The worst paper ever published has competition. I was going to mock this, but it has all rather slipped beyond the Plains of Derision and sunk in a parallel universe. Researcher Jose Duarte is flummoxed, he simply can’t explain why a paper so weak was written, but moreso why it was ever published, and why everyone associated with it is not running for cover. It’s not so much about the predictable flaws, biased questions, and mindless results, it’s now about why UWA, The Uni of Bristol, PLOS, and the Royal Society are willing to wear any of the reputational damage that goes with it.
Lewandowsky, Gignac and Oberauer put out a paper in 2013 which was used to generate headlines like “Climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists”. The data sample is not large, but despite that, it includes the potential Neanderthal, as well as a precocious five year old and some underage teenagers too. The error was reported on Lewandowsky’s blog over a year ago by Brandon Shollenberger, then again by Jose Duarte in August 2014. Nothing has been corrected. The ages are not just typos, they were used in the calculations, correlations and conclusions. The median age was 43 but the mean age was a flaming neon 76. One wildly old person in the data skewed the correlation for age with nearly everything:
That one data point – the paleo-participant – is almost single-handedly responsible for knocking out all the correlations between age and so many other variables. If you just remove the paleo-participant, leaving the minors in the data, age lights up as a correlate across the board. Further removing the kids will strengthen the correlations.
Duarte remarks he would not sleep if he knew his work had a problem as major as this:
I don’t understand how anyone could let a paper just sit there if they know the data is bad and specific claims in the paper are false. No credible social psychologist would simply do nothing upon discovering that there were minors in their data, or a five-digit age. I’d be running to my computer to confirm any report that claims I’d made in a peer-reviewed journal article rested on bad data, fake participants, etc. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I knew I had something like that out there, and would have to retract the paper or submit a corrected version. You can’t just leave it there, knowing that it’s false.
In any case, something is very wrong here. The authors should explain how the 32,757-year-old got into their data. They should explain how minors got into their data. They should explain why they did nothing for more than a year. This is a very simple dataset – it’s a simple spreadsheet with 42 columns, about as simple as it gets in social science. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few days to sort it out and run a correction, retraction, or whatever action the circumstances dictated. These eight purported participants allowed them to claim that age wasn’t a factor. It allowed them to focus on the glitzy political stuff, allowed them to focus on finding something negative to pin on conservatives.
They don’t tell you until late in the paper that conservatism is negatively correlated with belief in conspiracies – the exact opposite of what they claimed in the earlier scam paper that APS helped promote. Also note that we already know from much higher quality research that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the moon hoax, though it’s a small minority in both cases (7% vs. 4%), and that Democrats endorse every version of the JFK conspiracy at higher rates. I think some journals might be unaware that the pattern of these conspiracy beliefs across the left-right divide is already well-documented by researchers who have much higher methodological standards – professional pollsters at Gallup, Pew, et al. We don’t need junky data from politically-biased academics when we already have high-quality data from professionals.
Duarte describes how unusual this kind of simple mistake is. The software used to run the survey specifically asks researchers to set age boundaries and it automatically checks to make sure respondents fit within the accepted range.
What’s also exceptional is that Lewandowsky, Gignac and Oberauer managed to delete and filter out more than a quarter of their participants, yet somehow left in the person born in 30,000 BC. They ruled out one in four responses yet allowed minors to be included, which they don’t have ethical approval for, and given the political conclusions, don’t have a scientific reason to include either.
Duarte wonders where the accountability is:
Which brings us back to the previous paper. APS extended that scam in their magazine, fabricating completely new and false claims that were not made in the paper at all, such as that free market endorsement was positively correlated with belief in an MLK assassination conspiracy and the moon-landing hoax. Neither of these claims is true. The data showed the exact opposite for the MLK item (which we already knew from real and longstanding research) – free market endorsement predicted rejection of that conspiracy, r = -.144, p < .001. And there was no correlation at all between free market views and belief in the moon-landing hoax, r = .029, p = .332. APS just made it up… They smeared millions of people, a wide swath of the public, attaching completely false and damaging beliefs to them.
They’ve so far refused to run a correction. It’s unconscionable and inexplicable. The Dallas Morning News has much higher standards of integrity and truthfulness than the Association for Psychological Science. I don’t understand how this is possible. This whole situation is an ethical and scientific collapse.
He fears for his profession, and is writing a longer article for a magazine to discuss the corruption in science and the roles that organizations like APS, IOP, and AAAS play:
This situation is beyond embarrassing at this point. If anything were to keep me from running the magazine piece, it’s that it’s so embarrassing, as a member of the field, to report that this junk can actually be published in peer-reviewed journals, that no one looks at the data, and that a left-wing political agenda will carry you a long way and insulate you from normal standards of scientific conduct and method. This reality is not what I expected to find when I chose to become a social scientist. I’m still struggling to frame it.
What does “science” mean anymore and who is responsible for keeping the standards? Normally the host institution investigates allegations of scientific misconduct:
… the system appears to be broken. Lewandowsky has not been credibly investigated by the University of Western Australia. They’ve even refused data requests because they deemed the requester overly critical of Lewandowsky. That’s stunning – I’ve never heard of a university denying a data request by referring to the views of the requester. UWA seems to have exited the scientific community. Science can’t function if data isn’t shared, if universities actively block attempts to uncover fraud or falsity in their researchers’ work.
To this day Lewandowsky refuses to release his data for the junk moon hoax study. That’s completely unacceptable, and there is no excuse for Psychological Science and APS to retain that paper as though it has some sort of epistemic standing – we already know that it’s false, and the authors won’t release the data, or even the national origin, age, or gender of the participants.
Jose Duarte is a PhD candidate in psychology, who writes an excellent blog unpacking the weaker links in his chosen field. It’s really worth reading the whole gobsmacking description, and all the comments too, which are especially well informed.
Gullible media science writers who take mistakes and magnify them
- Guardian Environment Title: “Climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists and free market advocates, study claims”
- NeuroLogica Blog Title: “Politics, Science Rejection, and Conspiracy Thinking”
- Popular Science Title: “Surprise! Conspiracy Theorists Are More Likely To Disavow Vaccines, Climate Science And GM Foods”
- Scientific American Blogs Title: “Motivated reasoning: Fuel for controversies, conspiracy theories and science denialism alike”
- The Burrill Report Title: “Princess Di, Faked Moon Landings, and the Denial of Science -”
- The Conversation Title: “Right, left, wrong: people reject science because …”
- Times Live Title: “Conspiracy theorists, conservatives more likely to reject science”
- Vaccine Nation Title: “Belief in a range of conspiracy theories predicts vaccine denial”
REFERENCE
Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013) “The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science”, PLOS ONE. e75637. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075637 (Full paper)
Editor: Tom Denson, The University of New South Wales, Australia
Funding: This project was supported by funds from the School of Psychology at the University of Western Australia under the auspices of the Adjunct Professor scheme.
For more on the unending saga of junk-psychology:
- Do we hate our participants Lewandowsky?
- Lewandowsky hopes we meant “Conspiracy” but we mean “Incompetence”
- 10 conspiracy theorists makes a moon landing paper for Stephan Lewandowsky (Part II) PLUS all 40 questions
- Lewandowsky, Cook claim 78,000 skeptics could see conspiracy survey at Cooks site where there is no link
- Three Frontiers editors resign in protest over Lewandowsky’s Recursive Fury retraction
- Are ARC grants for science or a form of government advertising disguised as research?
- Lewandowsky – Shows “skeptics” are nutters by asking alarmists to fill out survey
- $1.7m of taxpayer funds to Lewandowsky et al to denigrate people who disagree
It’s not a normal world any more, I’m glad I only did one year there at UWA before joining the real world. Goodbye PLOS ONE.
400
Tom,
Sadly, this is the arc of the free world’s political pendulum, that’s why Orwell and Huxley both wrote. We’re back at our most pathetic, schools turn out illiterate and innumerate students ready to face the world with heads full of socialist ideology and a fist full of arbitrarily coloured ‘I came 37th’ ribbons and certificates in ‘How to be a victim’.
Words fail me… almost.
In our education system here in Australia if a child is bullied, the perpetrators are counselled and fussed over, the victims are made defenceless by the denial of the right to defend themselves because if the victim dares do that they are suspended and punished.
Whatever happened to ‘sticks and stones… ‘
We all here who had the good fortune of a 60’s and 70’s education know the facts of life, question everything, always have a franga in your wallet and there’s no 2nd place in a fight.
Or maybe it’s just me?
I got an e-mail 3 days ago from my Operations Support Officer and I now need to complete mandatory courses in ‘Business Continuity Planning’ and ‘Radicalisation and Violent Extremism’.
Education through various political agenda has been corrupted and contaminated with socialist/left/green ideology, psuedo science and a preferred historical narrative.
It’s not a normal world, it never has been, and when people forget history you know what happens after that – they re-live it.
471
Couldn’t have put it better myself, though I am a product of an 80s/90s primary/secondary education (finishing in 1993), starting public, and finishing private. At least the private school I went to had the common sense to instil a sense of ‘speak your mind’. However almost none of the people leaving that school went on to be scientists, with law and medicine seen as the ultimate goal, followed by economics and accounting…
70
‘Radicalisation and Violent Extremism’.
Why do you need to learn that ?
What have they got planned for you?
52
Griss,
I mainly sit in an office analysing stuff, I get to talk to interesting people and write the occasional report.
The courses are to ensure planning for ‘business disruption’ and ‘identifying and reporting’ likely causes of that disruption.
Other mandatory competencies are working out intervention strategies and how to avoid subsequent report writing, gratuitous use of expletives, and appropriate acronyms describing various situational f#ck-ups.
50
Oh, that’s ok then..
I thought they might be training you up as a islamist or ‘climate scientist™’. !
70
Griss,
No, but there seems to be a correlation between radicalisation processes for both those belief systems.
We should also try to avoid the ‘I’ word because MSM don’t believe there is a connection between Islam and terrorism.
But I guess it would be more prudent to bow to the opinion of the experts, so as long as the terrorists believe there is a connection who are we to argue.
30
PS. Griss,
It’s not all play and no work though, they also ensure my familiarity with various corporate, mass produced promotional items from Messrs S&W, Glock, Ruger and Browning.
30
Not in your wallet, in the glove box.
20
Couldn’t fit a glove box in me hip pocket.
30
Tom think of poor me – I was there approximately a decade doing a BSc [Hons] & a PhD. Somehow I don’t think Mike Chaney (Chancellor of UWA), who also lives in the real world (Chairman of NAB & Woodside) like you Tom & most Jo Nova followers, would be all that impressed that Professor Lewandowsky is still linked to UWA’s Faculty of Science (Psychology).
60
Not a normal world: German Physicist Sees Dangerous Return To “Medieval Scholasticism” – Climate Models Have Failed Conclusively –
300
Tom
Correct link here
Yours didn’t work.
Cheers,
100
Of course, this is all the more ridiculous because the 32,575 year old would definitely be a conservative voter, and a fossil fuel advocate no doubt.
As an aside, he is fairly good proof of the comprehensive health benefits of the full paleo diet.
470
Winston,
This very elderly lady was respondent 606 in the data.
She was moderate left politically, scoring 12 out of 25 compared to the average of 14.8. Considering that the questions were clearly written by someone antagonistic to the free-market system, it is surprising that the average result was net supportive.
She was quite supportive of global warming (scoring 19 out of 25 compared to the average of 16.2), and average towards GM crops (14 out of 25 compared to the average of 14.2). A bit more skeptical than average towards conspiracy theories scoring 16 out of 45 compared to 20.9.
90
But …but this was before the advent of
neolithic crop cultivation and well before
GM crops. Perhaps the lady was an oracle.
30
Certainly no sages in the political left.
20
Kevin,
Should we christen her YAD061, or perhaps YAD606? The ultimate outlier.
30
Her mates call her Pando.
10
And as I said in a previous post Jo.
As scientists with an once of credibility sit silent and do nothing.
Other than pocket their “pieces of silver”.
They are shredding the credibility of all scientists.
340
I blame it on cultural devolution.
The high point of modern science occurred b/w 1900 and 1930, while there have been great discoveries since then, the general tenor of science seems to have deteriorated.
10
Lewandowsky
Will Steffen
England, Matthew
Stephen Schneider
Mann
These people are amazing!!!!!
Modern Torchbearers of the noble profession of scientific inquiry.
How can the modern world be so blatantly dishonest?
KK
361
The Nazi and soviet scientists were the procursors of todays,s post-empirical pseudoscience histeria. It seems that alchemists, astrologers, witches are coming back. The Medieval times turned the clock back by a thousand years. Why not do it again?
220
John Cook and Dana Nutticelli are very good examples:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/1_herrcook.jpg?w=640
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/herrscooterboy2.jpg
40
This would be the best ever opportunity for the Uni of Western Australia to conduct research on longevity. It would definitely make the University a world leader and someone would get a Nobel Prize – maybe lots of people would get lots of Nobel Prizes. But you can guarantee that UWA and Lewandowsky will refuse to release the data on this extremely aged specimen.
The reason would be the same as why they have not released the previous Lewandowsky data, intellectual property rights, privacy issues and so on.
No doubt they would resist any moves from researchers wanting proof of age and existence of the subject before committing funds to research. I guess we’d all just have to take their word for it about the existence of the person and the results of their proprietary research. I know this is sarcastic but it’s no different to what they have already done with the previous Lewandowsky paper.
230
I am nearing 70 YO and I am a pretty smart old codger.
The bloke that is 32,757 YO must be a bloody wizard.
220
This is deeply disappointing. Lew finds a veritable 32,757 years old, and all he can ask is “who killed JFK?”.
660
+1
Funnnnnnyyyyyy I can’t stop laughing. Thanx Richard.
(And here I thought economists didn’t have a sense of humor)
110
John Maynard Keynes was one of my favorite comedians, until he became increasingly depressive…..
80
He could probably tell you Richard, after all he’s infallible.
30
I want to find out more about the Conspiracy to hide the identity of the 32,757 year old man.
What the hell is going on there????
Is he an alien?
Can Human’s really live that long?
Is there a secret, and powerful society of very old people secretly running the world while drinking from the fountain of youth?
It would explain everything! World Wars, Global Warming, The Economy, and Kim Khardashian.
Those very old, old bastards are running the show and making it hard for everyone else.
Hang on – maybe they are Vampires – yeah, real vampires – that’s why he is so old.
Probably got something to do with Pyramids and underground cities, and probably a link with Nazis, the Occult and the Illuminati.
Who would have thought that an ancient Illuminati Vampire wouldn’t believe in the Moon Landing?
This is just fascinating – and begs the question – just what else is Lewandowsky hiding?
10
This is simply more evidence that if you write a paper which is supportive of the alleged ‘consensus’ of dangerous man-made global warming, or critical of those who are skeptical, you get a free pass.
Papers are whisked from submitted to published in record time. In some cases the University’s ethics approval can be requested retrospectively, or simply transfer a previous ethics approval to your latest project. There is no need to provide data because the agreeable peer reviewers don’t appear to even read the paper, so they aren’t likely to check any data. And if any skeptical readers ask for the data they will be denied.
The key is publish quickly, ensure the sensational headlines from the compliant media, seek even more taxpayer funded grants, and move on to your next left wing agenda driven post modern science project.
390
They could ask the 32,757 year old if the recent climate change is anything outside the normal he/she has experienced in their lifetime.
430
Good idea. Are there growth rings in his bones or teeth?
222
What teeth ?
102
Hey, pull up on the criticism – it was thoroughly peer reviewed…
130
And shows exactly what peer review is worth.
240
A Lewandowsky peer group?
I’m afraid, very very afraid.
30
There has definitely been some global warming in his lifetime.
00
Good post
question: Is it possible for an Australian to try to FOI the data for Moon Hoax paper (LOG12)
Given that Lewandowsky emailed a redacted set to a complete stranger, (who told people about it on your blog) It might be difficult for UWA to refuse the full dataset (ie age, gender, referring urls, and the 161 responses he stripped out, and the answers to some survey questions that were stripped out)
We KNOW his methodology allowed minors to be included in Moon Hoax – LOG12 – Psychological Science, APS (he states he excluded than 95yrs old)
leaving in 10-17 year olds..
as the PLOS ONE paper included two 14 years olds that believed in the moon hoax conspiracy..
It would be even more shocking, if any of the (3) moon responses that believed in conspiracies were minors.. (or the other conspiracies. but we KNOW that he has used minors that believed in conspiracies for the PLOS One paper..
So lets see the data – with age,gender, refering urls and the other responses that were stripped out, and responses to survey questions that were stripped out
Can you FOI UWA – or the other guy Simon Turnhill?) that has FOI’s UWA successfully in the past.. (needs to be an Australian)
I have a copy of the email from the person who maneged to get Lew’s partial Moon Hoax data.
Barry
FYI
PLOS One paper data is not held at the journal as far as I can tell
We just tracked it down by searching wayback machine, UWA data folder, and found a copy..
and then once we knew the link could see it was still available on the UWA website (so not officially available, just found a copy at UWA)
180
Correction
the PLOS One data is available from Lew’s COGsci website – here
http://www.cogsciwa.com/ (silly me looking to find it at the journal!)
he links to the partial dataset for Moon Hoax aswell (that was sent out to Katabasis)
(age, gender, referring urls, 160 respondents removed, and other answer to the survey questions all removed)
100
I did not realise that the data had been corrupted to this extent.
My late father recently died at 98 years of age.
So an outlier.
Up until 6 months before his death he was doing cryptic crosswords,the crossword in the SMH and Skyping.
He was in the Centenarian program, a longitudinal study of ageing people who retain their cognitive faculties.
He subscribed to and read the Scientific American and New Scientist, although in the last six months found that the Scientific American was beyond him.
He was worried about CO2 and ‘Global warming’.
If anything I found that as new data came in on the subject of global warming, and new ideas came in, he was less able to assimilate them, than he was when more youthful.
Its a pity that this sociological survey was so blunt an instrument that it did not look at the aged, other than in error.
It seem strange that if over 95’s were eliminated, paleo woman still made it into the cut.
In some ways he represented the trusting of science and its mouth pieces, such as the Scientific American.
When I was a child he had me build projects that came with the Scientific American.
It was indeed a trusted source.
Now all that is left is its acolytes in the MSM.
130
The so called “Paleo” woman was left in.. because her age is only 32.757 ( whatever that is in months..) maybe it’s a case of “Should have gone to Speaksaver!!!!”
30
Could be,
How do you know?
00
Scientific American is a distressing parody of its former self.
I am 61 and I find also that it is totally beyond me.
Another so called Science magazine is Cosmos, which is also a joke.
40
A trusted source – what a politically useful object that is.
Until the trust get’s burnt out – then they have to find another one.
00
My aunt recently died at 104. My father-in-law at 98. Many people in the USA make it into their 80s and 90s
00
What gold standard peer review has been under taken? Perhaps the creatures of the Middle Earth were involved, the trees, the wizards and the hobbits, all of them lived admittedly long. Or perhaps we can fall back on the bible with Adam, Eve and immediate relatives included in the count that lived unusually long?
70
Tom Fuller has returned to blogging. He has a post on this Lewandowsky nonsense, which is the first of a short series leading back to Lew.
“The Grand Tradition of Propaganda in Climate Releases: To Understand Lewandowsky You Must Travel A Long Road”
http://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/the-grand-tradition-of-propaganda-in-climate-releases-to-understand-lewandowsky-you-must-travel-a-long-road/
70
That 32, 757 year old must have been “The Gnarly Man” described by L. Sprague de Camp in this science fiction story:
ftp://82.1.244.36/shares/USB_Storage/Media/Books/Non-Medical/L.%20Sprague%20De%20Camp/L.%20Sprague%20De%20Camp%20-%20The%20Gnarly%20Man.pdf
40
Surely not a man. Men just don’t live that long. At 32,757 it must be a woman.
Marvellous for her age though.
50
Could possibly be an alien? Perhaps Lewandowsky has unwittingly stumbled upon extraterrestrial life but has misconstrued it for a person because it’s masquerading as a human, sort of like Roger from American Dad.
60
Prof. Lewandowsky- The Erich von Daniken of cognitive psychology.
131
As Winston here, Tony from Oz in @21.1.1, and others illustrate, there is much humour to be coined for (but not ad hom to be made of) what we could term, the dismal science, as it certainly isn’t an enlightening discourse, as many aim reviewers try to shine some light on the shades of darkness emanating from the dishonesty of analysis by the likes of those on the list provided by KinkyKeith in #5, and others. Yet the perpetrators of politicised non-science, as much is clearly does not reside in the realm of empirical science, by the established standards of yester-year, they have no sense of humour when it comes to justifiable critique of their writings (it would be a bit of a stretch to call it work).
As a play on Winston’s words above and in the best of the Lew paper tradition of endless publications for eventual deposition in a dark archive, researchers at the Erlich von Dunny-Can School of Psychotic Dichotomies are seeking double-rolls of Lew paper to be more “environmentally friendly” by saving on “carbon emissions” (no warming emissions are produced in the writing of our papers; we don’t eat lentils!) as they prepare a lengthy paper for publication in the self-esteemed Psychotic Quarterly entitled, “The cognitive dissonance of Neanderthals and their contribution to global warming tipping the climate into a precipitous Ice Age”. Don’t hold your breath, it will give you a headache anyway.
60
Who would have ever though a single tree in Yamal could be bested?
It is almost as if the dodgy poll for professional trust ( the one normally won by pharmacists & lost by politicians,used car salesmen, advertizers & Journos) needs another candidate field.
Man & dogs………
[ isn’t ~32k some kind of upper limit for small integer field in databases?]
60
That is 32,767, or 2 to the power of 15 minus 1.
Lew is out by ten, so I presume the number is an artefact of an overflow. That would be par for course in the world of climate modelling.
60
Looney of the Overflow?
100
Yes, your explanatory hypothesis actually makes some sort of sense
I was trying to “guess” all sorts of initial typos but the 32000+ type number kept yelling at me with subliminal reminders of base 2 arithmetic
50
10 short of the logical maximum. It’s funny that he can’t even get that right. LOL.
40
I bumped into Jose Duarte’s blog several weeks ago and was suitably impressed.
40
In any case, something is very wrong here. The authors should explain how the 32,757-year-old got into their data. They should explain how minors got into their data.
Oh, that is easily explained…. Loose nut behind the keyboard.
120
PEBKAC
Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
30
looks more like an ID-10-T error to me…
20
How that got into the data? Easy! They probably never looked at the data! The study was finished before they ever collected any DATA. Heck, they knew what they were gonna write before they found a pretense to write it. The data was for cosmetic purposes only. The lipstick on the pig y’know!
20
Yeah… that’s exactly what John Cook did with his “97% consensus”. The evidence is clear.
20
I find it remarkable that the “gods” of climate alarmism and leftist propaganda are idiots like Lewandowsky, John Cook, Dana Nutticelli et al….
Are they the best they can do?
40
“In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king”
20
[…] Full story: http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/lewandowsky-peer-reviewed-study-includes-someone-32757-years-old/#m… […]
00
I took a long look at this paper (LOG13), following a prompting from Barry Woods (who is mentioned above) by comparing it to the “NASA faked the moon landing — Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax” (LOG12) paper. The questions were similar but not the same. The crucial difference was that LOG12 survey was conducted on a particular type of blog. Lewandowsky calls them “pro-science”, whereas I would call the “climate alarmist”. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of respondents followed the position of the blogs. This gave a good comparison between the activist believers and the mainstream American population. The first of two conclusions was
Conspiracist Ideation is most likely falsified by the PLOS-ONE survey
Lewandowsky’s hypothesis is that those who believe in conspiracy theories have a strong tendency to reject (climate) science. Using the PLOS-ONE survey I put the conspiracy theory responses into average score bands – 1 for strong reject and 5 for strong support. I then compared this with the results average response to three strongly-supported scientific statements (e.g. “smoking causes lung cancer”). All groups strongly supported the scientific statements, with an average score of 4.25. But the strongest supporters were the 12 strongest supporters of conspiracy theories, with an average score of 4.64. The lowest average score (still of 3.95 out of 5) were those who were in the middle band on conspiracy theories. Results table here. That is, lack of strong beliefs either way on conspiracy theories is related to equivocation on accepting well-supported scientific hypotheses. This is a rather mundane conclusion.
However, the pattern was different with comparing conspiracy theory responses with the CO2 science (AGW) responses. Having a strong position on conspiracy theories (for or against) is a predictor of having a strong position on (for or against). Both the conspiracy theorists and anti-conspiracy theorists are split between climate alarmists and climate skeptics. Results table here.
My overall conclusion from the data is that if you have strong opinions in one area, you are likely to strong opinions in other areas.
It is not possible to draw conclusions from the LOG12 paper, as skeptic responses were in a small minority, and those dominated by scam responses.
Check the full analysis here.
60
32,757. My wife griped about a weather station page reporting a 3276 degree temperature to the whole FaceBook world. My reponse:
But I digress.
2^15 is 32768, that minus 32757 is 11. Perhaps someone entered a birth date 11 years in the future, math computed that as an age of -11, and the database truncated it to the low 15 bits.
If there was an unreasonably old test on the age, one that only filtered out those older than 90 would have let by the -11 year old, so it’s quite plausible it could have missed this prescient ovum.
50
I notice The Conversation on the list of endorsers.
The others you can make your own mind up about buying, but The Conversation (wikipedia) is financed by Universities and GOVERNMENT.
Joe Hockey; there is one saving you could make for your budget.
90
I ask again who’s next week witch so called scientist will prove my point next ,science is broken and its going to take some fixing.
70
And more to the point, if you intend to be taken seriously you don’t let such egregious errors ever get published with your name on them. So evidently blatant carelessness doesn’t bother Lewandowsky, Gignac and Oberauer, nor does it bother their intended audience.
I remember being told somewhere along the way in my education, thou shalt check thy work. Whatever happened to that idea?
90
I note with some interest that we already knew Lewandowsky didn’t get even a single feather ruffled by putting his name on obviously flawed work.
I think Jo is right. This stuff is going on in some parallel universe. Only maybe we should be calling an orthogonal universe? 😉
50
Sorry to quote myself but I can provide one explanation for what happened to checking your work. To many people the computer is some magical, infallible gadget they don’t think can get anything screwed up. I’ve seen it happen. So perhaps the results were not checked because, “The computer can’t get it wrong.” 🙁
60
you are so right there.
Why go to a K factor chart and figure out to read that, when the software tells you the K factor is 7.4. No comprehension that that is a large figure and is probably too large. That’s what the computer says, so that what I’ll use. Doh.
40
It happens in the classroom. Calculus instructors, at least where I’ve been taking classes, are given the final say on if calculators can be used in the class and if so which ones. I have mixed feelings on this as out in the world we’ll be using Maple, Mathematica, etc. and HP 50g’s, T-89’s or 84’s, Casio Classpad’s etc. Some of those tools could use their own course just to learn how to use them efficiently.
But I’ve seen numerous cases where the CAS in the system isn’t quite up to snuff, and a complex integral or differential entered into any of the above results in an incorrect answer. Some will only provide an approximation where the exact answer is required and knowing how to get there is very beneficial. In courses where the reliance was on the tools it is quite possible for students to graduate without knowing how to get there, they just know which buttons to push in which order.
If one knows that if they take the first derivative of a function and integrate it they should get the function back, or if one integrates a function, then takes the first derivative of the result they should get the function back it’s easy to check regardless of the tool. But how many of us actually do that regularly? It’s an easy habit to get out of.
Now Greg’s comment on K factors brings back some not so fond memories but learning how to calculate it and what range it should fall within is some important stuff.
30
I’ve had the same reservation about using calculators in the classroom. But it’s not because I object to using calculators, I use mine all the time. The problem is that the student doesn’t learn how to do the calculation and gets no experience, not even a clue, in recognizing when a result is way out of line.
I once had to figure out an efficient way of finding all of the three values I needed to feed a timer so as to generate the frequency nearest what I needed without doing it by bruit force which would take far too long. I tore my hair out testing that algorithm and its limits to make sure it really did what I needed from it. And only after a rather exhaustive test sequence did I put it in the program. My first several attempts had problems and luckily I recognized one of them only by being able to tell that one set of results was “wrong”.
It’s like driving. You can use the cruise control all you want to but only after you thoroughly master driving the car yourself.
20
As the old saying goes-
“To err is human -to stuff up completely you need a computer”
30
Excellent point. Those few obsessive commenters who have been following closely the Lewandowsky affair, like yourself and Simon Turnill in Australia, Brandon Shollenberger in the US, and Barry Woods and me in the UK, should now contact the journalists on whose sites we’ve been vainly trying to correct the record for the past two or three years and get them to atone for their professional negligence, revealed thanks to the efforts of José Duarte.
(In fact I’m in France, and I have other pressing concerns to address tonight about freedom of speech. Many thanks to the whole world for their solidarity)
80
Eric Worrall has taken Jo’s scoop to Watts.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/11/32757-year-old-survey-participant-skews-lewandowsky-paper-defective-data-demonstrably-defective-conclusion/
40
My second conclusion from comparing the LOG12 and LOG13 papers is that
Climate alarmists predominantly have left-authoritarian political views
The LOG13 PLOS-ONE survey was an internet survey of a cross-section of the US population. The LOG12 “Moon landings” survey was conducted on a particular type of blog. Lewandowsky calls them “pro-science”, whereas I would call the “climate alarmist”.
I put the CO2 Science (AGW) responses into five bands, based on the average score response of 1 for strong reject and 5 for strong support and plotted these responses and against the frequency of responses for all the possible “scores” to the five free market questions. (The lowest score is 5, the highest score is 25). The graph is here. Please note that the political responses form a normal distribution, with over a quarter responses scoring 15, and over half scoring 14-16. There are very few responses from either extreme alarmists (dark green) or extreme skeptics (scarlet), but political stance is a predictor of belief in climate.
I did the same for the earlier LOG12 (blog) survey. Here there were only four responses possible, with no neutral option. For the five free-market questions the response score was therefore 5 to 20. The graph is here. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of responses were from those strongly supportive of “CO2 Science”, denoted by dark green on the graph. Also, the political responses are strongly skewed to the left. Active climate alarmists have left wing views, and those with extreme left-wing views form a disproportionate number of these activists.
The question I pose is
My conclusion, using evidence from the papers and writings of Stephan Lewandowsky, is that left-authoritarian political belief that determines belief in climate. My full analysis is at http://manicbeancounter.com/2014/04/21/extreme-socialist-environmentalist-ideation-as-motivation-for-belief-in-climate-science/
100
The Royal Society supports some of this joker’s ‘work’. They provided the funds with their eyes wide open. Need I say more?
90
Please do, you have the podium 🙂
30
Apparently, from what I’ve read in prior threads here, Cook has followed Lewandowsky to the UK in order to get his PhD in Psychology. I have to assume that he realized he sucked as a physicist and his propaganda under the guise of psychology would be more profitable. Though I suspect if Lewandowsky wasn’t there Cook wouldn’t be either.
70
Maybe in order to share a toilet seat.
20
“Though I suspect if Lewandowsky wasn’t there Cook wouldn’t be either.”
Lewny obviously has some tame pal-reviewers on hand.
Kook won’t have to write anything sensible or worthwhile to get his PhD !!
This is why it should be mandatory that reviewers names are posted with the publishing of a paper or thesis.
Then the reviewers can also be held to account for shoddy work like this.
72
There is no need to correct any of this. They could publish anything they want, as the MSM will not undertake any scrutiny of their work, or will seek comment from those who support the meme. They know it, we know it, but the general public does not. They have absolutely nothing to lose by not telling the truth.
120
To get a clearer view of the MSM’s incompetence I commend to you “Bad Science” by Ben Goodacre.
10
Lewandowsky and his ilk are one of the very foundations of AGW skepticism. Their utterly ludicrous behaviour in the name of science does more to discredit their own cause and gives Jo and Anthony Watts et al their daily bread.
Maybe, juuusst maybe…. Lew is conducting a long game spoof of AGW alarmism in some sort of deep cover.
THAT’S IT! Lewandowsky is a satirist!
Je Suis Lewny!
120
)))
71
Y’see, there’s the difference between (dare I even refer to Pink Floyd) Us and Them.
To us, humour is what Ianl8888 wrote here, and what RichardTol wrote at Comment number 8 above.
To them, humour is blowing up children, as per that infamous 10:10 video.
Tony.
130
And dressing up as Nazis….
70
dressing up ??
81
Playing dictator. Isn’t it every childs wish to rule the world?
40
It’s been said ‘At the worst moment of rage during a child’s tantrum they would destroy the world if they could without a second thought.’
This type of immature acting out is what the warmists remind me of, undeveloped social skills for undeveloped people.
30
what Lysenko spawned…
70
A quick trawl about the web reveals a wide range of ‘science communication’ degree education programmes. It is clear there is little uniformity from entry requirements to individual institutional degree orientation and description. Critical evaluation of the ‘science’ per se appears to be absent – possibly considered to have been undertaken prior to publication at a journal peer review / editorial stage.
Instead, the focus often appears to settle upon a variety of institutional goals that may be expressed through ‘science communication’ or ‘popularizing science‘.
Funding also appears to be an important consideration. Doubtless institutional education programmes reliant on external funding sources will be ‘orientated’ correctly…
“In addition to on-campus support, faculty members have had their programs of research funded by businesses, private organizations and government agencies. Such external funding has come from sources such as the Environmental Protection Agency, IBM, Hewlett Packard, National Institutes on Alcohol Addiction and Abuse, National Cancer Institute, National Park Service, National Science Foundation, and U.S. Forest Service.” Colorado State University
In NZ at Otago University, ‘popularising science’ is interpreted in the following manner:
“Science grows ever more specialized, yet, if we are to understand the changes we see in the world’s environment and be part of the drive for a more sustainable future, science must speak in a language that is understandable, compelling and inclusive. That’s what Popularizing Science is all about: Seeking better ways.” Centre for Science Communication
It seems that ‘Science Communication’ may often be little more than spin^2, which might imply MSM reports of science comm communiques is spin^3?
50
There has been a lot of angst and hand wringing on this and other skeptic sites over the grossly pernicious and highly destructive influences of an academia that in some disciplines has become little than a bunch of leftist activists, advocates and zealots for a increasingly intolerant leftist anti free speech agenda.
Or at least advocates for a political direction that is totally intolerant and viciously suppressing of any so called free speech that in any way conflicts with their own far leftist ideology.
An article which could very easily be completely applicable to a number of Australian universities instead of it’s heading of the University of California can and I would suggest quite strongly should be read as below;
A CRISIS OF COMPETENCE
The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California
[ quoted from the above ]
It is often said that it is paradoxical, even ironic, that at the same time that the utopian socialist regimes of the Soviet Union and its satellites were beginning to collapse (during the 1980s), the presence of Marxism on the college campuses of the English-speaking world was growing exponentially.
But the simultaneity of these two apparently contradictory trends is not hard to understand.
In the real world of practical politics, utopian socialism had suffered a defeat so crushing that it now seemed moribund and irrelevant, and so the remnant of die-hard believers – largely in countries that had no direct experience of its practice – retreated from the everyday world that had treated its cherished ideas so cruelly.
They found a refuge from that world in the ivory tower of academia.
And so an idea whose presence in the general public was now vanishingly small achieved the disproportionately large on-campus presence that we have documented.
[/]
80
“someone 32,757 years old”
Hmm. Is it possible? Off to ‘oogle for some climate history fun.
The Bosnian Pyramid Complex: Signs of Technically Advanced Ice Age Civilization
Dr. Osmanagich is the one who first discovered this pyramid complex in 2005.
This pyramid complex is the oldest known man made structure in the world.
A radiocarbon date on a fossilized leaf found under one of its concrete slabs indicates an age of around 33,800 calendar years before present (~29,200 C-14 years BP)He also heads the archaeological foundation excavating the pyramid and the nearby tunnel system.
10) After examining the Ravne tunnel labyrinth during my tour in September, I became convinced that this ice age civilization had excavated it to create an underground refuge space where their people could take shelter from episodes of elevated cosmic ray bombardment.
This is substantiated not only by astronomical and geological evidence outlined in my writings (e.g. in Earth Under Fire), but also in the many legends of the burning of the Earth by the Sun that have been handed down from the past in cultures all over the world.
The largest such cosmic ray event to occur prior to the time of the excavation of the Bosnian tunnels and pyramid construction was that which transpired during the 6000 year long hazardous period which extended from 46,000 to 40,000 calendar years BP.
During this period there occurred the largest Galactic cosmic ray flux event of the last 50,000 years, which is seen in the Vostok, Antarctica ice core record as a beryllium-10 (10Be) peak centered around 41.5 kyrs BP, 10 Be being an element produced in the Earth’s atmosphere by galactic cosmic rays; see graph below.
. . .
Someone from an ice age?
It’s a conspiracy.
71
very interesting
40
I’m sceptical, sorry Handjive.
40
I am sceptical as well, Winston.
When you read some links provided there …
http://anamericaninbosnia.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/the-mysterious-anti-scientific-agenda_455.html
“Yale-educated geologist and geophysicist Robert M. Schoch has maintained for over six years that hundreds of international volunteers working for the nonprofit organization Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation have colluded with its founder, Dr. Osmanagich, to fake excavation results and engage in scientific misconduct and scientific fraud.
Schoch’s libel shifted briefly to slander in August 2012, in an ad-hoc interview …”
“fake excavation results and engage in scientific misconduct and scientific fraud.”
Egad! Irony?
10
Open your mind Winston, the missing heat might be in there!
50
Well, they’ve looked everywhere else and haven’t found it.
By a process of elimination……
In future you can refer to me by my new nom de plume:
Quintillion Jules, Esq.
30
“By a process of elimination……”
….. from what part of the body ?
21
Must agree ; what ancient race would build a bomb shelter for radiation, even if they could work out that it was necessary.
The actual periodic radiation flux is still; Very Interesting.
KK
10
Surely the carbon-dating of the leaf (found under concrete?)would be seriously in error if there were high levels of cosmic rays bombarding the earth at this time? The carbon isotope ratios would be affected.
40
The carbon isotope ratios would be affected.
30
Eureka! 32,757 years is horribly close to 33,800 years BP (i.e within an acceptable margin of error)- ipso facto and hey presto- the fossilised leaf, and therefore the paleo-participant, is none other than our own Gee Aye.
I thought you looked familiar.
20
probably is me… although the fossilised me stuffed up the block quotes above, not the new me.
50
Is 32,000 years enough to fossilize a leaf? I wouldn’t have thought so.
If the leaf is fossilise, and under the foundation rock; pehaps it’s unrelated to the structure on top?
30
“found under concrete?”
Actually, yes.
The Egyptians may have used a form of cement (heated shell based limestone plus ash) with an aggregate, to form blocks in-situ.
42
ps.. another hypothesis in process. 😉
there is truth… somewhere.
42
Fascinating, but I don’t believe homo sapiens built them.
20
Lewy also included minors in the survey a five year old and two 14 year olds. It is obvious that the survey was about as well constructed as his other efforts (sarc). The boof heads who did the peer review on this paper should be named and shamed as well. There again Lewy has no shame.
50
Speaking of pointless and dodgy studies in to nonsense and nothing. A friend of mine just got sent this….
——————————————–
Dear members
Please see the attached.
Sara
FMI ADVICE IS NEEDED BY THE Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research!
Researchers at the University of Wollongong are studying how changes in climate will impact households in the Sydney region, and how households may respond. The researchers are particularly keen to engage culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) households in order to represent the significant and diverse environmental experiences, perspectives, and capacities of these households.
As part of this research, postgraduate student Stephanie Toole is seeking to distribute a confidential questionnaire to culturally diverse households in the Sydney region. The questionnaire is available as a printed booklet and online in English (https://surveymonkey.com/s/D2H2FPK), Simplified Chinese, Vietnamese and Arabic. Each printed booklet also comes with a reply-paid envelope for return, and questionnaire participants can win one of five $100 WISH gift cards.
Stephanie is currently seeking any opportunities to distribute this questionnaire. If you think there may be any opportunities to advertise or distribute the questionnaire – for example, displaying a flyer, sharing information about the research via a mailing list, providing printed booklets, or attending meetings or events to talk about the research – or if you have any questions, please contact Stephanie via email at [email protected].
Thank you!
——————————————
30
In true style I have done my bit to pervert the results of this perverse study by claiming to be from Tattooine and owning 147 motor vehicles. Please do your bit to ensure their data is as unfathomable as possible and we can see how close they are reading.
81
“I have done my bit to pervert the results of this perverse study by claiming to be from Tattooine and owning 147 motor vehicles. ‘
If they don’t spot that it will show they are exceptionally incompetent. No-one on Tatooine could keep 147 motor vehicles. The Jawas would steal most of them.
50
More believable would be 147 golf clubs, all of them sand wedges.
40
Ham, cheese and tomato please!
Tony.
30
Mr. Burns: “Use an open-faced club. Use a sand wedge.”
Homer: “Open faced club sandwich… mmmm”
20
LMAO nice one
20
Safety, recently during the induction process in my latest job I was given a ‘Cultural Diversity Questionnaire’ to fill out, it was basically personal background questions of my perceived/known genetic heritage and my understanding of other’s also.
I flat out refused to fill it out stating “I will not be racially profiled for any reason or anyone’s business.” after which I prepared to be shown the door but no questions were asked and nothing was said apart from ‘fair enough’, I’m not doing a job that requires that type of information and I’ve had national Police checks done for the last 12 consecutive years, any more probing than that will require dinner and a movie thanks.
100
Seriously??? that’s crazy!
20
Exactly my initial thoughts and hence my reaction, fair enough the job entails handling private information but I’d think the Police check would cover that, the major issue I have is why would such information be of any benefit to the business?
I’m actually reluctant to say where I’m working due to social media guidelines I’ve agreed to on the contract, but I can certainly say it’s not ASIO. 🙂
20
“‘Cultural Diversity Questionnaire’”
Human!!
41
@Griss
My preferred reply is “Mostly human”.
I also never allow it to be questioned or expanded.
20
Part Neanderthal
00
If you were from Tatooine you would own landspeeders…
Seriously … what a noob.
40
They’ll try anything, in this case selling Climate Change™ by pretending to conduct a poll. — a push poll.
20
Lewy is always good for a cartoon ! 🙂
72
Where are the usual troop, defending this wonderful piece of peer-reviewed climate science ?
NOWHERE !
152
*crickets!
81
Donkey, Chester, Funk and eUNch are missing in action.
81
You can still see their little red finger prints on the page though.
80
Isn’t the second Monday of the month ‘update program’ for the auto-bots?
40
I reckon the poor children have realised that they cannot find ANYTHING to support their unsupportable religion.
They must be hurting, and very frustrated.
40
Psychologists are scientists? Since when? From the look of their survey analysis, they would not get a job as market researchers before you even get to any suggestion of science!
This disgraceful exhibition of incompetence does however the farce of peer review, when peer simply means your equally incompetent friends in the same business. At least you can presume the man who survived the ice age would be pro global warming.
120
does however expose the farce.
40
She is a Goa’uld, hiding from the other System Lords. Her real name is Hathor.
30
I responded on the Bish’s site on Jan. 6th:
The 32,757-year-old was me, and I do get a bit cranky when bothered by academics.
I am somewhat conservative as I prefer Auroch haunch roasted over a slow fire rather than toasted tofu on arugula.
80
O/T but what the hell
( One for you Tony!)
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1035370459821733
30
It has been claimed elsewhere that the video is of one that was purposely scuttled. The video isn’t identified. Here is what I wrote on NoTricksZone:
A wind tower fell in Ireland.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30667411
One was removed in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-29/newcastle-blows-off-landmark-wind-turbine/5850426
40
I just LUV the reason for removing the Newcastle turbine..
“ongoing maintenance costs and expansion plans for coal loading in the port.” 🙂
61
This is gold, well…. black gold.
“ONE THIRD OF THE world’s oil reserves, half of gas reserves and 80 per cent of current coal reserves should not be used in the coming decades if global warming is to stay below an agreed two-degree Celsius limit, scientists said on Wednesday.”
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/01/08/4159432.htm
And this is the icing on the oil cake.
“Comments for this story are no longer available. ABC policy is to delete comments on stories three months after they are published” (published 8-01-2015). Once again your tax payer dollars funding an open debate. *cough*
This cartoon certainly nails it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/10/portents-in-paris/
Free speech is certainly under attack and not just from religious terrorists but green ones as well.
71
“… an agreed two-degree Celsius limit, …”
Pick a number, any number. The air is full of numbers.
Another sourced from the air is 350.
Okay, maybe not from the air, but the word starts with ‘a’.
41
John, we refer to those as Preliminary Order of Magnitude Approximations, or “POOMA” numbers, for short.
30
Has anyone asked the WA minister of Education what steps he has taken to force the management of the University to do their job? Surely their most important task is to maintain academic credibility in their institution. If neither the committee of management nor the CEO of the university has acted then why are they not looking for new jobs?
60
not a state issue
01
A university with even one dysfunctional appendage, and there are several at WA, is not going to attract what it otherwise would in volume or quality.
That’s a State Matter.
KK
30
In Australia, I understand that universities are established and regulated via acts of the commonwealth parliament. So, not a State matter, rather a federal matter.
30
yup
10
True Victor, but I was referring to the damage done to the City and State hosting the UWA.
Although funded by the Commonweal, it is in the best interest of all in Perth and WA to have a strong Uni.
KK
10
Yes KK, I take your point.
20
Graeme No.3 –
Conversation also claims to receive funding from the Commonwealth Bank. customers could complain.
(expand descripion)
The Conversation Partners & Funders: The Commonwealth Bank
The Commonwealth Bank is a long-standing supporter of the community and contributes to individuals, schools, communities and organisations through the Staff Community Fund, sponsorship programs, volunteering and community grants..
Our support of The Conversation adds another exciting dimension to our long-standing commitment to education. The Commonwealth Bank is pleased to leverage our world-class IT support to help make The Conversation a reality. This innovative initiative captures the spirit and potential of the internet by engaging the community and sharing information
https://theconversation.com/au/partners
Lew should apply the following to CAGW believers, surely:
22 Dec: Vox: Susannah Locke: How to debunk false beliefs without having it backfire
There’s nothing worse than arguing with someone who simply refuses to listen to reason…
And trying to debunk misinformation can often backfire and entrench that misinformation stronger. The problem is even worse for emotionally charged political topics — like vaccines and global warming…
So how can you actually change someone’s mind? I spoke to Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist at the University of Bristol and co-author of The Debunking Handbook, to find out:…
Stephan Lewandowsky: It’s not an easy task to update people’s memories…
Now, one of the ways to get around that is to tell people not just that something is false, but tell them what’s true. Alternative information makes it much easier to update your memory…
The other is you can have a messenger who is consummate with your beliefs. You get a liberal to talk to liberals and a conservative to talk to conservatives…
Now, the trick appears to be that you’ve got to get people the opportunity to deal with information in great depth. If you have a situation like a classroom where people are forced to sit down and pay attention, that’s when more information is helpful…
Locke: Let’s say I’m going home for the holidays and have an uncle who doesn’t believe in climate change. How can I change his mind?
Lewandowsky: It’s difficult. There’s a couple of things I can suggest. The first thing is to make people affirm their beliefs. Affirm that they’re not idiots, that they’re not dumb, that they’re not crazy — that they don’t feel attacked. And then try to present the information in a way that’s less conflicting with [their] worldview…
One of the problems I’ve been working with is people’s attitudes toward climate change. For a lot of people, the moment they hear the words “climate change,” they just shut down. But there are ways that you can get around that…
If you tell people that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that 97 out of 100 climate scientists agree on the basic notion of global warming, it seems that is a gateway belief that enables people to recognize the importance of the issue…
In general, people are very sensitive to what they perceive to be the majority opinion around them…
Locke: Is there anything else important that people should know?
Lewandowsky: One thing that I would point out is that it’s very important for people to be skeptical and anticipate that people will be misleading to the public. Some of the misinformation that’s out there is not accidental…
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/22/7433899/debunk-how-to
20
Bristol University seems to be sinking inexorably into the climate quicksand. First, there was the Lewandowsky link. Then, the other day, was this item from Bishop Hill:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/8/blocking-the-door-to-the-marketplace-of-ideas.html
where a supporter of what he termed “balanced speakers” turned out to mean “singers from the same hymn, on the same page, of the same ecoloony hymnbook”.
Then came this: “To kick off Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital, a gallery has been transformed into a magical arboretum” (UK Daily Telegraph).
Both the city and the university of Bristol seem hellbent on suicide. I checked and “European Green Capital” is nothing to do with the quality of its parks (or the colour of its buildings, for that matter), but is entirely a part of making Bristol an absolute nightmare to drive through, in, or out of, including for those Bristolians who might like to experience the genuinely beautiful landscapes in Gloucestershire, to the north, or Somerset, to the south. (Green landscapes in Wales, to the west, and Wiltshire, to the east, are also available.)
40
hey , can you prove this guy was not that old? do you know him?
how can you be so sure it is a mistake?
10
He was found skulking at the bottom of an ice-core, dating from the tail-end of the last glacial, so he was only a few thousand years old, really, the cunning devil. I shouldn’t be surprised if Chris Vernon PhD interviewed him in person.
10
A Corrigendum (correction) has been posted on this paper, link here.
The following is noteworthy:
00
Sorry KR, Duarte says
“That one data point – the paleo-participant – is almost single-handedly responsible for knocking out all the correlations between age and so many other variables. If you just remove the paleo-participant, leaving the minors in the data, age lights up as a correlate across the board. Further removing the kids will strengthen the correlations.”
I know who I would trust.. and it wouldn’t be Lewy !!
Lewy’s “correction” sounds like he hasn’t even bothered checking. yet another facade !
21
Griss – You apparently didn’t follow the link I provided, where Lewandowsky _did_ describe the correlation changes:
The effect of the removal of the erroneous age in fact did introduce some correlations, but as noted in the Corrigendum didn’t affect the conclusions: that free-market worldviews correlate with rejection of some science, and that conspiratorial views correlate with the rejection of all science.
“…hasn’t even bothered checking…” – That appears to describe you, in this case, as your statement about the Corrigendum is flatly incorrect.
01
Read Duarte’s post KR. The 32,000 year old person was only one mistake in a paper so bad we didn’t even list the others.
Duartes second paragraph:
“
20
My impression of the paragraph you’ve quoted regarding the PLOS paper is that Duarte feels the paper didn’t describe these conspiracies properly. Which quite frankly makes me wonder why Duarte is so familiar with details of those conspiracy theories – personally I wouldn’t have been able to make such fine-grained distinctions.
More importantly, the conclusions of the PLOS paper (read them here) make no statements whatsoever regarding age correlations, nor have I seen such from the authors elsewhere, including on the paper FAQ. That particular objection is therefore irrelevant to their conclusions, which is the point of the published Corrigendum.
Therefore the very title and thrust of Duarte’s blog post, “How one paleo-participant can change the outcome of a study”, is incorrect. Age correlations have no effect whatsoever on the study outcomes, as those outcomes have nothing to do with age.
—
Duarte clearly has some ideological axes to grind – given the number of times the words “scam”, “fraud”, and “leftist” appear in his posts. But if he feels these papers were scientifically unsupportable, he has a clear path to demonstrate it – as an academic in social sciences he is perfectly placed to submit Comments or relevant articles to that effect for peer-reviewed publication.
He has not, to my knowledge, done so.
03
Duarte quotes Lewandowsky, and his examples show rank incompetence. Duarte has gone through other Lewandowksy papers mentioning the same conspiracies, that’s why he is familiar with them. Many had the same bias and flaws. One was retracted, another (moon landing) is bound to be. This one deserves to be. Why don’t you read Duarte’s other posts, or it is too painful? Honestly KR, I thought you had higher standards, why do you bother defending the dregs? Lew here is failing at the most basic undergradate level, and worse, does not seem concerned about his mistakes. That speaks volumes. You defend this as “good science”?
This has nothing at all to do with climate science. Do you need to believe that skeptics are driven by “ideological motivation”, or “conspiracy theories”? Does that help you when you can’t find empirical evidence to back up your faith?
51
The moon landing paper has, to the best of my knowledge, zero peer-reviewed criticisms (Lewandowsky et al 2012 citations here). Zero.
It’s also entirely coherent with the rest of the literature, including several dozen other papers published on conspiratorial ideation over the last few years, using the same set of methodologies – none of which have received the blog criticism of the moon landing paper. Which may be in part due to the rather catchy title of the paper, which drew attention? And which makes conspiratorial ideationists look rather silly? Hard to say… but the conclusions drawn in that paper are far from surprising.
I have looked at their survey collection, data reduction methodology, at exploratory factor analysis (EFA) as opposed to the more familiar principal component analysis (PCA) (a rather delightful math exploration, which probably says something about me 🙂 ), at their handling of outliers, at the robustness of their statistics – and I quite frankly don’t see any problems. The objections thereof mostly demonstrate unfamiliarity with techniques standard in the field.
At this time I see no indication that Lewandowsky et al 2012, the ‘moon landing’ paper, will be retracted for any reason.
—
As to the ‘Recursive Fury’ paper, that has been withdrawn by Frontiers, stating:
it’s pretty clear that the journal lacked the fortitude to deal with potential legal challenges to the paper, challenges that in the light of above statement seem to consist of harassment. Which is rather sad.
The amount of conspiracy ideation over the ‘moon landing’ paper was quite frankly amazing to me, with a new and ever changing set of nefarious plots described every day for weeks. I think just about any social scientist would be utterly delighted to have so much source material for their work.
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Now to your last comment. Do I believe that all skeptics are driven by ideological motivation or conspiracy ideation? No, I do not. But I see rather a lot, for example each and every time there’s a reference to some nebulous “They” who are supposedly manipulating all data in multiple fields for a New World Government, for higher taxes, for ‘leftist agendas’, or to ‘sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids’ (Here, 1:10). [Yes, the last one is sarcasm – but it’s not far from what I’ve seen claimed. ]
My understanding of climate science, of AGW, is based on empirical evidence and physics, not belief. And I feel that I’ve more than demonstrated that in discussions here and elsewhere, by presenting such data. You’re welcome to disagree (shrug), but I’ll go with the evidence.
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Sorry for the overly long comment, but at their root the objections to Lewandowsky’s work, and his subsequent personified demonization on skeptic blogs (I don’t see these personal attacks aimed at co-authors), are baseless. My impression is that most objections are based on a dislike of the conclusions, rather than any real problems with the work.
If Duarte feels that there are issues with Lewandowsky et al’s methodologies, he should publish them in the peer-reviewed literature. Personal blogs really don’t have any significant impact on the science.
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So KR’s level of science is that it’s OK to call it meaningful if there are 4 (count them) 4 samples out of one thousand anonymous internet responses, and turn it into the headline? That’s your definition of good science? I’m keen to hear…
Your fawning reliance on “peer review” of unpaid, anonymous reviews says a lot about your scientific standards. You could keep your CAGW faith, keep your “ideology” misplaced focus, and still toss an abject study to the wind, showing where you draw the line for bad science, yet you rush here to defend it? It just proves you’ll defend anything that fits your religion. Lew is a gift to you – he produces nothing you need rely on, and gives you a chance to show you are not mindlessly biased.
I really am surprised you are staking your flag to the Lew farce. Honest, I expect the trolls to do that, but I thought you had some standards.
You cite legal guff for the Lew retraction on Frontiers — seriously — you fell for their excuse? You aren’t dealing with the scientific problems. That paper was profoundly unscientific, Frontiers admitted the skeptics made good arguments, they admitted there were no threats, and they said they would continue to publish valid science (which Lew was not providing).
You are avoiding discussing the real flaws by hiding behind “peer review” and you say you go with evidence and data, but you don’t name any.
This is going to be really tough on you when you find it was a junk hypothesis, bad science, and you kept making excuses for it.
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easy to demonstrate. If you do the analysis and find differently from his claim he’ll be out of a job. Go to it.
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I have far better things to do that work on rubbish data like Lewy’s.
The guy is a joke, as proven by all his previous work, and his data collection is a farce. !
11
so where is your evidence that it is a facade?
01
and where is your conviction.
01
Griss
If Lewandowski’s work was presented for analysis at a reputable eastern states university Psychology department it would be a laughing stock.
Sorry, I forgot about UNQ, home of the Cook outrage against the Australian universities world image.
The content of the paper, let alone the methodology is appalling.
KK
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Of course the data have no impact on Lew’s conclusions. Sheesh.
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from Lew’s Corrigendum
is a matter of opinion given that he finds new correlations that suggest that age is correlated with other data. If I were reviewing this I would want a substantiation to this statement given the potential impact elsewhere. He also makes no comment on the interaction of the age with other correlations.
He also make this unsupported claim
There is no evidence presented that other data is uncorrupted. He needs to present a clearly defined mechanism by which 2 records became corrupted or other evidence such as a running log collected at the time of data submission that shows the corruption in action.
Further, a Corrigendum, if incorporated as a correction to the original should be reviewed and approved. I don’t see this and I don’t see how any reviewer could feel confident given what he has presented.
I’ve passed my thoughts to the editor.
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