Defending himself against an accusation that authors ever showed malice to participants later discussed in “Recursive Fury”, Lew writes,
The vile commentary was made by third parties unconnected to Recursive Fury on aa private forum that was password-protected, and whose purpose was to permit open and completely uncensored discussion among a small group of collaborators. Those comments were posted in the expectation of privacy, and they became public only through a criminal act—a hack attack on Skepticalscience that has been explored in great forensic depth.
On reading that, I did a simple google search and found these ‘zingers’ at Lew’s blog:
Snide remark about ‘dog misplaced email’
If I am not mistaken, I can indeed confirm that there were 4—not 3—versions of the survey (unless that was the number of my birth certificates, I am never quite sure, so many numbers to keep track of… Mr. McIntyre’s dog misplaced an email under a pastrami sandwich a mere 8.9253077595543363 days ago, and I have grown at least one tail and several new horns over the last few days, all of which are frightfully independent and hard to keep track of).
Snide characterization of Steve Mc
Mr. McIntyre, a self-declared expert in statistics, ..
A post demanding ‘apologies’ from his critics with the spiffy title “Bloggers’ Hall of Amnesia”
1. When will an apology be forthcoming for the accusations launched against me? And how many individuals should now be issuing a public apology?
(Note: I responded to this. the five blogs)
The tone of other Lew posts that mention McIntyre can be found on this google search
Whether you agree or disagree with Lew’s view, I think it would be pretty easy to convince a judge or jury that Lew’s tone towards those who later transformed into involuntary participants in his research study involving humans harbors a grudge against this McIntyre guy and might have wanted to “get” him. That seems to be the definition of “malice” in the UK. Not that this red-herring about the SkS forum is relevant to establishing malice, but, no, “shapingtomorrowsworld.org” is not a private password protected forum. “Shapingtomorrowsworld.org is Stephan Lewandowsky’s blog. Lew is the first author on the “Fury paper”.
Hacking is also not relevant to this evidence and under American law at least would generally be irrelevant to using evidence to establish malice in a tort. Googlebot was not “hacking” when it found this content suggesting Lew might harbor malice toward this McIntyre guy (or other). Nor was I hacking when clicking the link. This evidence is out there for all to read.
So yes, if some legal case required proving malice and other elements for the case also exist, I think a prima facie case could be made for malice on the part of at the lead author. I think such a case might be winnable.
Update:
SteveMc posted discussions in conversations between AWU ethics staff and Lewandowsky in which Steve and others are referred to as “ilk”.
Based on my experience with this individual [McIntyre] and others of his ilk, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that his actions are not motivated by concerns about research ethics
SteveMcIntyre inserted [McIntyre]; those who wish to read the quote in fuller context should visit Climate Audit. Be aware that the FOI deleted names, but having written the letter that begins “Dear Dr Eich,” Steve can recognize his own letter. This clarifies the context for those of us who might have difficulty identifying who was spoken of in the AWU conversations that followed.
Stephan Lewandowsky’s latest STW post seems quite relevant The Analysis of Speech
This last bit about “hiding data” caught my eye because the UWA link just goes to the paper and the parent page noticeably does *not* host the actual supplementary data with all the comments.
tlitb1,
Reading the ethics of Australia, if the research is about the subjects behavior, it seems to me they are required to anonymize. Snarky comments about people thinking their public statements are too fragile to survive scholarly scrutiny is irrelevant.
In contrast, had Fury engaged the substance of any argument as in present a counter argument to the argument, those quoted would not be “subjects” there would be no ethical issue. In that case, the issue would be whether the the arguments survived scholarly scrutiny. But characterizing them as “contains racist elements”? That’s not “schlolarly scrutinty”, it’s “categorizing behavior”.
Whether they consider it “unwise” is irrelevant to the ethics issue. There are specific rules.
Possibly because the UWA figured out to do so would be an ethics violation.
“However, we considered this unwise in light of the pervasive allegations against (climate) scientists that they are ‘hiding data.'”
.
He is such a jerk. How do ‘pervasive allegations’ against climate scientists void the ethical (and maybe legal) obligations to not disclose the identity of the people you diagnose in your scholarly study as tantamount to insane? Really, such a jerk.
.
One or more of those who were libeled should file a lawsuit against Lewandowsky and coauthors… and the university where the offending paper is currently hosted, unless they take down the libelous ‘paper’ and all issue a formal apology.
Well this is an interesting development:
Lewandowsky at Frontiers ate my homework
Will J. Richardson:
Well, that certainly creates problems for arriving at a final documented timeline; unless Frontiers kept copies of correspondence in their records. Of course, they should do that; but then, they shouldn’t be demanding destruction of other people’s records.
.
If this claim by Lewandowsky can be proven, I think that puts into doubt the credibility of all of Frontiers’ statements: Honest dealers don’t have to have the record scrubbed.
Can somebody ask Frontiers if they really asked USA to destroy documents!
Can somebody ask UWA. If this is true. And why did they comply…
breaking no doubt any number of a Australian regulations…
I made an ethics complaint directly to USA
would they really destroy documentation into an ethics investigation about misconduct of a USA researcher..
This story is getting madder.
I note Lewandowsky is being publicly snarky to the complainants again. ..
I hope his UK psychology colleagues are dismayed by his conduct.. not that they will ever do or say anything. ..
Barry Woods – focus carefully on the statement by SL. He refers to “we have destroyed all documents”. What he does not say who constitutes we.
SL will have a professional responsibility for document retention related to his project work.
UWA will have an organisational responsibility for document retention.
Neither should be able to depart from their responsibilities based on a request from a 3rd party on a subject like this.
What we don’t know is whether SL and or co authors or other parties have been having discussions with the journal without involving the UWA and in particular ethics officers or legal advisors.
What about the part where Lewandowsky alleges that Watts is a hacker who trolled the private SKS forum to find the malicious comments?!
Steven Mosher,
Lewandowsky now asserts destroyed the documents that would show how he is innocent at the behest of Frontier.
What an interesting and convenient thing for Dr. Lewandowsky to claim.
Not to mention amazingly timely and unusual.
But is he over playing his hand yet?
Inquiring minds want to know.
hunter,
What Lew wrote was
I suspect what he means is he destroyed the correspondence sent by Frontiers. So he doesn’t have documents that describe the complaints against him. So he’s rebutting them based on dim memories of what was alleged.
Lew is continuing his incredible rendition of Capt. Queeg.
Hunter,
At least Queeg had not lost his bearings.
Did anyone else notice John Cook’s comment over at Shaping Tommorrow’s World (Lewandowsky’s site)?
“Jonathan Cook at 13:39 PM on 9 April, 2014
The link to Graham Readfearn is broken. Plus I think you need to take a holiday Stephan, these posts about your retracted paper are increasingly erratic.”
Is this Cook the same as the skeptical science Cook?
If so, even L’s friends are beginning to distance themselves from him.
I would be very surprised if this is “SkS John Cook”.
Lucia – I jumped here per your request.
Confused? Yes, the entire post is confused. At one point he says the hacker’s identity is unknown. But then he continues.
“The complainant’s conduct follows a common pattern in the Subterranean War on Science: Use of private correspondence obtained by an illegal act to construct allegations against scientists. Except that in this case, to allege malice against John Cook, hackers trolled through two years of his private conversations and found exactly nothing.
Zip. Zilch. Bupkis.
All the hackers and trolls could find were other parties expressing anger in the expectation of privacy. I cannot think of clearer evidence for the absence of malice in John Cook’s conduct.”
Lacatena’s hacker never alleged malice AFAIK but Steve certainly did. As you suggested its up to Dr. Lew to clear up that confusion. In fact I put that question to him at his blog. And while the Moderator has made some comments thus far he has chosen not to address this issue.
DGH,
Beyond that, I think the characterization that nothing was found is merely Lews POV about what constitutes “nothing” and what constitutes “something”. I found material in the forums interesting– which is “something” that was “found”. I’m not entirely sure, but I’m under the impression that people “found” discussions about how the 97% paper data were evaluated– which is “something” even if Lew thinks it’s “nothing”. I also seem to recall that someone learned that Lew’s first step in inviting alarmist blogs to post the link was to invite people using the planet3.o forum? Or am I mistaken (about both the fact and/or where it was found.)
It seems to me that UWA is at an interesting crossroads. When pointed out to Lew that UWA was not hosting the supplementary material, he (or his moderator) replied “Thanks, good point. Stand by.”
Is UWA now going to go in all guns blazing and add the supplementary material or will cooler heads prevail and realize they are in deep enough already and it may be time to put a little distance between themselves and Lew?
carlb….
If they do.. good. Mwha, ha, ha, ha!!! [evil laughter]
Relating to this first sentence:
The threshold for whether you should be participating in a subject of a particular pool of humans subjects is whether you hold a negative, prejudicial view of the subjects you are studying, not whether you harbor outright malice towards them.
The issue with the “taunt protocol” isn’t so much that it was used but what it demonstrates about the author’s attitudes towards those he is purportedly studying.
jferguson(#128174)-
A bit late, but +1 for that!
Jonathan Cook is this guy
https://twitter.com/Trendshed