179 thoughts on “Fury: if you can harm, you need consent.”

1. It could be that to someone as thick skinned as Lew appears to be, that he literally could not conceive that any harm might arise.

2. In the end isn’t the line that has been crossed that a qualified psychologist making public inferred diagnoses from what they have found online? Irrespective of ethical research rules that seems something that professional bodies would frown on whether it is done in a peer reviewed publication or elsewhere?

3. SteveTa,
   Maybe. But given the discussion surrounding LOG12 (i.e. “Moanhoax”) it seems rather difficult to overlook the possibility that identifying individuals behavior as characteristic of features suggesting “conspiracy ideation” might not cause them “anxiety, pain, psychological disturbance, devaluation of personal worth and social disadvantage” and would do so no matter how thick their skins were.

   I do think I am ready to submit a ethics complaint. 🙂

4. The whole of the IRB process has a very simple rule of thumb; ‘can anything done is the study or resulting from the study cause harm or distress to the participants or their family and friends’, if the answer is yes, then you have to start over.
   Distress is a rather lose term, but you know what it is and what it means. In my case the tissue taken from patients is never identified in a way that can be traced to a patient. Descriptions of the patient, including actual age and the date of tumor removal are softened, “following a resection in the spring of 2011 of a man in his late 50’s the patient…….”.
   No identifiers.

5. David Sinfield,
   Is it possible that a professor of psychology is not necessarily a psychologist? I supposed psychologist was shorthand for clinical psychologist – someone who deals with individuals and that the more general discipline of psychology was not individual specific.

   This is where our hero has transgressed. It is likely that he is not a “clinical psychologist.” Had he been, he would have had the sense to anonomyze the subjects of his studies without prompting.

6. As you say, the first thing is to establish whether you are a “participant”.
   As well as the guidelines you have found, UWA, where Lewy was at the time, is quite clear on this:

   Who is a ‘participant’ in human research?

   A ‘human participant’ in research is any person who, for example:

   Provides research data, e.g. completes surveys
   Participates in interviews, discussions, a focus group, or observations
   Undergoes psychological, physiological or medical assessment that is not part of their clinical treatment
   Tests software or a device, or equipment
   Grants access to personal data or records, photographs, etc
   Provides human tissue, e.g. blood, urine, saliva, hair, etc
   Is identified in a record, e.g. employment record, medical record, education record, membership list, electoral roll
   Is identified in a databank, including unpublished human research data, e.g. an analysis of existing unpublished data collected by another researcher or collected for another research project

   Since you (and I) are identified in a record/databank (Lewy’s supplementary info table), we are “participants”. This UWA is ‘consistent with’ the National Statement that you have used.

7. I don’t think it changes your analysis materially, but also under the heading of “What is Human Research?”, is the category: “• being observed by researchers;”. It seems to me that this is also highly applicable. Even if Lewandowsky never interacts with his subjects (through taunting/blog posts/etc), he is still basing his research, and drawing conclusions from observations. (I think of the analogy of using video taken in a public square to identify individuals and expose them to ridicule would be something similar).

8. All this brought to mind the kerfuffle in 1964 when Fact magazine published the article “The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater.” The magazine polled psychiatrists about American Senator Barry Goldwater and whether he was fit to be president. One result was that the American Psychiatric Association promulgated the Goldwater Rule. That rule states that it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion about someone that he or she has not personally examined and been granted permission to make a statement.

   It would appear at first glance that Lew and company have violated this rule.

9. David Sinfield,

   qualified psychologist making public inferred diagnoses from what they have found online?

   Maybe: In what I posted above the prongs are:

   1) Is the psychologist (or anyone reporting this ‘information’) operating in a context where he is bound by rules in ” “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research” (or is he bound by any document with similar rules? So, to figure out the answer to your question, we need to know whether the psychologists conversation or reporting is governed by a document of this sort. I don’t know if psychologists are always bound by this document (or a similar one) in all behavior, but it seems they often would be. If they were reporting ‘research’ performed in Australian, they almost certainly would be.

   This particular Australian document states

   This National Statement must be used to inform the design, ethical review and conduct of human research that is funded by, or takes place under the auspices of, any of the bodies that have developed this National Statement (NHMRC, ARC, AVCC).

   In addition, the National Statement sets national standards for use by any individual, institution or organisation conducting human research. This includes human research undertaken by governments, industry, private individuals, organisations, or networks of organisations.

   So it would seem that with respect to work done in Australian, this document would seem to cover any results involving “human subjects” characterized as “research”.

   2) Does the person (whether a psychologist or not) discuss identifiable individuals? Note that ‘identifiable’ is defined in these sorts of documents, so the answer is not always obvious. If the answer is obviously yes, the answer will be ‘yes’. Sometimes, it might seem to be “no” the answer might still be ‘yes’. I spoke to my husband at breakfast. He said his understanding of the rules under the training Argonne National lab goes like this:if any researcher can trace through the data and link any bit of data to any specific individual, that person is “identifiable”. So, for example: if he did a study where he spies on people in the bathroom and fills out a checklist with “subject number: check (“washed hand”, “did not wash hands”). That’s not identifiable. But if he were to read their nametags and note their names, the subjects become “identifiable”.

   My husbands understanding is these participants are considered ‘identifiable’ even if he never reports their identities to the public. (Note: this is important to the ‘brouhaha’). Of course, his training may be overcautious, or US laws may be stricter than Australia’s with regard to the definition of “publicly identifiable”.

   3) Is the information he releases of a nature that could cause “harm” as defined in “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research”. Note that “harm” includes things like ‘causing the individual feel lower self esteem’, ‘inducing anxiety’ etc. Other than, “that person is mentally stable”, most psychological diagnoses have a potential for inducing ‘harm’ of this sort. (Low IQ? Phobia? Hoarder? Aspergers? etc.) But even lists of traits or symptoms that do not rise to the level of a full diagnosis have potential for harm of this sort. For example: some people might feel “lower self esteem” or experience “social disadvantage” for merely being described as “excessively timid”. (For example: they might not be admitted to the marines, or their application as hit man to the mob might be declined.)

   4) Did the person divulging information get ‘informed consent’? If yes, he might not have crossed a line. If no, the information relates to research involving ‘identifyable individuals, and divulging the info could cause ‘harm’ seems to me we likely have an ethics violation under Australian rules.

10. Joe Shill

    “What is Human Research?”, is the category: “• being observed by researchers;”. It seems to me that this is also highly applicable.

    I agree. If the researcher does that, that bullet point is sufficient to make it ‘human research’. But I think it means using his eyes cameras, listening to conversations in public and so on. So for example: watching people milling around malls or eaves dropping on conversations on public transportation. I pulled out the bit about reading records posted in public.

11. “If you can harm, you need consent.” What if the goal of your study is to harm?

12. You are doing fine. Could have been a lawyer. Despite all the fine print, the essence is simple and Frontiers got it right. Specific people were identified in this research. Based on statements those people had made (doesn’t matter where or under what circumstances) psychopathologies were ‘diagnosed’ and then officially published. That requires express permission that was not given. The alternative, as Doc points out, is complete annonymization. That is what Frontiers requested be done in the rewrite. It wasn’t, so Frontiers retracted.
    Whether general notions of privacy, legal notions of slander and libel, psychiatric ‘Goldwater rules’, or Australian IRB ethical guidelines as here, the idea is unchanged.
    BTW since the paper is still up at UWA, you have a cause of action against them and LewCrew. Perhaps several.

13. DeWitt
    He may have. But that’s American law.

    The difficulty here is that there are so many things that might be violations of various things. To pursue an ethics complaint one must focus on them one at a time and then show that one was a violation. This lets us isolate. That’s why, for example, I don’t go off into the issue of “concealment” or how that further affects the obligations for researchers. Also notice in my discussion (and my response to David Sinfield) for the issue I’m talking about, violations occur:

    1) Even if the ‘researcher’ is not a psychologist. A researcher is merely a person ‘doing research’. The fact the results are reported in a ‘research paper’ is sufficient for this rule to kick in. So for this issue it doesn’t matter if Lew and Crew are psychologists, ‘real researchers’, ‘academics’, licensed or anything else. They could be a small band of privately funded individuals doing ‘marketing research’. If they operate in Australian and report it as research, the rule seems to apply.

    2) The revelation need not be a “diagnosis”. It just needs to be ‘information/analysis/results’ obtained as part of “human research” whose revelation to someone outside the project (i.e. private) could ‘forseeably cause harm’.

    3) It’s possible “forseeable harm” could kick in if the revelation was fairly minor. Public revelations of potentially harmful (info/analysis/results) might result in ‘forseeable harm’ and public doesn’t have to be very broad. For example: problem might kick in if Lew&Crew discuss the ‘information/analysis/results’ with even one person not involved in the research. (e.g. researchers husband or wife, friend, fraternity buddies etc. )

    Its true that some of this stuff might seem to be or border on “diagnosis” or discuss things touching on “mental illness” (e.g. paranoid is used in the paper). In comments elsewhere, I thought about actual harm and whether or not the attributions were “correct”. I thought about that when I was considering the legal standing — and it was natural to think about that because Lew&Crew’s discussions involve copious mentions of UK libel laws. The issue of whether or not the attributions are “correct” is also important to the validity of the findings.

    But the ethical rules are stricter and kick even if the findings are valid and even if the claims do not rise to ‘libel’. That means finding results invalid or statements libelous is not necessary to finding a real ethical issue.

    As it happens:
    1) I think the results are invalid. I’ve discussed some reasons elsewhere.
    2) I think the statements either border or are libel per se– and I would have a colorable case in my jurisdiction if this article was considered published in Illinios. (I don’t know if I would win the case– libel cases are hard to win. It would depend on whether a judge or jury thought this rose to the level of claiming suggesting I was ‘mentally ill’ or whether failing that, merely claiming what I say is evidence of characteristics that correlate with ‘conspiracy ideation and so on. I think this would get pas the prima facie hurdle. )
    3) I’m think there are numerous ethical issues.
    4) I am of the opinion that I have identified this particular one.

14. RUd,

    psychopathologies were ‘diagnosed’

    Note, I largely agree with you. But I’d like to point out that you are using words you think describe what Lew did and as such result in arguments about the meaning of terms like ‘psychopathology’ and ‘diagnosis’. The rules seem to apply to much milder revelations.

    (a) my reading of the law is that ‘harm’ might be caused by revealing characteristics much milder than ‘psychopathology’. It’s possible one might argue revealing characteristics like “bad fashion sense” could result harm which includes “social disadvantage”. For example it might prevent a young woman aspiring to join a sorority to not be invited.

    (b) The revelation does not need to be done in a form that all or even most would recognize as a “diagnosis”.

    Even if “NI”, “NS”, “MwB” or full blown “conspiracy ideation” are not “psychopathology” the are “traits or behaviors” and these “traits or behaviors people might find embarrasing, or which could result in their social exclusion from groups they might wish to join’. Lew&Crews opinion about whether identifyable individuals behavior provided evidence to support even a suspicion they had these traits could forseable cause harm.

15. De Witt, I think the distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists would means that a considerably lower standard is required of Lew and team.

16. Another interesting factor is Lew’s harping on how ‘popular’ this paper was by listing how many times it was downloaded. In other words this paper was widely disseminated across the world… I think that would be a factor in ‘harm’.

17. Lucia, RUd,
    Of course people were identifiable. It would be much less effective for Lew & Co’s political objectives to only question the sanity of unidentified/anonymous people. It is politically motivated psycho-babble rubbish at its worst; unprincipled, dishonest, and executed with malice.

18. Steve Ta,
    With respect to application of “The Goldwater Rule” standards may differ for psychiatrists, psychologist and others. But that’s not the standard I’m discussing. It’s interesting and affects people’s thinking on these issues. But it’s important for people to understand that sometimes, moving the discussion to other, different issues that (a) seem related or (b) seem to also exist, can make it difficult for people to see that one particular very specific ethics issue does exist. So, for example, discussing “The Goldwater Rule” can lead us off into discussions of the definition of “diagnosis” or “who is a psychiatrist”. Those matter in the application of “The Goldwater Rule”, but they aren’t required for an ethics violation to have occurred.

19. Lucia, you are quite correct. I intended only to crystallize the essence for your readership. There are many milder interpretations that are still specific violations of the Aussie rules. Just means you have a very strong case should you and those like you chose to persue it. Best would be identify an Australian citizen, then harness Jo Nova’s network to get UWA to take it down and issue an apology, in my opinion.
    Regards

20. sue,

    I think that would be a factor in ‘harm’.

    This would be a factor if we needed to discuss whether harm actually occurred. I’m sure that’s also an issue that could be pursued (and it would be in any defamation suit that might be lodged.)

    But the threshold for requiring consent is that harm be foreseeable. I think given the definition of “harm”, the types of characterizations being made, reactions to LOG12 itself that one could clearly foresee ‘harm’ as defined in the ethics document could occur if the paper reported its data or analysis in any way where individuals could be ‘identified’.

    If you read ‘retractionwatch’ you can see that Lewandowsky is interpreting the basis for Frontiers retraction as being related to UK libel laws, and so interpreting whether there is a breech based on his understanding of those. Lew judges the retraction as unwarranted because he thinks they could win a libel law in the UK. See

    I pointed out earlier that this legal context involved English libel laws in force prior to 2014. Those laws were sufficiently notorious for their chilling effect on inconvenient speech for President Obama to sign a law that makes U.K. libel judgments unenforceable in the U.S.

    The difficulty is that even if UK libel laws now make it difficult to pursue libel in this case, one needs to consider the ethical issue which they may have done. And it appears that ethical issues may be the trigger. (Given Lew’s timeline of communication, it’s possible that even the journal did not grasp the ethical issue until after June 2013 as it seems we get a quote from a Frontiers attorney mentioning UK libel laws at that time. But I’ve seen nothing concrete to suggest they didn’t afterwards because the other conversations appear to have been on Skype or aren’t specifically quoted… or I’ve overlooked them!)

    Some discussion at retractionwatch is here:
    (http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/06/co-author-of-retracted-conspiracy-ideation-climate-skepticism-paper-addresses-apparent-contradictions/)

21. It appears that in Australia, people who call themselves psychologists are regulated by law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologist#Australia. I wonder if there are specific government rules which would apply here.

22. Seems there is a bigger problem then. The people who are being categorized, are likely to be the ones who will request and read the details of his paper, including unreported data collected. These individuals will be able to recognize themselves and their comments in doing so, no matter how much paraphrasing and synonymizing to non-Googlity they do. Thus their research if published will harm the individuals they are researching.

    Perhaps they can use this as an excuse to not release data.

23. I think this might suffer from “WWT” (worse than we though!) Recall: I and others are ‘participants’ So, either Lew needed “informed consent” or he qualified for “limited exposure”. I think he did not qualify for “limited disclosure” and given the contents of the article, there was “risk of harm”. But suppose one argued I’ve misunderstood the meaning of “anxiety” or similar and so am misdiagnosing “harm”. In that case, he might qualify for “limited disclosure”. In this case, we land here.

    2.3.2 Where limited disclosure involves active concealment or explicit deception, and the research does not aim to expose illegal activity, researchers should in addition demonstrate that:

    a) participants will not be exposed to an increased risk of harm as a result of the concealment or deception

    b) a full explanation, both of the real aims and/or methods of the research, and also of why the concealment or deception was necessary, will subsequently be made available to participants

    c) there is no known or likely reason for thinking that participants would not have consented if they had been fully aware of what the research involved.

    I’m going to discipline myself and stick to issues pertaining to “Fury” (not “Moonhoax”). I’ve already discussed (a): the participants were explosed to “increased risk of harm” when Lew & Crew wrote the paper in the way the did and reported the result. With regard to (b) Lew and Crew have failed to send me any ‘full explanation’ and explaining why it was necessary to sift through public sources (e.g. my blog posts) that included identifiable information– thereby making me a “participant” and doing so without my consent. I might understand their not sending me this if I’d never exchanged email with any of the authors or if I was difficult to locate, but I have exchanged email with two authors and I’m pretty easy to identify and locate!

    With regard to (c), does anyone in their right mind think “there is no known or likely reason for thinking that participants would not have consented if they had been fully aware of what the research involved.”?!!! There is no way on earth ‘participants’ (e.g. me, everyone posting in comments at the blogs monitored) would have consented had we been fully or even slightly aware of the research.

24. Lucia,

    Does the smiley at your comment mean that you are not going to make a complaint about ethics violation by Lewandowsky? I hope that everyone who can legitimately complain will complain.

    Should a complaint be limited to ethics? The UWA Code of Conduct is also applicable and Lewandowsky arguably has failed to meet a number of obligations set out by the Code.One example: “Act with care and diligence”.

    Also, is it the case that a complaint about Lewandowsky can legitimately be made to Bristol University where he now has a job? I think a complaint to Bristol University might rely on the University’s general conduct procedure for members of staff which includes under “misconduct” bringing the University into disrepute. Does he not continue to do this by failing to act to remedy his errors? Your first step could be to write to him at Bristol University pointing out which complaints you think you may have against him and inviting him to remedy them by whatever steps you think appropriate. It might be an acceptance by Lewandowsky of failing to follow procedures, including seeking and obtaining your permission for participation in the study and an apology. It is doubtful if you will get satisfaction in this way. Send covering letters to the University High Heid Yin – Vice Chancellor and Human Resources Director.

    I would like to see this done by you and others. If you do it, please check your spuling for irrors? Adss smiley.

    sam

25. Lucia

    re “Notice that limited ethical bodies may approve limited disclosure where research involves no more than low risk. That seems to mean that if research involves more than low risk, the researchers cannot be granted ‘limited discloure’. That is: they must obtain consent even if the other conditions (a,b,d,e) are met.”

    You need to be aware that there was a risk assessment carried out and in October 2012 the UWA position was that “both the original research and each amendment to it was determined to be low risk and approved according to the requirements of that code of practice”. This was mainly for the LOG paper but this statement was being made by SL and UWA officers after Fury was well under way.

    The reasons for that are as addressed by Steve McIntyre and more comprehensively by Shub where one risk assessment has been used to spawn multiple papers. They do not appear to have revisited the risk assessment and so allowed the one used for the very original understanding trends study to stand.

    I have been coming at this from a different angle in that the Fury paper admits to a conflict of interest but the risk assessment process as used by UWA for this study would not appear to adequately address this. I am not clear where the UWA process for conflict of interest is. National guidelines require ethics review for conflicts of interest.

    The risk assessment for fury would have also needed to identify the use of people external to UWA. In my opinion the use of these people with a known (but different) conflict of interest should also have been identified during ethics approval.

26. MikeN,

    hus their research if published will harm the individuals they are researching.

    The possibility of self-identification in paraphrased material causing harm is one I had not considered! I think you are probably correct.

    (a) If Lew and Crew are correct, participants might realize they are correct which would result in lowered self esteem. This is harm. If the participants did not recognize Lew and Crew were correct, it could result in participants becoming infuriated, escallating their “NI”, “NS” and so on to fullblow paranoia, leading to full blow derangement. This is also “harm”.

    (b) If Lew and Crew are correct or incorrect, participants who recognize themselves could risk “anxiety” if they worried others recognized their identities. This is ‘harm’.

    (c) If Lew and Crew are incorrect, the participants recognizing themselves could become justifiable infuriated, possibly to the point of derangement. This is ‘harm’.

27. One lesson of this is to stick with pseudonyms in the blogosphere. A small but very busy subset of climate obsessed people think their obsession gives them special priveleges to harass and otherwise harm those they dislike.

28. hunter,
    I don’t take that as a lesson. In some ways, if we apply these ethical principles, I should have more protection because it’s very difficult to argue my comments are not “identifiable”. My twitter handle is ‘@lucialilegren’ for cripes sake!

29. Is the consent of mentally disturbed individuals (e.g., lucia) legally meaningful?
    And doesn’t the the very fact of inquiring as to what harms may accrue from hypothetical re-publication confirm the diagnosis of paranoia?
    And having confirmed the diagnosis, does the deranged individual have legal standing to formally complain about such things anyway?
    If we permited that sort of nonsense, people might feel entitled to question The Consensus itself. Harumpf!

    Lewandowsky is a walking self-satire of the modern PC academic. Way too many words here about that hack….

30. lucia,
    I would agree completely. Your boldness and transparency of work would be rewarded, in a less dysfunctional social context.

31. clivere,
    My point of view is not about the paperwork. It is about application of the rules. Correct application and interpretation of the rules is required. With regard to retractionwatch’s specific question which is pretty generic we can look at whether this article violates those rules without considering who signed off on what, when or why they did so. The way I see it: This is an ethical violation by someone no matter who committed a violation or precisely whose responsibility it is to do what.

    Ordinarily a journal isn’t going to investigate an organizations oversight. But in this Frontiers got complaints and looked into various complaints. Given their clarification statement, an analysis similar to mine may be what convinced a Fronteirs attorney they had this problem. They may have identified others– we don’t know.

    They way I see it: once a journal that requires papers to adhere to these standards of the sort I discuss here, they can’t publish articles in violation, and then can’t do so merely because the researchers employer’s system didn’t identify the issue.

32. On the subject of forseeable harm, this might be relevant. A few weeks ago William Briggs intimated, on his blog, that he had lost a professional opportunity because his prospective employer didn’t “want to be associated with deniers or denial”. Briggs offered no other details. http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=11992

    That particular case is not related to Fury, but it does illustrate the possible harm that can result from merely identifying someone as a “denier” (let alone all the psychopathological labels). As you have pointed out, the ethical standards for a psychology research paper are much stricter than for a blog post.

33. Clivere,
    I didn’t want to suggest I wouldn’t engage what you wrote though.
    Thanks! What you posted came from

    http://climateaudit.org/2014/03/24/lewandowsky-ghost-wrote-conclusions-of-uwa-ethics-investigation-into-hoax/

    Dixon sent his promised comment on the ethics protocol to Owens and Lewandowsky on Monday morning (October 15 9:15):

    Hi Robyn,
    The research protocol Stephan is publishing from, RA/4/1/4007, was assessed as having low risk in accordance with §5.1.18 through §5.1.21 of the National statement on ethical conduct in human research (2007, p. 79) and in accordance with the National Statement’s definition of risk. The National Statement does not require such research to be reviewed by an HREC [Human Research Ethics Committee]. The people assessing the protocol for ethical considerations met all the requirements of §5.1.19 in making that assessment. Similarly amendments to the protocol which did not alter the risk did not require HREC review either.
    Sincerely, Dr Mark Dixon

    The difficulty here is Dr. Mark Dixon is mistaken about the level of risk associated with this research. I suspect his analysis and that of others does not consider how the research written up in the ‘Recursive Fury’. Note that in my analysis, the risk of harm becomes obvious when the “article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics”. It doesn’t happen when the researcher read blog post, nor when they think about them. There are things the authors might have done that might keep the ‘risk’ at a lower level, but they didn’t.

34. Lucia – no disagreement with you just keeping you aware. We both recognise there are serious ethical issues. I am just trying to identify root causes from a UWA perspective.

    If SL had not mislead the ethics officers then revisiting the risk assessment may have prevented a lot of the issues so I see that as a professional failing by SL. However the risk assessment as applied would not appear to address conflict of interest which appears to be a UWA process failure.

35. lucia (Comment #128087)

    “…once a journal that requires papers to adhere to these standards of the sort I discuss here, they can’t publish articles in violation”

    Yes. Which is why I think Lewandowsky doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Surely, there is an author/publisher agreement with boilerplate type language that says “the publishers decision is final in any dispute” which is agreed to by the author before the paper is published.

    I think Frontiers uses guidelines established by ICMJE.

    http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf

    BTW- that link is public but unauthorized reproduction is prohibited

36. sam

    I would like to see this done by you and others. If you do it, please check your spuling for irrors? Adss smiley.

    sam

    If I wrote a formal complaint, I would proof read for error. In contrast, this blog post was written after 10pm last night. When I finished, I wanted to go to bed. My thought was ” click publish?’, ‘wait until morning to proof read'”? I decided “click publish”.

    If you notice specific spuling irrors, feel free to mention them and I will correct them.

37. clivere

    If SL had not mislead the ethics officers then revisiting the risk assessment may have prevented a lot of the issues so I see that as a professional failing by SL.

    I”m not quite sure where the largest blame lies. SL may have believed he was telling the truth at the time he wrote to the officer. At that time, he might have envisioned a reporting method that would somehow keep participants non-identifiable and but not quite realized how things changed when he wrote the paper he did write.

    Or he might not really realize how the identifiability relates to “harm”. Or maybe, being a psychologist, he just doesn’t understand that things like “anxiety” might be ‘harm’. After all: one would need to be a physical scientist, engineer or economist to understand the importance of ‘mental states’, right? 🙂

    The fact is, even now Lewandowsky appears to not ‘grok’ the ethics issue.

    The ethics officer appears to have been pretty docile in simply assuming that whatever SL said would be true, or not thinking about “could t his change the risk level” and so on. But I think the risk level for Fury as reported is “potential for harm”. That puts it in a different class from LOG∞.

38. I think I need a new tag: “retraction wars”.

39. Lucia – I get the impression that the ethics officers at UWA get lots of requests for minor tweaks to study protocols and that included some legitimate ones from SL which are in the foi material. I can understand why informal changes may be considered appropriate for those. The problem is that SL went down the same route for substantially different papers and protocols by passing them off as minor.

    In a lot of the requests SL made as contained in the FOI material he pre-empts the matter by stating that no personal identification of people will occur. He clearly knew it was an issue that would trouble the ethics officials but for the Fury paper for whatever reason he did not apparently declare it. If he had I think he would have been required to get a much higher level of approval.

40. This complements nicely with my slightly different take on the subject, starting from the Declaration of Helsinki that compels medical research on human subjects to be done with PRIOR consent.

    Since the “findings” include wording that can be reasonably taken as medical, somebody ought have made a very very strong case to show the DH does not apply. Nothing of the sort has ever been seen, and to this day Lew has never clarified if his words were diagnoses or weren’t.

41. IMO, us nutbars whom post our drivel freely out in the open on blogs are all fair game for psychological analysis. The fixation on Dr. Lewandownsky and his “research”. Just because Lew might be a tool is no reason to become hardball bureaucratic rule minding nitpicking hallway monitors. It’s a silly game that feeds the more general human weakness that needs to restrict intellectual speech.

    Lucia: When RUd says you could be a lawyer, that’s not a compliment. Quite the opposite. It is an indicator of mental illness, as are most of these posts on the Lew topic.

42. Lucia, I think you pretty much have it figured out. A primary intent of these protocols is to err on the side of caution in terms of causing discomfort or harm to subjects/participants. Researchers at many US institutions of higher education are required to pass certification courses (and recertification at intervals) even before conducting surveys. When someone comments on a post at a blog, there’s implied informed consent in the sense that it is reasonable to assume the commenter knows it’s publicly viewable. However, when the material becomes fodder for analysis by a professional researcher, there is a question about ownership of the information and protection under human subject research guidelines. An ethical researcher would take precautions to limit any possible discomfort or harm and not assume that public comment waived all possible need for explicit informed consent.

43. Lucia: Very cogent and your take adds greatly to Steve McIntyre’s review – which leaves your big issue largely unaddressed, IMO. I was frankly struggling to answer “where’s the ethical beef” on reading SM’s post beyond sloppiness and sharp practice. Now you have added real substance to the issue and it all hangs together.

44. lucia:

    If you notice specific spuling irrors, feel free to mention them and I will correct them.

    Does this include using the wrong word (e.g. singular instead of plural)? If so, you probably shouldn’t extend this invitation to me. We could be here all week!

45. Hi Howard,
    Is that an opinion or a diagnosis?

46. Howard,

    Lucia: When RUd says you could be a lawyer, that’s not a compliment.

    Nonesense. My grandpa Harry was a lawyer. His father was a lawyer and judge. One need training and skillz to be a good lawyer.

    I am of two minds on the ‘nitpicking’. Some of what you say is true, but I don’t want to waste time explaining why it can be worthwhile to discuss the ethical shortcomings. But it is worth the time to discuss them.

47. bernie,
    Steve’s commentary greatly influenced mine. He does have a beef. It happens to be a more complex issue. The thing is: I had an “aha” and realized the answer to the question at ‘retractionwatch’ permitted me to identify “a” beef that is clearly ‘beef’ and it’s easy to understand relative to the other beefs.

    I’m stepping through that Austrlain document, and one very big issue in discussing ethical issues is “where to start”. The problem isn’t that there aren’t any. The problem is there are so freakin’ many!!!

48. The issue with Australia is privacy laws. They hurt and bite institutions. Forget FOI and lawyers personally. Take a breach of the privacy act, valid on so many levels in Australia with this flawed study and the UWA will run an investigation, apologise and drop the listing of this study faster than two hot potatoes

49. “UWA will run an investigation, apologise and drop the listing of this study faster than two hot potatoes”

    Oh they need to do more than that.

    1. they need to remove the paper.
    2. In its place they need to post an apology, transcripts of their investigation.. the full transparent record.
    3. Dr. Lew needs to pen a personal apology.
    4. Dr. Lew needs to take a vow of silence about the whole matter..
    That is, he gets his last word.. which is an apology.

    hehe.

50. hunter, anonymous postings don’t help. There is still the problem that the targets which Fury is identifying will recognize themselves, and thus they will be harmed.

51. angech,
    Maybe so, but your post doesn’t leave any breadcrumbs to let me figure out how violation of privacy engages here. I’m not Australian, so I can’t even begin to guess how those laws might affect this issue.

    Mosher… I’m pretty activated right now.
    
    Of course, my list is potential ethical issues. I’m trying to figure out which are (a) most obvious and (b) easiest to explain. With respect to (b) it’s easiest when they are problem irrespective of time table, motives or other things. They are just problems no matter how you look at it.

    This one falls in that category. No matter who failed where or when, it’s a problem.

52. I think there are two different ethics issues here that should be kept separate: protection of human subjects in research, and professional conduct by a research psychologist. Published work by subjects is used all the time in research (Literary Criticism, for example) without the expectation that the researchers have to go through the same process of approval as those who are conducting clinical trials. What is offensive here is the nature of the research itself, which is clearly intended to stigmatize its subjects using procedures that bring disrepute on the practice of psychology.

53. Steve Mosher,

    I would not count on Lew doing much of any of that.

54. Bob K.

    Published work by subjects is used all the time in research (Literary Criticism, for example)

    There are different ways to use ‘published works’ and the manner in which it is used affects the ethics. For example: quoting my text and engaging the argument would not be “human research”. Quoting my text and using it do diagnose my mental state is.

    Let’s turn to the definition of humam research:

    Human research is conducted with or about
    people, or their data or tissue. Human
    participation in research is therefore to be
    understood broadly, to include the involvement
    of human beings through:

    Quoting my text to engage my argument is not “about me” as such, it is not about “a human being”. It is ‘about my argument’. Fury was not about engaging the validity of our claims. It analyzed them to see what “categories” they fell in.

55. BobK

    is clearly intended to stigmatize its subjects using procedures that bring disrepute on the practice of psychology.

    You may think that, but intentions and motivations are extremely difficult to prove. As for the procedures– with respect to any ethics complaint one needs to be very specific.

    With respect to complaints one might lodge it’s the bin you consider “protection of human subjects in research”. But that’s not really separate from “professional conduct by a research psychologist” because a research psychologist is expected to organize his research to “”protect[..] human subjects in research””

56. > Quoting my text and using it do diagnose my mental state is.

    This happens in literary criticism as well. Chelsea Clinton’s fiance’s thesis was on Homophobia in African-American Literature
    There are many instances of people writing the author intended this, and the author comes back and says, no I didn’t.

57. MikeN, could you take another shot at this. I can’t understand your point.

58. “Steve Mosher,
    I would not count on Lew doing much of any of that.”

    Well, no harm in asking

59. lucia (Comment #128107)

    I’ve Got a Little List

    As someday it may happen that a victim must be found,
    I’ve got a little list. I’ve got a little list
    Of society offenders who might well be underground
    And who never would be missed, who never would be missed.
    …
    Those climate change deniers who don’t like the carbon tax,
    Who haven’t read the science and don’t really know the facts.
    …
    And they’d none of them be missed! They’d none of them be missed!

    Haha A funny parody of a self-absorbed goon.
    Erm, or is it rallying cry?

60. Well there’s one thing, Lew and crew won’t be able to claim his work has left you unaffected.

61. “It is ‘about my argument’. Fury was not about engaging the validity of our claims. It analyzed them to see what “categories” they fell in.”

    Yes, a study that has been observing your behaviour (and that of many others), i.e. your public comments. These comments are categorised along measures, e.g. conspiracy ideation, that can be indicative of psychopathological characteristics. This was done to research the development of certain patterns of ideas in a group. At no point has a diagnosis of psychological affliction been made towards an individual. Now it may be that the results of the study may cause you some discomfort a) because you don’t like the results (well bad luck) or b) because you think your behaviour has been misinterpreted (happens all the time in such studies, so complain to the authors with cogent arguments).

    But, no way, a consent would have been required for such a study. If I would want to study the development and spread of misogynistic ideation on extreme right-wing websites after, say, hypothetically, Hilary Clinton gets elected as the new POTUS, and I observed and gathered behaviour there (collecting comments, and documenting them), do you think I should get consent before publishing results, because some of the commenters there would confuse the analysis of the spread of misogynistic ideation with the accusation that they are sexist? Really?

62. Following on from Barry’s comment: “The ethics approval, an amendment on an amendment, said that they would observe reactions to ‘Moon Hoax’!”

    If the Moon Hoax paper caused “recursive fury”, then does this not amount to evidence of much more than “discomfort”?

63. re: “harm”

    a couple of points:

    (1) I am reluctant to accept “anxiety” under the definition of “harm” even if it is listed in various official definitions. Without some further more specific form of harm (even if non-physical), the category of “anxiety” seems to open things up to every possible degree of subjective response. For instance, I know someone with a severe (clinically diagnosed) “anxiety disorder” — she can suffer and get greatly worked up over matters that most people don’t even notice. So regarding the spectrum of various “anxiety” based harms, I would tend to argue that something more specific and tangible is required.

    (2) related to anonymity and reputation, self-respect etc., at first I was tempted to accept the view that anonymous persons on the internet can’t be “harmed” — but actually, if one thinks about it, even those of us under pseudonyms have a “community” to one degree or another in which we want respect, some standing etc. Also, many anonymous internet persons actually do have their real identities known to a variety of people…. some on various blogs do know my “real-life” identity and for others with pseudonyms they may truly be known to a very large group of persons. Thus, all humans, including those who may seem to be “anonymous”…. deserve human research subject protections as an ethical matter. Whether the law would ever recognize that is a separate issue (probably not under existing laws), but as a matter of ethics “I am people too!!!”

64. p.s. with regard to my 2nd point above, a “name” is really a legal rather than ethical concept, i.e., people can change the name they are known by in a legal process but they are still the “same” person under new name(s). Also, I am the same person typing here now under my pseudonym “Skiphil” even if the law does not care about that, i.e., my mind and character and emotions, judgments etc. are still here, being (potentially) affected by anything I see or hear. I am still a person for ethical purposes, regardless of what the law may say about anonymity and defamation.

65. Skiphil

    defamation

    This point isn’t about defamation. But you have made a very good point with respect to “harm”. Thank you.

66. Skiphil

    I am reluctant to accept “anxiety” under the definition of “harm” even if it is listed in various official definitions….

    Your acceptance is utterly irrelevant. These are the ethical rules and definitioins in Australia. If you think the rules should be changed, you may campaign to change them in the jurisdiction where you reside. Beyond that, remember the there is a principle of “benificence”. The fact that one of the participants might be fragile or even totally insane cannot be used by a researcher to fail to protect them. In fact, researchers are told that the must take additional steps to help protect frail, thin skinned, easily harmed people.

67. Privacy laws updated 04/12/2014 in Australia requiring organisations trading in personal information to be more open for inspection. Law interpretations about privacy in Australia are quite stifling and releasing personal information is frowned upon. It is most intrusive for organisations like hospitals but any large eg UWA group releasing personal information without signed consent and approval of the person/s involved is dynamite. Surely applies here but needs an Australian legal person. Nick could explain if he is legal?
    Barry, throw the words privacy concerns into your next approach and see the difference.

68. You can always go up the food chain and write to the man in charge of the Science program for Western Australia

    The Western Australian Government Ministry
    Honourable Colin J Barnett MEc MLA
    Premier; Minister for State Development; Science
    1 Parliament Place
    WEST PERTH WA 6005
    Telephone: +61 8 6552-5000 / Fax: (08) 6552-5001
    e-Mail: wa-government@dpc.wa.gov.au
    Internet: http://www.premier.wa.gov.au/Ministers/Colin-Barnett

    He is a fan of fracking and wants to develop the massive shale gas reserves of the Canning Basin.
    He also wants all Great White Sharks that come within a mile of the cost shot.

69. Hmm… I should clarify: required to anonymize if otherwise reporting could cause “harm”….

70. Lucia,

    re:

    “Your acceptance is utterly irrelevant”

    Wow. Of course I see what is in the quoted rule. My comment was merely an observation about whether or not one term in the quoted rule is appropriate there or not. It is more of a ‘meta’ discussion that interests people in philosophy and the humanities, not only what ‘is’ the case but what ‘ought’ to be the case. Since you are uninterested in that kind of discussion I am sorry I brought it up, and won’t make that kind of remark again. No, I’m not interested in working to change such rule(s), I have too many other things to do in life. I apologize for wasting your time.

71. “And what did Recursive Fury do? It presented a narrative analysis of public discourse in the blogosphere in the aggregate. We did not categorize anyone into anything, we categorized statements.
    That’s all.”

    Then why the need for ethics clearance which was botched.

    Let me give folks some advice. The theme of he psycho analyzed us will not hold up.. ( he did but thats beside the point)

    The point is the approvals.

72. Mosher,

    The point is the approvals.

    Which approvals?

    I’m not sure I understand your precise point.
    Are you saying the categorizing of statements as “NI”, “NS” cannot be foreseen to cause anxiety, loss of social status so that claim will not show up?
    Are you saying that if the reporting could “cause harm”, they did not need consent to do the portion for which “forsee harm” applies?

    Or are you trying to say that using words like “diagnose us” won’t stand up?

    I’m trying to understand because I want to understand any flaws in my analysis?

73. Skiphil,

    Since you are uninterested in that kind of discussion I am sorry I brought it up, a

    Sorry– I didn’t mean for that to sound like I was telling you to bugger off. It’s just I understood you to be suggesting that if you didn’t accept it, then researchers shouldn’t be held to it. With respect to that notion: not your call.

    But it seems I misunderstood and you want to discuss is/ought. It’s not that I’m unintersted in what “ought” to be the rule. It is merely that in this context, you need to be careful to call out that you are trying to discuss what you think “ought” to be the rule otherwise… well… since the main post is about applying what is I’m likely to misread on this post. If that’s what you intended I couldn’t tell. (Could be my fault.)

    But now that it’s clear that you are trying to address the “is/ought” notion, generally speaking in humans research, the fact that a person is more fragile than others means the researcher has a greater obligation to treat them with deference. So: with respect to children, the poor the mentally infirm etc. the researchers are supposed to put on the kid gloves, arrange for extra information and so on. So, the fact that a participant had an anxiety disorder would — under the concept of “benificence” mean the researches need to take even greater care not to induce more anxiety. Even rereading what you wrote I don’t know if you thought ‘anxiety’ ought not to be in there because it would be too restrictive for researchers or not protective enough.

    With respect to your friend, if anything, the intended right of participants is that the researchers should take extra care if they know someone like your friend might be in the research pool and make darn sure they know to ‘forsee’ that anxiety to occur and to recognize that a form of “harm”. I tend to think that’s right, which is why it is better for anxiety to be included in the list rather than otherwise.

    Remember: what ‘harm’ triggers is need for certain types of review and requirements that people be giving the option of consent or declining to be participants. It doesn’t mean researchers can’t do research that might cause participants to experience anxiety. But if recruited, your anxious friend has a right to be told what’s involved in the research and be given a chance to not participate. Requiring her to be informed in the event that one forsees the experiment could cause anxiety is fair enough.

74. Like Capt. Queeg, Prof. Lewadowsky is going into great and specific detail about his purpose, those forces arrayed against his insightful work, and how he dealt with them. And, it appears more and more likely, to the same effect.

75. Lucia, obviously I got the start of my time wrong in my previous post. I’m sure you know that the original published date was in Feb, then edited for Foxgoose and JeffId before being published again on March 18, 2013. Sorry about that. Disregard my post. As for the latest info regarding ‘destroying correspondence’ … Really?!?!

76. Lucia,

    Might I be bold and offer opinion on a possible way forward?

    First, having read your post I think it is a good analysis of what UWA procedures require given that UWA must accord with the “National Statement…etc”. Lewandowsky failed to meet those standards.

    May I suggest you use the post above as a draft for a letter to Lewandowsky with a copy to the HR Director at Bristol University? You will know pretty well what to put in the letter. I suggest you ask Lewandowsky to tell you why he did not seek approval from the Ethics Committee of UWA for alteration of the scope of his study. Also ask why he did not seek your consent before including you in the study. Perhaps also ask why he chose you as a candidate given your position (well known to readers here) as a “luke-warmer”. Point out that the procedures around the ethics of human research require, in your opinion, attention to what “harm” may be done to your “interests” as a result of his study. Ask if he gave consideration to that and, if not, why. Describe the “harm” that you think has occurred to your interests as a result of the publication of Lewandowsky’s work. You will know better than anyone what harm has occurred. It might include potential loss of reputation. I believe that blogging is likely to be an important part of your life. It is a highly politicised affair with participants, including commenters on posts, seeking at times to denigrate those of differing opinions merely because those people hold those opinions.”Interests” is not defined so can be widely drawn, in my opinion. It might include the time you have spent (financial loss?) in trying to have a remedy.Presumably, part of the remedy would be the removal of the retracted study from public access at UWA. You might want to ask Lewandowsky what part, if any,he had in the posting of the study at UWA. Also, you might want to ask him to ask UWA to remove the study. I think it likely you would seek an apology from Lewandowsky for his actions and the effect, actual and potential, they have had on you and possibly others around you such as family, friends. I think it unlikely that, left to his own devices, Lewandowsky will give you or anyone else, including your family, an apology.

    If you decide to send a copy of your letter to the HR Director at Bristol your covering letter should set out what remedy is sought. This may, if you wish, include the application of the University disciplinary procedures to Prof Lewandowsky. Point out that Lewandowsky’s behaviour has, in your opinion, brought into disrepute the reputation of the University, a breach of the disciplinary rules. This will need explanation. You have blogged on the subject of the complaint. So have other bloggers. A number of those commenting have referred to Lewandowsky’s post at Bristol. Some have, I believe, written to the University complaining about “Fury”. Seek information confirming that this has been done before you write. Enclose copies of any correspondence on this matter that you have had with Lewandowsky since he took up his post at Bristol. Remind the University that although the matters that are the subject of complaint occurred while Lewandowsky was at UWA complaints have nbeen made to him during his time at Bristol. Without any satisfactory outcome. If you don’t want to pursue any disciplinary action set out your required remedies. This might include a public blog post on the subject given the nature of the complaint.

    Left to me, I would write to Lewandowsky in the manner outlined above with a copy to HR for information only. I would blog briefly on the matter without disclosing much except you want a remedy. Allow time for Lewandowsky to do nothing and then request a dsiciplinary hearing.

    The blog post above is also a good template for a letter to UWA asking it to withdraw Fury. Seek information on the flaws in the ethics requirements and the University investigations. Require an apology. Ex-gratia sum as compensation for a charity in Australia?

    Good luck

    sam

77. I wonder if the organisers of the “BIG Green Week Festival” have any idea about the controversy they are promoting.

    Do you have questions about NASA Faked the Moon Landing – Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax?
    
    Contact BIG Green Week Festival

78. sam
    I have a general outline for a ‘plan forward’ . The Austrlian document discusses how institutions should handle complaint, and I will be following that template. Language starts with.
    5.6.1 To handle complaints about researchers
    or the conduct of research, institutions
    should:
    (a) identify a person, accessible to
    participants, to receive these
    complaints; and

    So *fourt or fifth* step in my “plan forward” (no where near first) will be to identify the person who receives complaints and the step after that is to write them the letter. That person will not be Lewandowsky. I will not be writing him because it does not fall in the protocol (thank heaven!). Based on my past experience, I also see nothing useful about sending unsolicited letters or email to Lewandowsky.

    The notion of adding Bristol U is a good one. If I had appropriate document from Bristol U, I cuold out who is the correct person at Bristol University, what UK rules are, how the apply here and send a nother letter to them addressing it to whoever is the appropriate person there. That will not be Lew.

    Right now, I’m focusing on AWU because I am looking at the Australian document and the continue to host a document. I can’t do seven things all in parallel, so any communications with Bristol U will be deferred to later.

    When I send any letter it will not be an “interrogation”. I will not ask “why” Lew did or did not do things. It’s merely going to focus on establishing that a issue or multiple issues exist, and explain why I believe it exists based on evidence I have. The purpose is not to “question the witness” it is to “establish a case”. What I ask them to do depend on the what else is in section 5.6 of the ‘National Statement….’.

    I would advise that no-one send ‘interrogation’ demanding people “answer questions” about “why” they did or did not do certain things. The ethics issue goes like this:
    1) Researcher X DID do Y.
    2) When a researcher does Y, rule 2.3.x kicks in. Show that rule mandates they do ‘a’.
    3) Show they did not do ‘a’.
    4) This is an ethics violation.

    Any letter to someone who is supposed to investigate needs to contain that sort of information and ONLY that sort of information.

    You shouldn’t ask why a resesarcher did not do “a” or why they did do “Y”. You don’t ask them if they think rule 2.3.x is a “good” one. You just establish the researcher did or did not do certain things and then point to which regulations apply. In the investigation, someone can then look at the issue and figure out if X did do Y, whether rule 2.3.x does kick in, whether it does indeed madate they do ‘a’ (or whether I’ve misinterpreted that) and so on.

    Then, if AWU thinks “why” matters or they just want to know “why”, they can ask Lew.

    There are many things that need to be done for this to come off properly, and it is counter productive to wing of a “letter of interrogation” to Stephan Lewandowsky or even to start sending out a flurry of letters that are not organized to focus on the problem drawing attention to the specific facts, and portions of governing documents that apply to those facts.

    These letters are not “opinion columns” and so on.

    Ex-gratia sum as compensation for a charity in Australia?

    Heh. Currently, I don’t forsee asking for any monetary ‘remedy’. But if I did, I would certainly not ask that my ‘remedy’ be money given to a charity in Australia!

79. hunter,
    I made a posted a reaction to something in the Lew post
    http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/refreshing-lews-memory
    I’m going to suggest people who want to discuss that post do so there. If some appear on this thread, I’ll move them. That way, I can keep this one a bit more focused on the very specific ethics issue I discuss in the current post. (This focus will aid me in seeing if someone can point out a flaw in my reasoning about this specific issue.)

80. FYI, Frontiers editorial director Costanza Zucca has responded to Retraction Watch’s request for clarification about the two retraction statements.
    http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/09/chief-specialty-editor-resigns-from-frontiers-in-wake-of-controversial-retraction/

    “There is no contradiction between the two statements. The reference to ethical considerations in the original retraction statement is a reference to the ethical clearance for conducting the study given by UWA.

    The issue was not with the study as such, but with how the paper was written. The paper made it possible to explicitly identify subjects.”

81. Brad R

    The issue was not with the study as such, but with how the paper was written. The paper made it possible to explicitly identify subjects.”

    That seems to match my interpretation!!!
    It was the explicit identification of subjects in the paper that triggers the ethical issue.

82. Lucia,

    If you go to http://www.bristol.ac.uk/hr/policies/ordinance28 rules of conduct.html you will find Bristol University’s Rules of Conduct for members of staff. Examples of misconduct are given and the list is not exhaustive. One of the examples given (relevant I think) is bringing the University into serious disrepute.

    Guy Gregory is the HR Director of the University and there are emails for contact given here: http://www.bris.ac.uk/hr/contact.

    I doubt if Lewandowsky would reply to a letter you wrote and, if he did, it is unlikely that he would answer questions. However, it is a possibility that he would answer. I suggested that you write to him for a couple of reasons. You would be able to say in any subsequent formal complaint about Lewandowsky’s conduct that you had attempted to resolve the matter informally while seeking information that might help to explain the actions of Lewandowsky in a different light. if there is any chance of an informal resolution, and I doubt it, it would be better to explore it (without blogging on it). A failure on Lewandowsky’s part to respond might add some strength to an argument that he continues to bring the University into disrepute, provided that it is clear it was your intention to seek an informal resolution.

    Of course, you don’t have to write to him. You don’t have to try to find informal resolution. In my opinion, you don’t have to jump through hoops to present a complaint. In the cases of complaints of conduct, which might encompass a whole range of Lewandowsky’s behaviour towards you, you just set down what is the nature of your complaint and send it to HR. I think you have the basis of a formal complaint about ethics violation adequately set out in the post above. I think such a complaint should go to the HR department. The HR department will often look upon itself as the upholder of values within the institution. Procedures set norms of behaviour and the disciplinary process is viewed not so much as seeking to apply punishment but to ensure norms of behaviour are met. That is what interests most HR departments.

    If you go here: http://www.hr.uwa.edu.au/contact/directorate you can find an email address for the acting Director of HR, a woman.

    You might perhaps consider contacting the HR departments in both universities. You may find that there is willingness to offer advice to you. This would not be on how to present a complaint though they will need to know the substance of it, but where in the organisation it should go. In the UK that would almost certainly be the HR department as a starting point, but I know that some complaints go straight to the top.HR departments can be very political. They need to face in a number of directions. They do need to face outwards so I think you may find a receptive attitude though this could change over time.

    From another blog, I can’t remember where I read it, Lewandowsky has affiliate status with UWA. This might mean that he is subject to university procedures, including a disciplinary procedure. That might offer an additional avenue of complaint for dealing with all aspects of Lewandowsky’s behaviour towards you that lie outside the ethics breach. I can imagine some of the difficulties he has caused you by his failure to follow procedures. Most university conduct procedures give examples of unacceptable conduct. Most universities state that the examples given are not exhaustive. You can simply set out the consequences and potential consequences to you of the failure by Lewandowsky to follow procedure and subsequent behaviour that has affected you adversely or compounded difficulties he caused. No university will like you blogging about the matter. That’s life. Their problem.

    sam

83. Sam,
    I would have thought it better (ie. more likely to lead to some sort of official response beyond acknowledging receipt) to lodge a complaint with someone in the academic hierarchy. But HR?

    My view of the effectiveness of HR departments may be a bit jaundiced by personal experience and not typical

84. Re: j ferguson (Apr 9 12:11),

    My view of the effectiveness of HR departments may be a bit jaundiced by personal experience and not typical

    Not if Dilbert is any indication. There’s a reason that Catbert is the director of HR in Dilbert land.

85. Pingback: The Blackboard » Enfuriating concealment: The prequel.

86. “Or are you trying to say that using words like “diagnose us” won’t stand up?”

    Yes. focus on the identifying. the charge of diagnosing
    will be answered with (weakly) “we are just analyzing speach”
    they are doing more than that, but if you say

    “he diagnosed me” then the response will be to focus on the fact that he technically did not do a diagnosis, while we both know that effectively that is what he did.

    If you want to talk about diagnosing then you frame it as people will misconstrue his characterizations as a peer reviewed medical opinion etc etc.

87. Mosher,
    Fair enough. That’s why I’m not using that term. The ethics issue arises if it’s “harm” and we don’t need “diagnosing” for the reported material to “harm”.

    I thin you may be largely agreeing with me then. For example, with respect to Dewitt bringing up the “Goldwater rule” which involves psycholanalysis and so on my response was

    But it’s important for people to understand that sometimes, moving the discussion to other, different issues that (a) seem related or (b) seem to also exist, can make it difficult for people to see that one particular very specific ethics issue does exist. So, for example, discussing “The Goldwater Rule” can lead us off into discussions of the definition of “diagnosis” or “who is a psychiatrist”. Those matter in the application of “The Goldwater Rule”, but they aren’t required for an ethics violation to have occurred.

    I think many people want to focus on the most extreme possible interpretation of what was done, and then apply ethics rules as if everyone agrees on the most extreme possible version. I want to do the opposite: look at the least extreme view of what they did actually did and apply ethics rules to that.

    If ethics violations exist under the mildest possible characterization of what was done, and with the least complicated fact patterns then the ethics violations exist.

88. Lucia,
    He used your name without your permission. He publicly ascribed a psychological pathology to you. Isn’t that about the same as calling you a psychopath? Isn’t all that naughty enough?

    Maybe if he hadn’t been someone in the psychology dodge who might not have been expected to understand the term, but no, he’s in it up to his ears.

89. Steven Mosher, I agree. There are not diagnoses. Rather they are applying psychopathological diagnostics to excerpts of the subject’s writings.

    Had they not

    1) misinterpreted the subject’s intent by quote mining
    2) had they not interacted with the subjects prior to this study
    3) and had they not shown prejudicial attitudes towards the subjects,

    possibly this would be okay in the US, though apparently still not in Australia.

    The question of whether it’s okay to reference people by name in a case like… still struggling to resolve that ethical issue. (I wouldn’t do it, the question though is whether it’s ethical.)

90. yes carrick.

    My sense is that the best way to proceed ( and get better evidence) is to use the statements of anonymous commenters.

91. I think this belongs here

    http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/book/chapter-3-1-qualitative-methods

    Beneficence

    3.1.10 Participants are often easily identifiable (for example, as members of small communities or groups, or as key informants), and the information they provide may be sensitive. For these reasons, care should be taken that participants are not identifiable by the information they provide, unless they have agreed to be identified. Special care should be taken to protect the identity of participants when disseminating information and storing material.

    3.1.11 Where possible, participants should be informed about any potential to be identified in the results of research even if identifiers, such as name and address, are removed.

92. Steven Mosher, I prefer identifying (“culling”) subjects by public comments, having follow up interviews (this would be the real data collection process), followed by signed informed consent.

    Doug Cotton would sign one I suspect. So would virtually anyone from the Pea Ess Eye group.

    My experience is people who imagine conspiracies at a level that is clinically interesting typically have no problems talking about it. To anybody who will listen.

93. Carrick:

    My experience is people who imagine conspiracies at a level that is clinically interesting typically have no problems talking about it. To anybody who will listen.

    How true. Blabbiness might be a discriminant.

    Maybe you get paid to listen?

94. j ferguson, no I try to not listen more than I can help. And I would probably try to gouge my brain out if I had to actually listen to Doug Cotton for more than a few seconds.

    My kids are all twenty-somethings now, so I’ve meet more people in that age group than is mentally healthy for a full adult. 😉

    Let’s just say conspiratorial ideation seems to be an emergent property of young adults.

95. Re: lucia (Apr 9 13:26),

    I didn’t mean to sidetrack into discussion of what’s a diagnosis and whether Lew, et.al. violated the specific wording of the Goldwater Rule. He certainly violated the spirit of the Rule, though. It’s clearly, to me anyway, unprofessional and unethical for them to publish statements, which will be read as professional opinions, about identifiable subjects’ mental condition based on reading blog posts with no formal examination and no informed consent.

    I brought up the Goldwater Rule to show that something like this happened in the past and was not well received by the professional association involved. The editors of the journal should have been aware of that, not to mention the authors. Then there’s the whole argumentum ad hominem aspect that should have been considered as well. Or to put it another way: Just because someone is paranoid doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t out to get them.

96. j ferguson 128201

    I have worked in an HR department in a medium sized public body in the UK. Also, I have worked on the other side, as a representative for university staff members. And I have worked in the middle as a conciliator of employment tribunal applications. in all these roles the HR department was the starting point for attempts at resolution of problems and complaints. The HR department drafts procedures and plays a part in the administration of virtually all employment procedures. HR will investigate internal and external complaints, attempt resolution of them through advice to management and supervise or run the disciplinary procedures. They advise senior management on the interpretation and application of procedures and will usually offer advice on appropriate courses of action to managers at all levels where serious matters arise.

    I have not tried to look at the UWA research ethics procedures for I am a bit unwell just now. Another reason for not doing this is that I guess such procedures will follow very closely what Lucia is working with: “National Statement on ethics.. etc”. Much of it is common sense. For that reason I do not think it necessary that Lucia do more just now than ask the HR department to confirm that its ethic procedures follow the National Statement and seek a copy of UWA ethics procedures.

    Handling the information relevant to her complaint looks like being a real task given the complexity and relevance of a large number of events and documents. Perhaps setting out the ethics violations could simply be done by making use of the sterling work of analysis done by Steve McIntyre,using passages and cutting, pasting and editing with Steve’s approval. Lucia will have to set down all the “harm” caused to her. The ethics procedure and rules about conduct fit together. A failure to follow the ethics procedure may be a matter of misconduct. Other problems and difficulties not directly related to any breach of the ethics procedures can be brought under the conduct procedures if the fact of Lewandowsky’s affiliation to UWA allows it.If the procedures are not relevant because Lewandowsky is not employed by UWA then what might be achieved is taking down all reference to Fury from UWA with an apology.

    The same information will be relevant to both universities so one draft complaint might usefully serve for both universities with minor adjustments. This is highly political, a highly contentious affair and loss of face may be an important consideration. I have provided representation in difficult cases, including helping successfully to defend an accusation of plagiarism, but this is extraordinary.

    sam

97. Carrick,
    “Let’s just say conspiratorial ideation seems to be an emergent property of young adults.”
    Interesting comment. It may be true, but my experience is that it depends a lot on the (young) person’s interests and education. I haven’t encountered CI much in students enrolled in science or engineering undergrad work. It may be more common among, say, psychology majors, and especially common among students enrolled in environmental studies…. big oil funded deni^l conspiracy and all that.

98. Sam

    Handling the information relevant to her complaint looks like being a real task given the complexity and relevance of a large number of events and documents.

    The reason my path forward is to find those issues with the shallow fact patterns and facts whose truth is easier to determine, is to make the task less complex, to pick cases where the number of events and documents required to make any determination are as small as possible.

    I thank you for your advice, and I may be wanting more. But I also need some degree of focus, and right now it’s AWU first. They continue hosting specific material prepared a research project that was governed by specific rules. I see that as a more a focused issue than any issue that seems to involve contacting anyone at U Brystol.

99. DeWitt,
    I didnt call that out as a “sidetrack”. I just used it because I think it clarifies what Mosher is saying. If we are discussing what sort of complaints to make about Lewandowsky, it is better to avoid using more inflated views of what he did (diagnosing) and stick to what even he admits he did: analyze text.

    The fact is: he has an ethics problem even if all he did ‘analyze text’ written by people who are generally expressing their own thoughts, characterize text for things like ‘NI’, “NS” and so on, and then report it in a way that identified who wrote that text.

    Like many words in English, “diagnosis” is quite elastic having everyday uses and clinical uses. Maybe it’s not ‘flat out wrong’ to use the word, but this is a paper in “psychology” and it certainly wrong to use that word in its clinical sense. Using it it’s non-clinical sense may not be wrong, but ill always invite the rebuttal that there was no diagnosis and the person rebutting will now be using the word in it’s clinical sense.

    The debate is not in the interest of those who who want to press an ethics complaint who are better advised to stay away from that word and also to stay away from discussing how bad or stupid it would be if someone did perform a “clinical diagnosis” without meeting the person. Good points:

    But for those pressing the ethics issue it is a time wasting red herring.

100. Sam,
     thanks much for filling me in on HR in the UK. It sounds a considerably more effective activity than what I’ve seen here in the states.

     Thanks again,

     john

101. Sam,
     These are the guidelines, which to some extent give me “bread crumbs”

     GUIDELINES 5.6.1 To handle complaints about researchers or the conduct of research, institutions should:
     (a) identify a person, accessible to participants, to receive these complaints; and
     (b) establish procedures for receiving, handling and seeking to resolve such complaints.

     5.6.2 Where such complaints raise the possibility of ‘research misconduct’ as described in the Australian code for the responsible conduct of research, they should be handled in accordance with the ‘research misconduct’ processes specified in that document.

     5.6.3 Where complaints about researchers allege serious misconduct that falls outside the range of ‘research misconduct’ as described in the Australian code for the responsible conduct of research, they should be dealt with under institutional processes for dealing with other forms of misconduct, for example harassment or bullying.

     5.6.4 Institutions should also establish procedures for receiving, handling and seeking to resolve complaints about the conduct of review bodies in reviewing research proposals.

     5.6.5 Where these complaints cannot be readily resolved by communication between the complainant and the review body that is the subject of the complaint, complainants should have access to a person external to that review body to handle the complaint.

     5.6.6 Institutions should identify a person or agency external to the institution to whom a person can take a complaint that has not been resolved by the processes referred to in paragraphs 5.6.1 to 5.6.5.

     5.6.7 Institutions should publicise their complaints-handling procedures.

     In the fullness of time I need to identify certain contact people and also obtain AWU’s complaint-handing procedure. But not today.

102. Again, it’s discourse analysis, not diagnosing the individuals participating in the discourse. I see no violation of privacy,
     but apparently the Frontiers magazine does.

     I think analysis of public statements should be possible.

103. Sisi (Comment #128244)

     You need to catch up. The paper identifies the individuals making those “public statements”, and in some cases erroneously attributes statements to identified individuals. If you had read this post and comment thread, and associated posts and comment threads, you would know the facts. Identifying individuals without consent is unethical under the pertinent rules.

104. Re: Sisi (Apr 9 16:00),

     it’s discourse analysis, not diagnosing the individuals participating in the discourse.

     It’s only discourse analysis when the discourse itself is analyzed. Inferring the mental state of the individual participating in the discourse from their contribution to the discourse is unprofessional, unethical and probably intentionally ad hominem.

105. Will (Comment #128245)

     I am not commenting on all cases in which someone claims they have been misrepresented. I have no time to check this. I do note some are plastering their complaints everywhere they can. I can imagine some mistakes have been made. That can and does happen in this kind of research.

     However, regarding ‘Identifying individuals without consent is unethical under the pertinent rules.’, I don’t think I agree (I do not know which pertinent rules you refer to). It is part of public discourse that people react on each others comments and behaviours when they are in the public domain. I do consider comments on the internet (when they are not in closed fora) to be in the public domain and can thus be answered and also be analysed (with other words, the individuals identified themselves by commenting).

106. DeWitt (Comment #128247) ,

     “Inferring the mental state of the individual participating in the discourse from their contribution to the discourse is unprofessional, unethical and probably intentionally ad hominem.”

     Aha, so if I went to some website, and concluded that there where some remarks that sounded racist to me, and I would make a blog post, comment, or article about that in which I documented those remarks so that everybody could judge that for themselves, you would then say that that is an ad hominem?

     I also refer you back in the thread to my comment Comment #128128

107. Sisi,
     This may strike you as odd, but ethics guidelines bind research on human subjects in ways that people are not bound in daily life. You can have whatever opinion you want about what people can do with internet comments, but “Fury” was a research study and as such is bound by some formal rules.

     I don’t think I agree (I do not know which pertinent rules you refer to).

     It’s possibly you don’t know which pertinent rules he is referring to because you don’t care to know. You are making a comment in a blog post. I suggest if you are going to join the conversation in a blog post, you read the blog post.

     If you read it and have reading comprehension skills greater or equal to that of a normal 12 year old, you will see the ‘pertinent rule’ is 2.3.1 of “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research” which applies in Australian.

     I would also advise that before you intimate that your thoughts on what rules apply to this research you:
     1) Read “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research” and
     2) Be familiar with the facts of what occurred in this research.

     Otherwise, while you are free to have any thoughts you like, sharing them may merely demonstrate that you are uninformed.

108. Sisi

     I also refer you back in the thread to my comment Comment #128128

     With respect to

     do you think I should get consent before publishing results, because some of the commenters there would confuse the analysis of the spread of misogynistic ideation with the accusation that they are sexist? Really?

     I don’t know the rules in other countries. But it seems to me that if this is considered to be ‘observing behavior of human subjects’ your going to have to get consent. I think some participants might experience “anxiety, .. psychological disturbance, devaluation of personal worth and social disadvantage” if they were identified as exhibiting “misogynistic ideation”.

     That means that if
     (a)your research was governed by Australians “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research” ,
     (b) your material was considered “research” on “human behavior”, then yes, and
     (c) you reported the results in ways where individual participants were identifiable
     Then yes, you would need consent. If you didn’t get it, you would be violating 2.3.1c

     To respond to your question

     Really?

     Yes. Really. In Australian, you need to get consent.

109. Lucia,

     “This may strike you as odd, but ethics guidelines bind research on human subjects in ways that people are not bound in daily life.”

     Yes, I know that. Research on voluntarily made and publicly available utterances however is not. Restrictions on research on freely uttered speech, that is what you propose. I won’t bother to comment on the rest of your post in which you assign to me the mental state of uninformedness. According to DeWitt that is an ad hominem. 😉

110. Sisi,
     The effort to move the topic to racism is a nice ploy on your part, but is really a transparent distraction to avoid the issue of Lewandowky & gang setting up faux studies to try and turn disagreeing with his views on climate into a pathological problem.
     But when defending the indefensible, your best ploy may be to rev up irrelevant issues.

111. Lucia,

     “But it seems to me that if this is considered to be ‘observing behavior of human subjects’ your going to have to get consent.”

     Well, no, not in general. It is possible to do observations without consent when subjects do not know they are being observed. In that case never ever should there be information regarding the identity of the observed (e.g., you may observe how many steps people use from one point to another (in a public place!), and you can sit around and count them and then write an uninteresting article about your findings).

     Other cases involve research on behaviour where subjects know they are being studied and often voluntarily participate. Especially in this case, consent is necessary. No consent? destroy data!

     Now we have the case that public comments are analysed. I assume that you agree comments here and elsewhere (not a closed forum) are in the public domain. I see no problem analysing those comment and publishing your results about it. It may produce some bad feelings by those analysed on reading that. But is that any different from someone opposing you very strongly in a comment thread? Public discourse is often not very nice.

     Some would say it is privacy issue, that you cannot attach comment categorisation to names, at least for the commenters that are not famous. Well, that would be discussion that needs to be had and it is another issue coming up because of the internet age where everybody can comment on everything.

     I have the opinion that public comments on the internet can be analysed with the internet names. Comment something on the internet (or in your neighbourhood pub) and you may be called out for it in public.

112. hunter,

     Do ask yourself, what would Lew and friends make of this comment:

     “Lewandowky & gang setting up faux studies to try and turn disagreeing with his views on climate into a pathological problem.”

     Just friendly advice 😉

113. Sisi:

     Yes, I know that. Research on voluntarily made and publicly available utterances however is not.

     Depends on a number of factors, but as a blanket statement what you are saying is false.

     When there is interaction between the researcher and the subject of any sort, new rules kick in. When the researcher shows negative prejudicial behavior towards his subject, other issues kick in.

     Do ask yourself, what would Lew and friends make of this comment:

     Perhaps nothing. But sounds like we have Recursive Fury^2 in the making. How pro-agw mitigation people view Recursive Fury.

114. Well, I guess when I made this comment on another thread I should have anticipated that bugs/bunny or Sisi might show up and blah, blah, blah.

     http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/miscellaneous-lew-discussion/#comment-128254

     Sisi, as Lucia said, maybe you ought to do some reading and actually have some citations to back up what you have to say. Otherwise, your opinion is, well, your opinion.

115. Carrick,

     “When there is interaction between the researcher and the subject of any sort, new rules kick in. When the researcher shows negative prejudicial behavior towards his subject, other issues kick in.”

     Yes, that’s true. I think in that case one should consider what are the rules in what is (I hope I recollect the name correctly) participating observation in (Cultural) Anthropology.

116. Sisi, Your analysis is superficial and inapplicable. Of course public domain statements can be analyzed in public, but not by professional psychologists if they are ethical, or in the scientific literature without safeguards. Licensed professionals cannot diagnose people who you have not met. Try to get a prescription from a doctor who has not recently examined you, in person, not on the internet. There are doctors who do this, but they are unethical and their behavior is illegal in many states.

     Of course, this all ignores the fact that the diagnoses in the paper are simply false and untrue, that the data was obtained using deception, and that there is ample evidence for this in the history of this now justly retracted paper. Do you have an opinion on this more substantive aspect of the issue?

     The broader issue is that this type of study is really in the genre of political diatribe and not science. It is the kind of thing Rush Limbaugh or Chris Matthews does. They of course can ethically do it, but is it wise? No, it is not wise and merely plays to prejudices about classes of people. It is one of the fine insights of the last century that such prejudices about classes of individuals are immoral.

     Can’t you deal with the argument and not try to attack the person? Dressing it up as pseudo-science does not make it right. It shows a thoroughly unprofessional attitude.

117. John

     “Sisi, as Lucia said, maybe you ought to do some reading and actually have some citations to back up what you have to say.”

     what specifically?

118. Go to the comment I linked to and the citations Lucia and I were discussing.

     Then look at everything you opined about in Comment #128334 and ask yourself what’s missing.

119. David,

     “Of course public domain statements can be analyzed in public, but not by professional psychologists if they are ethical, or in the scientific literature without safeguards.”

     Professional psychologists cannot analyse public statement? Not allowed an opinion? no free speech?

     ” Licensed professionals cannot diagnose people who you have not met.”

     I agree. So, who was diagnosed with what in Lew&pals paper?

     “Can’t you deal with the argument and not try to attack the person?”

     Who did I attack? I may have disagreed, but attacked? Here? On this thread?

     “Dressing it up as pseudo-science”

     Who is dressing what up as pseudo-science? I certainly didn’t do that! 😉

120. Sisi

     Yes, that’s true. I think in that case one should consider what are the rules in what is (I hope I recollect the name correctly) participating observation in (Cultural) Anthropology.

     Some of those rules are in “The national statement….” You could look then up yourself. You will find they will not negate what we have said even if you advance the extremely persuasive non-argument of suggestiong we “consider” those rules. If you want to “consider” them, I suggest you first read them, then apply them to this case and see where you end up.

121. Sisi:

     I have the opinion that public comments on the internet can be analysed with the internet names. Comment something on the internet (or in your neighbourhood pub) and you may be called out for it in public.

     The problem is Lewandowsky published a paper based on public quotes in which he made findings of facts. That’s not protected opinion, so the points you are arguing are simply not relevant..

     And then it turns out Lewandowsky selected the quotes out of context (“quote mining fallacy”) and the quotes were later misinterpreted in a false and defamatory manner. That’s not protected speech either.

     The fact that he published this originally in a research psychology journal makes the encroachment on others rights more severe and bring up issues why is he even allowed to do human subjects research, but even if he wrote it as an opinion piece, if he included false and defamatory statements, that would not be protected speech.

     When you are getting to the territory where you are making false and defamatory statements that are actionable, you have long ago left the territory where you are behaving in an ethical researcher. Regardless of any specific rules, as a researcher, your first goal is to protect subjects you are studying. If you are willfully inflicting harm on them, you have no business conducting human research studies.

     Finally it’s important for you to recognize that, if you are basing your assertions off of US IRB rules, that this research was actually conducted in Australia. In that country, had there been no interactions between Lewandowsky and the subjects, it almost certainly would have required full IRB approval.

     In either country, eventually the responsibility for the protection of the human subjects rest with the principal investigator, regardless of what he’s been told by his IRB. Failure to adequately protect the subjects is viewed as a breach of ethics regardless of whether you have an email from the IRB secretary “full approval is not necessary”.

     [I have data to analyze and a report to write, so laterz.]

122. I am moving a number of comments that do not engage the specific issue of whether consent is required to the miscellaneous thread. These include debates over
     * the word diagnosis (the repetitive ones are moved).
     * people’ behavior/debating styles.
     * people mentioning discussions in political opinion polls.

     I fell in this OT trap too. Some of the comments are my own.

     These are moved to

     http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/miscellaneous-lew-discussion/

123. Pingback: The Blackboard » Frontiers: Rights of Human Subjects in Scientific Papers

124. Re: Sisi (Apr 10 16:05)

     As pointed out above by others, racist is a straw man, completely irrelevant to the topic under discussion. Even so, if you merely state an opinion that someone’s statement is racist without providing a rationale, then yes, it could be an ad hominem argument.

125. DeWitt, a close analogy to what I believe happened in this paper would be, if you described a statement taken out of context (quote-minded) as racist.

     I’d say if the original context did not lend itself to this interpretation and you identified the person by name, then you’ve put yourself in a bit of a legal hot seat.

     Sisi: For a research paper in psychology to be publishable as a research paper, it needs to have “facts” that it has discovered, and these “facts” need to be both novel and interesting (not previously reported and of use for research psychologists).

     One of the key things that was done in this paper was attribution of certain psychopathological ideations to people, named by name, who were supposedly climate deniers. These are the findings of facts I was describing.

     The problem is that the people who were chosen weren’t climate deniers and the psychopathological ideations were arrived at by quoted-mining statements in a way that substantially altered their meaning. In my view, the finding of facts were false and defamatory, and made with reckless disregard by Lewandowsky, often towards individuals they had previously expressed public, negative judgements about (e.g., the statement was made with prejudice).

     Whether that makes the statements legally actionable or not, well I’m not a lawyer. Apparently Frontiers thinks so.

     But I do think it’s gone well past the point where a competent researcher employing human subjects in his study in any manner should have gone. Your first and primary responsibility as principal investigator is to protect the welfare of the subjects you are studying.

126. Carrick,

     my issue with the whole evolving drama is 2-fold.

     One is the issue that it is being claimed that people have been diagnosed. I disagree with that. Text discourse is about patterns in conversations. It can be valuable tool. However, if a comment on the internet says “women should stay in the kitchen”, I can classify the comment as sexist. The commenter could still have been making a joke. That is why categorising behaviour (that is what internet comments are) is not the same as ascribing a trait to the commenter.

     “One of the key things that was done in this paper was attribution of certain psychopathological ideations to people”

     I disagree here. I would say “One of the key things that was done in this paper was attribution of certain *certain characteristics that are also indicative of several afflictions* ideations to *comments*”

     My other issue with the whole saga is about comments made on the internet. If a politician makes a stupid statement most probably agree that it is bandied around, comments can be made what he/she must have been thinking. Same for other celebrities. The question is how to treat the comments of “joe public” on the internet. Is it open to all kind of scorn and analysis as a politician’s comment would be? Or should it be more protected (and why?). Can Jane and Joe’s comments be treated as those of public figures?

127. Sisi,
     Frontiers wrote, “While the subjects and their statements were public, they did not give their consent to a public psychological diagnosis in a scientific study. Science cannot be abused to specifically label and point out individuals in the public domain.” Remember that this was a psychology paper, not an op-ed column or a blog comment. Context is important.

128. Isn’t the real issue that find a way to cast your political opponents as nut jobs and cranks, isn’t really a scientific exercise, but a
     Political exercise.

     Sisi and co. can’t see that because they are comparing publishing a scientific journal article to a blog, op ed, low brow political debate etc., where such things are routine.

     Lewandowsky, at least unconsciously also seems to have been aware that it’s a political exercise. His hiding the data, snarky responses to questions, publicity campaign, etc. all suggest that advancing his politics (by casting his opponents as nuts), was far more important to him than advancing science.

     I actually have a hard time believing that lew truly believes that all his political opponents are actually mentally ill, or even that they might be. So I don’t think science was ever his real purpose. Science was just the cover for his advancing politics.

129. HaroldW,

     “Frontiers wrote, “While the subjects and their statements were public, they did not give their consent to a public psychological diagnosis in a scientific study. Science cannot be abused to specifically label and point out individuals in the public domain.” Remember that this was a psychology paper, not an op-ed column or a blog comment. Context is important.”

     Yes I know that. However, I do not agree. I am still waiting for someone to give me an example from within the paper of where an individual is diagnosed instead of a comment analysed.

130. Copner,

     “Sisi and co. can’t see that because they are comparing publishing a scientific journal article to a blog, op ed, low brow political debate etc., where such things are routine.”

     If it is OK to name the authors of comments in blogs and op-eds,
     why would it be wrong to do so in scientific journal article?

131. Sisi,
     One of the few rules of this blog is idiosyncratic: Rhetorical questions are not allowed. Or, more specifically, they are only allowed if you supply your own answer in your own comment.

     That looks like a rhetorical question. However, in case it’s not: The answer is, rules of ethics applying to studies of human subjects — particularly in Australian– apply to scientific studies and not to op-eds and blogs by people expressing opinions. This is a simple fact. You may not like the fact, but you can see it is so if you read Australian’s “National Statement…. ” which describes conditions where it applies. Those conditions do not apply to my blog and would not even if I lived in Australia. They don’t apply to op-eds even in Australia. But they do apply to (a) research done at AWU, (b) funded research in Australia, (c) research done by private companies and so on. So, it just happens to be the case.

     I don’t know if that answer your question of “Why?” But it should answer the question of which things might be violations of ethical guidelines. Publication of Fury seems to violate them.

132. Sisi, I’m happy to answer your question whether or not it wnas intended to be rhetorical.

     The problem isn’t lew citing his sources ( albeit sometimes incorrectly), but attempting to diagnose them.

     A politician standing on a soap box and calling his opponent a nut, is a lot different from a doctor diagnosing a patient and saying they’re a nut.

     We hold politicians and doctor/scientists to totally different ethical standards. We expect them to have different levels of openness, rigorousness and evidential backing. And the public generally treat their statements differently as a result.

     In my opinion lew wants his statements treated as science, but wants to use the ethical standards of politics and I would say by concealing his data, the lack of openness and rigor that we see in politics too.

133. Lucia – just been checking the document lewandowsky ethics committee1 which got released via foi. Not sure which site hosts it. This is also in the document1.pdf in the foi1 archive.

     On page 39 there is reference to 6 Privacy Legislation – Threshold Questions

     Do You Need To Use The S95 or S95A Guidelines?

     2 links are provided

     This is the first

     http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines/publications/e26

     These contain a definition for personal information

     Information by which individuals or collectivities can be identified. This is defined in the privacy act 1988 (Cth) as information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database) whether true or not and whether recorded in a material from or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can be reasonably ascertained, from the information or opinion.

134. Lucia,

     It is maybe a rhetorical question in how put it, but it is not meant to be rhetorical question since I would welcome real discussion about it.

     People leave comments all over the internet, and some researcher may decide to an analysis. Can this researcher name the internet names of the commenters or not? If not, is it because classification overrules mentioning internet names? If yes, is it because the internet names were public from the start? Thoughts?

135. Copner,

     “We hold politicians and doctor/scientists to totally different ethical standards.”

     I don’t.

136. We, society as a whole, does though, no matter what you personally do. And actually I suspect you do too.

     A doctor has a duty of individual patient confidentiality. A doctor has a duty to do no harm to individual patients.

     A politician is however generated expected to make some sort of trade off between inidividual’s rights and interests, and society as a whole.

     If a politician finds out somebody (imagine for example he finds out an anti-gay opponent is himself gay) is a lying hypocrite, then few people would think badly of the politician for exposing that. Some would even say he a duty to do so. Others would say it would be meritorious to do so.

     A doctor has however committed himself to a code of conduct where he cant do so. He is ethically and duty bound not to do so. If the country’s leading anti-gay politician were his patient, and he knew the guy was himself gay, he couldn’t reveal it.

137. Sisi,

     I am still waiting for someone to give me an example from within the paper of where an individual is diagnosed instead of a comment analysed.

     First: I don’t know if you are using the verb “diagnosed” according to its clinical definition or it’s non-clinical definition. It has both. Using it in it’s non-clinical definition, ( : to analyze the cause or nature of ) there are many examples. But to understand this we must first understand that “a comment” cannot make itself. Also, a “comment” cannot, in and of itself harbor “nihilistic skepticism”. These are characteristics it might indicate the the entity that could harbor these characteristics is a human being. So, for example

     \Skeptic” blogs contacted after delay (4). The \skeptic” blogs were contacted at least a week after the links to the study had already been posted on the 8 other blogs that agreed to participate in the study. This delay was greeted with suspicion by the blogosphere, with one blogger arguing \Inviting Morano on September 23 when the survey Recursive fury 20 had been been initiated at least as early as August suggests less than reputable behavior on the part of the lead researcher”
     (http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/the-five-blogs/).
     This hypothesis never matured to the point of clarifying how this delay could have had any bearing on the outcome of the study given that none of the \skeptic” blogs posted the link. The hypothesis therefore represents another instance of unreflexive counterfactual thinking, in addition to suspicion and the attribution of nefarious intent (NI, NS, MbW). We also suggest that this hypothesis meshes well with the criterion that \nothing is an accident” (NoA) because it imputes signicance and intentionality into an event (i.e., a delayed email) that could equally have been accidental.

     Note: I didn’t clean up all the glitches introduced by copying from the Adobe file.

     Here, the quote (of something I wrote) which uses the word “suspicion” is used to suggest “represents another instance of unre
     exivecounterfactual thinking, in addition to suspicion and the attribution of nefarious intent (NI, NS, MbW)”

     It’s fine to suggest the comment was analyzed. But I would point out that given the definitions of NI, NS and MbW a comment cannot “think”. And so, the suggesting that this comment represents an instance of unreflexive counterfactual thinking, would suggest that someone who wrote somethint like that exhibits that– at least in the situation where they wrote this comment. That person is identifiable from citation which is this blog. That person can be identified to be me.

     I would also point out that there is almost no analysis of the comment itself. That is to say: Lew &Crew do decree what ‘it must mean’ but none of that is really based on anything in the comment. Rather, the “analysis” is based on an idea in Lews head which he imagines would be important. But it never occurs to him that “This hypothesis [maturing ] to the point of clarifying how this delay could have had any bearing on the outcome of the study given that none of the \skeptic” blogs posted the link.’ might not affect my thinking in any way. He simply assume that I filed to “think” about this (that would seem to be the “unreflexive” part of the “counterfactual” thinking.

     As far as I can see: That Lew inserts that as relevant is actually an example of his believing that information would affect my thinking had I thought about that. In fact: that info would not have affected my view. Mover, I had thought of that– and merely not discussed that because it’s irrelevant to my view. My view is that the late invitation was a problem whether or not Climate Depot accepted or declined and would be one even if he’d accepted.

     Nevertheless: here we have an example where:
     1) He quotes my comment.
     2) Decrees it is an example unreflexive counterfactual thinking.
     3) People “think” comments do not and cannot. So no “textual analysis” can diagnose any type of “thinking” and attribute it to the text”.
     4) I am identifyable.

     It is fair to say that this is an example where I would be identified as the person who is exhibiting “unreflexic counterfactual thinking”.

138. Sisi

     Copner,

     “We hold politicians and doctor/scientists to totally different ethical standards.”

     I don’t.

     That’s fine and dandy. But Journals are held to different standard by codes of ethics that govern these things. These are regulations, and violating them can have legal consequences.

     It may be that you don’t like the fact standards might differ for research journals and opinion columns or researchers vs. politicians. But Frontiers who retracted the article must abide by the codes and standards that apply to it’s publication. So must AWU. So must researchers who do funded research. With respect to the “is” analysis, your opinion on what “ought” to be the rule is irrelevant.

     If you have a problem with the notion that what “is” differs from what “ought to be”, you will need to get politicians to change the rules. For the most part, on this thread, I am trying to discuss what is. And if you wish to discuss what ought to be the rules– you will need to do so on another thread where discussing what “ought” to be the case is permitted. That thread is here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/miscellaneous-lew-discussion/

139. Sisi:

     One is the issue that it is being claimed that people have been diagnosed.

     I do not think this paper attempts to make psychological diagnoses. I believe Lucia has been careful to make that point too. But neither did the editors of the journal claim it was making psychological diagnoses. There are people who have claimed the paper made psychological diagnoses, or that the editors claimed it did, but I believe they were mistaken.

     I disagree here. I would say “One of the key things that was done in this paper was attribution of certain *certain characteristics that are also indicative of several afflictions* ideations to *comments*”

     Yes, to comments made by people, in order to study “Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation.”

     You seem to be arguing that the point of the paper was the measurements themselves. But the paper makes it clear that the point of the measurements is to study “conspiracist ideation” as it related to reactions to LOG12.

     In doing so, it attributed certain ideations to people who were named by name. And in many cases, the original reading and interpretation of the sentences that were done incorrectly in this study.

     Partly this was due to the of technical competency on Lewandowsky and his collaborators part (e.g., not knowing that temperature adjustments, which must be made, constitute most of the global warming signal in the US surface temperature record).

     One can suspect from the fact Lewandowsky was studying people who were critical of his LOG12 paper, that he was prejudicially conflicted in his interpretations of their criticisms.

     Most critical blogosphere comments I’ve seen of LOG12 for example have to do with his ethics and competency. I’ve not seen more than one perhaps that dealt with actually conspiracy ideation.

     The question is how to treat the comments of “joe public” on the internet. Is it open to all kind of scorn and analysis as a politician’s comment would be? Or should it be more protected (and why?). Can Jane and Joe’s comments be treated as those of public figures?

     In the US, House and Human Services regulations apply to most research. Australia has its own brand.

     For the rules to kick in you need several things:

     1) It needs to be research that is funded by the federal government (even partly applies: If you’re engaging in research at an institute that is in part publicly funded, you need to comply even if the research in question is privately funded).

     2) The subjects of your study must qualify as being research subjects (“research participants” in the Australian document), and be protected by applicable government regulations.

     I discussed the conditions under which individuals become research subjects here.

     It turns out it applies to this case because Lewandowsky interacted with his subjects. (That is documented and explained in the discussion I provided at that link.)

140. Sisi

     Lucia,

     It is maybe a rhetorical question in how put it, but it is not meant to be rhetorical question since I would welcome real discussion about it.

     If you think discussion is valuable, you are welcome to initiate that by providing your own discussion. The best way to do that is provide an answer to your own rhetorical question in the comment where you ask the question.

     People leave comments all over the internet, and some researcher may decide to an analysis. Can this researcher name the internet names of the commenters or not? If not, is it because classification overrules mentioning internet names? If yes, is it because the internet names were public from the start? Thoughts?

     What are your thoughts on the answer to these questions? Presumably if you think discussing them is important, you will wish to share yours thoughts. In anycase, the rules here mandate you answer them. Other than going off topic, this is one of the main rules of this blog. Those who will not comply are banned.

     This is idiosyncratic. But it’s my blog, and I have over time explained the reasons for this rule. I think it’s a good one and on this, my view is law around here.

     Also: I would note that you are straying off the narrow focus of this particualr post which is application of Australia’s “National Statement…” to the fact pattern in Fury. It is not something else. I have opened a “miscellaneous thread” to discuss this. You are aware your comment were moved there– and yet you are insisting on dicussing this here. Should comment continue in this vein, I will be moving them to “miscenllaneous”.

     So, what I suggest is you ask and answer your question on the thread that was specifically created to facilitate discussions of that sort without dragging comments on this thread OT. http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/miscellaneous-lew-discussion/. If your goal is to discuss those important issues, doing so on a thread where the discussion is “on topic” ought to interseting you just as much as doing it on a thread where it is “off topic”.

     Also: if you wish to argue about what my rules should be, those also belong at http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/miscellaneous-lew-discussion/ not here.

141. @Copner

     “We, society as a whole, does though, no matter what you personally do. And actually I suspect you do too.”

     You are not society, I am not society. Let’s agree to disagree.

142. Sisi saying she doesn’t hold scientists to a higher standard than politicians is quite ridiculous. Professionals in virtually every profession are held to higher standards. The list includes engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers. The point of these high standards is to raise the quality of the work those professions do. This idea is not new and was one of the truly great insights of the progressive movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. They also tried to hold politicians to higher standards and made some progress. Standards for politicians are however only enforceable in a democracy by the people. In professions that totally different as it should be.

143. No let’s not.

     Society has different rules for doctors and scientists that simply don’t apply in other fields.

     Lucia’s already pointed to specific codes of conduct which are applicable to this type of research, but aren’t applicable in unrelated fields.

     These rules exist that’s a fact.

     And these rules apply for some fields not others, and that’s a fact too.

     You may not like these two facts, and you might wish things were different, and maybe think the rules should be changed, all of which is your perogative, but the current facts are what they are.

144. “Lucia’s already pointed to specific codes of conduct which are applicable to this type of research, but aren’t applicable in unrelated fields.”

     With other words, you haven’t thought about it.

     A physician is not a blog moderator.

145. Are you trolling now, Sisi?

     Why else would you say “With other words, you haven’t thought about it.”

146. Lucia,

     “What are your thoughts on the answer to these questions? Presumably if you think discussing them is important, you will wish to share yours thoughts.”

     My thoughts are that commenters on the internet should be aware that their comments can be analysed. Their comments are public and at some point their comments will be analysed.

     That’s why I disagree with the distraction of the Lew paper (at least disagree with the reasons Frontiers gives for distraction).

147. distraction? why did I say distraction? Of course I meant retraction

148. Sisi I only point you to Lucia’s cite so you can read and see for yourself the following two facts: (1) rules exist, which (2) which only apply to some situations.

     Those two facts are beyond any genuine dispute.

     What I think what rules there should be, or when they should apply, is completely beside the point.

     In any case you seem to have admitted my point: “a physician is not a Blog moderator” – in other words you admit that different rules *do* apply in different situations…

149. I am totally at a loss to understand Sisi’s point. Public statements can be analyzed in public in some forums and not in others. Professions have additional rules. Is that not obvious to the most casual observer? I think Sisi is not trying very hard to see the obvious, and perhaps needs to try a little harder.

150. “First: I don’t know if you are using the verb “diagnosed” according to its clinical definition or it’s non-clinical definition.”

     diagnosed as in a patient-doctor sense

151. And sisi, you’re conflating two things.

     If lew wants to analyse blog comments on his blog or in an op ed and say “I think Lucia’s opinions are nutty”, then it’s unlikely there would be an issue. I would actually encourage him to do this kind if thing – I think people should express their opinions forthrightly whether or not I agree with them.

     But if lew does this analysis as “science” the it s no longer an individual endeavour. He is committing to a code of ethics. He also involving others (the journal publishers) who also have committed to a code of ethics. If the others involved feel they are violating the code, of course would want to not be involved, in this case by retracting.

152. Copner:

     But if lew does this analysis as “science” the it s no longer an individual endeavour.

     I think this is correct. Lewandowsky is a research psychologist, and if he publishes an analysis in a research journal in cognitive psychology, that analysis must be read in the context of a research journal in cognitive psychology, not e.g.,in the context of a blog article or e.g., an op ed in the WashPo.

     He almost certainly could get away with an angry rebuttal to critics of his competency and professional ethics published in the appropriate venue. Writing about them in a way that is a thinly veiled attack on them in a technical journal…journals have rules about that.

     In general, personal attacks are not permitted, not withstanding the violation of overarching ethical issues that can get the author banned for life from human subject research. Journals must worry about this too, as allowing research that does not respect the rights of human subjects to be publish in their journal will taint their image, as well as open them up for lawsuits.

153. “I do not think this paper attempts to make psychological diagnoses. I believe Lucia has been careful to make that point too.”

     Yes I agree. I would say however that there are quite a number of people that believe psychological diagnoses have been made.

     “You seem to be arguing that the point of the paper was the measurements themselves”

     ? ? Here I do not understand, maybe I am stupid or blind.

     “In doing so, it attributed certain ideations to people who were named by name. ”

     Well, that is the contentious issue, were the ideation attributed to the commenters or to the comments

154. I think Carrick hit the bottom line here and the cause of Lew’s case unraveling. When Lew and Nuc went public attacking the journal, the journal had no choice but to defend its scientific credentials. I think this does show the incredible naivety of L&N. Or perhaps they got so tied up in the emotions of the climate debate, they starting believing their own patently untrue characterizations of skeptics. Note to Sisi: This is a blog and not a scientific journal so its OK to say this. I do think that L&N should be careful about going further here as Frontiers seems to me to likely have the documentation to back up their statements.

155. Sisi, Come on. Of course the ideation was attributed to the person. Ideation is a characteristic of people and not of inanimate objects. It is clear from the public context of the paper preparation in blog posts etc. that the authors felt contempt for the people and did attribute the ideation to these people.

156. Sisi:

     Well, that is the contentious issue, were the ideation attributed to the commenters or to the comments

     Why is that particularly contentious?

     A comment is a quantum of thought generated by a commenter, so it reflects on the thought process of the commenter who generated it.

     That’s the point of Steven Mosher’s quip about writing a random comment generator and publishing a paper based on analyzing the output….

     The purpose of the study is not just to analyze comments and not the commentator, otherwise, the comments wouldn’t have to come from real people. Were it just an “analyzing comments” paper, computer generated comments would work as well as human generated ones.

     Analyzing the thought process of the commenter who generated the comment is clearly the point of a paper written for and published in a research psychology journal.

157. Copner,

     “He is committing to a code of ethics”

     Sure. But where does this code of ethics prohibit him to name the internet names of people who commented on the internet? OK, probably too rhetoric for Lucia. So let’s add. I do not know any science where it is not allowed to publish information that is publicly available already. Can you tell me where the code of ethics is breached?

158. Carrick,

     can I reasonably conclude (to avoid eternal this vs that) that you are not principally opposed to the kind of study that Lew et al did,
     but that you think it has been conducted in a shoddy way?

     SIsi

159. I told you already.

     The ethical issue isn’t citing his sources, but attributing psychological diagnoses/states to individuals without the subject’s consent.

     The comments themselves may have been public information. But the attribution of psychological diagnoses/states to individuals was new information created by lew (“lew information”?).

160. Sisi,

     Sure. But where does this code of ethics prohibit him to name the internet names of people who commented on the internet? OK, probably too rhetoric for Lucia.

     That. And the answer is “Please read the post. It answers your questions. If you disagree, engage the argument in the post.”

     I do not know any science where it is not allowed to publish information that is publicly available already.

     The breach is not “publising information that is publicly available already”. If you do not understand the breach, please read the post which explains the breach.

     Can you tell me where the code of ethics is breached?

     This post discusses one and elaborates. In fact, that is the topic of the post– it is not some small detail hidden in the post.

     If you want my answer to the question you are asking here in comments, read the main post. If you are not going to read the main post, don’t expect the entire main post to be re-itterated in comments merely because you ask a question that is answered in the main post.

161. “A comment is a quantum of thought generated by a commenter, so it reflects on the thought process of the commenter who generated it.”

     The discourse analyser analyses the discourse. People in the discourse may be lying, posing, or whatever. As long as the discourse analyser does noes not conclude anything about the people in the discourse, I see no problem.

     “Were it just an “analyzing comments” paper, computer generated comments would work as well as human generated ones.”

     he? Computer generated comments are nowhere near human generated comments.

     “Analyzing the thought process of the commenter who generated the comment is clearly the point of a paper written for and published in a research psychology journal.”

     As said before, point me to place in Lew’s paper where the thought process of an individual is analysed. Yes, the paper does analyse text behaviour. Some may not be happy with what the paper says about their text behaviour.

     Night all!

162. Sisi:

     can I reasonably conclude (to avoid eternal this vs that) that you are not principally opposed to the kind of study that Lew et al did, but that you think it has been conducted in a shoddy way?

     I’m not opposed to this type of study. I do think there were numerous ethical and technical issues with this paper. To avoid an infinite recursion, here are some of the things I think are wrong with this paper:

     Ethical issues included not getting the research plan actually used filed with the IRB, not getting IRB approval before starting the research, not getting informed consent before naming subjects, not sufficiently protecting the subjects from the possibility of harm (the subject of the post under which this thread developed), prejudicial attitude exhibited by the researcher towards his subjects, and conflict of interest on the part of the researcher.

     Technical issues had to do with quote-mining that converted the meaning of the the researcher (keep in mind that the people doing the culling were looking for examples of conspiratorial ideation), to not properly training the people doing the assay, to just flat getting the wrong answer and in a few cases outright defaming people in the process.

     Were I do to do this study, I would have a IRB plan filed that covered the research as it was actually performed, and I would have included some component of informed consent in it. When you find people who really ideate conspiracy theories, it’s easier to get them started talking than to shut them up, so getting informed consent usually is not a serious obstacle.

     I’ve joked that the peer reviews for bad papers are often longer than the paper itself. This one is so bad, you could write a monograph on everything it’s done wrong and the lessons than can be learned from it.

163. Sisi,
     You are making little sense here. Characterizing your political opponents as tantamount to crazy (or actually declaring them crazy and sending them off to insane asylums/prisons, in the case of some totalitarian regimes) has a long history. Psychobabble rubbish about ‘deni#rs’ (Lucia?!?) suffering from ‘conspiracy ideation’, as Lew and Co write in “Fury”; is a transparent attempt win a political argument by declaring the opponent crazy. The journal in this case wisely refused to go along with a rather obnoxious and brutish ‘paper’, one which amounted to little more than ‘peer reviewed’ defamation of specific individuals.
     .
     These things happen whenever the looney left is losing a policy argument in the voting booth; there seems to be no moral level below which they will not stoop… the ends always justify the means (eg, see Peter Gleick). It is not going to work. Fossil fuels will continue to be used for a very long time. Get over it.

164. Lucia,

     I am aware of the rules of engagement. Regarding adults, children, and babies. Research! Been there, done that!

     I still do not agree that an analysis of public available comments can not mention the internet names of those making the comments.

165. Sisi:

     Computer generated comments are nowhere near human generated comments.

     If they are based on real comments, they are. That’s actually easy to do.

     If the purpose is to study the comments outside of the context of the person who made them, then computer generated ones would be as good as those of actual humans. As soon as you admit the context of the person making the comments is important, you can no long claim this study is just an analysis of people’s comments.

     As said before, point me to place in Lew’s paper where the thought process of an individual is analysed.

     How about you point me to a paper published a research psychology journal that doesn’t deal with the though processes of individuals.

     Yes, the paper does analyse text behaviour. Some may not be happy with what the paper says about their text behaviour.

     Yes, and they are especially unhappy when it gets the wrong answer and is defamatory to boot. When that happens, harm has been done to them. If the researchers failed to take precautions to not correctly analyze the meaning and intent, a moral and ethical failing has occurred.

     I thought originally, had the researchers adequately protected the subjects from harm, by making sure the meaning of the text had not been changed in the quote-mining used to generate the text segments to be studied, the researchers might have been able to get away with not getting informed consent.

     I now think that position is wrong, so that even if you adequately protected the subjects (so no instances were reported of mis-interpretation of the subject’s comments), you would still need informed consent statements that included authorization to publish, at least for US studies.

166. Sisi:

     I still do not agree that an analysis of public available comments can not mention the internet names of those making the comments.

     And I think, without seeing a research plan so I don’t know what you are planning on doing with the information, if you were careful how you did it, you probably could do this without a breach of ethics.

     The ultimate problem for Lewandowsky was that he interacted with his subjects. I think that’s what tips the scale from being a “gray area” into a “black and white” one.

167. Sisi (Comment #128584)
     April 13th, 2014 at 5:55 pm

     As said before, point me to place in Lew’s paper where the thought process of an individual is analysed. Yes, the paper does analyse text behaviour. Some may not be happy with what the paper says about their text behaviour.

     That question was answered. Please read ” lucia (Comment #128555)
     April 13th, 2014 at 4:03 pm ” Please do the participants of this thread the courtesy of engaging the posted answer to you question before repeating your question .

     I still do not agree that an analysis of public available comments can not mention the internet names of those making the comments.

     Well…. we don’t know the basis for your disagreement. The manner in which Lew did it violated ethics rules in the “National Statement….” You have not said they do not. You have posted nothing to explain why you think they do not. So far, you might as well be telling you that you disagree chocolate tastes good. It’s a statement… one can say it. Others can take it for what it’s worth.

168. SiSi

     My thoughts are that commenters on the internet should be aware that their comments can be analysed. Their comments are public and at some point their comments will be analysed.

     Interesting thought, but rather irrelevant to the ethical issue or determining whether the Lew study violated the rules in Australia “National Statement…”

     That’s why I disagree with the distraction of the Lew paper (at least disagree with the reasons Frontiers gives for distraction).

     I don’t understand what you are trying to say here. I don’t know how one can ‘disagree’ with “a distraction” of any sort. Do you mean you disagree with the retraction? If so, it appears you don’t understand what they gave as reasons because you think the problem is some generic form of “analysis”. Some sorts of analysis present no ethical problems; others don’t.

     If you don’t understand the issue is the specific type of analysis — and characterizations– then you don’t understand the reason for the retraction. And if so, the fact that you “disagree” with either the retraction or the reasons for it is of no particular importance because you don’t really know what they are.

169. Sisi. Is English a second language?

170. @ Sisi (Comment #128587)
     “been there, done that”….are you admitting that you fabricate science papers as a mask for personal attacks?

171. Sisi, you keep claiming it’s about whether lew is able to say the names of who said what. It isn’t.

     If he had simply said “Lucia said x, Steve mc said y”, there would be no issue.

     The first issue is that he publicy assigned psychological states to individuals without their consent. (and this information was not present in the comments themselves, it was lew’s interpretation, in other words information he created/generated).

     Another issue is that he interacted with the subjects of his study, provoking comments, again without even telling his subjects that they were part of his experiment, let alone getting their consent to be involved to his experiment.

     Many scientific codes of conduct, which many scientific bodies and journals adhere to, don’t permit human experimentation without consent of the subjects. Including the code of conduct that this journal adheres to. So it’s unsurprising that they do not wish to be associated with (and therefore retracted) a study that they feel violates their code of conduct.

     Maybe you think it should be otherwise, maybe lew does too, maybe you both think scientists should be able to do whatever experiments they want to, or unaware or non-consenting subjects, I don’t know… but if that’s what you believe you should try to make that case, rather than pretending, lying, that the issue was citation without consent – when you must know (if you had read any of the comments, the original post, or the journal’s statement) that the issue is actually human experimentation without consent.

172. j ferguson

     Sisi. Is English a second language?

     It is. Her english is good, but you have to account for that when trying to interpret some statements.

173. Sisi

     Well, that is the contentious issue, were the ideation attributed to the commenters or to the comments

     Given the definition of “ideation” it is almost impossible not to be attributing it to the person who made the comment. Moreover, the paper doesn’t say skeptics write lots of comments that exhibit ideation. It says skeptics exhibit the ideation.

174. If ideation is all the rage as a climate kook discussion suppression tool, perhaps we can start looking at the climate kook’s ideation? It seems to me we must look at the psychology of people who are willing to play fast and loose, time after time, in discipline after discipline, with data, truth, identity. Hiding declines, identity, motives, ethical guidelines, all seem to be important tools to the climate concerned community. It is not merely soft science supporters of the climate consensus like Lewandowsky and cook. It is in the hard sciences as well, with Trenberth, Mann, the IPCC leadership. they all seem dedicated to making certain that their desired outcome stands intact, no matter the lack of supporting evidence:
     The world is suffering from a climate catastrophe, and those who question that catastrophe are motivated liars.

175. Lucia:

     Given the definition of “ideation” it is almost impossible not to be attributing it to the person who made the comment. Moreover, the paper doesn’t say skeptics write lots of comments that exhibit ideation. It says skeptics exhibit the ideation.

     Yes.

     How do comments have ideations?

176. I was also wondering how text has behavior.

177. Carrick

     How do comments have ideations?

     Ideation is “the process of creating new ideas”.

     Just as hammers cannot “build a church” by themselves, strings of words cannot have ideations or “engage in” ideation. Strings of words can be tools used by humans when humans are involved in “the process of creating ideas”. If done carefully, one might detect humans are involved in ‘ideation’ based on the strings of words they are using or the presence of other ‘tool’ (e.g. mathematical equations, illustrations, filmography and so on). But these “tools” cannot “do”, “be”, “engage in” ideation themselves.

     Getting back to the hammers: one might analyze the hammer, where it was found, the wear pattern and so on, to determine whether it had been used by people to build a church, and as such diagnose that people “built a church using that hammer. But on cannot identify the property or behavior of “x built a church” with ‘x’ being the hammer itself. Someone or some group of people built the church.

178. Lucia,

     “The breach is not “publising information that is publicly available already”. If you do not understand the breach, please read the post which explains the breach.”

     I do not agree there is a breach.

179. Sisi,
     We know you don’t agree there is a breach.

     But ethics codes were breached. If you wish to convince people this is not so, you are going to have to engage the actual argument explaining the rules in the “National Statement…” and explaining the fact pattern. Otherwise, you look like someone in a group of people looking at a birthday cake with the conversation going:

     Sisi “I don’t see any birthday cake.” with others pointing saying, “Look, it’s right there. See the frosting? The candles”, The Sissy, “I don’t agree that’s a birthday cake.”, Others, “See the it says ‘happy birthday Joe on it'”. SiSi, “Still don’t see a birthday cake.”

     Of course the fictional Sisi in the birthday cake situation might think they are somehow “winning” or “making sense”. But the others..well… they think otherwise. 🙂

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