiny by blogs... the appear not to like this, and wish to write the rules so that blogs, and their critics, etc can be ignored..

      Delete
  7. -- "The idea for this article was floated by Stephan Lewandowsky back in 2013. He got in touch with Harris Friedman after our article (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013; full text here) was published..." --

    Did he ask you for Alan's number straight away, or did he wait he'd got past the academic equivalent of first base?

    In seriousness, though... poor you, because for someone who has -- sensibly -- avoided the climate debate, you dropped yourself in at an end of it, not even in some consensus middle. Perhaps your own ethic should apply here,

    -- Carefully examine and control the politics --

    WHOOPS!

    But on the subject of politics, what *are* the politics of codifying the relationship between researchers and the oiks who might dare to challenge them? This, in particular, seems contestable, given the problems you have identified in the same literature.

    -- One of those rules is that scientific arguments are conducted in the scientific peer-reviewed literature --

    They're not. Scientific arguments are published in PR'ed literature, but academic publishing might count as no more than gatekeeping. Moreover, it's not clear that, whether gatekeeping or not, academic publishing and peer review as such adds any value to academic debates. It is the publishers' claim that it does, of course. But there is no virtue in that process that means a discussion on a blog could not have greater merit than the same published in Nature or Science. Publishing in academic journals -- which requires institutional membership, fees, and so on -- is a custom that seems only to benefit publishers.

    There's a bigger problem, also, with Lewandowsky's emphasis on ethics. They don't apply to him. This is discussed at http://www.climate-resistance.org/2014/02/lewandowsky-nails-his-faeces-to-the-door.html

    I see no improvement in your paper, unfortunately. What development there is a movement in a war of position which will ultimately only contribute to the collapse of academic authority, it being squandered on a political campaign. Reduced, that is, to the level of internet flame war, not elevated by 'ethics' that Lewandowsky (et al) have invented merely to put distance between themselves and the conflagrations they have started.

    Academic prestige is in decline *not* because of what happens off campus. Codifying the relationships between the public and academics isn't going to improve what happens ON campus.

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  8. Nick, we blogged about your new paper here: https://cliscep.com/2016/08/21/lewandowsky-and-mann-in-psycho-pen/

    Forgive the mocking tone, but you *did* get into bed with two of the nastiest and most unrepentant charlatans in clipsy.

    An odd choice of partners indeed for someone who avows enmity to all things academically phony.

    I just hope you used protection.

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  9. Nick, here is some recommended reading for you, in particular section 4.4 and table 3:
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115300032

    "10/1145 believed the moon landing was faked. 134 believed global warming is a hoax; 3 of them believe the moon landing was a hoax. The correlation is nonzero almost entirely because there is covariance among the reasonable positions (disagreeing that the moon landing was faked and that global warming is hoax). There is no evidence here that people who believe global warming is a hoax were also more likely to believe the moon landing was faked. Also, these data are so skewed, and have so few response options, that it is not clear that the type of structural equation models used in the original report are appropriate."

    This obvious error in Lewandowsky's work was pointed out at blogs soon after the paper was published, by Kevin Marshall, Brandon Shollenberger, Steve McIntyre and others. Again, all you have to do is look at his data table, and it's immediately obvious that the claims made in the paper are bogus.
    It's good to see that at last, thanks to a couple of social psychologists with honesty and integrity, this is stated in the peer-reviewed literature.

    Were you aware of this or not? I remain puzzled.

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  10. It's just not possible to publish an article with Lew and have any intellectual honesty. All the comments above will soon be deleted

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  11. Nick,

    You might also be interested in my paper (joint with Ruth Dixon) published in Psychological Science, showing that Lewandowsky's Moon Hoax papers don't hold up. In essence he gets the results he does by using a flawed analysis which completely ignores the major non-linearity in the data. It's open access at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/26/5/664

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  12. “The idea for this article was floated by Stephan Lewandowsky back in 2013...after our article ... was published, causing some ripples in psychological circles, in American Psychologist. Steve saw the story of the BSF article as a good example of how people from outside science ought to go about trying to correct problems in the literature, in contrast to the ways in which certain people attack scientists, verbally or even physically...”

    Back in 2013 Lewandowsky’s “Moon Hoax” article was being held up by Psychological Science while they examined complaints, while his “Recursive Fury” paper had been retracted following “a small number” of letters of complaint which were described by the journal editor as “cogent and well-argued”.

    The Recursive Fury paper, a frontal attack on named individuals who had criticised “Moon Hoax”, accusing us of “feelings of persecution” and “an inability to reason” among other psychological defects, had already been withdrawn and revised twice because of false and defamatory remarks. Two of the later “cogent and well-argued” complaints also used the word “defamatory” and Lewandowsky used this to falsely accuse the complainants of making libel threats and indulging in “bullying” and “harrassment,” accusations which were widely repeated in the press.

    In mid-2013, with “Moon Hoax” still unpublished a year after the pre-published version had been roundly ridiculed, and “Recursive Fury” (the defamatory attack on “Moon Hoax”’s critics) retracted, Lewandowsky was in a jam. Emails obtained under FOI legislation had established without doubt that Lewandowsky had lied to Barry Woods about the provenance of his respondents to the Moon Hoax” survey, and that blog owner John Cook had lied to me about it. (Cook had also lied to Lewandowsky, but we didn’t know at the time. Cook, an unemployed cartoonist, is now Lewandowsky’s doctorate student.)

    The retracted “Recursive Fury” paper has been revised and republished as “Recurrent Fury” with the twenty-odd quotes from blog comments which are the paper’s sole evidence reworded by Lewandowsky in order to make them untraceable by internet search engines. His efforts were in vain alas, as I discovered in five minutes on Google. This paper must surely be unique in the annals of social science - the sole example of an author boasting about having made up the evidence for his thesis.

    There is more, including evidence for the above, at
    https://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/category/stephan-lewandowsky/

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  13. On the face of it your paper seems to be saying reasonable things but it is tainted by many issues which I doubt anyone who hasn’t followed the climate debate closely would be aware. I’d like to think that you are unaware of them.

    Quite a few you use as throwaway comments eg “when an American corporate front group likens climate scientists to the Unabomber”. It was indeed an unfortunate single poster campaign but it was immediately and strenuously rejected by most blogging sceptics. Of course there should be some sympathy for those who conceived the idea, as it was almost certainly a reaction against several campaigns from the other side. The ‘we know who you are, we know where you live’ threat by one of Greenpeace’s significant members; or the video of many planes diving into the Empire State building; or most significantly the No Pressure October 2010 campaign that saw 4 adverts created by a large team of well known film makers that simulated sceptic individuals blown to bloody pieces by the person in charge of each scene. If we are to condemn a solitary poster that likens one group to the Unabomber, surely some mention of the opposite side fantasising in inglorious cinema technicolour, a classroom of traumatised kids dripping with the gore of two eviscerated climate sceptic class mates? One could be led into thinking that the consensus side are almost as mad as the Unabomber when they didn’t stop at showing a boss detonating a group of sceptic employees.

    Were you aware of those ‘consensus’ messaging attempts? Would knowledge of them put a different twist on the politically motivated Unabomber poster? If you didn’t know about the No Pressure campaign, can you see that there might be a lot more to the study of sceptics and deniers than your co-authors might have explained? Are you researcher enough to want to ask?

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  14. The Guardian Environment correspondents were proud to promote the No Pressure video from the 10:10 Campaign - One Guardian correspondent was also the Director of Strategy for 10:10.. it would take a whole team f psychologist to work out why no one in the groups thought this is not a good idea.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film

    watch the film.... ( wait 1 minute, for the 1st explosions of sceptical children)
    https://vimeo.com/15480412

    as mentioned above, put the Heartland Institute https://vimeo.com/15480412 poster mentioned above, in that context, and yes sceptic blogs did condemn the Heartland poster. an example.
    https://climateaudit.org/2012/05/04/mckitrick-letter-to-heartland/

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  15. Another grossly misleading claim in the paper is this:

    "Similarly, data published by two of the present authors (M.M. and S.L.) have been subject to re-“analyses” on internet blogs ...MBH98"

    As I believe you are aware, the statistical errors in Mann's work were first pointed out not on internet blogs, but in a published paper by McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003, followed by a second paper in 2005.
    It was Mann who attacked McIntyre on an internet blog, Realclimate, in 2004.
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/false-claims-by-mcintyre-and-mckitrick-regarding-the-mann-et-al-1998reconstruction/

    Thus the truth is the opposite of what is claimed in the paper.

    Ironically, it was Mann's blog attacks on McIntyre that led him to set up his own blog Climate Audit in 2005 so that he could defend himself (he could not defend himself at Realclimate since they deleted his comments).

    Similarly, SL's work has been reanalysed in the literature, see the papers by Dixon & Jones and Jussim et al linked above. But there is no mention of this in your paper, so again, readers of your paper will be misled.

    Of course, we are all aware that you didn't write these parts of the paper. But as a co-author you should not be putting your name to a paper making claims that you know are misleading or untrue.

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  16. second attempt... not sure what happened to first...

    Nick, did you actually check out your Diethelm and McKee 2009 reference, which supports the concept of denial / denialism that you employ? This paper, largely utilising the same concepts as presented on the Hoofnagle brothers’ blog from 2 years before, has very serious problems:

    https://judithcurry.com/2016/04/21/the-denialism-frame/

    The Hoofnagle’s emphasize dishonesty and ‘crankiness’ as cause. Diethelm and McKee wisely drop these as unsupportable, yet substitute in a single short paragraph a random string of quite different causes with differing social strengths and implications, yet with neither evidence or theoretical backup for any of them. There is no concept of ‘denialism’ as claimed by this paper, the determination essentially rests upon a simple list of observed and long known rhetoric devices, which (as they are applied at group, not personal level), will always occur for *both* sides in any long-disputed domain. Diethelm and McKee’s home domain is ETS; tellingly other experts in this domain (even those on the same ‘side’) have called out this paper in strong terms, and some have further accused them of deploying in that domain some of the very ‘denial’ techniques they outline. One can never distinguish ‘with relative ease’ (as your paper says), or at all, between skepticism and ‘denial’ if one has no idea of what the latter really is and the causation behind it.

    As noted by Barry and Ben above, Lewandowsky’s rules don’t apply to himself, and D & M would seem to have some difficulties in this direction too. Work like this is essentially academic justification for prior biases. A proper view which would apply equally to all domains, would establish objective criteria for true skepticism and whatever resistance is closest to what D&M term ‘denialism’ (which are probably on a spectrum anyhow) based upon cause, or at least theory of cause, and not merely upon domain examples that are all seen through the lens of author bias.

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  17. Another paper analysing Lewandowsy et Al is in the literature.. were all the authors not aware of this (i'm pretty sure Prof Lewandowsky would be). To add to Paul's comment that your paper misleads. .

    The literature may eventually end up correcting science,but how to correct papers designed for headlines like this for public consumption?

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/jul/27/climate-sceptics-conspiracy-theorists

    “The notion that skeptics believed something so silly as the faking of the moon landing is yet another myth essentially concocted by the researchers.” – Lee Jussim

    Can High Moral Purposes Undermine Scientific Integrity? – chapter
    J. Forgas, P. van Lange & L. Jussim, Sydney Symposium on Social Psychology of Morality)

    extracts from a chapter:

    The Curious Case of Condemning Climate Skeptics as Conspiracy Theorists (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, 2013)


    Into this mix stepped Lewandowsky et al. (2013) with a paper titled, “NASA Faked the Moon Landing – Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax” – which strongly implies that people who doubt global warming believe bizarre conspiracy theories. As Lewandowsky et al. (2013, p. 622) put it, “… conspiratorial thinking contributes to the rejection of science.”

    One possibility is that this was true – that a disproportionately high number of people who disbelieve climate science also believe in something as silly as the faking of the moon landing. Another, however, was that this was essentially trumped up in order to cast those who are most skeptical of the climate science as fools. Fortunately, and to their credit, Lewandowsky et al (2013) publicly posted their data, so we can evaluate these two alternative explanations for the claim in the title.

    Their evidence for these conclusions was drawn from 1145 readers of environmentalist blogs who completed a web survey asking about their belief in conspiracies and acceptance of scientific conclusions (HIV causes AIDs, burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric temperatures, etc.). Lewandowsky et al. (2013) subjected responses to latent variable modeling and did indeed find that “conspiracist ideation” negatively predicted (-.21, standardized regression coefficient) acceptance of climate science. So, where is the problem?

    The implication that climate skeptics believe in the faking of the moon landing is another phantom fact. Out of over 1145 respondents, there was a grand total of 10 who believed the moon landing was faked. Among the 134 of participants who “rejected climate science,” only three people (2%) endorsed the moon-landing hoax. The link asserted in the title of the paper did not exist in the sample. Correlations primarily resulted from covariance in levels of agreement among reasonable positions (i.e., people varied in how much they disbelieved hoaxes and in how strongly they accepted science). It would be fair to characterize their results as indicating “the more strongly people disbelieved hoaxes, the more strongly they believed in climate science” – people varied in how strongly they rejected hoaxes and accepted science, but almost no one believed the moon hoax.

    Understanding when people are and are not persuaded by science is an interesting and important area of research. But this curious case highlights the threat to scientific integrity that can stem from high moral missions. The notion that skeptics believed something so silly as the faking of the moon landing....

    http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jussim/CanHighMoralPurposesUnderminescientificIntegrity.docx

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  18. Barry, great point:

    "Among the 134 of participants who “rejected climate science,” only three people (2%) endorsed the moon-landing hoax."

    Actually it comes out to 2.9013%, I believe.

    Yet this pathetic percentage is enough for Lewandowsky to say things like:

    "Rejection of science [sic] ALWAYS contains an element of conspiratorial [sic] thinking."

    Lewandowsky is apparently not literate enough to distinguish between *conspiratorial* thinking—a.k.a. plotting and scheming—and *conspiracist* thinking, i.e. conspiracy theorizing.

    But that's just a minor quibble. The real point is that I'm quoting, not from the sanctum of the scientific literature in which Lewandowsky now insists all scientific vendettas be prosecuted, but from a prominent YouTube video he posted.

    So it seems to be a case of one rule for you, no rules for me.

    Reluctant as I am to attempt remote diagnosis, Lewandowsky is a sociopath.

    (Oops—I was supposed to confine such conclusions to the peer-reviewed journals, wasn't I? Naughty me!)

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  19. Maurizio, yes, there's a high guilt-by-association factor. But I'd hesitate to call it dispositive. It's always possible that Nick just didn't know much about Lewandowsky's history. This becomes more probable when you consider Nick's own track record of scientific myth-busting. Better to presume he's (still) one of the good guys than to write him off unless absolutely necessary.

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  20. Nick, you say:
    "Recently, two of us (H.F. and N.J.L.B.) were co-authors of an article (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013) that received much coverage for its criticism of a long-standing, much-cited finding in the field of positive psychology".

    This was also the case with McIntyre and McKitrick (2005a - GRL, b- E&E), also with an outsider as lead author.

    The omission is particularly offensive when you and your coauthors characterized the criticism of Mann et al 1998 as only coming from "internet blogs" and having been concluded with the corrigendum of Mann et al 2004, which was published prior to the 2005 articles.

    Rather than Mann responding in academic literature, he responded at the Real Climate blog, with academics being quite willing to accept the blog responses. I began Climate Audit in response to being attacked at Real Climate.

    Your omission is particularly surprising, given that we had corresponded cordially earlier this year, during which I had informed of my experience in criticism of Mann et al 1998.

    I had also informed you of my experience with Lewandowsky, none of which is reflected in the article.

    In addition, both Mann and Lewandowsky have had histories of refusing data, none of which is reflected in your article.

    This is very disappointing and discouraging,

    Regards,
    Steve McIntyre

    ReplyDelete
  21. Reading the comments here, and trying to imagine the reaction of a disinterested observer with no particular interest in the psychology of climate sceptics, I suppose we must come across as a peculiarly obsessive lot. Why pick on Lewandowsky when a quick look through the bibliography of your paper reveals loads of social scientists (Anderegg, Brulle, Cook, Nutticelli, Doran, Dunlap, Jacques, Oreskes) who regularly produce articles which are a disgrace to their profession, their universities, and the journals which published them?

    The quick answer is because Lewandowsky has power and influence that comes from the astonishing impregnability of his position as a scientist fêted and financed by the Royal Society and quoted by government ministers and on Obama’s Twitter account. I have called him out on dozens of high profile sites as a liar and a charlatan, supporting my claims (which would be libellous if untrue) with unassailable evidence. His articles (dozens on his own site, plus 41 on the publicly funded site theConversation) plus hundreds of press articles citing his work, have elicited tens of thousands of comments, a large proportion of which are critical. He hasn’t replied to a comment at theConversation (a site specifically aimed at promoting dialogue between academics and the public) for the past three years. To my knowledge the only time he admitted a slight error of definition in a paper (the retracted “Recursive Fury”) was when the complainant was Richard Betts, Professor at the Meteorological Office. (Lewandowsky had identified him as a paranoid nutter in the supplemental material.) The dozens of other named paranoid nutters were told in no uncertain terms to get stuffed - sorry, I mean - published in a peer reviewed paper.
    An honest social scientist, if such a person exists, will readily spot the actions of a caste protecting their privileges with all the fervour of mediaeval churchmen.

    I haven’t mentioned climate, have I? That’s not what it’s about. It’s about the wholesale corruption of large swathes of science. I believe that’s a subject that interests you.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Professor Lewandowsky has written on a number of occasions that his blog critics have not submitted a comment to the journal. Which Is irritating, as I'm not able to, can't get his data. Prof Lewandowsky says this, knowing I was invited by the Chief Editor of Psychological Science to submit a comment in response to his 'Moon Hoax' paper, but I couldn't get his raw data or any answers to questions about it.

    I just can't obtain his raw data(including metadata) for the survey.

    He knows this, and spins it as nobody has submitted a comment. I'd love to.

    From: Paul Johnson
    Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 8:08 AM
    To: Barry Woods
    Cc: Murray Maybery ; Kimberley Heitman
    Subject: request for access to data


    Mr B. Woods
    Dear Mr Woods,
    I refer to your emails of the 11th and 25th March directed to Professor Maybery, which repeat a request you made by email dated the 5th September 2013 to Professor Lewandowsky (copied to numerous recipients) in which you request access to Professor Lewandowsky’s data for the purpose of submitting a comment to the Journal of Psychological Science.
    It is not the University’s practice to accede to such requests.
    Yours faithfully,
    Professor Paul Johnson,
    Vice-Chancellor [UWA]

    I wrote to Lewandowsky and co-authors (and followed with a reminder), then was referred by a press officer to UWA, then sent a couple of reminders, then was met with the response above (Kimberly Heitman is UWAs LAWYER)

    Since he has moved his data to Bristol, I was refused there as well as not a bonefide researcher.

    I eventually obtained the extended dataset, following an FOI (took a week)

    but it does not contain the metadata, nor rejected responses.
    So an example of the author having a history of refusing data, and a University, and the journal refused to help me get the data. I just need a famous academic, it seems to work with me to penetrate the academic bubble.

    ReplyDelete

  23. Geoff: 'Why pick on Lewandowsky when a quick look through the bibliography of your paper reveals loads of social scientists (Anderegg, Brulle, Cook, Nutticelli, Doran, Dunlap, Jacques, Oreskes) who regularly produce articles which are a disgrace to their profession, their universities, and the journals which published them?'

    Well to level the playing field somewhat, here is social psychologist Jose Duarte on the referenced ERL Cook et al (including Nuccitelli) consensus paper:

    'When a scientific paper falsely describes its methods, it must be retracted. They falsely described their methods, several times on several issues. The methods they described are critical to a subjective human rater study – not using those methods invalidates this study, even if they didn't falsely claim those methods. The ratings were not independent at any stage, nor were they blind. Lots of irrelevant social science psychology, survey, and engineering papers were included. The design was invalid in multiple ways, deeply and structurally, and created a systematic inflating bias. There is nothing to lean on here. We will know nothing about the consensus from this study. That's what it means to say that it's deeply invalid. The numbers they gave us have no meaning at this point, cannot be evaluated. Fraudulent and invalid papers have no standing – there's no data here to evaluate. If ERL/IOP (or the authors) do not retract, they'd probably want to supply us with a new definition of fraud that would exclude false descriptions of methods, and a new theory of subjective rating validity that does not require blindness or independence.'

    http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/cooking-stove-use-housing-associations-white-males-and-the-97

    Long and eviscerating; above is probably not the strongest paragraph but a good one to get an overall impression of the problems in a short space.

    ReplyDelete
  24. From the paper:

    "Two of us (H.F. and N.J.L.B.) are not convinced beyond doubt that highly complex climate models are as yet sufficiently validated to be used as the basis of major public policy decisions that might have effects for many decades."

    Presumably, you have come to that opinion from reading widely, assessing the pros and cons of climate models. By engaging your learning ability and your faculty for critical thought, you have come to the [non peer-reviewed] conclusion that the models are not sufficiently validated to be used to inform mitigation policy. You presumably also have noted the dearth of empirical evidence for an anthropogenic fingerprint on recent global warming.

    So you, as a member of the public, wish to communicate this scepticism to a climate scientist. What do you do? Approach them with your reasoned doubts, perhaps armed with a collection of peer-reviewed scientific literature which echoes your sentiments, and politely request their response, or should you submit a comment for peer review, as your paper suggests? The second option is patently absurd and will have the effect of just closing down public debate on contentious science. Scepticism can be valid even if it is not peer-reviewed.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Nick, congrats on the paper.

    BTW - were you warned about the band of Stephan Lewandowsky's stalkers, who probably have a Google alert in place? If you weren't, you've now experienced them first hand. (They are serial harassers/defamers who've been cultivating their grudge for something like three or four years now. To call it an obsession would be a vast understatement.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Sou.no just follow people on twitter. Who tweet links.

      Like the Cabot Institute

      Delete
    2. Projecting again? (Dr Ken Rice) . About calibre of people... very passive agressive, innuendo driven, attacking the person, totally failing to address the points of any comments. Your usual style. Do you mean Professor Jonathan Jones. Or Dr Paul Matthews or just us non academics members of the public(I only have a BSC, MSc)...

      The new way to interact with the public. Don't like the tone. Critics must be nice. Otherwise scientist have an attack of the vapours. Saying go away. critics must be nice. So obviously vexatious. Etc.etc. the approach Lewandowsky and Mann say scientists should take?. Whilst Mann gets to use social media to abuse other people like Prof Jufith Curry as 'anti-science' for her speaking to the US senate. His rules only applying to other people..... the Realclimate attack on McIntyres academic paper by Mann the obvious hypocrisy

      As Sou and you arive... how did you both 'discover' this article? LOL

      You were going to point out you were a co-author of Lewandowsky. And very much a non partisan player in the 'climate' consensus debate..?
      http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

      but as Geoff points out this is psychology under debate. And a new psychology paper. Where you and I and Sou (and Nick) are all laymen operating outside of our domain

      Delete
  26. To get some idea of the general calibre of most of those who have commented so far, it might be worth Nick reading this post and - in particular - the comments.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ken,

      thanks for the plug but you're about 20 comments too late. I already alerted Nick to our article on his paper, since which time we've come out with a more detailed followup commenting on some of the other (innumerable) contradictions therein.

      Nevertheless, thanks for your loyal fanhood.

      Delete
  27. Brad Keyes:

    “Lewandowsky is apparently not literate enough to distinguish between *conspiratorial* thinking—a.k.a. plotting and scheming—and *conspiracist* thinking, i.e. conspiracy theorizing.”

    Sorry to disagree, but Professor Lewandowsky believes we climate sceptics are both conspirators and conspiracy ideationalists. In an article in the Australian, long before his research that proved our conspiratorial ideation, he said:

    “The conspiracy theory known as climate “scepticism” will soon collapse because it must be extended to include even the macrolepidoptera… Yes, the European moths and butterflies must be part of the conspiracy, because they mate repeatedly every season now, rather than once only as during the preceding 150 years.”

    Did you know that Paul Ehrlich, before his amazingly prescient prediction that Britain would collapse into a state of barbarism by the year 2000, was a lepidopterist? And that Ehrlich was made a fellow of the Royal Society the very same year that Lewandowsky received a medal and a five figure sum to come to England from the very same Royal Society? It all fits!

    And in spite of the big butterflies of Europe going at it like rabbits, climate scepticism still hasn’t collapsed. How weird is that?

    Nick Brown:

    You’re right to be proud of citing Monty Python. But you’ll know you’ve really arrived when Monty Python cites your article.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I heartily concur with Dr Physics’ recommendation to read the blog article he links to, and also the many other excellent articles on the same blog where he is a frequent commenter.

    He omits to mention that he is a co-author of one of the papers you cite in your bibliography (Cook, Nuccitelli, Uncle Tom Cobleigh et al) under the pen name of Ken Rice.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hi Sou (Miriam O'brian)

    It's a small world isn't it.. in the light of yor question may I ask how you came across this blog post.. It's a really small world when you and Ken Rice, two of Lewandowsky co-authors turn up.. must be a coincidence, what are the odds!
    http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/en/publications/clarity-of-meaning-in-ipcc-press-conference(d6720fbf-6824-46c1-a734-e20414e70acd)/export.html

    Perhaps you are trying to work out which side Nick Brown is on.. 1st by warning him about he company he keeps, allowing all these comments, or maybe he is the wrong side, and someone to be criticised by you..

    Your thoughts on Dr Jose Duarte (who has competed his PhD now) when he criticized Lewandowskys work...

    Sou: (Hot Whopper aka, Miriam)
    "Anthony [Watts] has found some wacky PhD candidate from somewhere in Europe the USA, who's supposedly studying psychology, and who is an ideological denier of climate science (archived here). José Duarte is an extremist right wing ideologue. Not just a libertarian but a nutty libertarian."

    http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/08/denier-weirdness-97-irony-deniers-deny.html

    Sou has quite a lot of other thoughts on Jose Duarte
    https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=strict&q=hot+whopper+duarte

    Of course one person's critic is another persons internet blog stalker. Anthony Watts has a whole group of people blog stalking him (one perspective), some using variatins of there name - just like ATTP (Ken used to do) with his Wotts Up blog (criticizing/stalking Anthony articles, delete word depending on your perspective).
    https://wottsupwiththatblog.wordpress.com/

    Same with Sou, as Hot Whopper..

    Anthony clearly feels they are of the stalker kind, he named them 'blog spawn'
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/my-blog-spawn/
    I suggested Blog Children (yes, I've written on occasion on his Anthonys blog in case you didn't notice that I said so via my Twitter profile.) but it was not my name taken in vain.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Sou: "They are serial harassers/defamers"

    That's not very nice is it? Defamatory, even.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Just a note about comments here: I'm not a fan of censorship of any kind, but it would be nice if everyone could stay on-topic, which as far as I'm concerned is the article that appeared last week, rather than third-order discussions about historical episodes in a particular debate.

    Also, I'm going to be away for a couple of days on a trip that is already experiencing some logistical issues (specifically, my car broke down on the way to the airport and I have to find another ticket in a hurry), so if your post does not appear, please be patient.

    Thanks!
    Nick

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I'm not a fan of censorship of any kind"

      My opinion of you just got better.

      But the "your comment will appear when approved" delay remains an annoyance. Once a commenter has demonstrated their ability to say something interesting and on-topic, why doesn't your blogging platform automatically waive mandatory quarantine?

      Delete
  32. Brad, you'd have to ask the fine people at Google (who own Blogger.com) about that. Maybe there's an option to allow that which I haven't discovered yet.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Nick,

    this is an understandable desire:

    "... rather than third-order discussions about historical episodes in a particular debate."

    I'd love nothing better than to discuss Lewandowsky and Mann's future mockeries of their own professed New Rules, but (without a degree in Climate Science) I'm afraid I don't have a crystal ball. The best I can do is point out their demonstrated—past tense—acts of contempt for the ethics they now seek to impose on the rest of us. Like all non-psychic human beings, I'm an obligate historian.

    ReplyDelete
  34. some of those discussions are merely exposing the percieved historic hypocrisy and inaccuracy of events relating to 2 of your co-authors in this paper.

    On the topic of the paper, will you be making corrections in light of Mcintyre, Jones and Matthews comments.

    I have a comment stuck in moderation I think, more than 3 urls?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Dikran Marsupial24 August 2016 at 14:23

    geoffchambers wrote "He omits to mention that he is a co-author of one of the papers you cite in your bibliography (Cook, Nuccitelli, Uncle Tom Cobleigh et al) under the pen name of Ken Rice."

    Barry Woods wrote "Projecting again? (Dr Ken Rice)"

    Do attempts to reveal the identities of people posting anonymously or pseudonymously (in my case) help researchers to "differentiate legitimate critical engagement from bad-faith harassment"? It could easily be interpreted as an attempt to encourage harassment (from the article "Less well known is the fact that such correspondence is unlikely to be random: Abusive mail tends to peak after posting of scientist's email addresses [DM or information allowing the email addresses to be easily identified] on certain websites run by political operatives"). It could also be interpreted as evidence of "conspira{torial,cist} thinking", being unduly concerned about individuals and groups that the promulgating the ideas that are the subject of pseudonymously their skepticism, rather than with the ideas themselves. Academics that post anonymously or pseudonymously (in my case) often have good reasons for doing so (for instance so that their arguments have to stand on their own merits, rather than on the academics reputation, or because they are writing on a topic that it outside their field of direct expertise, etc.). It seems a pretty straightforward exercise of the "Golden Rule" that we should respect the wishes of those commenting on blogs anonymously or pseudonymously. In science it is the validity of the argument that matters, not the source, and this sort of thing is really just an attempt to focus on matters other than the validity of the argument.

    Appendices A and B are a good start.

    Perhaps there should be an variant of Godwin's law along the lines of "As an online discussion involving ATTP grows longer, the probability of observing the name 'Ken' approaches 1". ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  36. Barry,
    I didn't mean calibre in terms of professional qualifications. Maybe it's just me, but when the rhetoric includes calling one author a fraud, another a charlatan, and includes a suggestion that one is possibly a psychopath, I tend to assume that it's not really worth trying to work out if anything worth responding to has actually been said. Each to their own, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Can I suggest that all the sceptics who've commented above now leave it for a few days? You've all given Nick plenty to read and investigate (if he so chooses) and now that Ken & Miriam have turned up the thread will very quickly degenerate into the usual food fight. That will likely make Nick turn away from the whole issue. Let's give him the chance to come to his own conclusions without added pressure.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Well, Nick, after scrolling through the comments all I have to say is welcome to ClimateBall, and that some people reveal more than they think in their comments.

    While one can certainly be skeptical about particular scientific reports or hypotheses (e.g., the diamond planet you open your paper with). But by now GHG-driven AGW is not one of those, which may go some way to explaining the vehemence of its contrarians. If you can't argue the facts, pound the table.

    So your coauthors now include Michael Mann, Mark Steyn and Alan Sokal? An eclectic mix, to be sure.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Magma—

    "But by now GHG-driven AGW is not one of those, which may go some way to explaining the vehemence of its contrarians. If you can't argue the facts, pound the table."

    Ahh, THAT would explain the inarticulate bluster with which we've been trying to gainsay the greenhouse-gas-driven [A]GW theory in the comments you 'scrolled through!'

    Oh wait... we haven't.

    Have you considered reading, as opposed to 'scrolling through,' what we had to say? It might have improved the quality of your own contribution.

    Laurie,

    I'll try and follow your good advice. Sometimes the temptation is too strong, and the fruit too low-hanging, but I'll try. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  40. geoffchambers wrote "He omits to mention that he is a co-author of one of the papers you cite in your bibliography (Cook, Nuccitelli, Uncle Tom Cobleigh et al) under the pen name of Ken Rice."

    Barry Woods wrote "Projecting again? (Dr Ken Rice)"

    Laurie Childs wrote "...and now that Ken & Miriam have turned up the thread..."

    Do attempts to reveal the identities of people posting anonymously or pseudonymously (in my case) help researchers to "differentiate legitimate critical engagement from bad-faith harassment"? It could easily be interpreted as an attempt to encourage harassment (from the article "Less well known is the fact that such correspondence is unlikely to be random: Abusive mail tends to peak after posting of scientist's email addresses [DM or information allowing the email addresses to be easily identified] on certain websites run by political operatives"). It could also be interpreted as evidence of "conspira{torial,cist} thinking", being unduly concerned about individuals and groups promulgating the ideas that are the subject of their skepticism, rather than with the ideas themselves. Academics that post anonymously or pseudonymously (in my case) often have good reasons for doing so (for instance so that their arguments have to stand on their own merits, rather than on the academics reputation, or because they are writing on a topic that it outside their field of direct expertise, etc.). It seems a pretty straightforward exercise of the "Golden Rule" that we should respect the wishes of those commenting on blogs anonymously or pseudonymously. In science it is the validity of the argument that matters, not the source, and this sort of thing is really just an attempt to focus on matters other than the validity of the argument. The hostility towards an academic on this thread is rather ironic.

    Appendices A and B are a good start but " to some extent you make your own luck by how you approach people" is the key.

    Perhaps there should be an variant of Godwin's law along the lines of "As an online discussion involving ATTP grows longer, the probability of observing the name 'Ken' approaches 1". ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Since the general topic is differentiating between legitimate scientific criticism and bad-faith harassment, maybe I can ask a question of both Nick and the other commenters. Does calling the authors of a paper being criticised "frauds", "charlatans" and "psychopaths" an acceptable part of legitimate criticism, or is it an indicator of bad-faith harassment?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Only today we see Prof Richard Betts and Dr Ed Hawkins saying Prof Wadham is 'crying wolf' in interviews in The Times, about Prof Wadham's Arctic Ice 'predictions' - which he made in the media (and he is promoting a new book)... perhaps they all should all stick to responding to each other in the peer reviewed literature? Or do we accept their is a debate (robust it seems) to be had in the media.. and amongst the public

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/climate-experts-at-war-over-prediction-of-ice-free-arctic-qbv38b666?shareToken=75ef5ad635cc5b242e0582785eed35ab

    Prof Lewandossky and Dr Mann have also used pretty robust language against oponents in the media as well, Dr Jose Duartes described Prof Lewandowsky's work as 'fraud' SOU - above has written a number of blog posts using very robust language about Dr Duarte's.

    In context of this paper, Steve Mcintyres, Dr Paul Matthews and Prof J Jones criticisms of the actual paper, I do think deserve a response from an author.. One of who has written a blog post about the paper.. and we see press releases and commentary about it on other blogs.

    Or must they only do so by submitting a comment to the journal? before the authors will respond?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Hi Dikran - perhaps we should propose another law - Cook's Law perhaps - any climate or climate psychology discussion and Skeptical Science contributors - show up (like yourself) - Skeptical Science Crusher Crew - (is worth googling)

    ReplyDelete
  44. Also, just to clarify, it is indeed true that I have co-authored a paper with Stephan Lewandowsky. However, I do not think I am a co-author of a paper cited in this paper's bibliography (as suggested by geoffchambers).

    ReplyDelete
  45. anonymous wrote "... Cook's Law perhaps - any climate or climate psychology discussion and Skeptical Science contributors - show up (like yourself) - Skeptical Science Crusher Crew - (is worth googling)..."

    You mean there is evidence of an organised conspiracy to comment on climate or climate psychology discussions? ;o)

    Seriously, thanks for illustrating my point that a fixation on identities and groups, rather than on the validity of the argument making it difficult to distinguish from "bad-faith harassment" from "legitimate critical engagement". It should be no surprise that the authors of blog posts that discuss climate myths should show up at discussions of climate and climate phsychology when they crop up elsewhere. The common factor is an interest in discussing climate and climate psychology - no organisation is required. In my case I am mostly interested in the science of climate, and was just amused by the irony of revealing {an,pseud}onymous commenters identities on a thread dealing with "differentiat[ing] legitimate critical engagement from bad-faith harassment"

    ReplyDelete
  46. No Conspiracies.. just your leaked Skeptical Science forum, where you and your mates go to articles and help out each other in comments, when there are too many sceptics... Lol.. That said. Still curious which one of your group. Photoshopped John Cook as Himmler, complete with The SkS logos replacing Swaztikas. And why of course. That forum would be a gift for any psychologist researching echo chambers amongst bloggers.

    But on topic, Jones,Mcintyres and Matthews comments seem deserving of a response with respect to this. Ew paper

    ReplyDelete
  47. Dikran (real name unknown),

    "You mean there is evidence of an organised conspiracy to comment on climate or climate psychology discussions? ;o)"

    Ask Sou (real name unknown). Had you actually read the thread you're participating in you'd be aware it was her, uh, ideation that we were "probably have a Google alert in place" for the purpose of "stalking" one of the paper's authors.

    She also called us "serial harassers/defamers," which would be defamatory (per Ian) if not for the weasel-slash.

    And Then There's Physics (real name unknown),

    "Does [sic] calling the authors of a paper being criticised "frauds", "charlatans" and "psychopaths" an acceptable part of legitimate criticism,"

    Of course it's criticism.

    Of course it's acceptable, if it's legitimate.

    Of course it's legitimate, if it's true. Otherwise it's libel. Lewandowsky is free to initiate proceedings against everyone who's called him a pseud of some species or another... as long as he doesn't mind having the mountains of evidence of his charlatanry read out in court. I don't, however, intend to impose further on our generous host by cluttering this thread with a recital of said mountains—unless you insist.

    Michael Mann, ditto—if his already-busy court schedule allows.

    Where are you getting "psychopaths" from, out of curiosity?

    " or is it [...] bad-faith harassment?"

    Of course it's not. How could it be? Talking about someone who's not in the room doesn't harass them.

    I deliberately elided your mustelism "an indicator of" because, well, it made your question even less sensible.

    Friendly advice: Buy a dictionary. It might just save you cluttering up Nick's blog with pleas for kindergarten-level tuition.

    Finally, would you please consider Laurie Childs' proposal that we give Professor Brown some time to process all this and adjourn our Climateball nonsense elsewhere in the meantime? Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Friendly advice about buying a dictionary.

    Brad wrote: "Lewandowsky is apparently not literate enough to distinguish between *conspiratorial* thinking—a.k.a. plotting and scheming—and *conspiracist* thinking, i.e. conspiracy theorizing."

    Now Lewandowsky et al use both those terms as well as conspiricism(i) in their current article, in the body of text and in the first footnote:

    i) A detailed analysis of how conspiracist discourse and cognition differs from conventional scientific reasoning was provided by Lewandowsky, Cook, et al. (2015).

    Referring to a standard English Dictionary (Miriam Webster) the following definitions obtain:

    conspiratorial
    : involving a secret plan by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal : of or relating to a conspiracy
    : suggesting that something secret is being shared

    conspiracist
    : one who believes or promotes a conspiracy theory

    ...and Wiktionary provides:

    conspiracism

    A worldview that centrally places conspiracy theories in the unfolding of history.

    These terms have been used by Lewandowsky et al in accordance within the various definitions above. Your prissy soi-dissant distinction need not apply; they are right, and you are wrong. Take your own advice, guy.



    ReplyDelete
  49. Maybe my question wasn't as clear as I had hoped. The paper being discussed here is considering how to distinguish between "legitimate critical engagement" and "bad faith harassment". Given this, would people regard accusations of "fraud", calling an author a "charlatan" and suggestions that they're a "psychopath" a part of legitimate criticism, or not.

    FWIW, if I was contacted by someone who wished to engage in a discussion about any of my work and I discovered that they had used those terms to describe, or one of my co-authors, they certainly wouldn't get a response from me (mainly because the only response that I'd be willing to give, would not be a response I'd be willing to write).

    ReplyDelete
  50. Barry woods tell me is searching through private discussions (that were released as the result of hacking) for things to exploit strike you as being "legitimate critical engagement [on the science]" or "bad-faith harassment". In the example you have just provided, the points you raise have nothing whatsoever to do with the scientific arguments, so it looks much more like the latter to me. Again you are illustrating my point.

    Brad Keyes wrote "Dikran (real name unknown)" no, as I said, I am posting pseudonymously, not anonymously. My real name is not a secret, but as I said there are good reasons for posting under a pseudonym. Thank you for using the pseudonym though.

    "probably have a Google alert in place" for the purpose of "stalking" one of the paper's authors."

    The reason that Google Scholar has a facility for this is because scientists find it useful, I have several alerts booked myself so what? One of the ones I have logged is for Prof. Essenhigh in case someone unwittingly cites his work without being aware of the flaws, so that I can make them aware of my comment paper. The reason why I wrote the comment paper is because I don't want people to waste time and energy endlessly discussing and obviously incorrect idea, so having an alert for this registered seems like common sense to me. Sadly it hasn't proved useful in preventing this from being endlessly discussed on climate blogs, but it was worth a try. Now you could call that "stalking" if you wanted to, but if you were being serious it would be absurd hyperbole. Someone might use the term in a not-completely-serious manner and it be misinterpreted by someone quote mining hacked private conversations. I don't know, because I have better things to do, being interested in the science and by and large not very interested in blog rhetoric.

    "Finally, would you please consider Laurie Childs' proposal that we give Professor Brown some time to process all this"

    If Prof. Brown indicates that he wants or needs some time to process this, then of course I would honour that.

    "and adjourn our Climateball nonsense elsewhere in the meantime? Cheers."

    You may view this as climateball nonsense, but the point I was making is genuine and supporting the point made in Prof. Browns' paper. I am greatly in favour of "legitimate critical engagement" between mainstream scientists and skeptic scientists (including of the citizen science variety). The constant violation of the reasonable expectation of anonymity looks like "bad-faith harassment". If you want to avoid "legitimate critical engagement", then carry on with it. It is your choice, but I thought it would be worthwhile to point out how it comes across.

    ReplyDelete
  51. [Pseudo] Anonymous Dikran:

    "It should be no surprise that the authors of blog posts that discuss climate myths should show up at discussions of climate and climate phsychology [sic] when they crop up elsewhere."

    I'm a lover of subtle irony. The "band of Stephan Lewandowsky's stalkers" which Sou herein identifies are themselves "authors of blog posts that discuss climate myths". As you profess "an interest in discussing climate and climate psychology" with an emphasis firmly on "science of climate", please feel free to drop by any time at Cliscep or any other site where these 'Lew stalkers' hang out to discuss their interpretation of "climate myths" vs. your own and Sou's etc. We look forward to the "debate" because alas, proper debate is a bit stymied here despite the fact that the subject of the post is precisely about debate. Another irony.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Jaime Jessop I've done my fair share of trying to discuss climate science at various climate skeptic blogs over the years. I am myself an author of climate related blog posts (including for SkS). The reason I tend not to anymore is that the discussion tends to be rapidly diverted onto issues other than science, and often descends into insults etc. Note how little of this discussion is about what was actually written in the paper.

    If people can't even accept that the reason that atmospheric CO2 is rising is fossil fuel emissions (the topic I one which I most frequently try to deal with climate myths), then there is little hope of productive discussion of the science.

    "Debate" is the wrong attitude to scientific differences. Science dropped debate as a means of deciding what is right long ago (consider the example of Darwin). Debates are about "winning" and tend to be dominated by those best able to use the tools of rhetoric, rather than by actually being right, so scientists tend to use journal papers instead now, which has proven a better approach. Truth-seeking discussion is what is required, not "debate".

    ReplyDelete
  53. Dikran (real name unknown):

    I hate to agree with you (LOL) but this is spot on:

    "Debates are about "winning" and tend to be dominated by those best able to use the tools of rhetoric, rather than by actually being right, so scientists tend to use journal papers instead now, which has proven a better approach. Truth-seeking discussion is what is required, not "debate"."

    Science is NOT a rhetorical mode of inquiry. Nor is it any other kind of contest between two equally-and-oppositely motivated advocates.

    That said, I think most people use the concept of a 'scientific debate' a bit more loosely, to mean merely 'controversy or disagreement about nature.' So the metaphor is not without validity.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Hallo everybody,

    1. A couple of people have contacted me because of uncertainty about whether their post appeared, or maybe was a duplicate, etc. I have deleted (i.e., not published) only those questions, as I presume they were not for publication. I have not (consciously) deleted any other posts in this discussion so far, so if your comment has not appeared, please just resubmit it.

    2. Moderating this discussion --- even just to the extent that it means simply publishing all the posts --- is taking up more of my time than I want to spend on what is a very part-time blog, so I propose to close the comments in a couple of days, on Sunday evening (UTC). I think that most of the important points that are likely to be made, already have been. I'm registering this proposal here now, so that /a/ everyone can have time to have their say, and /b/ when I do close the comments, people will not get the mistaken impression that it was in response to anything that they or anyone else might have written.

    Thanks for your understanding,
    Nick

    ReplyDelete
  55. Brad, an exercise I have often tried is to go through a scientific argument (such as the mass balance analysis that tells us the rise on CO2 is not a natural phenomenon) step by step, in a sort of "Socratic dialog", and ask my interlocutor to explicitly state where they agree, and where they don't to explain why they don't agree. What usually happens is that they agree to this, and do take the first step or so, but then start to be evasive and try and subvert the dialog so we can't go on to the next step etc. and in some cases being dismissive and insulting. The fact that people are so unwilling to explicitly state whether they agree with some (extremely obvious) statement shows that this is about "winning" for them, if they were genuinely truth seeking, they ought to be able to make their position unequivocal.

    AFAIUI the "ClimateBall" thing is about the fact that the public debate on climate is mostly rhetorical debate, rather than genuine scientific discussion.

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  56. Well here we are 'debating' and none of us are 'winning'. I could not disagree with you (and Brad) more Dikran. Debate (in any area) is about debating. "Winning" is all about debaters and their psychological imperatives. Debate is primarily about establishing perspective in real time. If you discard vigorous debate in favour of a cumbersome process of peer-reviewed publishing and subsequent peer-reviewed rebuttal (which also is an indispensable part of scientific progress) then you destroy perspective and distort reality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I could not disagree with you (and Brad) more Dikran."

      Yes you could, Jaime. You're barely disagreeing with me at all. ;-) You're right that the vigorous contest of ideas is vital to science; I'm trying to throw out the 'bathwater' of rhetorical sportsmanship, which was invariably the deciding factor in the many debates I won at high school. The 'baby' is the clash of ideas, not advocates, surely. In fact good scientists are simultaneously the prosecution AND the defense. Isn't that what we mean by skepticism: being your own hypotheses' hardest critic?

      Nick,

      one of your (past) collaborators may get a chuckle out of the homage we paid him in our Complete Future of the Climate Debate:

      2019: Trenberth Travesty seen from space

      The centrepiece of Nature’s April cover story is a stunning panorama of the Trenberth Travesty stitched together from satellite imagery.

      “Using the hermeneutics of quantum gravity,” say the authors, “we are at last able to visualize this tricksy, mercurial zone of heat exchange whose 20,000-km front stretches from Cape Illusionment in autumn to The Isle of Mann in fall.”

      The latest scientists say the Travesty acts by thermal subterfuge to “launder” Kelvins from the atmosphere all the way down to the bathyclimatic ecosystem at the bottom of the sea, converting them to Hiroshimas in the process.

      Delete
  57. Brad Keyes wrote "... "probably have a Google alert in place" for the purpose of "stalking" one of the paper's authors." ..."

    Google scholar provides alerts because scientists find them useful. I have alerts registered for several scientists because I am interested in their work. I also have an alert for Prof. Robert Essenhigh because if someone misguidedly cites his work without being aware of the flaws in it, then I think it is a useful service to point them out. This includes discussion on climate blogs. The reason I wrote the comment paper was not for its scientific value (it is all carbon cycle 101 stuff) but in the hopes that a peer-reviewed explanation of why "CO2 has a short residence time" is a climate myth would help ensure that less time is wasted on pointless discussion on blogs and that we could have a more productive discussion on something more useful (e.g. climate sensitivity). Sadly no such luck, such issues still get raised repeatedly on skeptic blogs, and the (very solid) scientific evidence frequently dismissed. It was worth a try though.

    Now someone might "not-completely-seriously" call that "stalking" in a private discussion, but it would be hyperbole to consider a normal scientific practice "stalking" if it was meant seriously!

    ReplyDelete
  58. Barry Woods wrote "No Conspiracies.. just your leaked Skeptical Science forum, where you and your mates go to articles and help out each other in comments, when there are too many sceptics..."

    Do you think that sifting through discussions from a private forum (that were made available via hacking, not a leak) looking for something you can use is suggestive of "legitimate critical engagement" or "bad-faith harassment"? Personally I would say it was the latter.

    "That said. Still curious which one of your group. Photoshopped John Cook as Himmler, complete with The SkS logos replacing Swaztikas. And why of course. That forum would be a gift for any psychologist researching echo chambers amongst bloggers. "

    Of course the fact that this was use to make rhetorical capital on various skeptic blogs illustrates my point rather well.

    It is difficult to have "legitimate critical engagement" if at the same time, there is a fixation on individuals and groups in this way. This is not a difficult concept AFAICS, and seems rather in the spirit of the paper under discussion.

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  59. Thanks Nick, In that case, I suspect it may be a browser/server issue for me as I have had two posts not appear, so perhaps that may also be an issue for others.

    Interesting paper, hope it bears fruit.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Barry Woods, going through discussions from a private forum (released via hacking, not a leak) to find things that can be used to make rhetorical capital (such as photoshopped images) that have no bearing on the climate science rather makes my point about distinguishing between "legitimate critical engagement" and "bad-faith harassment". If someone wants "legitimate critical engagement", then this sort of thing is not going to help achieve that.

    BTW several of my comments have gone astray, this is ether a problem with my browser or with blogger, given Nick's comment, so this may have happened to others.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Thanks Nick. Briefly, then:

    1. Andrew McLaren,

    Now that you've looked it up, you really ought to grasp that "conspiratorial" thoughts/words/deeds are those of conspirators. "Conspiracist" thoughts/words/deeds are those of conspiracy theorists. Nice to speak to a fellow dictionary owner. That is all.

    2. Dikran:

    "If people can't even accept that the reason that atmospheric CO2 is rising is fossil fuel emissions..." ...then I doubt you'll find them commenting at cliscep, so we can safely disregard that particular objection/excuse/misgiving.

    3. Anders,

    "if ...they had used those terms to describe, or one of my co-authors, they certainly wouldn't get a response from me (mainly because the only response that I'd be willing to give, would not be a response I'd be willing to write)."

    Then it's a good thing Nick Brown is a better scientist and/or person than you, isn't it? He certainly seems to be able to rise above the urge to swear at us for speaking honestly. But given your famous difficulty understanding how science works, let me explain that in science, you don't get to pick and choose to whom you disclose your working. Them's the rules: show your working.

    Finally, I note you can't seem to tell us where the "psychopaths" quote comes from. That's OK, I've lost interest.

    Enjoy your trip Nick.


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  62. Barry Woods, going through discussions from a private forum (released via hacking, not a leak) to find things that can be used to make rhetorical capital but have no bearing on the climate science (such as photoshopped images) rather makes my point about distinguishing between "legitimate critical engagement" and "bad-faith harassment". If someone wants "legitimate critical engagement", then this sort of thing is not going to help achieve that.

    BTW several of my comments have gone astray, this is ether a problem with my browser or with blogger, given Nick's comment, so this may have happened to others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The hercook.jpg was able to be cached by Google and wayback machine. As was the entire images directory. Which hold images in public sks articles. Some website designers allow whole directory to be viewable. Some do not...one individual found that the whole images directory was publicly viewable.. this is not a hack.. merely a sign of the Web designers incompetence if they did not intend this. If a climate sceptic had such images created and stired the media would be all over the image lime a rash. Even if they were hacked. Especially as this is of a climate communicator. Criticism is legitimate or not legitimate. . Says who . Did Wakefield as an example get to makes these claims,etc. When critics from outside the academic establishment questioned him..
      Nick is of course free to moderate his blog however he wants, it does seem that Sou. ATTP and Dikran would prefer there moderation styles,ie any opponent deleted. Jon Cok has a climate misinformed section on his website. Where he label Dr Roger Pielke jnr as a misinformed. But offers no evidence. No quotes. No links to article. No analysis. Yet Sks claims to communicate science, in the rough and tumble of public debate. A climate communicator having photos of himself pshopped as Himmler 8s fair game for comment. Armchaor psycho and lysis and.. much amusement/bemusement.. the SKSTROOPERS.Jpg is even more odd! Especially when you see the swastikas swapped for John Cook''s. As Cook is Prof Lewandiwsky''s PhD student and co-author are we not allowed to question his judgement. Mainly the climate misinformed section seems very political

      Delete
  63. Congratulations Mr Brown, your Lewandowsky number is now 1!*

    "When the scientific method yields discoveries that imperil people’s lifestyle..."

    This is quite a powerful opening few words. Did you think when you published your work that the "people" who read it would have no other choice than say

    "Gosh yes, our lifestyles are now imperiled by the inevitability of the conclusions implicit in this paper!"?

    I read your Losada take down and was impressed by the patient introduction to differential equations and how you walked through each stage to convincingly show that Losada showed no real inkling of the underlying connection to real meaning or evidence.

    However, I suspect, like any other layperson that may ever get to read it, the key easiest take away point would be the fact that Losada had been clearly doing something on the level of emperor's clothes stupid - that is to say - thinking that a metaphor like "buoyancy" in the physical domain could be transferred to "buoyancy" in the linguistic human emotional domain.

    Duh!


    That linguistic mention was Sokal wasn't it? I loved "Intellectual Impostures", it reminded me of the E=Mc2 equals gendered reasoning in that work.

    So well done taking Losada down with the explanation of differential equations.

    Meanwhile, your co-author claimed to prove that climate skeptic/ sceptics have a preponderance to believe the Apollo moon landings were a hoax.

    Some laypeople have used the ancient Mesopotamian technique of "adding" to show this was a complete Frankfurt 2005 conclusion. This "adding" has not been confirmed in the peer reviewed literature yet.

    Meanwhile Lewandowsky published a follow up paper showing that he was maligned by this lay critique and so here we are in a social science hell. ;)

    *Explanation: I have read with great layman interest about a network theorist call Paul Erdős. Because of the fame of his work in "the network theory" it seems at one time that it became a matter of interest, and some honor for scientists in many fields to find their connection to him in associations through their publication record. Since you have written a paper with Alan Sokal, and Sokal has an Erdős number of 3, I have calculated your Erdős number is now 4. I did this using my layman adding technique. Please correct me if I am wrong and you actually have a smaller number. You can do this by just telling me and then we can then get on with our lives :)

    ReplyDelete
  64. Brad Keyes, dictionary ownership is perhaps a common characteristic which we share, but accepting the precedence and authority of such reference in this case, is evidently not.

    To call something conspiratorial is not by definition restricted to the intrumental agency of conspirators qua conspiracy; as the Miriam Webster citation above clearly states, this word can and does mean "of or relating to a conspiracy" (whether real, imagined, alleged, or fictitious) and this adjectival use is also an accepted legal definition.

    It would be unreasonable to suppose that this oversight represents some kind of lacunae in your General English Comprehension, or any form of attention deficit, however both your initial claim and your reply to the peer-reviewed literature I have submitted above, merely evince intellectual dishonesty.

    G'day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrew, your use of "however" as some sort of conjunction says it all. You can stop presuming to teach me my native language now. Really. I take no pleasure in pwning nice people like yourself. G'day mate.

      Delete
  65. ATTP asks:"Does calling the authors of a paper being criticised "frauds", "charlatans" and "psychopaths" an acceptable part of legitimate criticism, or is it an indicator of bad-faith harassment?"

    Such terms of endearment were, of course, used by Mann to disparage myself and McKitrick in response to articles published in peer review literature. I thought that the language was inappropriate and not "an acceptable part of legitimate criticism". And yet you do not criticism such language when used by Mann or Lewandowsky. Indeed, of all authors, Mann and Lewandowsky are singularly ill-placed to moralize to others about harassing language. Greater hypocrisy can scarcely be contemplated.

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    Replies
    1. I'm not sure whether or not I'm disagreeing with you, Steve, but:

      The *reason* it was "inappropriate" for Dr Mann to call your work "pure scientific fraud" is that it wasn't true. Your work *wasn't* fraudulent (though it was pure and scientific).

      It doesn't follow that such vocabulary is *always* inappropriate.

      It remains a mystery where ATTP is getting "psychopaths" from, however. I certainly can't recall accusing any researcher recently of the remorseless infliction of suffering on another sentient being. Never say never, of course.

      Delete
    2. ATTP should note that Nick's paper suggests this:

      -- "Trolling has been associated with sadism and psychopathy (Buckels et al., 2014), and scientists should guard against engagement with such individuals." --

      Sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the gander. After all, Buckels et al goes on to explain,

      -- "...trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism," --

      Which is true, according to the paper, but only on that paper's more precise definition of 'trolling', and ditto only significant in that same respect; it's not a license to accuse anyone who might want to see your data of being a 'troll'. Not even all trolls are psychopaths.

      Only the authors know why they omitted 'Machiavellianism'. Maybe it's not a sin on their account.

      Trolls and psychopaths aren't confined to the internet or blog commenting. If it is interesting to measure the personalities of ordinary people behind seemingly hostile approaches to researchers, it would surely be interesting to profile academics and their work in the same way.

      No doubt that suggestion might offend many researchers. Unless of course, it was done through the 'proper channels', and all that. But qui custodiet ipsos custodes? How do we guard against psychopathic trolling academics? Especially those, who enjoy the privilege of affiliation to institutions , and who can close ranks, to turn that apparatus against their lay detractors?

      There is no inherent virtue of academic publishing that rules out psychopathic trolling invective and more than it rules out all the other vices that somehow pass through the magic firewall of peer review. It seems to me that some researchers want to have their cake and eat it. They want to publish articles with 'impact', and to influence the sphere that is typically the domain of politics, but want to hide when called to account in the way that political bodies are.

      Unless Philosopher Kings can demonstrate that they can police each other -- which they seem to have demonstrated that they absolutely cannot -- they have no business setting the terms on which the lay public may approach them. To hold themselves to, and codifying different standards is, frankly, a distinctly psychopathic trait.

      Delete
  66. Steve,
    I don't think I need to have expressed a view about something in the past in order to have a view about it now, especially as I'm unaware of these other circumstances (and that's not really an invitation to highlight them). You may also note that the only view I actually expressed was that I would not respond to someone if I found that they have decribed me, or my co-authors, in that kind of way.

    Also, one might argue that hypocrisy is complaining about such behaviour in the past, while appearing to condone it now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Puh-leeze. For an academic, or perhaps because you're an academic, you're a careless reader and too quick to make imputations. The purpose of my comment was not to complain about such behavior in the past, but to point out the singular hypocrisy of the present moralizing by Mann and Lewandowsky.

      Further, I have a long track record of discouraging accusations of fraud, especially prior to Climategate. I've not allowed commenters at Climate Audit to make such accusations and have spoken out publicly against such accusations e.g. at Heartland, in the context of Cuccinelli and Keenan. I do not believe that your snark against me is remotely justified.



      Delete
  67. Brad Keyes wrote '"If people can't even accept that the reason that atmospheric CO2 is rising is fossil fuel emissions..." ...then I doubt you'll find them commenting at cliscep, so we can safely disregard that particular objection/excuse/misgiving.'

    I popped over to cliscep to see what it is like, and I found your comment there, which I found quite amusing, but it is a good example of how not to encourage legitimate critical engagement. I'll quote it here so everyone can see what I mean:

    "Brad Keyes says:
    25 Aug 16 at 12:52 pm

    Dikran the wombat/kangaroo has now hopped/waddled into the fray, accusing us of encouraging harassment of Ken by mentioning Ken’s real name, which is Ken. Don’t ask me how that works. No clucking fue.

    In the course of this paranoid ideation, Dikran introduces the hilarious notion that he’s concealing his own name in order to ensure a fair fight:

    “Academics that post anonymously or pseudonymously (in my case) often have good reasons for doing so (for instance so that their arguments have to stand on their own merits, rather than on the academics [sic] reputation…”

    Right, because if we knew how many years Dikran had spent at university we’d be awed into overestimating the cogency of his reasoning. After all, if we skeptics are famous for anything it’s our unquestioning respect for credentialism. ROFL monoamine oxidase.

    Or maybe it’s because he’s writing about ethics:

    “…or because they are writing on a topic that it outside their field of direct expertise,”

    Yes, I can see why that would grant a moral licence to dissimulate. Wouldn’t want the muggles to know you were speaking whereof you kneweth not, eh Professor Marsupial?

    Or maybe it’s a third reason he can’t think of right now, so we’re supposed to imagine it for ourselves:

    “… etc.).”

    How, how am I supposed to not make fun of this? You people are asking me to show superhuman restraint in the face of such low-hanging fruit."

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    Replies
    1. Dikran, I hope you can, in time, learn to get over it. I didn't know what a nice guy you were back when I wrote that. Misjudgments of character happen, okay?

      Delete
  68. Barry Woods, it is still trying to gain rhetorical capital using a form of attack on the source rather than the argument, which is more "bad-faith harassment" than "legitimate critical engagement". If you genuinely want engagement with scientists then you need to drop that sort of thing. This is well meant advice (as I want legitimate critical engagement), you can take it or leave it, it is up to you.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Steve McIntyre wrote "Such terms of endearment were, of course, used by Mann to disparage myself and McKitrick in response to articles published in peer review literature."

    An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If you want "legitimate critical engagement" then sometimes you have to turn the other cheek. You were quite insulting towards me a while back (regarding my technical criticism of Douglass et al.), but you will note I am capable of not responding in kind today.

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  70. Jaime Jessop said... "If you discard vigorous debate in favour of a cumbersome process of peer-reviewed publishing and subsequent peer-reviewed rebuttal (which also is an indispensable part of scientific progress) then you destroy perspective and distort reality.

    The advantage of the cumbersome process is that it tends to be better at getting the science right (which is why scientists do that) and it is self-correcting in the long run. That is because there is time to notice the mistakes, analyse them, perform some experiments to check that it is a mistake and see what the answer should be. In "vigorus debate" there isn't the opportunity to check and give a considered response, which is why rhetorical devices such as evasion, bluffing, Gish gallops etc. are used so commonly.

    Personally I'd rather have the right answer slowly than the wrong answer quickly.

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    Replies
    1. Dikran, I dispute your conclusion that the vigor of debate is to blame for "rhetorical devices such as evasion, bluffing, Gish gallops etc."

      Evasion? Bluffing? You must mean such infamous episodes as

      'Mr. McIntyre thinks there are more errors but says his audit is limited because he still doesn't know the exact computer code Dr. Mann used to generate the graph. Dr. Mann refuses to release it. "Giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people are engaged in," he says.'

      and

      'Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to find something wrong with it?'

      Oh, wait, those were peer-reviewed members of the scientific establishment, bluffing and evading and using every other trick they could think of to obstruct the vaunted self-corrective mechanism of science. With relation to questions that had arisen about their peer-reviewed works of literature, no less.

      Deliciously, Dr Mann was still refusing to reveal his algorithm—er, I mean refusing to "give in to intimidation tactics"—SEVEN YEARS after publishing his high-impact, world-changing result.

      "Personally I'd rather have the right answer slowly"

      Then you're gonna love climate science. ;-)

      Delete
  71. Remember kids, play nice. And Barry, for God's sake, take your boxing gloves off!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And remember kids, underage boxers must wear kid gloves.

      Delete
  72. Dikran, Aside from the pose of politeness, was Steve's criticism of your view on Douglass et al correct? I believe your idea that models can only be falsified if all possible runs are wrong simply means that no model of high Reynolds' flow would ever be falsified. It seems an entirely sterile criteria and is certainly of no help to people whose responsibility includes judging such simulations.

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  73. I was just rereading the comments here Nick, and one thing that struck me was the intense focus on form over substance and who did what to whom in the past. That is one of the things about the climate blogosphere that you may be unfamiliar with.

    I would just point out that most of this is irrelevant and posturing. What counts is the scientific literature and on that point, the real issue was and is Lewandowski's recursive fury paper and what is alleged to be multiple dishonest and appallingly unscientific practices. I haven't heard anyone here defend those practices.

    For all but the most obtuse, it is becoming obvious that there is a replication crisis in science and there is a real danger that the public will become cynical about the whole scientific enterprise. The appropriate response is to raise the scientific bar. Making excuses or parsing words to defend bad scientific practice is an inappropriate response. I would note that many of the criticisms of the science establishment that have proven to be largely correct have come from outside that establishment and that Steve McIntyre may be viewed as leading the way in pointing out and trying to address the replication crisis in paleoclimatology. It is true that in the climate debate, this issue cannot be faced squarely by those who are activists for action without compromising their activist goals. It would be a refreshing change if some of the scientific establishment types who are parsing words here and rehashing irrelevant history would address the replication crisis and what should be done to address it.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks David, you make several long-overdue points.

      But I should point out that "parsing words" is a step performed by the language cortex, making it possible for a person to comprehend written/spoken text. Yet you keep mentioning it like it's a bad thing. That's weird.

      Delete
  74. shifting focus

    Preamble: recognize the public’s right to be involved
    ......Research data and procedures should therefore generally and wherever possible be in the public domain and freely accessible by anyone.

    These types of statements are essentially cover for coming up with ad hoc reasons
    for data refusals. "Generally" and "Wherever Possible" merely encourage people
    to invent reasons for saying no.

    "Research data and procedures should therefore always be in the public domain and freely accessible by anyone, unless the following conditions obtain"

    That is, the onus should be on researchers and their institutions to clearly and
    specifically provide classifications for data. For example, non anonymized personal
    data shall not be released.

    Otherwise it is my experience as a data requestor and a data provider that there are
    too many temptations to restrict access.

    Further, researchers themselves should be relived of the duty of data archiving
    and data gatekeeping wherever possible.

    1. Build rapport
    Polite enquiries .....

    The best way to ensure politeness is to post your code and data. People go to your
    ftp, they download. Simple. or have a simple registration to download the data.
    Or turn your data over to a data custodian and let them deal with the public.
    In short, telling people to be polite and constructive is pointless. There is
    ZERO need to get in between a curious mind and your data. Zero.

    2. Safeguard your appearance
    .......

    Again, there is little need to interact with people and try to determine if they
    are trolls or not trolls if you just post the data you used and the code you used.

    3. Unless it is unavoidable, avoid questioning the requestor’s motives
    Scientists should assume that requests for data or clarification are made in good faith and are reasonable. Scientists should also generally not be concerned about the motives of the requestor as simple disagreement must not preclude access to data.
    There are, however, exceptions that involve considerations of privacy when medical or behavioral data are involved (e.g., Lewandowsky & Bishop, 2016). For that reason, the ethics code of the American Psychological Association (Sec. 8.14 a) stipulates that data be released to “other competent professionals” (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx). Similarly, the U.K. Medical Research Council’s guidelines state that “The custodian [of the data] must ensure that the group [receiving the data] accepts a duty of confidence and protects confidentiality through training procedures, etc, to the same standards as the custodian” (https://www.mrc.ac.uk/documents/pdf/personal-information-in-medical-research/).
    It follows that the motives and competence of the requestor do matter in some circumstances. Determining when those circumstances apply is non-trivial and merits further research (e.g., Sydes et al., 2015).

    I'm going to resist commenting at length on the irony of this as two of the authors
    regularly questioned the public's motives. I will however not the weaseling
    at the end -- that the motives and competence do matter. Repeating myself.
    The default should be to share all data and all code at the time of publication.
    Exceptions to this should be clearly defined, and NOT defined by the individual researcher but rather by institutions ( such as in behaviorial data ). Individual researchers are not in a position where they can determine the "motives and competence"
    of requestors. As an example, merely look at Mann's conspiratorial insistence that Mcintyre was in the pocket of "big oil" . The notion that "further research" is needed on this is fine. Until then, we should err on the side of openness. just post your data and code and stop fretting




    ReplyDelete




  75. 4. Boundaries of transparency
    ......

    This is not hard. If you publish a paper, then post your code and data. There are
    exceptions: like health and behavior data. The other sly thing to look out for here
    is the term "un published data" . Again, the rule is simple. Publish all the data
    required to recreate the study.

    5. Carefully examine and control the politics

    Wrong. ELIMINATE the politics by posting your code and data. the other choice is to
    turn control of your data over to a data custodian. Remove yourself as much as possible
    from deciding who gets data and who does not. Don;t try to control the politics.. we free the data so that our bias is an issue. I'm not my brothers keeper. if somebody wants
    to use my data to make shitty arguments.. fine. shitty arguments die. even zombie arguments eventually go away.

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  76. This is a long thread, and I don't see any value in me jumping into the main discussions, but Brad Keyes writes:

    "Deliciously, Dr Mann was still refusing to reveal his algorithm—er, I mean refusing to 'give in to intimidation tactics'—SEVEN YEARS after publishing his high-impact, world-changing result."

    I just want to clarify Michael Mann still, to this day, has not released all the methodological details, much less code or algorithms, for the 1998 paper that made him famous.

    Dikran Marsupial, who Keyes has been talking to, is part of a group which published a paper on the "consensus" on global warming. That paper has been one of the most discussed papers of this decade. To this day, the authors of it have not released all the data for their paper. Notably, they have never published the data they examined, choosing to instead only publish the filtered data set they created by removing data they decided was unsuitable for their work.

    Anders, short for "...and Then There's Physics," and several others have joined Dikran Marsupial in publishing pieces defending that same paper. He has never said a public word suggesting his co-authors should release the undisclosed data.

    Whatever else may be said in this discussion, I feel it is worth pointing out the idea of open and transparent science is one not well connected to reality. There are many more examples than what I've listed here. I'm not trying to give a comprehensive list or shame specific people. I just want people to realize how simple some of the failings of science are.

    By the way, many of the people who fail to publish all their data like this claim to have published it all even though it's untrue. That's even true for at least one of my examples. It's really weird.

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  77. Brad, I had in mind our two non-anonymous but wishing for anonymity science establishment representatives, Ken Rice and Gavin Cawley. Surely, they are concerned about the replication crisis and its possible corrupting influence on the climate science literature. They have spent a lot of words here rehashing and deflecting it would seem and also complaining about "intimidation tactics" and statements about their work that are too harsh for their tastes. The main issue here is far more important, certainly far more important than any of Lewandowski's papers.

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  78. Dikran,

    "Personally I'd rather have the right answer slowly than the wrong answer quickly."

    I'm sure, but what we have in science today, particularly climate science and the biosciences, is the prevalent acquisition of the wrong answers slowly, combined with political pressure to act quickly on the wrong answer.

    Furthermore, peer reviewed scientific literature which tends to detract from the wrong answer tends to be ignored/dismissed in preference to that which reinforces the consensus, thus creating a situation where the wrong answer becomes the 'right' answer and all other possible answers become the 'wrong' answer!

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  79. Hi Nick, you may not have expected to have opened a firehose of comment, and probably need some time to digest and investigate. But you have teamed up (hopefully unwittingly) with two evil guys (evil meaning morally reprehensible). They are not evil because of their beliefs about climate (as mistaken as those may be). They are evil when they lie and cover up. This has been repeated documented.

    Despite a few good practices discussed in this paper, there is little evidence that the pair are turning over a new leaf. I'd be happy to be wrong. Let Mann release his withheld code and Lewandowsky release his metadata from his retracted moon hoax paper. (Mann could also drop the lawsuit against your former co-author Steyn).

    In this current paper, you have committed the currently common (but odious and unscientific) practice of not citing a single peer-reviewed paper that disagrees with authors' views on the science under discussion. A cursory reading of the literature will uncover many such scientific works, including full rebuttals of Lewandowsky and Mann.

    Judging from your earlier papers, you have the ability to sort out real science from nonsense. That skill is little in evidence here. You have expressed scepticism of climate models in the paper, and there is good scientific reason to do that. Many of the other claims in climate science have as little justification.

    Hope you find a good way forward. Good luck on your future research and hope you enjoy Groningen.

    Geoff@Large

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  80. David Young said "Dikran, Aside from the pose of politeness"

    O.K. well I will ignore your accusation of disingenuousness (but point out that it isn't something that encourages legitimate engagement)...

    "was Steve's criticism of your view on Douglass et al correct?"

    no, unfortunately, while my response was polite, Steve was unwilling to engage on the details or even answer my questions. The thread is here and I'd be happy to continue discussing it there (being off-topic here).

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    1. Politeness IS a pose, by definition. Ingenuity and disingenuity simply don't enter into it. Your droll (mis)reading of David's point depends on a category error. It's a bit like saying "Bill Gates isn't really philanthropic, he just *acts* philanthropic by giving billions of dollars to humanitarian causes."

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  81. David wrote "I had in mind our two non-anonymous but wishing for anonymity science establishment representatives, Ken Rice and Gavin Cawley."

    I don't wish for anonymity, I wish for pseudonymity. However I think those that want to post anonlymously have a right to do so, and am happy to honour that. I would much rather discuss the substance of the argument than bother with ad-hominems or arguments from authority.

    "Surely, they are concerned about the replication crisis and its possible corrupting influence on the climate science literature."

    The BEST answer to such concerns is for people to go out and do the replication and publish journal papers, data and code (rather than just write about it on bogs). Note the code for NASA climate models and climate data are available, so that is all replicable, and there are others. There is no "crisis", just sub-optimality AFAICS.

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  82. Nick! I bet you didn't see this coming! Now you're linked to Mann and Steyn in the climate blogosphere. I recommend you leave this post up an write a paper on what happens. Certainly interesting.

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  83. Good luck with this, Nick! You seem to have inadvertently started a climate sh@tstorm! Mann vs. Steyn II, The Reluctant Blogger . It's interesting so far!

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  84. Steve,
    My first response to your comment seems to have been swallowed by the ether (I was in a bit of a rush, so may have just messed it up) but complaining about my snark while saying this

    Puh-leeze. For an academic, or perhaps because you're an academic, you're a careless reader and too quick to make imputations.

    seems a little rich.

    The issue that is being discussed here seems to be about identifying the difference between "bad-faith harassment" and "legitimate criticism". My suggestion was that if someone wished to discuss my work with me, they were unlikely to get a response from me if I discovered that they had described me - or any of my co authors - in that way ("fraud"....). Either you agree with this basic point (anyone who would like to engage in a discussion with others should be careful how they conduct themselves) or you don't (which would seem a little odd, given how you appear to dislike my supposed snark).

    I don't really see how what you're highlighting has any real relevance. If anything, your response seems to fall into the ad hominem category. You appear to be arguing that two of the authors shouldn't discuss this (or it's a bit rich for them to do so) because of things they have supposedly done in the past. Either you think what they're suggesting has merit, or you disagree with it. If you disagree with what they're suggesting, maybe you could describe in what you do so. If you agree, I don't think what they've supposedly done in the past has much relevance.

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  85. Dikran, As you may be aware, since you are perhaps the most prolific commenter there, Ken Rice has apparently banned me from his blog. I've attempted to comment at least a half dozen times in the last few weeks and all of them disappeared without a trace. Ken is a model of openness and transparency as he so often tells us.

    Steve McIntyre also has a thread on this subject discussing your argument in detail and the various responses to it to which ATTP's post was a response. Since both of us are allowed at Steve's that would be the appropriate forum. That would also allow you to explore it in more depth with Steve. If you are really serious, that is the better solution.

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  86. Dikran, The evidence is I believe quite strong that the replication crisis is very real. Here's just an example of reforms having an effect:
    http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0132382

    And a good summary of the problems:
    http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-research-has-changed-world-now-it-needs-change-itself-how-science-goes-wrong

    We have a couple of recent papers showing evidence for this problem in CFD. As you know, the suggestion that the answer to this problem (which you say is not a crisis) is simply to publish replication studies myself is disingenuous. The problem here as I'm sure you know is that getting these studies funded is very hard and getting them published can also be difficult. Also, in most cases in my field, the original data is not available. The track record in CFD is very poor and journals don't ask for the original data or code either. We actually have several papers showing negative results but they were difficult to fund and took a lot of time to get published. We did not publish several other negative findings because of disincentives to do so and lack of time.

    Your suggestion that I get the NCAR climate model and start replication studies is also I think not serious. Climate models are very complex codes and require huge computing resources that cost a lot of money. Modifying them to check for sensitivity to parameters could be difficult for anyone other than the author of the part of the code being modified. Our CFD replication papers are relevant here as is the new paper on model tuning that you are aware of. I think it conclusively shows that the uncertainty bounds used by the IPCC for GCM's are perhaps dramatic underestimates. This new paper is a strong sign of progress, so people are starting to get the message. This I like to think was at least in part motivated by people making noise about the issues. Those who attempt to apologize for science and rationalize any failings are not a part of the solution to the problem.

    My question for you really is do you have any suggestions that are actually practical and helpful? The pressure for reforms in science must be maintained and those who apologize for it or rationalize and minimize problems are part of the problem.

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  87. ATTP and Nick, I tend to loose patience with this word parsing about how to determine if a data request or request for interaction is "genuine." The reforms needed to eliminate this issue entirely is within the power of the science establishment. Science needs to move toward public data availability and code availability, especially when that data or code was generated using public funding. If you are worried about giving data to a "harasser" just put the data on your web site and forget about it. You will sleep fine at night I think. You don't need to respond to every request for additional data.

    In addition, academics need to grow up and realize that in large part they are public employees and the public will not be as polite as perhaps academics would like. That's part of the job. I would argue that part of the real structural problem in science is the lack of consequences for real misconduct or even just poor science or deliberate dishonesty. I would further argue that the scientific establishment, particularly in climate science, has shown itself to be incapable of policing their own neighborhood. If you are so paranoid of public responsibility and involvement, what is your suggestion for reform that might convince most members of the public?

    I compare this situation to the late 19th century. There was a business/financial/government establishment that maintained that everything was fine and that "harassment" by labor unions and citizens interested in reforms was the primary problem. Ken Rice and Gavin Cawley have a history of publicly advocating the idea that modern science is just fine and not in need of reforms. You can say that if you want, but is it really responsible to do so? History is moving toward reform, joining the reform efforts will not only improve your career but will make you feel better about yourself. It is never too late to address a problem, but first you must admit it exists.

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  88. Alright folks... as mentioned a couple of days ago, I'm going to close the comments on this post now. I imagine some of us might meet again at some future point in other fora.

    Nick

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