Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles Gignac, Klaus Oberauer
Stephen Lewandowsky’s paper, soon to be published in Psychological Science, appears to be drawn from one or two grants from the Australian Research Council that total nearly a million dollars (though it’s not entirely clear which grants apply to the paper).
“If you wonder, like I do, whether the Australian taxpayer gets value for money, ponder that somewhere a cancer researcher was denied funding in order for Lewandowsky to do his work”
One grant, which he shares with coauthor Dr Klaus Oberauer, was for $694,000 for research on “Keeping Memory Current: Updating and Discounting of Information“. Apparently it is of national benefit, because: “Basic research in psychology is of particular national benefit because the available national research funding is commensurate with the requirements of world-class research in psychology.” “World class” does not usually mean research based on a logical error with a sample too small to be statistically significant and using a self-selecting, unsecure, sample from sites that detest the research group. Aside from that, the sentence itself is circular bureaucratese-babble. What does it mean? Is he suggesting that research in basic psychology is useful because taxpayer funds are only given to world class research? Since when was government funding itself a guarantor of “world class”? The other grant, which he shares with co-author Dr Gilles Gignac, was for $244,000 and called “Categorization and Working Memory: Bridging two Pillars of Cognition.” Both of those two grants finished in 2011, so apparently do not provide funding for 2012.
Above this, he has received a grant of $765,000 to further study the role of intelligence in “expertise”. Hmm.
UWA: Achieving International Excellence, or international notoriety?
Who is responsible for the decision to fund this work?
If you wonder, like I do, whether the Australian taxpayer gets value for money, ponder that somewhere a cancer researcher was denied funding in order for Lewandowsky to do his work. Instead of helping people with motor neuron disease, say, or Parkinsons, our government directed money to the overtly politicized team to find reasons why people who speak against government-appointed experts (but not independent experts) are likely to be mentally deficient “conspiracy theorists”, even if they personally have never espoused the conspiracies named in the UWA media release. Surely this is government-funded denigration by association.
If you are concerned, it’s worth focusing on the Australian Research Council (ARC), which made the decision to fund Lewandowsky and UWA so generously (how much does an internet survey cost?). The man responsible for the ARC is Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research. He needs to justify why our funds are being used this way.
Why does the Australian Labor Party use taxpayer resources for name-calling professors to do incompetent research, to come up with conclusions that are not meaningful for public policy, and indeed which unfairly and flagrantly disparages the views of half the voting public?
Some flaws in Lewandowsky et al 2012:
- The entire work is based on a logical fallacy — argument from authority — but particularly, that experts paid by the government are 100% right, and independent scientists are 100% wrong or corrupt. Lewandowsky cannot name empirical evidence to support his base assumptions about a complex scientific phenomenon in an immature scientific field, and does not take into account that committees, associations, the “peer reviewed” scientific process are human activities dependent on imperfect human opinion and potentially corruptible. If his assumption is wrong, everything about his research is meaningless, yet he does not reference empirical climate evidence.
- His sample size is too small to be statistically meaningful. This single point on its own prevents any meaningful scientific conclusions about “conspiracy ideation”.
- His sampling method was likely to be scammed by fake responses, and if the responses that are likely to be fake are removed his conclusions would be entirely different. He did not take adequate precautions to stop fake responses, even though his conclusions are utterly dependent on them (see Steve McIntyres analysis). His use of vitriolic anti-skeptic sites made the fake responses nearly inevitable, and the nature of the fake responses (like a belief that smoking doesn’t cause cancer) matches misinformation on those anti-skeptic sites rather than any belief ever cited by real skeptics. His work fails by his own standards: He describes a different survey as worthless because they cannot verify the integrity of the data, but he cannot verify his own data.
- Lewandowsky has not reported 25% of the answers to his questions, nor the results of a version hosted by an internal UWA site, leaving open questions of “cherry picked” conclusions.
- He frequently uses unscientific name-calling that he has not justified either in English or scientific terms. What scientific observations do “deniers” deny, or do “deniers” simply deny that official government positions are 100% right?
- He defines “science” as a consensus conclusion which is counter to the scientific method, and breaks a basic tenet of science that conclusions are based on empirical evidence and not on opinions.
- Despite basing his conclusions on something called “Conspiracy Ideation” he is unable to define conspiracy scientifically, evidently defining a conspiracy as a theory that he personally does not agree with.
- A researcher with an equal but opposite personal bias could produce exactly the opposite conclusion (but without basing their work on a logical fallacy) by creating a self-selecting on-line survey that asks questions about green left conspiracies, posting it on anti-green sites, and with only a sample of 10 positive responses “show” that those who believe in man-made global warming did so because they held anti-free market philosophies, because they gullibly assumed that government funded work was always right, and because they believed in outlandish conspiracy theories that fossil fuel corporations were funding thousands of scientists. These conspiracy theorists denied conclusive documented evidence showing that funding for man-made global warming was 3,500 times larger than funding for skeptics of the theory and that large fossil fuel corporations were actively lobbying for carbon markets(see point 2) rather than against them.
In response to claims that the “faked data” neutralized his conclusions, Lewandowsky retroactively deleted references to it in comments on his publicly funded site, wrote attempted parody instead of an answer, and then finally claimed he was right because he could find at least three examples of people who say things that (without any investigation) appear to be nutty, despite evidence that some believers of man-made global warming espouse equally nutty things. The truth or not of a theory and influence of a group will not be decided by analyzing the fringe extreme. He cannot find a single leader of the skeptic movement who espouses any of the conspiracies he claims are important. There are no blog posts among the “greatly involved” climate skeptics about Diana being murdered, HIV being manufactured nor moon-landings being faked.
Is Psychology a Science?
If the field of psychology wants to be taken seriously as a science, where are the scientific psychologists speaking out against this poor paper with highly unscientific conclusions?
Is UWA “excellent”?
If UWA wants to be taken seriously as “achieving international excellence”, where are the UWA staff members who hold higher standards? Which scientists at UWA are prepared to speak up to say that Lewandowsky is not representative of the standards of their work?
The Bottom line:
This kind of unscientific poor standard work would not get attention or have any credibility if it were not funded by the Australian Government. According to his 28 page CV he claims to have been a part of $4.4m in grants.
Nice work if you can get it.
If we do not demand higher standards and turn off the tap filling this well of personal bias dressed as research, we’re letting good scientists down, we’re letting hard working tax-payers down, and we’re letting our children down.
See below for details of the funding…
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DP0770666 Prof S Lewandowsky; Prof Dr K Oberauer
Keeping Memory Current: Updating and Discounting of Information
2007 : $ 126,600
2008 : $ 138,500
2009 : $ 142,000
2010 : $ 142,000
2011 : $ 145,000
Total: $694,100
APF Prof S Lewandowsky The University of Western Australia
This project is about understanding the human cognitive capacity to manage change. The need to manage change is a common thread that permeates nearly all National Research Priorities and is a central issue in an information society. The applied component of the project will develop techniques to improve the capabilities of individuals and communities to rely on up-to-date knowledge during decision making. The project will also contribute to psychological science in numerous ways. Basic research in psychology is of particular national benefit because the available national research funding is commensurate with the requirements of world-class research in psychology. http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/DP07/DP07_RFCD.pdf
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The University of Western Australia
DP0879110 Prof S Lewandowsky; Dr G Gignac; Dr L Yang
Categorization and Working Memory: Bridging two Pillars of Cognition
2008: $ 58,000
2009: $ 60,000
2010: $ 62,000
2011: $ 64,000
Total: $244,000
The University of Western Australia
Categorization is a fundamental cognitive skill that underlies much expert behavior, including medical diagnosis. A given task often gives rise to widely divergent strategies across individuals, and flawed strategies have been implicated in prediction errors of experts (e.g., bush fire fighters). This project seeks to identify the underlying variables that determine an individual’s strategy acquisition by relating working memory performance to categorization. Working memory is a core cognitive construct that is quite well understood, but its relationship to category learning has so far remained unexplored. Being able to predict the development of categorization strategies can help maximize expert performance. www.arc.gov.au/pdf/DP08/DP08_RFCD.pdf
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DP120103888 Lewandowsky, Prof Stephan; Little, Dr Daniel R; Griffiths, A/Prof Thomas; Sanborn, Asst Prof Adam
From fluid intelligence to crystallised expertise: an integrative Bayesian approach
2012 $300,000.00
2013 $240,000.00
2014 $225,000.00
Total $765,000.00
Primary FoR 1701 PSYCHOLOGY The University of Western Australia
Project Summary
Intelligence is correlated with learning but uncorrelated with most aspects of expertise. Why is this so? Why does the role of intelligence diminish as one becomes more expert at a task? This project examines a broad range of cognitive tasks to provide a concise mathematical description of how intelligence relates to expertise.
www.arc.gov.au/pdf/DP12/DP12_Listing_by_FoR_Codes.pdf
Other selected grants:
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DP0450232 Prof S Lewandowsky
Title: Memory And Time
Total: A$165,000
Category: 3801 – PSYCHOLOGY
Administering Institution: The University of Western Australia
Summary: What could be simpler than remembering a few items, such as the digits in a phone number, for a brief time in the right order? Notwithstanding its simplicity, this serial recall task is essential for sophisticated human abilities such as vocabulary acquisition. This project investigates whether chronological time is a causal variable in short-term memory, as some, but by no means all, theorists assume. Experiments will manipulate time between items at study and retrieval using novel techniques, and thus observe the effect of time on memory. Computational models of psychological time will be developed to better predict memory performance.
- Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant, with Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency). Creating a climate for change: From cognition to consensus. (Ben Newell, Brett Hayes, Marilyn Brewer, Stephan Lewandowsky, Andy Pitman, Matthew England, Chris Mitchell), A$216,000 (plus matching contribution from DCCEE), 2012- 2014.
- National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. What about me? Factors affecting individual adaptive coping capacity across different population groups. (Kerrie Unsworth, Stephan Lewandowsky, David Morrison, Carmen Lawrence, Sally Russell, Kelly Fielding, Chris Clegg), A$330,000, 2011-2013.
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- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Swiss National Sciencd Foundation). “Working memory: Modelling and experiments” (with Klaus Oberauer). CHF11,040, 2010. European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP). European Summer School “Computational and Mathematical Modelling of Cognition.” (with Klaus Oberauer and Simon Farrell). €20,000, 2010.
- Australian Research Council (Linkage international grant). Time and updating of memory. (with Gordon D. A. Brown, Klaus. Oberauer, & Simon Farrell). A$21,000, 2008-2010.
Awards and Honors:
- Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award, Australian Research Council, 2012-2014. (Up to 70 “awards” each funding round Australia-wide selection criteria)
- Faculty Teaching Award (Honours supervision), Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences, University of Western Australia, 2007.
- Australian Professorial Fellowship, Australian Research Council, 2007-2011.
Research: The effects of time on memory; dynamic models of short-term and working memory; individual differences in categorization.
- Degrees: B.A. Washington College, Chestertown, MD, U.S.A., 1980
- M.A. University of Toronto, 1981
- Ph.D. University of Toronto (Supervisor: Bennet Murdock), 1985
REFERENCE:
(If you could call it that)
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.. Psychological Science.
Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Western Australia
Klaus Oberauer, University of Zurich and University of Western Australia
Gilles Gignac, University of Western Australia (Assoc Prof)
Hat tip to Barry Woods, Foxgoose, Lionell, Graham, Geoff Chambers, Jaymez, Michael K, Geoff S and another reader from afar.
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My posts on this topic:
PART I Lewandowsky – Shows “skeptics” are nutters by asking alarmists to fill out survey
PART II 10 conspiracy theorists makes a moon landing paper for Stephan Lewandowsky (Part II) PLUS all 40 questions
PART III here Lewandowsky hopes we meant “Conspiracy” but we mean “Incompetence”
PART IV Steve McIntyre finds Lewandowsky’s paper is a “landmark of junk science”
PART V Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions
also UWA sponsors world wide junkets for poor research, inept smears: Oreskes
You ask the question ”If UWA wants to be taken seriously as “achieving international excellence”, where are the UWA staff members who hold higher standards? Which scientists at UWA are prepared to speak up to say that Lewandowsky is not representative of the standards of their work?” You then answer it yourself by showing how much money your govt. has coughed up. So long as they want the money to keep rolling in, UWA staff will be conspicuous by their absence.
10
My problem here is that this “research” is approved by the university. That being the case the standard is appallingly low and thus graduates should be seen as suspect. If this is considered an example of UWA excellence in education would you trust your mental health to a graduate? Are their engineers just as poorly trained? UWA trained doctors must give concern to their patients as well. Is Jo the only graduate that we can have faith in?
00
When I went to UWA (30 years ago!), it was still a place of education; not training. At least not in Mechanical/Civil Engineering.
Australian Engineers by Henry Lawson (excerpt)
(bold, mine)
Education is where the student is provided with the environment to gain an understanding of certain things. i.e. to think.
Training is where the student is given the skills to perform certain tasks. i.e. to do.
Society needs to provide both facilities. Demarcation needs to be clear in pedagogy because without it, the processes and institutions become muddled. Worthless at best and destructive at worst.
Individuals need to partake of both. In the first; training is necessary to facilitate common verbal, written and visual communication as well as basic numeracy. Those skills are the basic toolkit used for formal and autodidactic education (and training).
00
Bernd,
Yes and there is a huge gulf between academic science and the applied sciences such as engineering, geology and realistic biology. In the former cuckoo-land, dodgy assumptions and whatnot are rife but may have less important provable culpability than say a big mistake in the applied sciences. (hence the common academic flagrancy)
Ho Hum, strangely us engineers and other real-world scientists are, I’ve read of in Armageddon land, over-represented in CAGW scepticism.
00
Bob, I think you’re a bit unfair to real, academic scientists e.g. physicists. I have an engineering degree. My college at uni had a long history of science, pure and applied. We won 31 Nobel prizes in the 20th century. We also had some real shockers, but I think I can tell the difference between science and crap. What we’re seeing from UWA these days does not look like science.
To all UWA people here, you have my sympathies and understanding. In spite of a long and distinguished history of scientific achievement, mu college was inflicted with Martin Rees.
Richard.
00
I agree with my learned colleague Richard of Trinity College, Cambridge. I was a physicist 400 yards upriver.
00
What about the unintended consequences? How many UWA graduates will suffer from the uni’s folly with potential employers thinking lowly of them having received their qualifications from UWA? They bind their student’s reputations to their political partisanship.
00
“If the field of psychology wants to be taken seriously as a science, where are the scientific psychologists speaking out against this poor paper with highly unscientific conclusions?”
Until those scientists on the sidelines, who know that science is being pimped out to propagandists, speak out, it’ll be the credibility of science as a whole which will suffer, not just climate science.
As for the money thrown as research grants at climate science, I think those days are beginning to taper off.
Out go the old ministers, who weren’t acute enough to distance themselves in time from the sinking green ship, and in come the hard-nosed bean counters, with their axes in hand and orders in their pocket to do the requisite chopping back of environmental budgets and subsidies.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/the-decline-of-the-environmental-lobbys-political-influence/
Pointman
00
I sincerely hope you are right. Unfortunately even politicians of the right are still ignorant of science as most hail from arts courses where lower entrance scores are the norm and more time is available for student politics.As a result they can’t distinguish between the AGW scammers and the genuine earth scientists. Unless they research blogs like this they will continue in ignorant bliss hence Barry O’Farrell’s desire to have more windmills. His naivity is expounded when he declares the electricity thus generated will be no dearer than coal fired power. Where the hell is he getting his information? The wind industry?
00
.
Do the words “Goldman Sachs” and “Malcolm Turnbull” ring any bells?
00
On top of all that, I’d like to add “9. The survey was atrociously designed.”
I tried to take the replicated survey, and found that I was simply unable to answer many of the questions. As just one example, the “acid rain” question is unable to distinguish between people who never thought it was a problem, who thought it was a minor problem, or who thought it was a serious-but-now-solved problem. Others are equally bad. Most of the questions embody Lewandowsky’s prejudices and preconceptions. Also, most are ambiguous and open to interpretation by the survey-taker.
00
.
While I don’t disagree with what you’re trying to say, you missed the point. To quote you:
Then you say:
I put it to you that your second point disproves your first:
The survey was in fact superbly designed to ensure the answers to the questions were ambiguous and open to interpretation by the survey-taker.
.
Don’t discount genius just because it’s evil.
00
Always good advice.
00
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/lewandowsky-gets-1-7m-of-taxpayer-funds-to-demonize-people-who-disagree-with-him/
Having read many of Stephen Lewandowsky’s articles, he never once acknowledges that skeptics have anything useful to say. Similarly, the paper “NASA faked the moon landing — Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science” never once acknowledges that there might be an issue. Further, in the ensuing exchange with Steve McIntyre (and others), Lewandowsky never came close to admitting that his statistical analysis might be in any way incomplete, or flawed.
He has received $1.7m of taxpayer funding on schemes to demonize anyone who criticizes his dogmatic beliefs. The effect will be to neuter any scrutiny of a group of highly dogmatic people. Please keep up the good work.
00
I take your point. I should have said, “if the intent was to honestly capture the views of the respondents, the survey was atrociously designed.”
And the word I was struggling to recall before my first cup of coffee was “respondent”. The questions are open to interpretation by the respondent. (And also by the surveyor, which I think was your point.) Whether this was fiendishly clever or appallingly incompetent is a call I’m not prepared to make.
00
“Genius”? No. Cunning.
Rats are cunning.
00
Mmmmm look at all those dollars! Makes me drool.
As an alarmist, I will be doing whatever I can to get my nose in the trough.
Can you people see now why and how us alarmists do and say the things we do?
It’s a way to make a great living! Ok, so maybe we stretch the truth a little here and there, but this is what our political funders want to hear. Don’t shoot the messenger.
00
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Sonny
Satire is funny up to a point.
You past that point several hours ago.
00
yep !
00
AndyG55,
Nope, If Sonny was being satirical.
(I think he was!)
00
‘Tis one thing to list the flaws in the papers, the apparent waste of funds on fanciful research topics, but where can some impact be made to correct the situation, or make the necessary changes to the system of grants, etc. Those who can do so, will not read these blogs, or if they do, they just do not believe what they see! The same may be repeated for the CAGW people.
00
The people who actually make, monitor, and enforce the rules are the bureaucrats.
But they do so, under policy instruction that comes from the Cabinet, via the responsible Minister or Associate Minister.
The Cabinet, whilst getting advice from the various Government Departments, is also getting political advice from the Party hierarchy, supported in the main by what the various electorate offices pick up, and what is in the press, and what is on the popular blogs (like this one).
The more we point out that the so-called intellectual elite, are really just writing fairy stories, dressed up as funding proposals, in order to rort the funding process, the more the message seeps into the general awareness of the population at large, and into the political system in particular.
It then becomes a numbers game. The winner gets a turn at power, the looser is …? So all that is necessary is for the lolly scramble to continue, and for the blogs etc to keep the pressure on the political base.
A change of Government can mean a change of rules, depending on the numbers game, and depending on the pattern of power internationally, but we should never underestimate the power of the common sense of your average bloke and blokess when applied strategically. It has collapsed empires.
00
The responsible minister in this case is Senator Chris Evans (ALP, W.A.) who is a dyed in the wool warmist true-believer. He is amongst those in Cabinet who rejoiced at the introduction of the Carbon Tax, not just because of the extra funds it would provide to government, but also because he believes that it will stop “global warming”.
10
Reading the summaries of the projects for which the grants were awarded, and contrasting with the resulting survey and published paper, the connection is tenuous at best. In my opinion, the grant applications are bordering on fraudulent.
00
Can anyone give me some insight into how these generous grants get allocated in academia?
I’ve only ever worked in the private sector, so I’m finding it hard to imagine the model.
For example, does the money go directly into the UWA coffers for them to distribute as they see fit (i.e. even onto other things unrelated to the named project), or does it go directly to the researchers named in the grant?
I would think tenured profs like Lew would be on a salary, so how do they skim this extra money off?
Do they charge their time as an expense to the university over and above their salaries?
Do they get a lump sum bonus from the university at the end of every research project?
What’s the typical cut between the university and the researcher?
How would this get reported in a typical personal tax return? Regular fully taxable income I would have thought.
One would have to assume both parties (university and ‘researcher’) are benefiting financially from the windfall given this nonsense is allowed to continue.
00
I think the answer is, “It depends.”
Governments used to bulk fund Universities on some tangible measure (number of students pre, and post grad, etc), with the per-student amount providing for x number of research hours per academic.
But then the bean counters noticed that a certain amount of research was classified as “pure” research, meaning that, “it had no tangible benefit” at the time the research was done. Forget any discussions over the transistor not being invented, if it hadn’t been for the pure research into certain obscure chemical bondings, if you could not show a benefit that outweighed the cost, you were history.
Then came the age of the proposal writers: academics like Michael Mann, and I guess Lewandowsky, who have a reputation for having a way with words, and so can conjure up a winning proposal to attract funding. In business, they would be the top-gun representatives, working on full commission.
But I do not think there is a, “one-size-fits-all” model.
00
I think the fellowship covers the salary. Grant covers expenses. Any more information from those in the system would be welcome. I expect the first author is responsible for dishing out and presumably accounting for the grant expenditure and final report. http://www.arc.gov.au/
00
Correct Jo. A Discovery Grant will typically cover:
1) expenses = conference trips plus publication costs plus consumables plus a new desktop and laptop computer (somehow when applying for a Discovery grant you always need to replace all your old computing equipment).
2) the salary of a research assistant, either full time (about $100,000 a year including overheads) or part time; sometimes also additional money for a PhD student. The chief investigator’s salary comes from the Fellowship.
The University benefits in terms of prestige (higher ranking in the next ERA review) and because it gets to hire or hold on to one or two researchers for free (paid by the ARC rather than by the University, for the duration of the grant/fellowship).
Once you get an ARC Professorial fellowship, a couple of grants and a media profile (ABC, Conversation, blogs, press releases), it gets easier and easier to get more grants in the next rounds. Strong positive feedback! The 3 or 4 reviewers are from vaguely related but not just identical research fields. They assess not only the specific proposal, but also the general “quality” of the applicant, measured in terms of CV, previous grants, publications, public profile. It’s just human nature that reviewers tend to give the benefit of the doubt to applications from someone “famous”, with previous grants to his/her name, and who says things most academics already believe in. Instead, it would be almost impossible for a young climate-realist scientist to get a grant (especially at UWA!) because:
1) they would have to compete with established warmist academics with heavier CVs;
2) they would no doubt receive strong negative comments on the quality of the researcher from at least one reviewer (considering how ideological the issue has become on the warmist side), which is enough to kill an application;
3) there is one section of the proposal where the applicant has to explain how well his/her research fits in with the “strategic research plan” and other research lines of the chosen Department. In other words, a proposal that goes against the consensus position in the host department is strongly disfavoured. A reviewer who doesn’t like a non-alarmist proposal but is unable to find any specific faults with it, can simply give it a very low score on the ground that the applicant would not fit in with the proposed host department, and would not have any synergies or support. That’s a strong incentive in favour of group thinking.
Once you get a grant, you need to report every year on the progress of your research compared with the stated goals, but it is only a formality. You only need to write a couple of paragraphs saying that you have published some papers vaguely related to the stated objectives, and nobody will ever check the details. Just ticking a box for the ARC to be happy.
Thank you Robbo. Very helpful. – Jo
00
BTW all ARC funded research should comply with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (the Code).
See here.
Also see Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
I would suggest a two pronged approach – raise it both with them directly AND cc in your local member.
Paragraphs 1.6, 1.8 4.4, 4.5 & 4.12 look to be of particular interest. Section 9 is required reading… to quote from section 10:
Research misconduct
A complaint or allegation relates to research misconduct if it involves all of the following:
– an alleged breach of this Code
– intent and deliberation, recklessness or gross and persistent negligence
– serious consequences, such as false information on the public record, or adverse effects on research participants, animals or the environment.
Research misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or deception in proposing, carrying out or reporting the results of research, and failure to declare or manage a serious conflict of interest. It includes avoidable failure to follow research proposals as approved by a research ethics committee, particularly where this failure may result in unreasonable risk or harm to humans, animals or the environment. It also includes the wilful concealment or facilitation of research misconduct by others.
Procedure for complaints with ARC funded research is given on http://www.arc.gov.au/contact/research_misconduct.htm
10
Thanks Ecoguy an interesting read indeed.
Perhaps he is guilty of not following one of the fundamental guidelines as quoted
After all calling his participants “Deniers” is hardly respectful !
00
I feel sorry for all the good researchers there are because the public always assumes that the ones they hear about (the worst) are the same as all of them. But in a real sense its only the good ones who are to blame if they let people like Lewandowsky destroy their credibility.
It was the same with climate. When all the scientific elite said: “they did nothing wrong”, what the public took from this was that its perfectly acceptable now to hide data you don’t like push personal opinions etc. and now we just assume that all “scientists” do it all the time.
And if you weren’t one of the few academics (and I think the institute of Physics and Chemistry were notably alone on this) then you only have yourself to blame.
00
That should read: It was the same with climategate!!
00
What an interesting statement, taken from “Keeping Memory Current: Updating and Discounting of Information”.
So looking at “the capabilities of individuals and communities” – what people, or groups of people can physically do, or collectively comprehend – we will develop techniques (i.e. methods and processes that can be learnt), that allow them to reference and rely on something called “up-to-date knowledge”.
In the days of the glorious Soviet, this was termed, “Helping the commune reach an appropriate decision,” but I digress.
The phrase, “up-to-date knowledge” is an oxymoron, since everything each of us knows, as individuals, is by definition, “up-to-date”. I either know something or I do not. My knowledge is up-to-date, until I gain more knowledge, whereupon it becomes up-to-date again. Knowledge is the sum total of what you know. Period.
Unless, of course he implies extrinsic knowledge, which is something that you nor I can never fathom, because it is ineffable, but may be handed down to us writ in fire on tablets of clay by the intellectual gods.
It is hard for me to contain my disgust at the drivel spouted by this man from his self-appointed position of authority.
Can somebody please tell me again, how many beer can tabs do you have to collect, in order to get a PhD from UWA?
00
42 (forty-two)
00
Good point,
Perhaps Comrade Professor Lewandowsky is the temporal manifestation of the ultimate question – what the f…?
00
“If the field of psychology wants to be taken seriously as a science, where are the scientific psychologists speaking out against this poor paper with highly unscientific conclusions?”
Here is one. I am a psychologist with 25 years practice. His work is junk, which is a psychological term for crap. He himself is three stops past Barking, another psychologist’s term.
00
Man, is youse da Man!!
00
@ amfortus….
Then you are a psychologist who should be attacking Lewy directly, especially if you know of other like minded psychologists.
You need to bring this guy into order, quick smart, before he destroys your whole profession.
00
Is there a professional “psychologist” organisation?
If so, it is them that should be taking this moron to task.
Drum him out of your ranks !!!
00
Amfortas,
Here is the webform address to make a complaint to the journal allegedly having the lew-paper in press:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/contact/index-new.cfm
Since you have appropriately strong professional views it would seem to be very valuable that you communicate such to the journal.
Also there is the ethics committee at UWA and maybe his faculty head, although I don’t have their details readily to hand unless you ask.
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Amfortas, as psychologist I would be very interested in your thoughts on the growing tendency to medicalise what is behaviour which is otherwise within the normal parameters, and by doing so, promote a tendency to remove personal responsibility.
For instance in law any criminal actions will have expert witnesses for the Defence parading various aspects of the defendant’s condition as being beyond his control and to which partial or complete exculpation of the offence should be grounded.
In respect of Lewandowsky and his attempt to medicalise “Denialism” we see a textbook example of this approach by psychology to remove personal responsibility, in this instance in the context of stigmatising legitimate opposition to AGW as being a product of a deviant behaviour, and not rational, controlled action and thought.
It is a patently obvious approach by Lewandowsky but no less sinsiter for that.
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I would suggest Lewandowsky has done considerable damage to the UWA. It is hard to imagine a piece of work more distant from the Scientific Method, even if psychology could be counted as a science.
I studied Psych.I as part of first year Medicine. Even then I thought there was pretentious borrowing from Science, not to mention some long-bow inference making.
Lewandowsky probably won’t hang his head in shame, but a Vice-Chancellor should grab both pinnae and march him swiftly to the door.
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jo,
point 8 where u write: “posting it on an an anti-green sites”.
the “an an” needs deleting. [Thanks, fixed] ED
focus also needs to be on: Sage Publications (publishers of Psychological Science) which, in true CAGW form, will probably ACTUALLY publish. boggles the mind.
Sage Editors, Australia: includes Nick Haslam
Affiliations:
-University of Melbourne
-University of Melbourne, Australia
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/editorDetails.nav?contribId=506311
University of Melbourne: Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Psychological Sciences has been very successful in the 2011 national competitive grant funding schemes, with almost $4 million dollars in research funds from the ARC and NHMRC…
(includes) Dr Dan Little ($$765,000): From fluid intelligence to crystallised expertise: an integrative Bayesian approach (along with Professor Stephan Lewandowsky)…
Psychological Sciences has been very successful in the 2011 national competitive grant funding schemes, with almost $4 million dollars in research funds from the ARC and NHMRC…
ARC Discovery Grants ($2,394,446 in total):
(includes) Professor Nick Haslam ($339,446): Humans as animals and objects: the psychology of dehumanisation
http://www.psych.unimelb.edu.au/
Uni of Melbourne
Daniel R. Little
Other Affiliations:
The University of Western Australia, Psychology
Stephan Lewandowsky
Robert Nosofsky
Richard Shiffrin
http://unimelb.academia.edu/DanielRLittle
Haslam could throw some light on:
how publication of this frankly ridiculous paper would sit with his bosses at Sage.
who reviewed the Paper?
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“Sage Publications”.
Indeed.
10
Another minor nit of editing:
His sample size is too small to be statistically meaningful. This single point on it’s own prevents any meaningful scientific conclusions about “conspiracy ideation”.
Should be, “This single point on its own…” If you can’t substitute “it is”, then you shouldn’t put an apostrophe there.
—
Thanks Earl, fixed. I do understand the “it’s” use, I just reflexively type the wrong one, and two darn proof readers didn’t notice. 🙂 All help appreciated. – Jo
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The evidence is overwhelming that the skeptical blogospheric response to Lewandowsky’s Moon Hoax paper has been one of consistent outrage and the paper’s credibility is worse than first thought.
And now with his mug pasted at the top of this latest volley, you might even say…
Lewandowsky has the face that launched a thousand [snips]!
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Either Lewandowsky is corrupt beyond all compare, or more likely, he is an example of a psychologist who has no idea how we “deniers” think.
Many years ago, there was a TV game show called “To Tell The Truth”. There were three people introudced, each saying, “I am John Smith, and I was the youngest person to climb Mt Everest”, or ” I am Jane Doe, and I am the first female jockey to win a stakes race”, etc. There was a celebrity panel of 4 who tired to guess who was the REAL John Smith or Jane Doe by asking a series of questions about mountain climbing, or horse racing , or whatever. The REAL John Smith or Jane Doe had to tell the truth- reply honestly, while the two ringers could lie all they wanted in hopes of deceiving the panel. At the end of the session, the panelists voted for who they thought was the REAL youngest mountain climber, or stakes winning female jockey, or whatever.
The panel of three won money for each incorrect vote.
I’d like to see a similar contest with a REAL AGW skeptic and two CAGW ringers , and a contest with a REAL CAGW believer and two skeptical ringers. Based on Lewandowsky and his silly survey, I’d be willing to bet that the CAGW skeptic and the two ringers would make a lot more money than the AGW skeptic and two CAGW ringers.
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“I’m a [snip can’t make sense] ED ..
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Sorry, I worded that backwards, the panel would correctly guess the CAGW skeptic- the two ringers posing ask skeptics would give implausible answers. The panel would have trouble picking the CAGW believer- I think skeptics know enough to give CAGW answers plausible enough to deceive a panel.
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Lewandowsky is a social/developmental psychologist. The purpose of his work is not to be true factually but to be a theory that, once implemented, influences values, attitudes, perceptions, and belief systems. It is the reason Outcomes Based Education became a worldwide initiative suddenly and at the same time as the Cold War was winding down. Western mindsets and their noetic systems became the new true targets.
His work is designed to be out there and cited by education professors teaching tomorrow’s teachers what they must push in the classrooms. You don’t think pedagogy is about how to teach an academic discipline anymore? No it’s a mixture of Soviet psychology developed to create the perfect socialist man and Marxist political theories that have been renamed as learning theories and other practices like Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset. Takes you straight to Marxists.org and their celebration of what John Dewey’s work has done for spreading their political ideology without saying so.
Lewandowsky’s work is consistent with the goals I wrote about here http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/we-need-a-radical-change-in-our-mode-of-consciousness-even-a-new-sense-of-being-human/
I have been working the last several days on just how much this type of psychology practice is the servant of the systems thinking global push to alter and control human behavior. Tracking the footnotes took me back to Milton Rokeach and his laying out the use of education and reeducation as he called it to alter values systems to control and change behavior. Lewandowsky is just the latest mediocre professor making his living pushing whatever will gain him grant money. And the money all over the West these days is in the behavioral sciences to try to get at human consciousness.
It’s an abomination everywhere. Blood money to enslave at the invisible level of the mind so that reality ceases to matter because the altered values control the perceptions. You believe in Climate Change and AGW and ignore temps and put up with statist controlling collectivist schemes as simply the necessary price that must be paid.
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Great comment and spot on. Thankyou
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In this potted history of the NWO the Marxist ideology in place by the 50’s in the US.
And it may appear that it is this ideology which is the driving force behind the NWO, which has infiltrated the education system and is the heart and mind of the Fabians and in the Greenie Fascism as current in Australia, but, the Russian grassroots Revolution was hijacked, not by the Bolsheviks, but by the Bankers Cartel, to get control of Russia too, by getting rid of the Tsar whose predecessor had first taken a stand against their central banking and supported Lincoln.
This Banking Cartel is well practiced in political manipulation of opposing sides in wars in Europe and then the US and having begun to spread its tentacles to the rest of world it began to grow an ego the size of it. Marxism and all the other ideologies on the AGWScienceFiction bankwagon are just its playthings.
The Banking Cartel could do what its done because of one simple reason, wherever it controlled the money supply it controlled governments and in controlling governments gave itself itself the ability to create money out of nothing which it then lent to those governments and the interest charged on this collected from the taxpayers. They’re still behind the curtain (Wizard of OZ), creating booms and busts now as then.
Potted history of the Money Changers:
http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/The.History.of.the.Money.Changers.htm
..
Jackson was the only president to pay off the debt. But, in reality there now is no debt to pay off not only because the Banking Cartel fraudulently creates money out of nothing but fraudulently presents itself as the government of the country, (US and Britain the blueprint). Rather, they should pay reparation for their theft of taxpayers money.
It is this fraudulently created money which fuels the infiltration into the education system of these, at best, pathetic ideologies.
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Stephan Lewandowsky’s background is in cognitive psychology, not social or developmental psych. His Ph. D. supervisor was an old-fashioned memory researcher.
Mine is in developmental psychology.
Developmental psychologists do not necessarily support the educational trends and movements that you reference. I never have.
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Robert,
it would be good if you complained to the appropriate authorities; See my:
September 15, 2012 at 4:27 pm (currently numbered 11.3)
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I’ve been trying to make sense of the non-sequiturs in Lewandowsky’s “Keeping Memory Current” grant application summary. The sentence Jo highlights may fairly be parsed as follows:
A {[Basic research in psychology] = [particular national benefit]} because B {[available national research funding] = [the requirements of world-class research in psychology]}.
This seems to be drawing the awkward, and completely unfounded, conclusion that “B causes A”. But, even if B is true, does B actually cause A to be true, and what on earth does he mean by B?
By reversing the implicit equation within B above, we can see that [the requirements of world-class research in psychology] = [available national research funding]. In other words, he is basing his application on the fact that “World-class Research Needs the Available Amount of Research Money”.
So B may indeed be true (in his opinion), but I still cannot causally connect that with his research efforts being a [particular national benefit] because of B.
Perhaps the answer to my dilemma lies in the project summary of his other grant application, “From fluid intelligence to crystallised expertise” , where he implies that: “… the role of intelligence diminish[es] as one becomes more expert at a task?”
From which we might conclude that he has proven two things: that he IS an EXPERT in the task of writing grant applications; and, that this requires “diminished intelligence” … I think??? But that doesn’t make sense either!!!
This whole exercise seems to be a mental maze, designed to entrap the unwary in circular reasoning with no outlet. It involves too many unjustified implicit assumptions and logically false conclusions based on them. Spotting the unjustified assumptions seems to be the real task ahead of anyone who wishes to unravel what he is saying.
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I wrote at WUWT:
The data aren’t as rubbery as the language of the soothsayers.
I remember seeing some fragments of a TV series on the history of Britain and the role of the druids. The druids did nought productive; they merely wandered about and purported to have special insights into the universe and they would foretell the future for a fee; their words were carefully chosen to ultimately benefit themselves and their ilk. That included causing warfare between neighbouring clans if one of the clan chiefs didn’t want to play the druid’s games. The druids always had the gullible fight their wars for them.
The only differences between those druids and the like of Lewandowski is that the latter are seldom seen pracing about, wearing only a covering of blue clay. And while the entrails that they read don’t come directly from dead animals, they still read them in the same way and with the same objective.
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The free-market system is a decentralized, distributed, bottom-up system. A conspiracy is a centralized, top-down, and secretive state of affairs. Why would someone who supports free-markets also be prone to conspiratorial thinking? More like the other way around.
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When I studied psychology, it was well known that the field attracted large numbers of people who had mental issues of their own. It thus made sense that psychotherapy was mandatory for obtaining certification in Psych. I suspect that the requirement has been waived or watered down in recent decades.
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/lewandowsky-gets-1-7m-of-taxpayer-funds-to-demonize-people-who-disa… […]
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I teach Experimental Psychology to undergraduates. The course includes a fair amount of material about survey research, which is the kind that my students are most likely to use in their projects.
Lewandowky, Oberauer, and Gignac’s article is not good-quality survey research. Just reading the article will tell a reasonably informed person that. What’s come out in the blogosphere, since the preprint went into circulation, merely reinforces it.
For example, if you are counterbalancing, by using different forms of a survey, with questions or blocks of questions in a different order, that’s a legitimate procedure. And you mention it in the Method section of your report (which Lewandowsky et al. didn’t do). How you distribute those different forms also matters; there is still some unclarity about Lewandowsky et al.’s procedure in that respect.
The identities of reviewers for journals are normally known only to the editors of the journal. Their identities are supposed to be kept confidential from the authors of the manuscripts, as well as from outsiders.
So we are unlikely to learn who reviewed Lewandowsky et al.’s manuscript. Whoever they were, these reviewers didn’t catch a number of obvious, even show-stopping, problems with the study and with the manner in which it was reported. How could they have missed the title, and its mismatch with the results actually reported?
Sometimes the “action editor” overrides the judgments of the reviewers when he or she makes the decision whether to accept a manuscript. The authors generally do find out who the action editor is; outsiders may or may not be able to find out. In any event, it doesn’t look as though this action editor paid close attention to this particular manuscript.
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Robert,
Yep,
Please professionaly complain to the journal and the UWA
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Interesting avatar that I was just assigned 🙂
Let me add, for the benefit of non-psychologists, that Stephan Lewandowsky was trained to do basic research, not to work as a counselor or a clinician.
He earned his Ph. D. under a reputable memory researcher at a university that was and is very strong in cognitive psychology.
However, the article under discussion is not a serious investigation of memory, problem-solving, classification, belief revision, reasoning, or any of the other core topics in cognitive psych.
It falls into a subfield called political psychology. Recently a few researchers, such as Jonathan Haidt, have been working to clear up political psychology, which has traditionally been a backwater. They’ve tried to do this by cutting down on the gross bias that has been evident in much past research (researchers routinely assumed that their own political judgments were right about everything, so their political opponents had to be specimens of some kind of pathology). They’re trying to give the subfield a more rigorous foundation (for instance, Haidt has developed a theory of the different forms of moral psychology across individuals and cultures, and more recently applied it to political psychology).
A more vigorous rejection of Haidt’s initiatives is hard to imagine…
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Robert-I am familiar with Haidt’s work and have read his most recent book. He pushes the primacy of social and emotional learning over reason and Enlightenment style thinking. He also thinks that the Eastern spiritualists who make no distinction between rational thought and emotional beliefs have the better argument. If that were simply a discussion in an undergraduate or graduate psych class that would be one thing. But UVa is a ground zero for pushing Outcomes Based education on K-12 students nationally. I have written a lot on how the actual focus is emotional learning and social interaction rather than the transmission of knowledge. Haidt’s work then reenforces that focus that politicians, taxpayers, and parents have been misled about.
Before Australians assume that this is not their problem, CASEL-the Chicago based collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning had been doing advisory work in Oz with reference to the Wellbeing drive. I wrote about it here.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/if-education-transforms-values-and-feelings-and-beliefs-to-control-behaviors-are-we-free/
Haidt’s work is also relevant to that $12 million dollar Contemplative Sciences Center going in at UVa. It has alliances with virtually every dept at UVa. Which will change the academic focus across the Board. Something parents, students, and Virginia taxpayers ought to understand. They used to be an important distinction between feeling and knowing based on your own set of proven, documentable facts.
UVa certainly seems to be on that bandwagon suddenly common all over the West that assumes a student’s whole personality is fair game for manipulation via the classroom. The Soviets thought the same thing but they did not have the computers to make all this data part of a student’s permanent record K-16.
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Robin,
I have read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind. He is too fond of David Hume for my taste, and there are other objections I can make to his theories about moral psychology.
The fact remains that he is a major contributor in that area, and he has publicly criticized the grossly biased political psychology that until recently was the norm. See, for example,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html
Haidt is no longer at the University of Virginia, having taken a job at New York University. I am not aware of any connection between him and Outcomes Based Education.
In the American university system, the old institutional split between Departments of Psychology and Schools of Education has had a number of consequences, one being that psychologists don’t generally get professionally involved in K-12 education. Though I know of a developmental psychologist at UVa who is a proponent of Montessori education…
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Thank you Robert, we all appreciate information from someone who knows the field. It would be very interesting to get a comment from Haidt. Merci. Jo
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I’ve emailed Jonathan Haidt about Lewandowsky et al. I worked briefly with one of his current collaborators, but have no closer connection than that. With his likely daily email volume, I may not hear back, but will post about anything that I do hear.
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I’ve received a form email from Dr. Haidt, indicating that what I’ve sent he will eventually read, but I should not expect a reply for several weeks, if at all.
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Robert and Robin,
These excellent and perceptive posts are at the very heart of all that is wrong with the latter day direction science, education and political decision-making in the West is being directed (or is it merely directing itself?). As is exemplified by Lewandowsky’s misappropriation of cognitive science as a political tool to promulgate his particular political bias, and by climate science with its loose application of scientific method to facilitate transformative geopolitical change, this sort of anti-intellectual abomination needs to be fought by those within these specialties by those such as yourselves with expertise and influence “on the ground”. This begs the question, why are all so silent in matters of such import, other than blogs like this one? Where are the conservative organisations who should be the vanguard and protectors of these basic tenets and principles? Perhaps someone of a like mind to ours, who has no cause to fear or concern over bureaucratic recriminations, should produce a statement of principles which should govern the production of academic papers, as clearly peer review is a rank failure in this regard and a return to accountability needs to be urgently instigated.
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I can see a few reasons why it’s hard to fight political bias in the social sciences.
Most academic psychologists aren’t researching topics with obvious political meaning or implications (the psychology of political beliefs and attitudes is a rare specialty, and something of a backwater). Staying on top of existing research in their specialties and getting their own work funded (when necessary), completed, and published often gives them little time for other pursuits. I spend a lot of time on such activities as studying old books and articles that I hope will show me how Jean Piaget’s religious beliefs contributed to this thinking about moral development. Or editing articles by researchers whose first language isn’t English on how human beings predict other people’s motor activity and what role this plays in controlling their own motor activity.
Political bias in the social sciences is usually the result of informal selection (including self-selection) at several way stations in people’s professional lives, not of any explicit gating policy. If you’re a psychologist and you’re not what Americans call a “liberal,” sooner or later you’ll nonetheless find yourself surrounded by liberals. One year I was attending a big child development conference where I was annoyed to learn that Hillary Clinton (then the First Lady) would be a last-minute addition to the keynote speakers. Nearly everyone I talked to thought that this was just wonderful; hardly anyone could imagine why some people might take exception to it.
Conservative and libertarian organizations generally don’t have career psychologists or sociologists working for them, and they have lots of other issues on their plates.
Here’s another: American university administrations currently think they can derive political advantage (and further grant bucks) from sucking up to the Federal government on environmental issues. Hence the (usually empty) designated parking spaces for leafy green electric cars at my place of employment. Hence the call that some functionary issues once each year to work something about “climate change” into our classes. (My response, which I doubt was what this administrator had in mind, was to start using several Climategate emails in the segment of one of my courses that covers research ethics.)
The Lewandowsky et al. article was so badly done and so blatant that I felt it was time to say something. I hope that at least a few other psychologists feel the same way.
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Robert,
Yep,
Please professionaly complain to the journal and the UWA
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Bob,
I sent two emails to Robert Kail at Psychological Science. Dr. Kail has now informed me that Eric Eich (cognitive psychologist at the University of British Columbia) began handling manuscripts on January 1, 2012—and that Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac was among these. (Editorial handovers at big journals can take up to a full year. Dr. Eich is only now being listed as the editor on the website.)
Dr. Kail has forwarded my complaints to Dr. Eich and I will follow up if I do not hear something soon.
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I am going to concentrate on Psychological Science for now because the Association for Psychological Science and the journal’s incoming editor are located in North America, and so am I.
To make a complaint to a university that has some prospect of being effective, you need to know a lot about the administrative hierarchy at that institution. My ignorance of Australian universities is nearly boundless.
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Some would argue that the Australian university’s ignorance of the administrative hierarchy of Australian universities is also nearly boundless, given any meaningful timeframe of reference.
I have honestly been told that, “A hierarchy implies a fixed structure, and fixed structures imply rigor, and rigor is often followed by the word ‘Mortis'”.
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Say what you dislike about Lewandowsky, he has helped push Australia into first place in Pointman’s Climate Prat of the Year poll.
Yes, Australia now has over 50% of the vote, mostly split between Flannery & Julia but with Lewandowsky making up the back of the field.
Lewnie, Lewnie, Lewnie, Oy! Oy! Oy!
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Gotta be Lew’s tune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZJ4ESU52U&feature=related
Pointman
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Speaking from the USA, I had barely heard of the Univ. of Western Australia before the Lewandowsky fiasco, but now it is indelibly associated with his dismal standards. I hope/suspect there are some much better alums and faculty associated with the place, but he certainly does not enhance UWA’s reputation. There are bad researchers at many universities worldwide, to be sure, but he is making quite a “name” for UWA and it’s not the image of quality they wanted.
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Our illustrious and industrious host, Joanne, is a WUA alumni.
Mind you she did real science …
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Yea this guy is a complete unknown to N Americans but we are giving him alot of airtime, too much in my opinion. If we’re not careful, we could over do it and make him famous there as well. He might end up on that foppish Bill Maher’s tv show so he can use his research to poke fun at republicans.
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Maybe Americans who did know him are aware of his shortcomings and showed him the door, after all I believe he is one of you.
Stephan Lewandowsky
Australian Professorial Fellow: Brief biographical sketch
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Under the trade practices act if the product is faulty it has to be replaced or the purchase price refunded. Taxpayers deserve to have thier funds returned due to the faulty nature of Lewandowsky’s product. 🙂
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There were a few section numbers of the TPA I memorised so I could cite them with any vendor that tried something dodgy on me. I have only ever had to use it twice. Section 51 was a good one, and highly relevant to Guessin’ Stefan, because it forbade “deceptive and misleading conduct”. 🙂
(I Am Not A Lawyer, however…) The three problems with applying the TPA here are that:
1) the vendor gets to choose whether to “repair, replace, or refund” the defective goods/services.
2) the TPA did not automatically make a vendor liable for consequential damages from a faulty product, I think you still had to sue them for that (or go to the Small Claims Tribunal).
3) The TPA didn’t cover damage to reputations of diffuse cultural institutions such as Science.
Aside from making a boofhead of himself I am not sure what damage Guessin’ Stefan has actually done to anyone or anything with his pronouncements. I don’t think “misdirecting and confusing public discourse on matters of national importance” is a chargeable offence yet. In the interests of free speech and affording people innocent explanations of incompetence instead of maliciousness, I don’t think it should be an offence either.
I’m not sure what was so bad with the TPA that it had to be replaced in 2010 with the Australian Consumer Law. The TPA is no more. So we will have to learn all the new ACL section numbers for confronting dodgy vendors.
In the meantime forget the legislation and caveat emptor.
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It’s world class alright, a world-class disgrace.
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Wow – 1.7 Million dollars sure could result in some really excellent outcomes for society. That’s a lot of school lunches.
I would’ve thought that they would at least grammar and spell check a survey and that they would check the survey for internal validity issues.
I still want to know the names of the people who peer reviewed the drivel we saw the other week. They should be outed.
Peer review is no way to ensure quality, however, the people who passed that paper in should be exposed as well.
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You make the point that
“A researcher with an equal but opposite personal bias could produce exactly the opposite conclusion (but without basing their work on a logical fallacy) by creating a self-selecting on-line survey that asks questions about green left conspiracies, posting it on anti-green sites”.
I do not know any “anti-green sites”. I am a regular visitor here, on WUWT, Climate Audit, Bishop Hill etc. I don’t think any of you are “anti-green”. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Congratulations and thanks for all your good work.
Stephan Lewandowsky has lost any sense of shame he may once have had.
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I don’t think Lewandowsky has any sense of shame nor ever had any. I think he is a seriously committed narcissist. His [snip… “photo and”] his Youtube videos put me on guard. The polemic drivel he writes is just, well psychobabble and the term itself could have been invented just in response to this guy’s work.
He has certainly got the skeptic blogosphere’s attention her and over at WUWT and Climate Audit, even Judith Curry too. I think he is just loving all the attention, probably savouring every criticism as evidence of another ‘denier’ flushed out.
It is probably time to move on to more positive matters, evidentiary stuff, the antithesis of the loonyland junk scamology from beyond the Lewking glass, patsy pal reviewed by people who make a good buck or two from the eco-creationism funding swamp.
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By name, if not by nature: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
🙂
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Maybe Lewandowsky should have been in Bern to assist one of his mates who was experiencing extreme debate stress.
http://notrickszone.com/2012/09/14/vahrenholt-buries-another-climate-scientist-in-debate-ipcc-scientists-have-colossally-exaggerated-warming/
This moment would have been worth paying to hear:
Meanwhile, warmist Thomas Stocker found it difficult to maintain his cool, calling Vahrenholt’s science “audacious” and that the stagnant global temperatures over the last (15) years “is normal for climatic warming phases.”
How could anyone spruik crap like that with a straight face? As the sceptic-hostile reporter states, this Stocker character received a subdued response from the audience.
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someone posted this at WUWT. read all:
13 Sept: Guardian: Alok Jha: False positives: fraud and misconduct are threatening scientific researchHigh-profile cases and modern technology are putting scientific deceit under the microscope
Dirk Smeesters had spent several years of his career as a social psychologist at Erasmus University in Rotterdam studying how consumers behaved in different situations. Did colour have an effect on what they bought? How did death-related stories in the media affect how people picked products? And was it better to use supermodels in cosmetics adverts than average-looking women?
The questions are certainly intriguing, but unfortunately for anyone wanting truthful answers, some of Smeesters’ work turned out to be fraudulent. The psychologist, who admitted “massaging” the data in some of his papers, resigned from his position in June after being investigated by his university, which had been tipped off by Uri Simonsohn from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Simonsohn carried out an independent analysis of the data and was suspicious of how perfect many of Smeesters’ results seemed when, statistically speaking, there should have been more variation in his measurements.
The case, which led to two scientific papers being retracted, came on the heels of an even bigger fraud, uncovered last year, perpetrated by the Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel. He was found to have fabricated data for years and published it in at least 30 peer-reviewed papers, including a report in the journal Science about how untidy environments may encourage discrimination.
The cases have sent shockwaves through a discipline that was already facing serious questions about plagiarism.
“In many respects, psychology is at a crossroads – the decisions we take now will determine whether or not it remains a serious, credible, scientific discipline along with the harder sciences,” says Chris Chambers, a psychologist at Cardiff University…
Increasing competition for shrinking government budgets for research and the disproportionately large rewards for publishing in the best journals have exacerbated the temptation to fudge results or ignore inconvenient data…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/13/scientific-research-fraud-bad-practice
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[…] Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles Gignac, Klaus Oberauer […]
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[…] Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him […]
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At some stage, we the un-anointed peasants will tire of the king stealing half of our grain and giving it to his cohorts. Our hard labour is wasted on frivolity. We will carry our scythes, forks and sickles to the gates of the castle and seek retribution. Retribution for the lies, deceit and profligate waste of our taxes.
The peasants are slow to anger, but once their ire is aroused they are very hard to control. UWA has angered this peasant.
UWA methinks will need to move to another state (ACT?).
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A basic view.
Lewandowsky is but the latest in a growing line of ‘once a scientist’ to now ‘frustrated radical activist’. Whatever common sense they once had is gurgling noisily down the shit house drain.
Seems like they are unable to handle the money, celebrity and religious focus that they have been devoured by.
Evidence;
* Climategate
* Mann with his boomerang (curve that has returned to hit him over the head).
* Hansen and his three arrests.
* Gleickgate
* Leweygate
Let’s continue to work to have government stop spending our money on such circus performers and on making their host temples compete to survive.
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IIRC a real psychologist described Lewandowsky’s situation as being beyond Barking (presumably not a geographic location).
This is not a unique situation for true believers of any colour. As the only information that they will accept is that which can, to their mind, be made to confirm their beliefs; they become incapable of rational thought.
One cannot therefore productively reason with a true believer in matters of their beliefs. It is a complete waste of time. One can only stand aside and wait for the collision between reality and belief; perhaps with the prospect of trying to salvage something from the crash.
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1. Barking is a suburb of London. But the phrase ‘barking mad’ refers to people who have an irresistible urge to make dog-like sounds at the full moon. Some of them might live in Barking, for all I know.
2. You say that true believers, will only accept information, “Which can, to their mind, be made to confirm their beliefs; they become incapable of rational thought.”
Well, you would expect a Psychologist to understand that, or does the psychologists professionalism get overridden by the fact that they are true believers?
A brief look at history over the twentieth century would lead me to suppose that rabid belief will invariably triumph over rational professionalism. At least for a while, until the rest of the world wakes up to what is happening. That is truly sad.
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Thanks. I’ve been to Barking, and beyond. Geographically. 😉
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Jo: Sometimes it looks like the numbers are against skeptics. We definitely don’t get $1.7million in funding over a couple of years. We get by happily with donations of $5 here and there and with profits from book sales.
Yet skeptics seem to be gaining. This is due in part to the very obvious nonsense that alarmists are trying to pass along as science. The general public understands junk when they see it and the Lew paper is a great example of that junk. Those who don’t have their “junk sensors” fine tuned yet have you to help them with the tuning. Thanks for your non-stop efforts.
And I’ll keep plugging away on this end with my efforts to show the public that the warming of the oceans is natural.
Regards
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Hmmm. I just noticed that my gravatar has only one tooth. I’m old but not that old. I have two teeth.
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Yes, but you have to admit, the shades are cool.
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Given the raised eyebrow I am not convinced the shades are solely for the purpose of screening the sun. 😉
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As someone who did a psych degree in Perth in the late 80’s(wish I hadn’t) I find none of it surprising. Back then even the most fervently career minded of us were aware that 95% of our staff were flakes. Even the students who were on the ground networking and grubbing their way from day one (most of them) were aware that we weren’t learning anything. One highly revered professor showed up to grace us at the end, his claim to fame? Compared to assembly line workers, sportsmen did less repetitive practice and therefore need to do more practice to improve. Yes, he built an academic career on that. Psychology is like a cardboard shopfront. If people knew there was nothing hehind it they would ignore it altogether, something that psychologists in an unspoken sort of way understand.
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Jo, it’s true! Everything they say is actually happening!
In the last 24 hours I have experienced not one but two critical warming events related to fossil fuel use and critical atmospheric change.
Yesterday my lawnmower siezed up when it ran out of oil and overheated, and today my computer stopped when the fan on the CPU became clogged with dust and stopped cooling!
Is this a conspiracy or am I just being paranoid?!
PS in case anyone is not entirely sure there could be a tiny hint of sarcasm here
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In spite of what they teach you at university, taking the blade out of a lawn mower and using it as the propeller in a computer cooling fan does not actually improve performance. For one thing it can lead to clipping on the data bus, and for another, it can cause bit leakage into your lawn.
Still, at least you are trying to be green.
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[…] that say about the logical correctness of the process. What are the other strategies?” Could denigration of people who disagree by Lewandowsky be worth $1.7m of Australian Research Council approved, taxpayer funds to help […]
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Hi guys – First Post
Does anyone know how many survey papers were included in this paper – it seems to me to be almost ludicrous that anyone would have agreed with these conspiracies.
cheers
Rick (EX NZ)
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14 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: U.N. offsets hit new lows, fall further below 2 euros
U.N. carbon credits crashed to new lows on Friday, as fears of increased supply outweighed bullish signals from energy and equity markets buoyed by economic stimulus measures in the U.S.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.1988370?&ref=searchlist
14 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: CCAs slip 6 pct on rumours of auction delay
California carbon allowances (CCAs) for delivery in 2013 shed a dollar from the previous week to close at $15.60/t on Thursday amid fears that the first permit auction would be delayed, market participants said.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.1987367?&ref=searchlist
perhaps Lewandowsky could analyse why finance journalists live in a fantasy world? QE3 perhaps!
14 Sept: WSJ: Katy Burne/Cassandra Sweet: Carbon Trading Heating Up
With California on Track to Implement Cap-Trade Laws, the Market Gets Active
As the Jan. 1, 2013, start date for the new rules approaches and as opponents of the rules run out of time to mount new legal challenges, operators of power plants, oil refineries and other facilities are wading in to purchase credits.
The spurt of activity has been a score for a small group of traders and other investors who had wagered that California officials would prevail in a lawsuit and a referendum that sought to block the cap on carbon-dioxide emissions. They say they see more opportunity to stock up on credits, ahead of an expected spike in demand next year.
“What’s changed is we are really at a phase now where [California is] in implementation mode,” said Greg Arnold, president at CE2 Carbon Capital, a fund backed by private-equity firm Energy Capital Partners that owns carbon contracts, expecting prices to rise…
It is mostly power producers and other companies that will need credits in the market today. But that could change as volume picks up, traders say, as investors come in to speculate on the direction of prices.
***”Once we get going, the hedge funds will be there,” said Randall Lack, founder of Element Markets in Houston, an asset manager that helps clients hedge in carbon markets…
Prices are likely to stabilize between $14 and $18 a ton as long as cap-and-trade looks set to begin in January, said Chris Schaffer, a Houston-based trader for Vitol, one of the world’s biggest energy-trading firms…
Power producers such as Constellation, a unit of Exelon Corp. and NRG Energy Inc. are trading as well.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443779404577643592149738280.html
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the carbon cowboys from the WSJ article:
Energy Capital Partners:
Doug Kimmelman: Senior Partner
Prior to founding Energy Capital, Mr. Kimmelman spent 22 years with Goldman Sachs, starting in 1983 in the firm’s Pipeline and Utilities Department within the Investment Banking Division.
Pete Labbat: Partner
Prior to joining Energy Capital in 2006, Mr. Labbat spent 13 years in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking Division. He began his career within Goldman Sachs’ Mergers & Acquisitions Department, advising on and executing numerous strategic transactions including mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and divestitures across a variety of industries. As a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Labbat had senior-level coverage responsibility for electric and gas utilities and independent power companies throughout the United States
http://www.ecpartners.com/secondary.asp?pageID=2
CE2 Carbon Capital:
Harold Buchanan, Managing Partner
Before leaving Enron Energy Services in 2001, Mr. Buchanan served as its Chief Operating Officer and was responsible for all North American transactions in electricity, natural gas and related products and services. While at Enron he was also Managing Director of Enron North America, founder of the Structured Transactions Group, and a founding team member of the electricity and emissions trading group…
Gregory Arnold, Managing Partner
Greg Arnold is co-founder and Managing Partner of CE2 Capital Partners. Mr. Arnold began his career as an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Kidder, Peabody & Co. At Goldman, Sachs & Co., he focused on corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions advisories for energy and power companies…
http://www.ce2capital.com/
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and from WSJ, promising the “hedge funds” will be there:
31 Aug: Element Markets: For Immediate Release
Element Markets Announces the Hiring of Manpreet Mattu – Former Air Pollution Specialist at the California Air Resources Board
Prior to joining Element Markets, Ms. Mattu served as lead staff for the coordination and development of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Assembly Bill 32 or “AB 32”) and the associated Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Cap-and-Trade Regulation at the California Air Resources Board (ARB). She developed policy proposals, regulatory provisions, and associated analyses relating to GHG compliance obligations, applicability, compliance offsets and linkage programs under AB 32. Most recently, Ms. Mattu assisted in managing the ARB Compliance Offset Program and Compliance Offset Protocol training classes…
http://www.elementmarkets.com/press-release-2012-08-31-houston.php
Element Markets
Angela Schwarz President and Chief Executive Officer
Prior to joining Element, Angela was Managing Director at Enron Energy Services (EES) responsible for running EES’s commercial origination group. Following Enron’s bankruptcy in 2001, Angela worked on behalf of the Creditor’s Committee until 2003 to manage the liquidation of some of EES’s most valuable assets…
Jeffery Parker Chief Financial Officer
Prior to joining GE, Jeff held various finance positions at Xcel Energy and Enron.
Keri Richardson Bevel General Counsel
Prior to joining Element, Keri served as an Assistant General Counsel for The Structure Group and also as Vice President and Counsel for Lehman Brothers Private Equity.
Ken Nelson Sr. Vice President – Renewables Marketing
Ken came to Element from Citigroup where he traded Midwest forward power…
Ken has also worked at TransAlta, Dynegy, PG&E Energy Trading, Enron and Texaco Gas Marketing…
Mike Taylor Sr. Vice President – Emissions Credit Marketing
Prior positions held by Mr. Taylor in emissions and energy trading industry includes CRAI and Enron.
http://www.elementmarkets.com/index.php
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Morning ? all.
Maybe this one won’t be Prof Steph’s cup of tea…
Leveraging Community Value from Academic Research. (ARC-000)
Living with an inflated sense of self-importance, many academics are disappointed to discover their skill sets are less clearly recognised, or not recognised at all, by a real-world environment in which measured delivery of results and practical application of intellectual deliverables is necessitated for ongoing access to the gravy train.
Many academics, faced with this dilemma, adopt a strategy of “picking winners” from a shortlist of politically-motivated but otherwise intrinsically worthless fields of study. (Climate science and cognitive psychology, for example.) By liberal application of babble-speak and targeted lobbying, these academics are thereby able to prolong their tenures and further advance their questionable sense of intellectual competency.
The aim of this study is to deconstruct the academic paradigm by re-directing the emphasis towards areas of actual practical and social significance. A critical aspect of this process is the critical “post-mortem” review of previous studies by the given proponents to determine whether they have lived up to their projections; this will include an audited account of the previous study deliverables and the social and economic value of their outcomes. A consequence of this process will likely include many prominent academics gaining valuable hands-on knowledge and experience of the franchaised fast food industry.
And a coke with that thanks, Stephan.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Hi Speedy,
I went Googling for some key phrases in your title but could not find.
It sounds interesting. Do you have a link please?
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G’day Bob.
Sadly, this particular study doesn’t seem to exist outside of my imagination. However, I’d be happy to lend the verbage to Stephan if he’d like to divert himself from his other “studies”.
I reckon he’d flip a mean burger.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Examples like Lewandowsky should make taxpayers and politicians everywhere (in all relevant countries and locales) take some very hard looks at research funding, academic salaries and benefits, etc.
I’m all for genuine scientific research, but to the extent that bozos like Lewandowsky are sucking up funds that should be going to far more worthy endeavors, that is a cause for great concern.
Defund the Lewandowskys of the world and put the money to proper uses, whether in serious research or as tax rate reductions or something legitimate.
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UW is also famous for the Rindos scandal . That was a doozy.
The VC at the time was Fay Gale, but some wags nicknamed her
Gay Fale!
One interesting this in this is that UWA have gone to the
5 year degree model. As a consequence, Curtin University, the number
#2 in the state is really picking up any number of very good
students who would would otherwise have gone to UWA.
If UWA do not take appropriate action, then it might be suggested
that students go to Curtin in order to avoid the incompetent
buffons at UWA.
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Jim
I was talking to a brand new Mech Eng graduate from UWA who talked me out of suggesting UWA to my lad. Go for Curtin!
Kid #1 has just finished at Curtin and seems to be competent and well adjusted enough.
Better than Stephan Lewandowski, anyway.
Cheers,
Speedy
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$1.7 million? Pah, small change! That doesn’t cover even three months’ rent for the new offices of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, our Congregatio de Propaganda Fide; the DCCEE’s publications, of course, have even less scientific validity than Lewandowsky’s silly emissions.
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Could it be the greatest human weakness is the ability to admit to doubt or being wrong?. We all do it in both our professional and/or personal lives and it’s counterproductive. Why would a Professor engage in such intellectual dishonesty?. Why spend years studying, honing and perfecting ones abilities only to stoop to this level?. I think the answer is simple. Politics, because that’s what this debate is now about and is there a more profound oxymoron than “Political Science”. Politics is actually a religion where faith in ones own beliefs trumps any rational discourse and excuses any action contrary to it.
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Having been cursed with prior occupation as a Manager of Budget and Financial Analysis for a fairly large organization (>$500Million per year); whenever I see a huge amount of money and very little work for that money I wonder just what did those people do, every day, hour after hour?
Being an American, it really isn’t my place; but FOI requests for a number of work and non-work products seems appropriate. Some things I would think appropriate to request under FOI.
First and foremost, just what things occupied Lewpy and his cadre every day. for example:
–Internet surfing histories on all servers used by them. Any bets on sites visited?
–Phone records for all calls made, including cell phone calls during working hours.
–All files downloaded by Lewpy and his workers. Any bets on the types of files?
–All work products created or modified by date. Any letter, reports, programs, project plans, data, presentations not only are represented by a final product but also interim working stages of those products with their imbedded meta data. would anybody think that Lewpy really took two years to analyze all those survey replies?
–All emails, tweets, text messages. ALL!
–copies of all pay records (expunged of personal data)
–Copies of all invoices and bills.
–Current inventory and verification of capital items purchased with grant money.
–All travel and hotel records
–Any speaking or presentation fees earned, especially for any travel paid for by the grant.
All of this may allow the people of Australia to figure out how much it cost them per letter Lewpy forced on the gullible via his personal demons, obsessions and rants.
It may be that that particular Australian department isn’t interested in verifying Lewpy’s work products. I’d wager that Australian contractual requirements provide for Australians seeking these work products, expenditures and records.
It does look like “follow the money” in Lewpy’s case will be very interesting.
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There may be a case for “follow the money” here, I wouldn’t know. I suspect there is a case for “follow the psychosis” though. You need to did a bit deeper because this rot starts a lot higher than this than this individual.
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ceetee:
Psychosis, especially as actually determined by a practising psychologist is a personal opinion of that psychologist. It can be argued, but is very difficult to prove absolutely.
Money is hard cold cash. Every cent can be tracked. Can’t find a cent, better and better. Why can’t that cent be found? Didn’t the grantee practise fiduciary control and methods? Again, that grant is probably given with a set of conditions, one of which is likely proper care and tracking of the Government’s money. That is, failing to properly administer fund expenditures is negligence.
Pursuing where the psychosis begins is an abyss dive into the unknowns; pursuing the money scares those involved, whether innocent or sullied.
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Slightly off topic here but does anyone else get a vague sense of deja vu watching the protesters in Sydney, demanding an uncritical respect of their beliefs at the expense of our right to freedom of expression. Vaguely familiar that.
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This is serious and it wont be the last.
With very boat load we are sowing the seeds of own eventual demise as a western liberal democracy.
With the internet everyone is well able do the desk research, make their own inquiries and reveal what is behind all of the this.
Basically Islam is incompatible with western liberal thought because Islam must dominate and dominate it will. It believes that lieing to advance ones religion is quite ok
It has been long time comming but coming it certainly has been.
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/you-can-never-awaken-a-man-who-is/
The last para if this article is very apt
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Boadicia
You may be off topic, but the central theme of facing the facts is central to this website.
I’m not supportive of bigotry or blanket stereotypes. I know some “good” people who are muslims and have helped them via St Vincent de Paul, but it doesn’t mean I support bigotry against my self, my family and my civilisation.
I can only compare how Muslims are treated in our society versus how (say) Coptic Christians are treated by the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt.
A fact is a fact. It is OK to call evil as evil.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Speedy
You will find on the web site I referenced above, two regular Bulletins that chronicle the evils of the last month or so, by muslims, in the name of Islam around the world. It makes deeply disturbing reading.
These are:
1.The Bulletin of Christian Persecution. (by muslims every where in the world) …..and
2. The Bulletin of The Persecution of Women… which is of itself also horrendous
Further the latest hoo-ha about insulting their precious prophet might have some substance if it were not for the fact that the Koranic trylogy itself documents his antics by the standards of today as a perverted thug. So what are they on about, havnt they read their Koran lately.?
Oh thats right its in arabic …any other langauage can’t possibly tell the right story, and be interpreted correctly, even though the original versions (plural) were written in Aramic, a language of jewish origins.
And all the while our dopey politicians have left the back door open letting in anyone, without being able to properly check their bona fides, and thereby loading up the Centre Link system with ever more free loaders, that goes on for generations…and who are, and become people who hate us as Kaffirs. Dont believe me?… then read the Koran.
Sydney was just a fore taste of whats to come.
Does this apply to all Muslims ..no of course not.
The question remains however can you ever tell…you cant
Sydney , and the Bulletins above say, Be Aware .. be very aware
PS Isnt it interesting how these so called illegal immigrants pass through at least 2 Islamic states, Malaysia and Indonesia, where they could have found safe haven, but no that would’nt do ..they have to come here. Something about the ummah.
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O/T:
Russia has confirmed it would not make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, joining Canada and Japan in rejecting an extension of the plan for fighting climate change.
Russia to halt emission cuts until new pact
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Russia only joined Kyoto 1 because of a massive bribe i.e. being allowed to issue 30 billion carbon credits. With the collapse of the carbon market they are no longer interested.
Indeed, with the exception of the bureaucrats who run (? I’m sure there should be an i in that) the EU, those underdeveloped countries hoping for money, and those on the IPCC gravy train, it is hard to find any enthusiasm for Kyoto 2 at all.
It’s not just Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Brazil, Canada and the USA have all said NO. Something like 85% of the World’s economy don’t want to join. If anybody has a Norwegian Blue parrot, name it Kyoto 2.
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Just posted this at WUWT – maybe of interest here:-
One of the more bizarre aspects of Lewandowsky’s paper is his inclusion of the “911 truther” conspiracy.
When Adam Corner, Cardiff University “climate psychologist” and Green Party activist, launched the paper in the UK with an article in the Guardian, his opening paragraph was:- “It’s time to come clean: climate change is a hoax. And the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was an inside job, and the CIA is hiding the identity of the gunman on the grassy knoll.”
I made the point to Corner at the time that most of the “truther” fraternity, in the UK at least, were to found among extreme left wing & environmentalist commentators in the Guardian itself.
An hour’s casual googling reveals numerous links between Adam’s fellow green activists and the “truther” movement.
Only this month, US Green Party Congressional Candidate Carol Brouillet described herself as – Cofounder of the International Media Project, the Who’s Counting Project, the 9/11 Truth Alliance, and the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, Carol is a leading veteran-war and anti-globalization activist and widely considered a leading guru in the 9/11 Truth Movement
In 2009 The US Green Party also issued a statement calling on the the Obama administration’s former ‘green jobs’ advisor Van Jones to leave the Democrats and switch to the Greens, using the argument that, among Greens, Jones, “need not apologise for questioning the behaviour of the Bush administration in connection with the 9/11 attacks”.
In 2008, the US Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney campaigned on the slogan “The only 911 truth candidate for President”
In 2010 Canadian Green Party Ottawa South Candidate, Qais Ghanem , was a conspiracy theorist who believed that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job perpetrated by U.S. government agents.
In 2008 US Green Party candidate in Crawford Texas, Byron De Lear, said We could be facing the biggest cover-up and the biggest crime of our century in regard to 9/11 and what’s going on here.
Of course, all political movements have their mavericks and the above could be all dismissed as publicity hungry political opportunists.
I mean you wouldn’t find a serious, respected award winning climate scientist espousing such a wacky conspiracy theory – or would you?
Pieter Tans, senior NOAA scientist in charge of monitoring CO2 levels at Monau Loa is, like many of his colleagues, a bit of a green activist. When he’s not fulfilling his important scientific work, monitoring possibly the most important single metric in all of climate science – he’s often to be found flying around the world, making impassioned speeches about the need for the rest of us to rein in our carbon footprints.
But Pieter has some more exotic political views as well – in 2006 he signed this obituary letter, in a Boulder Colorado newspaper, for a deceased colleague which includes an invitation to a “911 truther” event and makes it quite clear that all the signatories were active in the movement:-
RIP
World has lost a true, humble friend
The world has lost a true friend in Gilbert White, winner of the 2000 National Medal of Science, natural resource adviser to FDR, ecologist before the word existed, president of Haverford College, social scientist and much else he was too humble to mention.
Gil was a fearless thinker who supported ideas that were before their time, such as the project at Vote.org and ideas that many ridicule or fear, such as evidence that a few people in our government allowed or caused the 9/11 attacks. He’s the eldest in the Oct. 21, 2004, Boulder Weekly photo with us, attending a 9/11 Truth event, although we weren’t identified — see Boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html. At lunch afterward, he expressed surprise and frustration that the media simply refused to make this an issue in the coming presidential election.
Gil was pretty sure that 9/11 was treason partly because, when he was working in the FDR White House, he witnessed the congratulatory atmosphere there the day of Pearl Harbor. He believed the government had invited the attack to get people’s support to enter World War II, and that something similar happened to get Congress’ (not the people’s) support for the Bush wars.
Gilbert could have been a member of almost any elite, but he preferred non-elitists. He believed in giving power to the people rather than keeping it in the hands of any elite. He hoped that when people learned that the government was complicit in 9/11 that they’d demand the kind of participatory government you can help realize at Vote.org. That’s why we risk accusations of sullying the dead by writing this.
Steven Jones, BYU Physics professor suspended for his work with Physics911.net, and Kevin Ryan, fired from Underwriters Laboratories for speaking out, will speak Oct. 29 from 2 to 6 p.m. in CU’s Math 100, along with the founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, Kevin Barrett, Ph.D.
EVAN RAVITZ, ROBERT McFARLAND, PIETER TANS and MARTIN WALTER
It’s quite clear that, although it’s quite hard to find any real evidence of climate sceptics involved in this particular conspiracy – it is widely rooted in the green movement, extending to at least one highly regarded climate scientist.
Lewandowsky and his British mini-me Corner are both active in environmental politics and it is inconceivable that they were not aware of this.
They made a completely dishonest attempt to project an unsavoury aspect of their own movement onto their opponents.
Shameful.
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Foxgoose,
Thanks, that is fascinating material! I had been well aware that several conspiracy theories are virulent in elements of the left/green/radical movements. From a personal impressionistic aspect (I know, un-scientific), I have encountered bunches of left-wing conspiracists in the past decade but virtually never a genuine conspiracy belief on the right (not saying they don’t exist in precincts of the web, just saying they seem rare and I don’t encounter them). All the people who think a conspiracy within the Bush admin caused/allowed 911 to happen or lied the US into Iraq knowing there were no WMDs etc. tend to be on the left and far more likely to be CAGW warmists. I know, mere anecdote…..
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It follows – you see – 9/11 was all an evil george bush, neo-con plot… so of course it appeals to the hard core lefties…
From my perspective, the hard core lefties and the neo-cons are a lot more alike – then they are different. Both are believers in Big Government.
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Foxgoose,
Good points.
In the United States, there are 9/11 “truthers” on the fringes of the libertarian movement. Just as there are probably still a few right-wing nuts who believe in the black helicopters (these are supposedly piloted by UN troops who have been secretly infiltrated into the United States, in preparation for a transnational coup d’état).
But the vast majority of 9/11 conspiracy bugs are on the Left, including the high-profile cases like Van Jones and Imamu Amiri Baraka. During the Dubya years, many on the Left decided that he was the devil incarnate (or a puppet whose strings were pulled by the real devil incarnate, Dick Cheney); 9/11 truthing fits neatly into that worldview.
The old Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory still has a few adherents among conservatives and libertarians, virtually none among “liberals” and Leftists.
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Goodbye. Happy new year. Wish me luck.
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What a truly wonderful job you, Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts and so many others are doing in posts and comments to deconstruct a charlatan and his bogus methods. Every paper that Lewandowsky has ever produced must be called into question, everyone who has ever collaborated with him and their work must be called into question. The motives of everyone who excuses and defends Lewandowsky must be considered suspect.
What is the value of an education at the University of Western Australia? A degree in psychology or a related subject such as sociology from this institution cannot be considered other than worthless due to it being associated with Lewandowsky and his totally useless pseudo-science.
Lewandowsky represents all that is wrong with science as currently taught by some and in particular, climate science both as a science and as a subject for prejudiced sociologist/psychologist bandwagon jumpers.
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15 Sept: SMH: Reuters: Russia to halt emission cuts until new pact
Russia has confirmed it would not make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, joining Canada and Japan in rejecting an extension of the plan for fighting climate change.
The foreign ministry said Moscow would not join industrialised nations led by the European Union in signing up for cuts beyond a first round of commitments ending on Dec. 31, 2012…
The likely list of “Kyoto 2” participants accounts for only 15-17 per cent of global greenhouse emissions, Lukashevich said, while the countries that participated in the first round of cuts accounted for 30 per cent of global emissions.
That makes the target of limiting the global temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times impossible to reach, he said…
***A group of Russian industrial and energy companies, including Rusal, the world’s largest aluminium company, and TNK-BP, one of Russia’s biggest oil and gas producers, have been lobbying the government to take on a post-2012 Kyoto target.
That would allow them to continue to earn carbon credits for emission reduction projects under the U.N.’s Joint Implementation mechanism…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/russia-to-halt-emission-cuts-until-new-pact-20120915-25z2u.html
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I think we all suspect that both Russia and China are silent skeptics here, playing the situation to their own benefit whilst not committing to any ideological position.
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some conspiracies turn out to be real, and partisan politics need play no part. the people of Liverpool (and others who have supported their fight for justice in the Hillsborough matter) have finally been vindicated:
13 Sept: Yorkshire Post: The tragic truth emerges at last
Then-chief constable of South Yorkshire Peter Wright and his officers, with the help of local Tory MP Irvine Patnick, sought to cover up the failings, briefing media that drunken, ticketless fans and violence were to blame.
164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter “unfavourable” comments about the police.
South Yorkshire Ambulance documents were also changed. Attempts were made to attack the reputations of those who died by carrying out Police National Computer checks on them…
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/main-section/the-tragic-truth-emerges-at-last-1-4923669
13 Sept: ESPN: Dalglish calls for justice
Kenny Dalglish issued a call for justice on behalf of those who lost their lives at Hillsborough after an independent review finally cleared Liverpool fans of any blame for the disaster, which saw 96 supporters fail to return home from a football match…
It was found that 41 of the 96 fans who lost their lives might have been saved, while Liverpool fans were the target of a police cover-up that attempted to pin the blame on the defenceless. Thursday’s national newspapers, 23 years after the disaster, have finally printed the truth about Hillsborough, and now Dalglish – Liverpool manager at the time – wants justice for the families…
“The aims remain the same for the families and their search to see justice done goes on. A start would be for the death certificates and the coroner’s report to be changed from accidental death to unlawful killing.”
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard suffered directly from the tragedy, with his 10-year-old cousin Jon-Paul Gilhooley the youngest of the 96 to lose his life at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Reacting to the findings of the review, Gerrard slammed the “shameful” cover-up that followed the April disaster.
“For 23 years they have fought for truth and justice on behalf of the victims and survivors of this terrible tragedy and all Liverpool supporters,” Gerrard said. “Victims and survivors suffered not just on April 15, 1989 in Sheffield, but for over two decades afterwards with the shameful slandering of their actions by people who abused their position and power…
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1157819/kenny-dalglish-calls-for-justice-after-hillsborough-findings?cc=3436
14 Sept: Press Gazette: Apology from MP source for Sun Hillsborough front
A former Conservative MP named as one of the sources behind The Sun’s controversial coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy today said he was “deeply and sincerely sorry” for the part he played in the scandal.
Sir Irvine Patnick said he had been given “wholly inaccurate” information by some members of the police and was “appalled” at the extent of the cover-up surrounding the disaster.
But the former Tory MP for Sheffield Hallam said he “totally” accepted responsibility for repeating the information, which led to the tabloid newspaper’s notorious front page story headlined The Truth…
Sir Irvine, 82, was named by the Hillsborough Independent Panel yesterday as one of the sources who briefed journalists that Liverpool fans were “drunk and aggressive” and forced entry into the football ground, contributing to the deadly crush.
The panel found the origin of The Sun’s story, along with negative coverage in other newspapers, was Sheffield-based White’s News Agency, which had been briefed by officers from South Yorkshire Police (SYP), a local Police Federation spokesman and Sir Irvine…
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, who wrote the headline, apologised yesterday and said he had been “totally misled”.
After the revelations emerged yesterday a Labour MP wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron calling for the former government whip to be stripped of his knighthood over his “shameful” role in the aftermath of the disaster…
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=50025&c=1
obviously, there are conspiracies, some good, some bad, and CAGW is one such example of a bad one. much about that conspiracy has come to light in recent years, for example Climategate 1 and 2, and one day there will hopefully be a reckoning.
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[…] was a scammed internet survey. Bloggers such as Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, BishopHill, Lucia, JoNova are all over this, and have exposed the scam (note: there are multiple posts on each of these […]
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So now that Lewandowsky and psychology in general have been diced and sliced 29 ways from Sunday, what will change?
NOTHING! That’s what!
I’ll bet there isn’t one person in a thousand with the brass balls it takes to rock their own boat. And that’s what it will take. Sinking some boats is the only way out of this and that will change everyone’s life. Society will either change or not depending on enough people willing to learn to swim so they can rock the boat without fear of change, without fear of trouble.
The great convoy to Canberra fizzled because after parading around Parliament House everyone went home again, all the while patting themselves on the back about what a statement they made. But the statement they made was, “We don’t dare really fight.” The worthwhile statement and the one that might have gotten action was to have stayed there day after day after day… But that would require sacrifice and risk of arrest or worse. How much are you willing to risk to get your country back?
I’ve been watching humanity for too long to believe these fools who run our daily lives will go down without a fight.
You may read into that whatever you want.
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We have a government appointed chief scientist (Dr Ian Chubb) here in Australia. Surely one of his duties is to defend science and scientists from attack.
Come on Chubby- nail your colours to the mast- we dare you!
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“Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him”
Ironic, considering the vilification of scientists, respected by their colleagues, such as Dr. Mann and Prof. Jones.
That aside, believing that 100,000 scholarly papers on climate science from all over the world are wrong or fake is a conspiracy theory. There should be no surprise that it is related to belief in other conspiracy theories.
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Seth,
Without a doubt, if I ask you for empirical evidence linking atmospheric CO2 to anything going on or claimed to be going on here on Earth, you will not be able to provide any.
Facts are not a matter of majority opinion. Facts are not established by theories. Facts are not established by computer models no matter how sophisticated they are.
Facts are established by what you can observe happening — and repeat the observation anytime you want to. You can’t even show convincing warming, much less a link to CO2.
You’re playing a busted hand and I just called your bluff. Let’s see your cards so we can all know what you’re made of.
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Here you go Seth:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2012/09/uk-documentary-from-1990-greenhouse.html#comment-form
Since you like consensus so much, try this perspective from 1990, before the AGW cult got so established that the media stopped being skeptical.
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And now … for Lew’s next magic trick … Lewandowsky’s Cleansing Program
In the finest traditions of ‘jack-boot’ science, rewrite your history!
Shameful ! UWA should be embarrassed to have somebody like this on its staff.
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[…] was a scammed internet survey. Bloggers such as Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, BishopHill, Lucia, JoNova are all over this, and have exposed the scam (note: there are multiple posts on each of these […]
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Is Psychology a Science?
Clearly not, based on the work produced by people like Lew and that odious troll who wrote merchants of left wing propaganda or whatever she called her tedious book.
Is UWA “excellent”?
Yes, that is if by excellent you mean mediocre, which I assume is the case since the left loves to redefine the terms it uses to mean the opposite and it is only the left that considers UWA to be “excellent”
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[…] a scammed internet survey. Bloggers such as Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, BishopHill, Lucia, JoNova are all over this, and have exposed the scam (note: there are multiple posts on each of these […]
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Psychology and psychiatry can be classified as voodoo science and a carry over of having a shaman giving you a good ear wax candling to clear the sinus or the evil spirits.
This Lew person seems to think he is a research scientist, I would classify his role more as the useful idiot. Once upon a time we supported our village idiots, now it would seem they have become unionised and running the country.
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This would not be my mindset. Better to ponder how the average working man and woman have less of their own hard-earned to spend how they would choose.
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/lewandowsky-gets-1-7m-of-taxpayer-funds-to-demonize-people-who-disa… […]
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[…] was a scammed internet survey. Bloggers such as Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, BishopHill, Lucia, JoNova are all over this, and have exposed the scam (note: there are multiple posts on each of these […]
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check out further demolition of Lewandowsky’s pretensions to competence:
Lewandowsky’s Fake Correlation
It’s not looking good in Lew-Lew land….
Will anyone at UWA figure out they have a charlatan on their hands?
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Where money is easily come by it is usually spent unwisely. Such is government money whether it be to universities or for any other purpose. As George Bernard Shaw said “when governments rob Peter to pay Paul they get the enduring support of Paul”
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/lewandowsky-gets-1-7m-of-taxpayer-funds-to-demonize-people-who-disa… […]
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[…] Stephan Lewandowsky could be a regular guest, pronouncing that non-Labor-Green fans were paranoid conspiracy hunters, and ideated nut-cases. Some ABC viewers would find that most entertaining. The rest will despair at how our tax dollars are being vaporized in the biased billion dollar organization with manners and reasoning at sub-preschooler levels, impoverishing public policy by suppressing non-pc facts. […]
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/lewandowsky-gets-1-7m-of-taxpayer-funds-to-demonize-people-who-disa… […]
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[…] to get started). Lewandowsky’s name is listed on ARC grants totalling $2 million since 2007. (See here and here). More often, his “Disclosures” simply say he gets money from the ARC and has no […]
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[…] and I also noticed this http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/lewandowsky-gets-1-7m-of-taxpayer-funds-to-demonize-people-who-disa… […]
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[…] Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him […]
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