Frontiers clarifies further. Their clarification begins
The retracted Recursive Fury paper has created quite a blogger and twitter storm. A sensational storm indeed, with hints to conspiracy theories, claims of legal threats and perceived contradictions. It has been fury – one of the strongest human emotions – that has (perhaps understandably at first sight) guided the discussion around this retraction. Not surprisingly though, the truth is not as sensational and much simpler. The studied subjects were explicitly identified in the paper without their consent. It is well acknowledged and accepted that in order to protect a subject’s rights and avoid a potentially defamatory outcome, one must obtain the subject’s consent if they can be identified in a scientific paper. The mistake was detected after publication, and the authors and Frontiers worked hard together for several months to try to find a solution. In the end, those efforts were not successful. The identity of the subjects could not be protected and the paper had to be retracted. Frontiers then worked closely with the authors on a mutually agreed and measured retraction statement to avoid the retraction itself being misused. From the storm this has created, it would seem we did not succeed.
There you go. This pretty much matches what I’ve been wiring. Ethics, legal… all rolled into one. Doesn’t really matter who ‘trivial’ the characterization might seem1, they need to de-identify or get consent to identify individuals. As far as ethics evaluations goes: potential for harm is what triggers the need for consent. When subjects are identified, ‘harm’ to the subject could rise as high as defamation, or it might only be something as minor as “causing anxiety”, but one needs consent in both cases.
Of course, Lewandowsky wants to focus on the notion that he could not lose a defamation case due to changes in UK law (though I would suggest it’s not clear that he could not lose if one were pursued. That depends on the details.) But to be retraction worthy, what he did does not need to be as severe as clear, obvious defamation that owing to changes in UK law now seem to make research journals super-immune to defamation suits. It only needs to have violated ethical principles whose laws are much stricter.
It is my opinion that the paper was also methdologically flawed. I think it is worth pursuing steps to get UWA to understand that ethics violations occurred. As they seem blind to these, a clear case will need to be presented. But it seems that Frontiers has a ‘clear head’ and perceives the problem.
Frontiers closes with
But there was no moral dilemma from the start – we do not support scientific publications where human subjects can be identified without their consent.
I take it this means that Dana has not issued his promised clarification of the “hidden” factors as yet…?
So Lewadowsky is unethical as well as a liar.
Unethical because he had to have known what he was doing is against well established ethical protocols and he did it any way.
A liar because he knew why his paper was retracted and told a different story.
Glad that could be cleared up.
Aside from their support of your position, what interests me most about the Frontiers statement is this: “Frontiers’ core mission is to improve peer review.”
Fury’s review history seems to show obvious flaws with their process. Hopefully this is an acknowledgement of that, and an acknowledgement that they will be using this episode as an example of what not to do.
AWU? I have been seeing them mentioned a few times in a few threads. Are the Australian Workers Union involved as well?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWU_affair
edit – now mentioned in one less thread
hunter,
It may be that Lew/Dana really, honestly do not understand the ethics issue and for that reason is stuck on the potential for defamation when individuals are identified. Many of his ‘rebuttals’ focus on his notion that if someone pursued a defamation case in the UK (which has recently changed their defamation laws in a way that seems to insulate peer reviewed articles even if they publish statements that actually are ‘false and defamatory’ provided they are not reported ‘with malice), he and his legal analysts think that person would likely lose.
Maybe so. Or not.
But Lew’s ‘analysis’ of the broad protection from defamation laws in the UK doesn’t matter because the potential defamatory outcome springing from the practice of identifying individuals is sufficient to block retraction from Frontiers point of view. Moreover: if we adopt a straightforward application of ethics rules in Australia (and likely elsewhere), Frontiers seems to be correct. And their view is not new– it’s long standing.
This isn’t even a close call. Frontiers is correct.
If the authors wish to ‘prove’ that Frontiers is wrong, they are going to have to distribute the manuscript the provided Frontiers. When that is done, people will look at it and state whether individuals have “deidentified” sufficiently to meet the standards required for all ethics codes, or legal statutes that apply. Merely explaining that the authors think no plaintiff could win a defamation case in the UK will not be enough. They need to address all the issues.
kch,
Possibly they will investigate what happened and create rules about what editors must do in the event that a peer reviewer does not wish to have his name listed when editor publishes despite the negative review.
That would certainly be an internal investigation. Rules would likely be circulated to editors with no official public announcement.
Lucia, it’s almost like they just summarized what the critics have been saying.
I can’t see any daylight between what they’ve said, your view, or my views on the problems identified with the paper.
Carrick,
They are summarizing what critics are saying. But I suspect they are also stating their long-standing view. I don’t think Frontiers retracted and came up with this idea afterwards by reading my analysis and/or your comments.
If one ascribes to the view that the first retraction statement was legalese that omitted more than it revealed (which seems to be the case), and the 2nd and 3rd merely reveal more over time, Frontiers is consistent.
The only “evidence” Frontiers might have had a different standrd in the past is Lew&Crew suggesting Frontiers said something different. Note that Lew&Crew are also “revealing” more over time. They are describing their view, and their recollection and interpretation of events. Lew’s interpretation of events is that they addressed concerns Frontiers stated at the time; Frontiers thinks otherwise. Who is correct? Well, look at evidence as it stands: Lew&Crew don’t seem to understand Frontiers stated concerns even after Frontiers stated then clearly in the first clarification of the official negotiated retraction statement. Or if they do understand it, it’s difficult to grok why Lew&Crew are citing chapter and verse about UK defamation law and how they think Frontiers would survive any defamation suit. After all: the potential for defamation does matter to Frontiers, but their reason for yanking the paper is not fear that they would lose a defamation suit! So: all that verbiage suggests Lew&Crew don’t understand that none of that UK defamation law stuff ‘matters’.
That Lew and Crew don’t understand the stated reason now suggest it’s not unlikely they didn’t understand Frontiers views during communications- between the ‘preliminary retraction’ and the ‘formal retraction’. Many of these happened on Skype, so unless they recorded they have little means to review the conversation– and any case, verbal communication has strengths and weaknesses and parties can easily misunderstand each other.
So, while Lew&Crew’s view might be that Frontiers somehow has ‘new’ standards, the evidence suggests that Lew&Crew simply doesn’t understand those standards yesterday, and if so, likely didn’t understand them back them roughly a year ago.
“..and the authors and Frontiers worked hard together for several months to try to find a solution.”
I simply do not get all this working together with the authors to resolve an issue where the cat was already out of the bag. Frontiers made a major error in publishing this paper and reacted only after being reminded that people were being defamed. Up to that point, without implying gross negligence by Frontiers, it was like these people referenced for psychological characterizations were not feeling people for either the authors or Frontiers but rather a means to an end. Frontiers had to be reminded by communications from real people.
The only solution at that point would be an apology by both Frontiers and the authors with full details on where their ethics failed and how psychology had been abused.
“the evidence suggests that Lew&Crew simply doesn’t understand those standards yesterday, and if so, likely didn’t understand them back them roughly a year ago.”
and didn’t Lew and co delete all the correspondence already?
So Neal King, is this the final Frontiers statement you were hinting?
Lucia, too kind.
Lew and Cook and their ilk [sorry they said it first] are bright, educated people with a strong belief in Global warming and a mission to produce propaganda to support their views because shock, horror, there are disbelievers out there.
In their view the end justifies the means because the cause, saving humanity, is so great that it overrides basic human niceties.
Lew and crew understand the standards clearly and exactly, he is a psychologist after all which does mean training in exactly these standards.
It is so sad that he has had to totally pervert his training and ethical standards but only because he feels so strongly compelled to save us all against our wills.
It is the supreme irony in that trying to overcome an imaginary foe he has adapted the same tactics he perceives others to using on him. Moreover he has developed the very delusional mindset that he thinks he sees in others.
It is impossible to reason with him but his intransigence and fixed mindset are now obvious to anyone who deals with him or reads his works.
A small ethical loss for a greater ethical win in his eyes, not realizing in doing so any victory he gains will be dust.
Sorry for the verbosity.
Lucia:
On that thread, I think that these standards are virtually the same as for any other research publication that deals with human subjects research.
Moreover, as I’ve maintained all along, Lewandowsky should have held himself to much higher standards of research conduct than he did, regardless of what the publisher would let him get away with.
The publishers view might be “the ethical conduct of the researcher is not tested here, the question of whether that conduct legally exposes this journal is.”
Anyway, if you get to the point where legal tests are being applied, you are seriously unmoored in your research ethics to start with.
Carrick:
or to use another nautical metaphor, “have lost your bearings” unlike Queeg in hunter’s recent and insightful analogy at CA.
and now you have the University exactly where you want them.
Fronteirs establish the principle.
The university processes AFFIRM this principle.
Lew and the officials involved did not follow the guidelines.
The result is a retracted paper.
The remedy you seek is X.
I’m finding it difficult to understand why a paper which was admitted to be obviously flawed with regard to ethics was not yanked as soon as the issue was brought to light.
.
Let’s also not forget that, despite Frontiers claiming “perceived contradictions”, I’m still waiting to find out what “did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study” means if ethical issues were obvious?
I would reference page 3 of the foi release at desmog. ie Recursive FOI Complaints.pdf.
The inference is that they used a team of independent academics to evaluate so this is probably not just the Frontiers conclusion but also based on expert opinion.
With the few editors we are hearing about who resigned from Frontiers, how come we haven’t heard any thing about the editor who also made himself a reviewer of the Fury paper? He should have been fired by now, if he hasn’t already resigned. This fiasco continued under him until it went higher up as far as I can tell.
Dave JR, Note that Frontiers didn’t say they didn’t FIND any ethical or legal issues. Not to IDENTIFY any is a different matter entirely.
While I appreciate the additional clarity of Frontiers’ new statement, I’m bothered by a couple of items:
1) In their statement, they appear to limit ethical responsibility to legal liability: “It is well acknowledged and accepted that in order to protect a subject’s rights and avoid a potentially defamatory outcome, one must obtain the subject’s consent if they can be identified in a scientific paper.” This association implies that their ethical principles are as flexible as the strictest laws they can find. This is how Lewandowsky et al. were able to interpret the Frontiers attitude as purely legal in nature, and to believe that resubmitting on 1/1/2014 (when the latest UK libel laws went into effect) would allow them to pass Frontiers’ threshold.
2) “Frontiers then worked closely with the authors on a mutually agreed and measured retraction statement to avoid the retraction itself being misused.” I wonder who put forward the idea that a retraction of the paper would be “misused” — how? by whom? — unless it was carefully scrubbed of any hint of impropriety. At the risk of becoming a human echo machine, let me quote myself on one of the other threads: ‘I can think of nothing simpler and more straightforward for Frontiers than to say something like, “This rule is in place for the protection of human subjects. The paper did not comply, so we are forced to retract. We offered the authors an opportunity to submit a replacement paper, but their re-submission was also not compliant.
We apologize for not applying this rule at the time of submission, and we will take steps to ensure that such incidents will not be repeated.†‘
3) Ritual genuflection: “It is most unfortunate that this particular incident was around climate change, because climate change is a very serious threat for human civilization.” This is totally irrelevant, and seems merely a sop to avoid getting tarred as a “denier” publication by the dramagreens. They could have said something like, “Climate change is a particularly important subject at the moment.” Yes, I realize that vague expressions such as “very serious threat” are more of a Rorschach blot than a scientific evaluation. Just another instance of “political correctness”, I suppose.
Note that retraction watch also posted t his
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/09/chief-specialty-editor-resigns-from-frontiers-in-wake-of-controversial-retraction/
“The mistake was detected after publication”
This one is bit hard to swallow given that one of their own editors was a reviewer. Mistake detected by the editor in chief I guess he means.
Frontiers appears to be doing the right thing, they retracted the paper, and after people started a disinformation campaign as to why, they corrected the record, now twice.
In my opinion this was a simple name and shame effort with just enough plausible deniability to give it the authority of science. Not sure how clever this plan really was, given its transparency of intent.
From UWA’s perspective, the last thing they want to be forced to say is : “We find no ethical problems with identifying subjects in this published research paper (as opposed to the study) without their informed consent”.
Of course they have implicitly said this by keeping the paper posted, but I think it will be hard for any administrator to take a formal stance here and say this out loud. They will contort themselves in every which way to avoid directly addressing this issue.
UWA should clarify their stance. Frontiers did.
Malice in the USA means you didn’t believe what you said.
Malice in the uk is much closer to it’s vernacular meaning.
Given lewandowsky’s past and continuing public antipathy to many of his subjects, I think that there is a chance that uk malice could be proven.
“Zucca added:
Frontiers stands by its decision to retract the article, which it considers to have been the right and responsible course of action.”
.
That, and it just about eliminates liability for a lawsuit from someone who was defamed by Lew and Co. Two good outcomes for the price of one.
.
Tom Scharf,
I agree they should step up, do the right thing, and take down the offending document, but I rather suspect they will never do that, unless faced with a defamation suit. There are no laws (at least not yet) against thinking climate science exaggerates the threat of GHG driven warming, but there are laws against defamation and there are ethical requirements for human subject studies. They clearly think a ‘name-and-shame’ paper is ethically defensible to promote an important green cause; a lawsuit would help them focus more clearly on the legal and ethical issues involved.
Actually, I think it is not impossible that stricter us malice might be shown. I think it possible that Lewandowsky might not truly believe it when he said prominent skeptics are conspiracy theorists and Have psychopathological symptoms.
Discovery (trawl through his emails and other documents) would be the way to determine if he truly believed what he said.
Just like Mann is apparently hoping to do to steyn.
anita freeman wrote: “Dave JR, Note that Frontiers didn’t say they didn’t FIND any ethical or legal issues. Not to IDENTIFY any is a different matter entirely.”
.
It’s not a different matter. Ethical issues *WERE* “identified”. Both clarifications are specific on this point. This indicates the previous statement was either wrong or disingenuous.
.
“It is well acknowledged and accepted” that participant’s identities in scientific studies must be protected. It didn’t require a detailed investigation to discover this fact. It was self evident. Naming individuals is the most blatant violation of basic scientific ethics possible and yet the journal sat on it.
.
I’m afraid all this gives me the impression that the journal had a lot more regard for supporting Lewandowsky than they did for upholding the basic ethics of their field. The real irony is that The Team took the “mutually agreed and measured retraction statement to avoid the retraction itself being misused”, designed to save face by apportioning blame for the retraction on those who complained their rights had been abused, and cynically misused it to further the goals of the paper, thereby forcing Frontiers to retaliate.
‘The real irony is that The Team took the “mutually agreed and measured retraction statement to avoid the retraction itself being misusedâ€, designed to save face by apportioning blame for the retraction on those who complained their rights had been abused, and cynically misused it to further the goals of the paper.’ If so, they miscalculated badly.
HaroldW, here is my summary of what I have learned from this debacle, in the form of a response to your comments:
You say In their statement, they appear to limit ethical responsibility to legal liability
Other than where clearly delimitated in the bi-laws of the publisher, I think that’s the normal standard for a journal. It’s the responsibility of the researcher and his institute to police their own ethical behavior.
Journals will publish things they think are false, do not follow good scientific practices, etc, as long as they think that by publishing this paper, the process of science has been advanced.
The point of journals is to facilitate a formal process for communication of ideas, not to certify that that everything was done correctly. That is left to the research community to decide. If the journal acts like too much of a gate keeper, this will inflict greater harm on the community by the failure to expose new ideas to people, than the harm done by e.g. exposing people to really badly executed research projects.
Regarding point 2—the purpose of the retraction is to remove the legal liability not to punish the author(s). If you can reduce the chance of legal action from the author by including him in the retraction statement, doing so also reduces your legal liability.
Journals are not guardians of truth or ethics, they are meant as a vehicle to allows authors to communicate ideas. It is the community that must regulate the behavior of the individuals, and to ensure that standards of ethical practice are met.
Regarding point 3—ritual genuflection — I think it was appropriate for them to state their own views on climate change and to point out that this decision in no way reflected the views of the editors on climate change.
It sounds like this:
Is now part of the bi-laws of Frontiers, whether it was before or not.
Besides this obvious unethical behavior, there is a very serious problem with this paper that should have been caught and prevented publishing. Namely, that the views of the subjects, vis-a-vis global warming were grossly miss-represented.
Tom Scharf (Comment #128412)
April 11th, 2014 at 10:54 am
“The mistake was detected after publicationâ€
This one is bit hard to swallow given that one of their own editors was a reviewer. “”
Do we know who this editor/reviewer was? Could it be one of the resigning editors?
Sorry – misrepresented
I just hope that we hear further on their review of the academic issues related to the papers.
I hope that the metadata people (like Barry) are looking for is ultimately obtained and we can read a well ground analysis of what looks like a very flawed paper (it fails on all three grounds – legal, ethical AND academic).
What a colossal backfire for Lewandowsky et al.
It seems like there is a lot of material from this incident showing the mental state of a science advocate – which would make for a fascinating opinion piece in a journal about science philosophy or the science of science. Perhaps something about the ends not justifying the means (or is that old?).
Dave JR, “Identify” is ambiguous and I’m quite sure intentionally so. I believe it was part of the weasel-wording agreed with the authors in the interim retraction notice. They chose not to write ” We found a goodly number of ethical and legal issues but we are not naming or identifying them.”
MikeR wrote: “If so, they miscalculated badly.”
.
Not that badly. The added notoriety has done wonders for the paper and the story they wanted told has already been disseminated.
We’ll have to wait and see how successful it has been from what comes next. It may be out of the “official” record for superfluous “ethical” reasons, but The Message tends to have a life of its own.
Carrick (#128418) –
Regarding #2, you wrote that the journal should be careful in its retraction notice not to provide a cause of action for the authors. I see no reason why an author would claim defamation from a simple statement that the paper was pulled because it didn’t comply with the journal’s polices, as long as the statement didn’t imply malfeasance. On the other hand, Dana wrote of Frontiers, “I suspect they’ve now opened themselves up to legal action by the authors whose legal agreement they broke.” So it seems that the very process of putting out a compromise statement (and then being somewhat more transparent) has increased Frontiers’ legal risk.
I breathlessly await the release of the next paper, Retractive Fury, concerning the reaction to the retraction.
As Steve McIntyre pointed out, here is what Frontiers _said_ they wanted to be able to say in their statement:
“The idea would be that the team’s report could state that they have seen UWA’s decision and the background documents and are happy to be able to rely on that as a solid and well-founded decision (assuming that to be the case.)”
http://climateaudit.org/2014/03/21/lewandowskys-fury/
To me, that leaves no doubt that what they actually said does not preclude the fact that they “could not rely on [the UWA investigation] as a solid and well-founded decision”. Weasel-worded instead.
Copner (Comment #128413)Â
April 11th, 2014 at 11:14 am
“ Malice in the USA means you didn’t believe what you said.
Malice in the uk is much closer to it’s vernacular meaning.â€
Malice in all common law jurisdictions will make unlawful that which would otherwise be lawful, and many torts are based on this. Mann sues Steyn for a malicious tort, Steyn counter-claims against Mann for a malicious tort. The requirement of malice is reformulated specifically for each tort. But, malice is never proved by simply showing malicious glee at the others discomfort. It must be shown that the act is done with the sole, or overwhelmingly predominant purpose of causing harm, and not for any other lawful purpose.
Assume that Lew et Al were spitefully ecstatic with their ‘ Gotcha’ coup – that alone would not prove malice in law, it would be necessary to show that RF was published solely with the intent to cause harm and with no scientific intent at all. I think that would be a tall order. The paper is severely flawed, the details Lew has given of the re-write read like a critique of the obvious flaws in the original paper, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t published in good faith.
The weakness of Lew’s defence might be in the expertise of the reviewer, who, for many reasons, may not qualify as an expert reviewer, that would remove a S6 defence, but even then, defamation is actionable only on proof of serious harm. Here we are dealing with personalities in a factional dispute who have mature reputations. I think proving any harm at all would be difficult.
HaroldW:
The problem from the point of the journal is an error was apparently made in accepting the paper, but the problems with the paper that caused the paper to be retracted reflect negatively on the authors. So admitting the errors now legally exposes the journal
I suspect the journals calculation is that Lewandowsky made statements prior to their additional statements that already nullified the prior legal agreement (e.g., his “summary” of media coverage).
I spoke to Frederick Fenter – Executive Editor of Frontiers, who co-signed the previous statement, and I sent him a follow up email about what we discussed.
I have added that email under the comments of the new statement.
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Retraction_of_Recursive_Fury_A_Statement/812
Who want to tell the University of Western Australia that they are hosting a paper that a Psychology journal deemed unethical
Who wants to tell Bristol University, that their new Chair of Cognitive Psychology, doesn’t understand human research ethics?
Who want to tell the Royal Society, that the medal winner, does not understand research ethics of human participants
speaking to people is so much more productive than emails…
(in the first instance as they get to know your tone, and realise it is a real person)
Barry,
I think it’s better to make more specific complaints than “X doesn’t understand Y”. I know which one I’m pursuing and this most recent clarification from Frontiers isn’t going to entice me to a different course.
I also think it’s best not to speak for the journal, rewording their finding in a way the journal might consider an exaggeration. The found ethical lapses is not the same as they find it’s unethical.
“It is well acknowledged and accepted that in order to protect a subject’s rights and avoid a potentially defamatory outcome, one must obtain the subject’s consent if they can be identified in a scientific paper.â€
I can’ t go all the way with Mr Markham on this. It can’t be the case that public discourse should remain immune from scientific study. If climate blogs should be immunised, what about Islamic blogs, or Christian blogs or, porn blogs, or suicide blogs, let alone political blogs.
A content analysis may yield perfectly valid insights into the social significance of any of these, and the insights may not be flattering. Necessarily, text would need to be gathered from these blogs, and the text would form part of the disclosable data on publication of a paper. Using plagiarism software, the source of the text can be easily found, and it can be attributed to a person, who like me and many others, do not comment anonymously. They may not like what the study says about them, but that does not make it defamatory.
Say, for instance, a particular comment was characterised as hypocritical, or misogynistic, would that be defamatory? Not if it was true, and the pursuit of science is the pursuit of truth. You can’t sue on the basis of an undeserved reputation. Sometimes the finding may be untrue, it happens a lot in science, but that possibility can’t be allowed to preclude the study of public discourse.
Mr Markham’s position is novel in this respect. No one has ever suggested before that an analysis of historic text required consent to be quoted, and such a requirement would have a chilling effect on valid scientific study. This, presumably is why academics seek privilege for peer reviewed papers. I can think of no other reason.
You have only to look at the dog’s-breakfast his proposition caused in this case. Lew re-did the study, but anonymised the quotes by paraphrasing them so they didn’t get caught by plagiarism software. That is completely unacceptable. The whole idea is to reduce experimenter bias, not increase the opportunities. I’d love to see his paraphrases, to see whether they more closely complied with his preconceptions than the original.
The problem with RF was that it was a very bad paper in its methodology, it’s a classic example of how to introduce experimenter bias. According to Lew, some attempt was made to spatch-cock it into the form of a conventional content analysis, but without sight of it, it’s hard to guess how far he went.
For me, Mr Markham has hit the wrong target here, his ethical objections will simply make valid science more difficult. He should have focused on rigorous peer- review and rigorous experimental methodology in what purports to be a scientific paper.
I just wondered how much Frontiers relied on the UWA’s ethics investigation and ethics approval.. They were unaware of Marriott’s conduct when I spoke to Frontiers yesterday. The approval said observe, Lewandowsky advised the ethics officer, no direct participation of any sort…
yet-co-author Marriot was already in the comments of – Lewandowsky’s blog, stirring things up, directly interacting with people named in the paper/dataset. Days before they got the amended approval for the paper. Again against UWA stated policy.
Fury choose a start date of 28th August – because this is when they say discussion started… this purely seems so they could identify sources of ‘ideation’ at the main sceptic blogs.. and point fingers.
BUT sceptics were talking about LOG12 for 5 weeks prior to that date…..
And there here was a Huffington Post article (~400 comments) about the paper in the middle of July 2012.
A Guardian article on the 27th July (this had over 1300 comments)
Prof Lewandowsky had sent a copy to Dr Adam Corner (Cardiff Uni, Psychologist and Guardian contributor) over a month prior to the press release.
LOG 12 was discussed, at Corner’s blog Talking Climate, from late July, where he reproduced his Guardian article, arguably that is where much of the criticism started…
http://talkingclimate.org/are-climate-sceptics-more-likely-to-be-conspiracy-theorists/
(4 people out of 40 comments there, ended up in the Fury dataset/paper)
It was discussed at Bishop Hill throughout August and- NoTricksZone, Manic Bean Counter, Katabassis, and a number of other blogs)
These would be the earlier sources of ‘ideations (WUWT, JO NOva, Climate Audit were discussing ‘old news’, and surprise, surprise Fury found the biggest most high profile sceptic sites, found more people talking about Lewandowsky…!
But the sceptic blogs were discussing the comments (negative ones) found underneath the ‘pro-science’ blogs that held the LOG12 survey 2 years previously (but we could not Skeptical Science one) those comments underneath the surveys were very very negative about the survey…
so arguably those were the true sources of much of ‘conspiracy ideations’!
All the ‘Fury’ paper was, was a contrived (probably subconscious, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and all that) response by climate activists (Lewandowsky, Cook, Marriott) to point to WUWT, Climate Audit, Jo Nova, and a few other thorns (to settle a score or 2, Jeff, Geoff & Lucia) and to say. Look, peer reviewed science, don’t trust those blogs, they are sources of conspiracy.. Science says so… and the media and believers would have fallen for it. (and many still have)
Bob:
I think you are confusing defamation law with the ethical requirements of a psychology journal.
Your examples relate to defaming a person, not psychoanalyzing them in a journal paper.
It would be very easy to do an anonymous paper analyzing twitter posts (or whatever) – using letters or numbers to identify the people, rather than their names – and write the paper you describe (in my opinion).
Now if someone could go to the SI – pull out a quote, do a google search and learn the identify of a person – that could be done (I suppose) – but would not be an ethical violation of the author of the paper (in my opinion).
Still very different than what L did.
Barry Woods (Comment #128435)
I took a closer look at Fury fig.2 after your comment at Frontiers:
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/bding0bding/FuryFig2_zps00df25e0.png
No comments after 9/23 until after the FOI email release, with the densest cluster around 9/10. Interesting. What would fig. 2 have looked like if they hadn’t stirred the pot. Looks like interest was waning on the 8th and petered out on the ninth, 11 days after their sample period started.
Recursive Fury
makes Lew dig a deeper hole
to our wonderment.
RickA,
I’m not sure, but having read the discussion of “identifyable”, “reidentifyable” and “non-identifyable”, I think you might be wrong. In fact, a recent paper did do a twitter analysis of discussions of the IPCC: they did not provide a document containing quotes. Their discussion of methodology seems to suggest they would consider it unethical to do so.
“lucia (Comment #128385)
April 11th, 2014 at 8:19 am
hunter,
It may be that Lew/Dana really, honestly do not understand the ethics issue and for that reason is stuck on the potential for defamation when individuals are identified. ”
No. Every yes Lew has to reaccredit for all the various IRB human subject protocols. You have a background online page, then fill in the multiguess questions; you need 100% to proceed. It takes about an hour to do each block; typically you need 5 blocks to work with human subjects; that includes me who only handles tumors and blood.
When he moved to Bristol, we would have had to sit all the UK Institutional Ethics courses and answered all their quizzes. He would have covered all the ethical good practice procedures and also the legal stuff; Institutions are very keen that you understand all the legal implications as they can claim that they made sure a researcher was informed of the law and signed that they understood.
So sorry Lucia, Lew knew exactly what he had to do withing the ethical guidelines of Australian and UK research practice.
So skeptics were right, once again:
Lewandowsky and gang are sleaze balls, his paper is crap, and he hides behind his lawyers so he continue going ‘naah-naaah-naah.
Lewandowsky and pals are the poster boys of the climate obsessed.
Glad we could get that cleared up and enjoy ourselves in the process.
I cannot wait to see the next chapter in the soap opera tragic-comedy efforts of Lewandowsky & gang to fabricate even more new faux pathologies to pretend skeptics are suffering from. I wonder what Uni he jumps to next? Which one wants such an august academic?
@DocMartin: exactly right. I don’t know for sure about the specific standards at UWA, but the training for understanding the ethical issues in human subjects research is a really big deal in the US. The institutions that I’m familiar with all require researchers to go through specific ethics training and testing. Periodic reviews are necessary to be able to continue to conduct academic research. No documentation that you are up to date on your training, and you are prevented from submitting research protocols or continuing existing protocols. Since most academicians in the US that do human subject research are doing funded research, not having up to date ethics training means not being able to fulfill your grant obligations. Violations of patient safety (including ethical lapses) and the host institution can loose government funding, not just for the specific grant where the violation occurred, but all federal funding can be cut. My expectation is that Lew would be familiar with the ethics issues.
In fact, the ethics violations in this case are so clear that the paper ought never to have been published. Lew was wrong (in so many ways) about this paper. Frontiers was also wrong and ought not get a pass for publishing it in the first place.
Bruce
Interesting…
So either Lew is an idiot and did not know about serious ethics issues in a field he has been a part of for years and once pointed out he confused ethics violations for legal defamation liability or he is smart and tried to slide the ethics issues past the ethics officer and the reviewers and the journal and mislead the public by getting weasel worded statements posted by the journal and university.
Is it conspiracy ideation to think Lew is smart?
If so, does that mean that everyone who thinks Lew is smart must also believe in conspiracy theories?
RickA (Comment #128436)Â
April 11th, 2014 at 2:52 pm
“Bob:
I think you are confusing defamation law with the ethical requirements of a psychology journal.
Your examples relate to defaming a person, not psychoanalyzing them in a journal paper.â€
Well, Mr Markham links the two explicitly in his statement, and damage to reputation is being flagged as the harm which makes the disclosure unethical. I think there’s a very direct link being made between the two. My objection to his formulation isn’t on a legal basis, it’s scientific, I think it’s scientifically misconceived. By all means protect the identities of participants if possible to do so, but if that becomes impossible, it shouldn’t place a domain off-limits to scientific enquiry.
“ It would be very easy to do an anonymous paper analysing twitter posts (or whatever) – using letters or numbers to identify the people, rather than their names – and write the paper you describe (in my opinion).â€
It’s possible to conceive of studies where it’s possible to conceal participants identities, but it’s also possible to conceive of studies where it’s not. Think of a paper titled, “Consensus Ideation and Defensive Thought in Perpetuation of Modal Models in Climate Science as mediated by hubs in the Blogosphere.â€
Are names already flitting through your mind? To produce a valid and rigorous content analysis, which could be repeated using the experimenter’s original data, individuals would be identifiable. That’s science. To conceal data on the basis that individuals could be identified wouldn’t make it ethical science, it would make it cease to be science at all. It would, in fact, be an invitation to scientific fraud. Anyone could chuck out a paper fashionably prejudicing some group and claim the calumny is validated by science. And, it wouldn’t be possible even to attempt to replicate it using their own data. Science is about replicability, that’s what sorts the gold from the dross. Original data must be disclosed, even if it enables participants to be identified.
“Now if someone could go to the SI – pull out a quote, do a google search and learn the identify of a person – that could be done (I suppose) – but would not be an ethical violation of the author of the paper (in my opinion).
Still very different than what L did.â€
In fact, this is exactly the mischief that Lew sought to guard against in the re-written paper he proposed to have Frontiers publish alongside the retraction, and which they declined to publish on ethical grounds. That may have been a partial disclosure intended to conceal more than it reveals. Frontiers has rapidly acquired a reputation for this. I speculate, but the re-write will have been submitted for peer-review, and the peer-reviewers could have been far more heavy-weight than the reviewer of the original paper. The re-write may have been refused on any number of grounds, and the novel ground now disclosed by the editor may not be the only one.
Qualification:
“Original data must be disclosed, even if it enables participants to be identified.â€
Should read:
“Original data must be disclosed, even if it enables participants who have entered a public debate to be identified.â€
I don’t want to confuse people who never entered the public domain with those who have.
Has anyone a reason to think that any of this is still an issue at UWA?
Can they really continue to ignore it, if that is what is happening? Can they be legally compelled to respond to a detailed enquiry and if so from whom?
j ferguson – this still seems live
http://australianclimatemadness.com/2014/04/05/email-to-uwa-ethics-department/
@Bob Denton (Comment #128433)
You might be interested to see an example of Lewandowsky paraphrasing a blog comment (not from Fury) in his “In Whose Hands the Future?” video presentation at 36 minutes in.
The following paraphrase appears on screen also showing a partial name ending in ‘Sceptic’, and a partial date ‘2013 at 9:44 pm’
I suspect he would not have done it that way in Recursive Fury since the partial name and date adds enough information there to find the exact quote he used which is this one here.
Obscuring the origin of this quote might have worked without the date and name (I had a brief attempt to find it with just the content without success), however if you watch the context of his paraphrased quote in the video, and then look at the context of the source quote it seems to me he is using the quote in a misleading way.
Hi Barry, I did not find the email mentioned at (Comment #128430)
April 11th, 2014 at 1:29 pm. I think I found all of your comments.
Your link was to the April 4 statement. I think it needs to be this link where your series of posts starts the conversation.
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Rights_of_Human_Subjects_in_Scientific_Papers/830
Bob:
Your example paper sounds very interesting. Are you sure it could not be done without naming names?
Polls don’t publish the names of the people polled.
Surveys don’t publish the names of the people surveyed.
There is a lot of science being done based on the database of publicly available tweats – and they don’t publish the twitter handles or usernames of the people making the tweats.
A lot of research is being done by looking at google searches, and they don’t publish the ip addresses of the machines the searches originated from.
So I really doubt we will be seeing a flood of papers naming names and psychoanalysing people based on their public statements.
However, I could be wrong. We will have to wait to see.
I would like to know of examples of any social science study similar to Recursive Fury. You could argue there may not be any legal issues with Recursive Fury but the ethics of it seem clearly problematic if not just plain bizarre. I mean, Recursive Fury uses comments in reply to the lead authors STW blog, on subjects where he was discussing the alleged conspiratorial nature of the criticism of his previous paper LOG12, and then goes on to write Recursive Fury citing these responses as typical examples of conspiratorial thinking! Can there be any other papers constructed like this before?
In Lewandowsky’s STW latest post The analysis of speech, he mentions a study handling “hot-button issues such as anti-Semitism” as an implied comparison in defence Recursive Fury’s methodology, but when I tracked the study down it turns out the statements used in it had already effectively been conceded as anti-semitic by the subject by the time they were used in the study.
I commented on this on STW saying it seemed a poor example to choose as an implicit defence of the RF methodology but my comment appears late in the comments in the middle of a bun fight so I don’t anticipate an answer. 🙂
Edit: BTW I have a comment #128472 in moderation, dunno if it’s the links?
I am going to go create a bunch of sock puppets that say silly
warmist things.
then Im going to write a paper about it.
Lucia, I have noticed a strange silence from Nucitelli and Lew after this latest statement. I think the game may be up for them. Having already admitted they don’t have detailed recollections of what happened or the records, the Journal likely holds the documentation to prove their point, and Lew and crew may be smart enough to know that further attacks on the journal may cause Fronteirs to release this documentation. In the political circus the climate debate has become, I am expecting no admission of the slightest error, but perhaps blessed silence. The paper is retracted and UWA has a lot of explaining to do. Keep up the good work.
David,
It’s hard to say if the game is up. Silence could just mean they are doing something silent.
I would adduce the following evidence:
1. Lew said in I believe his most recent blog post that they have not detailed recollection of these events and that they destroyed all the documentation at the request of Frontiers. The latter may be an untruth, but he would be unlikely to admit he doesn’t recall if that were not either true or he was worried that he needs deniability if this issue goes further.
2. Dana’s posts on retraction watch on this issue now seem to be either the result of self-deception or misrepresentation. It would be embarrassing for him if Frontiers released the documentation.
3. These people are not usually so reticent. It is unusual and requires an explanation.
4. Their last support is UWA and they may have been reading your blog and know that they have a very weak case under Australian law.
It’s not a conspiracy!! 🙂 But it is a possible explanation. They have been letting the lesser lights of the political arm of their political clique carry the ball. You know Sou and BBD.
I do believe its very likely if they had evidence they were right, they would produce it.
Further, Frontiers is a business and it is standard business practice to save this kind of documentation particularly if there was any hint that there might be legal issues involved. Regardless of whether they received “threats,” which I doubt, they received well reasoned and convincing complaints that would lead a careful businessman to worry that there might be legal issues.
A reasonable hypothesis as to how this happened is that the editor who handled the paper has done similar work in the past and was sympathetic to the authors. He wanted to publish the paper and eventually found reviewers who would produce positive reviews. Frontiers management probably became aware of this only after they received convincing complaints and then the search for a way out of the mess began. If Lew and Dana had just left well enough alone, they would have suffered much less damage.
“He wanted to publish the paper and eventually found reviewers who would produce positive reviews.”
That should be eventually found a pre-doc reviewer who would produce a positive review to go with his own.
I’ve been wondering why Lew now refers to RF as a ‘ narrative analysis’ when, in the paper, he describes it as a ‘content analysis’ , so I’ve resorted to the internet. In summary, he attempted to pass-off a BA (Psch) analysis (subjective) paper as a BSc empirical science (objective) paper – but is now attempting to back-track.
You can find a definition of narrative analysis here:
http://staff.bath.ac.uk/psscg/QM-Nar-lec.htm
Read what’s listed under Research Methods – in particular:
“ Usually the researcher says very little, acting primarily as an attentive listener, but — All narratives are always co-constructed, even if the audience is oneself or an imaginary other, or if the story is told to oneself in the form of a daydream.â€
This is definitely not the realm of empirical science.
A description of content analysis can be found here:
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/sommerb/sommerdemo/content/doing.htm
I can recognise this as content analysis as I was taught it.
Two fundamental distinctions between the two are: first, in narrative analysis, excerpting is permitted, the researcher can chose the text he wishes to study, in content analysis the text must be chosen at random: secondly, in narrative analysis, the researcher is an essential co-participant, in content analysis the researcher is not a participant.
Lew’s unpublished rewrite of RF introduces some essential features of content analysis which were not present in the retracted version, but insufficient to transform it into a content analysis. This feeds my suspicion that when the spotlight was shone on the paper, in peer-review, the re-write encountered problems beyond the ethical issues. .
RickA (Comment #128475)Â
April 12th, 2014 at 9:52 am
“Bob:
Your example paper sounds very interesting. Are you sure it could not be done without naming names?
——
So I really doubt we will be seeing a flood of papers naming names and psychoanalysing people based on their public statements.â€
Here is an example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714455/
The title of the paper is:
“The Sarrazin effect: the presence of absurd statements in conspiracy theories makes canonical information less plausible.â€
It’s a hatchet job on Sarrazin, a distinguished public figure, who published an influential book ( which parallels Mark Steyn’s hypothesis about the muslification of Europe.)
The researchers say of him:
“In his book Sarrazin devises a scenario which displays all of our criteria for a conspiracy theory.â€
“So a conspiracy theory (in the sense outlined here) bears many dangers: the complex and anecdotic reasoning immunizes against falsification. Extreme constituents attract attention and polarize the debate; and they also might induce a shift of people’s individual explanatory constructs toward a conspiratorial plot. In sum, a flavor of oddness might not be a weakness of such theories, but indeed an integral part and enabler of their persuasive power.â€
“With a case study of Sarrazin’s book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany is abolishing itself) we illustrated the danger of a theory containing established facts, speculations and rather crude opinions.â€
Although Sarrazin gets his name in the title to the paper, has he consented to being a participant, to being the subject of psychological analysis? No. Should he be able to veto a study on his public utterances by refusing informed consent to the paper? In my view – absolutely not.
Would you consider trying to conceal his involuntary participation in the study, and if so, how would you do it?
Bob Denton – I would suggest this link may provide a better set of definitions than those provided in the paper you linked.
http://www.critical-thinking.org.uk/conspiracy-theories/what-are-conspiracy-theories.php
For me the issue is that the Fury paper trawls peoples comments and attributes characteristics to those people which can be perceived to be analysing the person.
In the paper you attach they are attacking the theory though by linking to extreme conspiracy theories they are close to crossing a line. The fury and hoax papers also go down the linking route and in my opinion cross over the line.
clivere (Comment #128502)Â
April 13th, 2014 at 5:33 am
“Bob Denton – I would suggest this link may provide a better set of definitions than those provided in the paper you linked.
http://www.critical-thinking.o…..eories.phpâ€
I’m a little confused, as I haven’t taken any view on the definition of a conspiracy theory. If you’d like a context for the analysis of conspiracy theories I find fairly balanced, it’s set out in this paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705173/
It takes the concept out of the realm of psychopathology.
“For me the issue is that the Fury paper trawls peoples comments and attributes characteristics to those people which can be perceived to be analysing the person.â€
I agree with this, and my take on the innovative, and questionable, aspect of RF by which this is achieved can be found here:
http://spacenab.com/dissid/96/Recursive-Fury-The-fatal-flaws.html
But my recent posts are concerned with the methodological difference between what the paper is and what it purports to be, and the ethics of using the name and and words of a non-consenting participant in a study of public discourse.
Poor old Sarrazin has an ‘ effect’ named after him – the potentiation of a conspiracy theory by adding an especially loony element to it – and he didn’t consent. Does anyone really think that his consent should be required? Mr Markham’s formulation of the ethical principle would require it; I think he’s got it wrong.
Bob Denton,
You put a nice light on the flawed assumption that a person’s writing can be parsed to diagnose much of anything medical. It would also seem that the way the academics who write the papers you bring into the light are making up definitions as they go. Not in order to find psychological conditions, but to put their political opponents in disrepute.
@Steven Mosher (Comment #128477)
Why construct sock puppets making loony things up when climate obsessed people do it for free?
Bob Denton – the definition of conspiracy theory becomes important because there is a lack of clear definition in the literature so it may mean different things to different people. A major criticism I have of fury is the apparent desire to make a false link from legitimate enquiry and speculation in situations where information is missing to the “paranoid conspiracy theorists” as described in the link I have provided.
In the paper you link they provide their own definitions and assert but fail to establish that Sarrazin is promoting a conspiracy theory in line with their definition. In fact they only provide one paragraph that discusses the book with a reference to one page but no quotation. Without reading the book (which I have no intent of doing) I have no way of verifying if the assertions made in the paper are valid.
Who idenifies subjects without their consent? It’s sooooo simple.
Its possible that the original paper is intended to smear skeptics with something that has the veneer of science (psychological flaws). The retraction happens and the authors and their supporters use this in exactly the same way (legal bullies). In both situations ignoring much simpler explanations.
Finally, the source of so much of the academic climate obsessed research by non-climate scientists:
http://eric.worrall.name/kant.cgi
Oh wow! That’s brilliant. It’s different each time you click “new paper”!! I wish I’d cut and pasted gems from the first.
Bob Denton,
Is that Michael Sarrazin? He’s dead, which makes a big difference both with regard to harm, and defamation.
hunter,
I had thought that it might be fun to invent sockpuppet warmists with suitable comments posted to Mosher’s blog.
But alas, after reviewing ZDB’s latest at Bishop’s and considering some seen frequently at Judith’s, I doubted that I could do as good a job as they are already.
But Mosher is pretty creative.
Bob:
What are the names of the 30 people studied in this paper?
Lucia:
I think it is Thilo Sarrazin. He also wrote a book in 2012. I am not sure whether he is dead yet or not.
To me the more important fact is that the paper Bob is talking about studied 30 people – and none of the 30 are named. L named the people he studied.
OK… I”m looking at the paper that mentions Sarrazin’s name in the title. Of course, that’s the name of a person.
The authors surely considered the students (not Sarrazin) the subjects:
Their statements are studied. They are kept anonymous. LIkely all filled out consent forms.
There seems to them be the actual study. The author believes the participants to be
The paper seems to be studying the effect text in Sarrazin’s book has on others (not on Sarrazin).
With respect to literal application of rule of ethics to Sarrazin, things become touchy when the paper reaches
“In his book Sarrazin devises a scenario which displays all of our criteria for a conspiracy theory: While Germany’s population is diminishing, Muslim minorities keep growing due to constantly high birth rates (odd event). . . ”
Interestingly: Sarrazin’s statements are not accused of exhibiting “conspiracy ideation”. Just that they describe an actual theory. So, no trait is attributed to him or his text. This is the opposite of what Lew did. Lew identified ‘ideation’ in the text. (Had he wished to show they actually described any theory he would have failed even worse than showing the ‘idea’ because he used the notion of ‘idea in our heads’ to try to ‘read our minds’ and suggests that we think things we never said.) I’m not sure what difference this makes to the ethics evaluation.
But the question that need to asked is whether
Sarrazin is a “participant”. As it happens, his statements are not used to support or rebut the finding of the paper. They put the findings from a study of other people in historical content. So, he might not be a ‘participant’. This might be a close question and would need to be debated. (In contrast, the people named in Lew are definitely participants.)
RickA–
Agreed. The author of that study definitely believes it is the behavior of the anonymous participants he is studying and reporting.
Once could debate whether he crossed some line by mentioning Sarrazin. But Sarrazin and his discussions are not the object of study.
Another issue about the paper on the Sarrazin effect: It’s actually proposing a method to study how humans form narratives that avoids using narratives in books like Sarrazin
The go on to design an implement a method that does not base its results on narrative analysis of Sarrazin’s book!
@ j ferguson,
Yes, Mosher has a keen sharp blade for wit. It would be interesting to see what he could come up with.
lucia,
Glad you liked it. I should have given a h/t to WUWT, for the sake of full disclosure.
lucia (Comment #128511)Â
April 13th, 2014 at 7:33 am
“Bob Denton,
Is that Michael Sarrazin? He’s dead, which makes a big difference both with regard to harm, and defamation.â€
Bear in mind, this relates to Germany, a Civil Law country. I don’t know the law of Germany, but in Scotland, another civil law country, death makes no difference. The dead can suffer harm to their reputation and their kin can sue in defamation.
RickA (Comment #128513)Â
April 13th, 2014 at 7:41 am
“Bob:
What are the names of the 30 people studied in this paper?â€
You answer my questions first and I’ ll give you the name of every participant who entered into public discourse.
Rick A, Lucia.
Lew broke his study of climate science denial down into two parts, a survey (Hoax) and a case study (RF).
In Sarrazin the same pattern is followed, a survey(including an S-R element) and a case study, but both are comprised in the same paper.
In both cases the subjects who participated in the survey were not identified. In both cases the participants who had participated in public discourse were identified.
I disagree with you, and agree with the authors of Sarrazin that he was a central case study in their paper, and, of course, a participant.
Lucia, when you write:
“Interestingly: Sarrazin’s statements are not accused of exhibiting “conspiracy ideationâ€. Just that they describe an actual theory. So, no trait is attributed to him or his text. This is the opposite of what Lew did.â€
you, in fact, come close to adopting Lew’s argument:
“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.
This is the difference between saying “Joe is a racist” and saying “When Joe and Fred get together in a bar at night their discourse contains racist elements based on application of the following scholarly criteria.”
and, personally, I find both positions equally uncompelling.
I swear Lucia, Lew must be reading this blog. He has a new blog post about the paper. It is just the same weak tea. Basically, he says Frontiers latest contradicts the original retraction statement. Well that means absolutely nothing. The original statement was negotiated with the authors and represented a compromise position. The latest statements are presumably Frontiers position. And he also revisits the claim that there were threats and that we know that because people have revealed publicly that there were threats. Well, Frontiers is perfectly capable of determining if they were threatened. They don’t need any input on that question. Lew once again is mind reading, a well known pathology. We of course know what Lew’s position is. It is compromised.
Bob Denton,
Can you provide post quotes from the “case study” portion of Sarrazin study discussing it’s aims and methods so we can see which part you think is a “case study”?
As far as I can see, I’m contrasting
In Fury, the narrative analysis discussion statements that are evidence of “conspiracy ideation” — that is thought processes that would suggest people are prone to adopt conspiracy theories. (Example NI, NI, NoA and so on). The Sarrazin study does not discuss the “ideation” associated with the statements. It does provide a summary of the claims actually made which is a different thing.
There is a difference between saying a “This statement says someone think that sending out invitations at different times might suggest something disreputable” and saying “This statement is evidence of Nihilistic Skepticism”. Both engage “statements”. Sarrazin did the former which is ok– it just summarizes the claim actually made. Lew did the latter, it infers the mental state associated with making that claim. (That state is “NS”). Moreover, the entire “scientific contribution” or the Lew paper has to do with inferring the mental state associated with making “these statemetns”. As statements themselves have no ‘mental state’ and statements do not just ‘make themselves’. So claims that attributing a mental state (NS) to a statement is somehow different form atributing that mental state to the person who made the statement exhibit tortured logic. I would suggest that if you infer I am suggesting that people who make such claims are at least sometimes subject to the mental states of “Suffering From Imperfectly Logic”, you would be correct.
So: doing all three of the following together is making a claim about an identifyable person:
(1) posting a quote
(2) stating the quote is associated with a particular “mental state” or “characteristic” and
(3) posting the quote in a way that makes it possible to know who made the statement
is making a claim about the mental state or characteristic of a person.
Now it seems to be the case that some (possibly Lew or you) think that inferring the mental state associated with a statement somehow doesn’t infer, suggest, say or what have you the mental state of the person who made the statement, but I would suggest that others would differ.
Bob Denton (Comment #128527)
April 13th, 2014 at 10:39 am Edit This
Bob Denton,
What question to you want answered?
If it’s the question embedded in here
That’s been engaged. If he is a participant, yes his consent is required and should have been obtained. If he is not a participant, no. I’m not seeing him as a participant– but maybe he was. If so, there is a problem with that paper and it should have been rewritten. I think the paper could have been written by merely discussing the study involving the 30 subjects observed.
If you think he was a participant who was studied, you can explain why.
If there is some other question you would like answered, please repeat the question.
It’s my impression that Bob is struggling over what constitutes a human subject for research (if you aren’t a subject, then you don’t have the rights of a human subject).
Anyway here’s the sentence of Markram’s that I think Bob is questioning:
The way I’ve been exposed to it is generally you need informed consent unless the study meets certain requirements that specifically exempts it. So the statement is generally correct, but there are cases where you don’t need informed consent (in the case where you publicly identify the subject, it hinges on whether the individual is really a human subject or not).
Here is the applicable US federal regulations for the FDA.
In particular see Exception from general requirements
Many of these seem to involve not getting informed consent in order to protect the life of the subject. Still interesting to look at, but not related to the question of identifying them in a scientific paper.
Here are the IRB requirements for Health and Human Services, which is the auspices under most US federally funded research in cognitive psychology would be operated.
For the statement of exemptions see this section:
In particular:
It seems to me that 2i and 2ii both preclude Lewandowsky’s study from being performed without the informed consent of the human subject.
So once you’ve stipulated that a given individual is a subject, then Markram’s statement seems to hold. You can’t publicly identify your subjects, without informed consent.
The only thing left to look at is whether the individuals whose public information was released were human subjects or not.
That’s given in <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.html#46.102: Definitions. This seems to be the key part:
Note the statement: Interaction includes communication or interpersonal contact between investigator and subject. Because interaction between Lewandowsky and the subjects of his study occurred, Lewandowsky needed to have their consent to publicly identify them, because by interacting with them in any manner, they come under the protections of human subjects.
If the observations are done without intervention or interaction, there are specific circumstances where these regulations do not apply. I think this is what Bob seems to be struggling with, but his examples aren’t relevant to research where the individual is afforded the protections of a human subject.
Carrick
Lew and I had exchanged emails. Moreover, those email related to “Moonhoax” and touched on the topics discussed in “Fury”.
So: I would be a human subject with whom Lew interacted. Moreover, the interactions actually involve the content of his study.
Thanks for this because I can also highlight the interaction when writing up the ethics complaint. That would remove any defense based on not having interacted with the subjects, and in particular me.
Lucia,
The questions I asked RickA and had in mind were:
“Would you consider trying to conceal his [Sarrazin’s] involuntary participation in the study, and if so, how would you do it?â€
But, the question you found was even better.
However, your response:
“If he is not a participant, no. I’m not seeing him as a participant– but maybe he was. If so, there is a problem with that paper and it should have been rewrittenâ€
– raises the practical question of how his participation could be concealed, and the case study carried out; but also the ethical question. Should he have a right of veto on good faith scientific enquiry into his historic text, which he put into the public domain, just because it identifies him?
My answer is No! If your answer is Yes, remember, his work would be up for analysis in every other sphere of human endeavour, it would be off-limits only to science. I would find that an absurd result.
Lucia, I haven’t looked at Australian regulations in detail, but I think interaction is not needed there before you qualify as a human subject. (That is the informed consent requirements are more stringent than for US funded research.)
Bob Denton
My response to that question is that the answer has nothing to do with
(a) figuring out if an ethics issue arose in the Sarrazin study or
(b) figuring out if an ethics issue arose in the Lew paper.
But worse than that it’s a loaded question because by using the word “participation” you are suggesting that Sarrazin is a participant. The answer to that needs to be determined before anyone can figure out whether failure to conceal is an ethics issue.
It’s an odd hypothetical. Rick and neople here did not conduct the Sarrazin study and don’t intend to conduct a Sarrazin study nor do they anticipate conducting anything similar. That makes it very difficult for anyone to figure the context in which they might ‘consider trying to conceal his [Sarrazin’s] identity’. So, if you are going to ask such a thing, you would need to suggest a context for why RickA might or might not consider such a thing.
More generally: you might have wonder whether one thinks the authors of Sarrazin should have considered concealing his identity: Maybe. Whether they should have done so or not depends on whether he fits the definition of “participant” and what other ethics rules apply in this case. Carrick has explained some of those rules. Generally speaking the Sarrazin ‘participation’ in Sarrazin is quite different from my case in “Fury”, so it’s not clear what we might learn from that.
But beyond that: If you think this is an important question for someone to answer perhaps you can look at the ethics rules and tell us. So far, you don’t seem to have been addressing whether he even is a participant, whether the authors of that paper interacted with him and many other issues that affect ones judgement about the ethics rules. Given that you don’t seem to want to tell us your detalied evaluation of the ethics rules, I would suggest that you look a bit odd trying to get up on your high horse about people not addressing your question (which, fwiw, appeared rhetorical when you posed it. Also: the rule around here is if you ask a rhetorical question you must provide your own answer in the comment where you ask it. Demanding someone else answer it before you do escalates your infraction of “the rules around here”.)
Lucia, you asked:
“Can you provide post quotes from the “case study†portion of Sarrazin study discussing it’s aims and methods so we can see which part you think is a “case study�
The following passages indicate to me that the authors thought they were carrying out a case study.
“ In the second part of this article, we discuss a recent public debate on Sarrazin’s (2010) bookDeutschland schafft sich ab (Germany is abolishing itself) in the light of these findings. The book is among the most successful non-fiction works of the past decade in Germany, (in-) famous for its polemic portrayal of Islamic culture (Sarrazin had been prominent before this debate as senator of finances in Berlin from 2002 to 2009 and as member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank until 2010). Sarrazin’s book was our point of origin: Not only was its impact on political discourse huge; the author presented a patchwork mixture of established facts, assumptions, wild speculations and polemic accusations. We consider his book, at least compatible with conspiracy theories, if not even a conspiracy theory on its own, as we will discuss later on.”
And,
“With a case study of Sarrazin’s bookDeutschland schafft sich ab (Germany is abolishing itself) we illustrated the danger of a theory containing established facts, speculations and rather crude opinions.â€
If you were asking where categories were applied to the work, I’d cite this passage:
“ In his book Sarrazin devises a scenario which displays all of our criteria for a conspiracy theory: While Germany’s population is diminishing, Muslim minorities keep growing due to constantly high birth rates (odd event). Thus, Sarrazin predicts that the “real†Germans—cultural pureness can be seen as the esoteric myth-element here—will soon be outnumbered by the offspring of immigrants from Muslim countries. Highly fertile, yet unwilling to adopt our value system, these people (group of conspirers) are secretly (non-transparency) taking over the German society, gradually reorganizing it in accordance with their religious beliefs. Sarrazin’s line of argument mixes facts, opinions and anecdotes from very different areas and levels of life and knowledge (evidence). Most controversial were his crude assumptions of an “IQ score being 15 points higher†(Sarrazin, 2010, p.93) among Jews of European origin; as well as his claim that we “become more stupid on average for mere reasons of demography†(p.100), as Muslim immigrants, in Sarrazin’s argumentation, would lower society’s general intelligence level. Last but not least, Sarrazin claims that the truth about all this is being suppressed by excessive political correctness in public debate and that this self-imposed censorship is a result of collective feelings of guilt dating back to the “Third Reich†(publicity).
The categories are in italics (umm now in brackets}
As for your other points, in short, you claim Lew did A, he denies it, he says he did B.
I have given my reasons at length for agreeing with you rather than him, but he simply disagrees with us on that point.
A is ascribing group characteristics to an individual: B is ascribing individual characteristics to a group. He sets his argument out in RF, and maintains it now. If you disagree with him, that is a criticism of his conceptual framework for the paper.
When you write:
“So: doing all three of the following together is making a claim about an identifyable person:
(1) posting a quote
(2) stating the quote is associated with a particular “mental state†or “characteristic†and
(3) posting the quote in a way that makes it possible to know who made the statementâ€
The same was done in Sarrazin:
(1) was his book
(2) the characterisitc associated with it was conspiracy ideation based on categories generated in the case study.
(3) it was referenced in such a way a reader would know Sarrazin wrote the book.
The difference between the two case studies is that the categories in RF were perjorative in each case, whereas in Sarrazin were perjorative in aggregate. I don’t find this a material distinction. The degree of nastiness does not alter the fundamental ethical question.
“If you think he was a participant who was studied, you can explain why.â€
Sarrazin published his book in response to seeing lots of ladies in hijabs pushing prams.
Lots of people published spontaneous responses on seeing “Hoaxâ€.
Both sets public utterances were used as the basis for a narrative analysis.
I think Sarrazin was a participant for the same reason that I think those who publicly commented on “Hoax†were participants, they were the objects of scientific analysis.
Carrick (Comment #128532)Â
April 13th, 2014 at 11:38 am
“It’s my impression that Bob is struggling over what constitutes a human subject for researchâ€
Bob doesn’t struggle. Bob is perfectly capable of placing A and B side by side and forming an opinion as to whether they’re essentially the same or essentially different. He does so effortlessly.
He can also answer a simple and obvious ethical question immediately and emphatically.
Arguably, those who need to read Federal Regulations etc to be able to form an ethical opinion may be said to struggle.
Bob Denton
Can or will you answer these:
1) Would Sarrazin be considered a ‘participant’ under Australians “national statement…”?
2) Would I be considered a participant under Australian’s national statement?
After answering yes or no, please explain your answer by quoting relevant guidelines in Australian’s national statement… Note: link provided in the post.
Bob
Note that the aim is not to characterize the contents of the book. It is to discuss the book in the light of ‘these findings’. This does not really sound like a description of “a case study”. Moreover, they don’t say they are studying a book: they are using it as a “point of origin” for “discussion”. (Discussion is– like it or not– not “study”). And more over, they alluded to its impact on political discourse that is: it’s impact on something else— and it’s impact is what they go on to discuss So far, even if you characterize it as a “case study” they are analyzing the reaction to the book.
They also aren’t studying the book’s text to “figure out” if or “determine” if it contains a “conspiracy theory”. Determining that is not an aim of the study. They also don’t even judge whether it actually contains a “conspiracy theory”.
lucia (Comment #128541)
April 13th, 2014 at 2:12 pm
” Bob Denton
He can also answer a simple and obvious ethical question immediately and emphatically.
Can or will you answer these:”
These questions are moot. ‘Participants’ are undefined, but include those who do not know they are participants. The National Statement extends to participants AND non-participants so the distinction is not meaningful.
The document focuses on the values and integrity of the researcher and sets no limit on those entitled to the benefit of those values and that integrity. The researchers are expected to be able confidently and reliably resolve ethical issues.
Bob Denton:
I think “ethical opinion” means something different than the way you used it. Ethics has to do with codified moral law. We may be able to state a moral opinion without resorting to rules of ethics, but it’s impossible to say what is ethical without resorting to the rules of ethics, as adopted by society.
So when we do federally funded research, we have to abide by federal regulations on the ethics of human subject research. That is always a struggle, because the rules are complex, but that is what it is.
I’m left wondering if your argument is “applicable regulations on humans subjects shouldn’t be applied” (that is they are unfair) or if it is “applicable regulations on humans subjects don’t apply”.
I’ve shown above that the regulations do apply, and explained why, at least for participants in US funded research. If the publisher chooses to use this as their standard to categorically state that for their journals that
this seems like a reasonable rule.
For Bob Denton, who insists he never struggles, here’s a breakdown of ethics vs morals:
Ethics vs Morals
When we are dealing with federally funded research questions, obviously we need to address the ethics as well as moral issues involved.
Carrick (Comment #128567)
April 13th, 2014 at 4:57 pm
“â€For Bob Denton, who insists he never struggles, here’s a breakdown of ethics vs morals:
Ethics vs Morals
Ethics are external standards, provided by the institutions, groups or culture to which an individual belongs.â€
Would that imply, that, for instance, the external standards provided by Australia apply to research done in Australia and those provided by the US apply to research done in the US. Because, in a previous post, you appeared to assume that the US external standards applied to research done in Australia.
That’s not an unreasonable assumption, after all, most people subscribe to the view that laws are local but ethics are universal. I do.
Imagine a world in which that wasn’t so, where a peer-reviewed paper based on research done in Australia and published in a journal based in Switzerland was regarded as ethical in the scientific communities in half the countries it was read in, but unethical in the scientific communities in the other half.
Think of Platonic forms, and the various ethical codes as an attempt to describe the Platonic ideal. The descriptions will be different and imperfect, but they can be increasingly refined and improve and will eventually converge.
That’s my view of scientific ethics.
Here we’re considering a wrinkle in the various attempts to articulate a statement of scientific ethics that conforms more closely with the ideal.
I consider that Mr Markham’s statement fails to conform. His formulation would impose an unreasonable restriction on the scientific community that it doesn’t impose on any other community. The question is one of ethics.
Ethics relate to communities, in this case the scientific community. Morals relate to individuals. I didn’t need to look that up.
Bob Denton:
Perhaps you can link where I assumed that? I’ve tried to be careful to state what the assumptions where that I was using, and to recognize that Australian rules are different.
Imagine a world where more than half of the research isn’t partly US funded. 😉
There isn’t that much daylight here, if you look at Australian ethical rules in any case:
In fact, they are somewhat more stringent than US rules are. In the US, there are guidelines we are given for when we are exempted from the IRB approval process. In Australia, you need an IRB approval in order to waive informed consent, for example, and this must occur before any research is initiated. Even in cases where there is low probably of harm and no identifying of subjects, the researcher has no discretion in Australia to make this judgement himself.
Journals are allowed to set up rules for what papers they accept and which ones they reject. Generally they have one set of rules that all researchers have to abide by, in order to publish in their journal. So your statement that “[h]is formulation would impose an unreasonable restriction on the scientific community that it doesn’t impose on any other community” is just false.
Based on which country you are in, there may be additional burdens that are placed on you, but this isn’t imposed on the researcher by the journal, and certainly not by a position statement made by Markham in response to the retraction of Lewandowsky’s paper.
Well thanks for the lecture, but you are the one who confused the words “ethical” and “moral”, not me. And I didn’t have to look it up either, which is why your original comment about not struggling with an “ethical opinion” got a good laugh from me. Of course it’s a struggle, we’re dealing with obscurely written federal regulations generated by bureaucrats. There’s always a struggle in that.
Bob Denton (Comment #128501) said:
“Would you consider trying to conceal his involuntary participation in the study, and if so, how would you do it?”
I was watching the Masters golf tournament, so was offline for awhile. Sorry for the delay in answering your question.
No – I would not conceal Sarrazin’s name. He was not a participant in this study. He was cited in this study.
I would no more conceal his name than I would the name of any other author of a journal article (or book) I cited and criticized.
Every rebuttal cites to a work, by name, and criticizes some aspect of the prior publication. This does not make them a participant in the medical ethics sense.
Citing a book or an article, naming the author, and even criticizing the book or article is not unethical.
Sarrazin had 30 participants in his study. It would be unethical to publish their names in the journal article. If you carefully review the article you linked to, you will find that none of the 30 people who participated in the study were mentioned by name.
So the Sarrazin paper is not analogous to the Lewandowsky paper – which did name the participants. And Sarrazin was not studied in this paper and was therefore not a participant.
So now that I have answered your question, please answer mine.
Carrick (Comment #128590)
April 13th, 2014 at 6:34 pm
“Bob Denton:
Because, in a previous post, you appeared to assume that the US external standards applied to research done in Australia.
Perhaps you can link where I assumed that?â€
Where you write:
“I’ve shown above that the regulations do apply..†You link to your discussion of the US regulations.
“Imagine a world where more than half of the research isn’t partly US funded. â€
Imagine a paper that was funded by the Australian Research Council and the School of Psychology of UWA. What would your view be in that case?
“There isn’t that much daylight here, if you look at Australian ethical rules in any case:
In fact, they are somewhat more stringent than US rules are. In the US, there are guidelines we are given for when we are exempted from the IRB approval process. In Australia, you need an IRB approval in order to waive informed consent, for example, and this must occur before any research is initiated.â€
Suppose the research had taken place in the US, and ethics committee approval wasn’t required, would the researcher still be obliged to act ethically? My guess is that the procedural differences do not materially alter the ethical framework for the research.
“So your statement that “[h]is formulation would impose an unreasonable restriction on the scientific community that it doesn’t impose on any other community†is just false.â€
Really? So, in your view, would that the fact that the scientific community would be precluded from publishing the results of research on comments in the public domain, also preclude the journalistic community from publishing their analyses of those same comments?
“Ethics relate to communities, in this case the scientific community. Morals relate to individuals. I didn’t need to look that up.
“Well thanks for the lectureâ€â€
You’re welcome. Touchy individuals should bear in mind that If they can’t take it, they shouldn’t try to hand it out.
“but you are the one who confused the words “ethical†and “moralâ€, not me.â€
Since I’m not confused, and you raised the issue, I don’t know where that leaves us.
“which is why your original comment about not struggling with an “ethical opinion†got a good laugh from me.â€
Why am I sceptical of your merriment? What the hell, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Bob
I guess you are asking Carrick, but the answer is “No. Not necessarily. Slightly different rules can apply to scientific research and other journalism. So you can’t simply say that if something is forbidden to one it is forbidden to the other.”
My view would be the guidelines in Australias “National Statement… ” apply. And Lew’s work violated them.
RickA (Comment #128592)
April 13th, 2014 at 7:36 pm
Bob Denton (Comment #128501) said:
“I was watching the Masters golf tournament, so was offline for awhile. Sorry for the delay in answering your question.â€
It’s reassuring to know that people have a life beyond the blogosphere.
“No – I would not conceal Sarrazin’s name. He was not a participant in this study. He was cited in this study.â€
Well, we disagree on whether or not he was a participant in the same sense as those quoted in FR were participants, but it turns out that in Australia the ethical obligations extend to both participants and non-participants. Sarrazin is identified, stigmatised as a conspiracy theorist, then burdened with having an unflattering psychological phenomenon named after him. He clearly hasn’t been treated equally with the 30 subjects who took part in the first part of the paper who were not identified, and would in all probability have suffered no harm if they were identified.
Would you argue that the ethical obligations towards him are different simply because the research was carried out in Germany rather than Australia? I don’t expect so. So, can you put your finger on precisely why the same ethical rules should operate differently in relation to him compared to the 30 subjects?
Bob Denton
He already did. The same rules apply to all people. Had Sarrazin been a participant, then the same rule would apply to him and the 30 participants/subjects.
Bob Denton
Out of curiosity, what’s your basis for this claim?
Bob:
It should follow applicable Australian law and regulations. However, the journal should still adopt a single standard that all researchers should comply with, such as the statement given by Markham.
Australia seems to place a greater role for institutional oversight, and US more on individual researchers. In Australia, you can get informed consent waived by the institute, but it’s not a decision you can make. Failure to follow federal guidelines in either case (even if you did otherwise protect the welfare of your human subjects) would itself be viewed an ethics violation.
The issues are whether it is human subject research, whether the individual whose comments were being quoted is considered a human subject, and whether the research (and in general research institute) was partly funded through the applicable federal agency.
If the research is privately funded and self-published, the limit you run into will be lawsuits from individuals or organizations, assuming you didn’t violate any statutory law. But if you didn’t follow federal guidelines on the research, it’s likely scientific journals would refuse to publish it. They aren’t going to risk their reputation, or law suits, over what they would view risky behavior on your part.
Some confusion in terms was definitely present when you said “ethical opinion” rather than “moral opinion”. But this leaves us with you not admitting you used the wrong term, and apparently not being very comfortable admitting to it.
Thanks. That deserved a wry grin. Thanks for the merriment.
Here’s the so-called application from Lewandowky:
Part one.
Part two.
This is actually an email from Lewandowsky, trying to side-step the ethics review process. It is dated September 12, 2012.
Here is my transcript of Lewandowsky’s “research plan”.
This became his research plan because Kate Kirk followed it with:
It is self-evident to me that this research went well beyond “summariz[ing] and provid[ing] a timeline on the public’s response.”.
I’m not sure though… is taunting the subjects not a form of ” direct approach of participants of any sort”?
(For extra credit, spot the problems with what Lewandowsky did compared with the UWA guidelines.)
lucia (Comment #128599)
April 13th, 2014 at 9:21 pm
” Bob Denton
..it turns out that in Australia the ethical obligations extend to both participants and non-participants.
Out of curiosity, what’s your basis for this claim?”
The National Statement
“CHAPTER 2.1: RISK AND BENEFIT
Application of the values in Section 1, in
particular the value of beneficence, requires that
risks of harm to research participants, and to
others, be assessed. Research will be ethically
acceptable only if its potential benefits justify
those risks…..
Harm, discomfort and inconvenience
Research may lead to harms, discomforts and/or
inconveniences for participants and/or others.
No list of harms can be exhaustive, but one
helpful classification identifies the following
kinds of potential harms in research ….
psychological harms:
including feelings
of worthlessness, distress, guilt, anger or
fear related, for example, to disclosure
of sensitive or embarrassing information,
or learning about a genetic possibility of
developing an untreatable disease ….
devaluation of personal worth: including
being humiliated, manipulated or in other
ways treated disrespectfully or unjustly …..
Examples of risks to non-participants include
the risk of distress for a participant’s family
member identified with a serious genetic
disorder, the possible effects of a biography on
family or friends, or infectious disease risks to
the community..”
Carrick (Comment #128600)Â
April 13th, 2014 at 10:20 pm
“The issues are whether ……. the individual whose comments were being quoted is considered a human subject, and whether the research (and in general research institute) was partly funded through the applicable federal agency.
If the research is privately funded and self-published, the limit you run into will be lawsuits from individuals or organizations…â€
It’s none of those things in Australia.
And there, ethics require more of a researcher than that they avoid law suits. In fact they focus, not on avoidance of harm to the researcher, but on the avoidance of harm to participants AND OTHERS.
Look at the Australian National Statement. It sets out values and principles of ethical conduct and then sets out guidelines for the application of a risk/benefit assessment in relation to participants and others..
That is ethics.
The Statement says:
“These ethical guidelines are not simply a
set of rules. Their application should not be
mechanical. It always requires, from each
individual, deliberation on the values and
principles, exercise of judgement, and an
appreciation of context.â€
– I would describe this as requirement to form an ethical opinion, though I understand you would wish to describe it differently, I, however, have no difficulty in understanding the requirement being placed on researchers.
The Statement also says:
“This National Statement does not exhaust the
ethical discussion of human research. Even
a single research field covers a multitude of
different situations about which the National
Statement will not always offer specific
guidance, or to which its application may
be uncertainâ€
– which anticipates that ethical decisions will be made under conditions of uncertainty, thus leaving a space for legitimate expression of ethical opinion.
In relation to the two concrete examples under consideration, Sarrazin and RF, and which are not specifically dealt with in the statement, my ethical opinion is that whether described as participants or others, the identified parties are both at risk of harm as defined in the Statement and the values in Ch1 should be applied uniformly. My opinion would remain the same whether the research was done in Australia, Germany or the United States.
Ethics travel better than laws and regulations.
Bob,
Thanks. Now I know what you are talking about: Australia guides the researcher to consider participants families also. I couldn’t guess in context of Sarrazin– as he wouldn’t seem to be one of the “non-participants” that is covered by that. Or do you think he is? It also doesn’t seem to affect “Fury”. Or you do think otherwise.
BTW: I think that’s a good extension, and ought to be incorporated in other countries.
Bob Denton:
I don’t know any country where the ethical requirements are limited to avoiding law suits. Have one in mind?
The point I was making above, that US researchers have responsibility in areas that I don’t think are covered in Australia. For example, there are responsibilities that are placed on us when we receive any federal funding.
I and my colleagues (they do not participate in human subject studies) must undertaken citi responsible conduct in research training, which covers issues like falsification of data, fair treatment of employees (grad students and post docs), conflicts of interest, etc.
This is currently required for NIH and NSF funding. Many US institutes, such as mine, require the training for any person engaging in research.
There is an additional course for human subjects of course. At the minimum, people know what the Helsinki convention is and have heard the term Common Rule, even if they only know the bits they were exposed to for a test.
Sure, if you mean, after having read through the document and understanding it, you develop an opinion based on the ethical framework provided by that document. That’s what I’d call an ethical opinion.
But from the problems with Lewandowsky’s experiment, I don’t see any evidence that Australia’s human participant rules have any teeth.
There were flagrant abuses of the IRB process in that study, and not just by Lewandowsky, with no repercussions.
Lewandowsky in 2012 seemed to have been clueless about even basic issues I knew about in the US in 1991 (when I started doing human subjects research). And his IRB seemed indifferent to reining in his behavior.
I hope that’s not endemic.
I think the idea of human subject protection is a good one of course, but perhaps if you try and make it too encompassing, the impact gets diluted.
One way for the academics out of this is to redefine their rules in light of the reality of the blogosphere.
In their favor of course.
There is a legit question in defense of Lew ethics: We are all over the blogosphere blogging away. He quotes what is written. That leads to people able to look up those quotes. Is that the same as experimenting on people without their permission? I am not certain.
I find his work contrived crap. His survey’s stats work does not hold up under reasonable review. His assignment of made up pscho-babble as some sort of pathology is phony and transparent game playing on his part. I find his efforts to dehumanize his targets to advance his stated focus of fanaticism, fear of climate change, to be the unethical behavior. This is much worse than quoting people in ways that identify them. His research is much closer to the eugenics-inspired work that “scientifically” showed that certain races- always those of the researcher- were superior. And that certain races- always those the researcher was prejudiced against- were inferior and needed some sort of legal control imposed on. It is, after all, Lew that seeks to Shape the World in his blog. That sounds like he has decided some trimming and pruning needs to be done, and he has the vision and pruning shears to do it.
Editor in Chief Henry Markram has added his personal opinion in the comments below the latest statement by Frontiers. Here are the first two sentences.
The Bishop has his comment in full.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/4/15/more-from-markram.html
hunter
The ethics code are mostly imposed on academics, not written by them. Some are the result of absolute scandals that arose because a sub-set of academics really don’t get that you can’t just do whatever you want to humans in the ‘name of science’.
No one says that looking up and quoting by itself is ‘the’ issue. In fact, you (like Sisi on other threads) are missing key behaviors Lew indulged in. You are missing the element of attributing psychopathological characteristics. You are also missing the element of interacting with the participants. The latter does make it an ‘experiment’ and if it involves humans its ‘an experiment on humans’. But it doesn’t need to be an experiment– the attribution of psychopathological characteristics turned it into a breach of ethics.
If your question is: “Is it as bad as giving people syphilis and watching the progress of the disease?” That’s also ‘an experiment’ and it ‘involves humans’. (ref. No. It’s not as bad as that. But the fact that that experiment is worse than Lew’s doesn’t make Lew’s “not an experiment” or “not involving humans”.
All the other stuff you find “worse” in Lew: Some of that is just rhetoric. If you want to describe the ethics violation you have to stick to concrete description and point to the ethics rules. You can’t write it up by decreeing it “psycho-babble” and so on, nor use flower metaphors like “pruning shears to do it”. Also: his stats being crap is likely true but it’s not necessarily an ethics issue– or to the extent it might be is nearly impossible to prove.
Bob Koss,
Yep. Lew&Crew are behaving in ways that are going to force people who believe climate change is real to speak up about Lew&Crew’s behavior. Markham has.
Bob Koss,
Thanks for posting that link.
.
Markum is clearly on target with the “bigger nutter” comment, though I suspect his comment will sting the faithful enough that he will soon be attacked as ‘anti-science’…. if he already hasn’t been!
.
Where I suspect Markum has something of a blind spot is in his complete acceptance that Earth is in crisis due to GHG driven warming. If the discussion really focuses on “the science”, as Markem correctly suggests it should, then all the legitimate technical questions (obvious divergence of models from reality, accuracy of model parametrizations of clouds, accuracy of ocean heat uptake models, the use aerosol offsets as a crude kludge by modelers, discrepancy between empirical and modeled sensitivity, etc.) will have to be addressed. Climate science is not able to answer those questions at present, and the AR5 is finally… yes FINALLY!… beginning to acknowledge that reality. But when climate science can answer those questions, the answers are unlikely to point toward impending doom…. which IMO, is why we see the climate faithful reduced to offering ever more preposterous Schneiderian scare stories and psycho-babel rubbish designed to imply perfectly rational individuals are crazy.
.
I think Markum will be disappointed with the outcome if the discussion really focuses on “the science” instead of scary stories and idi0tic mumbles about ‘conspiracy ideation’.
Sorry, but I am not at all impressed with Markam’s attempt at damage control in his statement. It would appear his prime concern is the negative image created by “the authors” in using their tactics. I suspect that concern for attacking people personally was secondary and could well explain the tardiness of the journal in retracting the paper.
His language in describing the AGW status and hurry evidently to quit debating the issues would put him either in the alarmist camp or be the result of political correctness posturing by someone lesser or not informed on the issue. His vague language in his statement does not inform his inferences in using terms like ostriches of society. Are those ostriches the people the “authors” passively identify in their papers as having psychological disorders and that Markam suggests ignoring? I suspect if Markam were truly interested and knowledgeable in a science debate on AGW he would not have said the debate is over and rather would have attempted to describe where the debate currently stands and what are the important issues.
Identifying individuals directly or passively is rather easy to label as unethical, bad manners and susceptible to law suits, but from a perspective of having a rational debate on AGW is it any better to skirt around this issue by referring vaguely to a group as having psychological problems or their heads in the sand, to which an individual may be implied belonging merely because they disagree with a prevailing point of view.
Kenneth,
I’m impressed. It’s true that Markam shares some views with Lewandowsky. But with respect to rules governing his discipline, he is not going to bend the rules as he sees them merely to let someone like Lew publish something that might hurt people who Markam doesn’t think highly of.
Note that Markam doesn’t violate the rules he is applying to Lew. While you might not like that Markham considers those who do not act on climate change — or deny it exists– are “ostriches”, his expressing an obvious opinion is not “scientific research”. Moreover, he also doesn’t name anyone.
One could (if they wished) get into an argument about whether Markham should use the word ostriches. But I would suggest that it is not in the interest of those who might dislike that characterization to jump on that in this context. It would be better to focus on the points of agreement with Markham. One can make a better case about activism and alarmism by pointing to Lew&Crew’s willingness to violate ethics to pursue their goal than by complaining about Markham using the word “ostriches”.
(That said: I’m sure there will be plenty who will try to grab defeat from the jaws of victory and start jumping on Markham in comments over there. Nothing I can do about it.)
Lucia, I agree, Markham is entitled to think and say that people who don’t share his views are ostriches, just as people who feel they are being labeled as ostriches have the right to be offended.
SteveF:
I think he wouldn’t be. I guess he’d be much happier with a healthy, non-politically driven debate, even if it meant he learned something. I think he would say “If this issue is that important, why aren’t we focusing on a healthy debate, instead of inventing ways to stifle it?”
Regarding what Markham said: “The authors of the retracted paper and their followers are doing the climate change crisis a tragic disservice by attacking people personally and saying that it is ethically ok to identify them in a scientific study.”
I really think if this can be factually established, Lewandowsky deserves sanctions for his behavior (e.g., a multiyear ban on participation in human subject research). Were I the journal editors, he’d already be in the “you can no longer publish nor participate in the editorial process on this journal” list.
Carrick,
It was the ostrich line that made me think he will be disappointed. ‘Ostrich’ implies he thinks people skeptical of GHG driven doom are obviously mistaken; he is already convinced about that subject. Few people ever accept being shown that they were wrong about anything important…. not by data nor by advancing science, or as Max Planck rightly noted: Science advances one funeral at a time.
.
” Were I the journal editors, he’d already be in the “you can no longer publish nor participate in the editorial process on this journal†list.”
.
I’m guessing that has already happened at the journal. Managing journal editors don’t like being embarrassed by the likes of Lew and Co.
well Greg Laden has already called Markram a denialist –
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/04/15/fisking-henry-markrams-comment-about-recursive-fury-and-the-frontiers-retraction/
I suggest that people with fully functioning minds do not visit that blogpost, it is very depressing to see so much stupidity, ignorance and badly-expressed rancour expressed in so few words. One example might be enough:
He quotes Markram: “The authors of the retracted paper”
and comments: “Please avoid the passive voice”.
Given that there is no verb in the phrase he is “fisking”, avoiding or even using the passive voice would be impossible. This is as good as it gets.
Markrum likely was not enchanted by the sputterings of the Lew acolytes.
Diogenes,
“Greg Laden has already called Markram a denialist”
.
That is even stronger than I expected; I figured the faithful would stick to something tamer like ‘anti-science’. Laden’s frothing at the mouth betrays both immaturity and a shallow intellect; still, it is mildly entertaining.
SteveF: I agree that ostrich suggests a black & white view on his part of the controversies surround AGW.
However, you can’t blame him entirely on this—most people aren’t consumed by the debate. And you have one side, the activists, who are intentionally trying to stifle any debate.
It’s in their interest to turn positions on a complex problem into the draconian “you are with us” and “you are with the d*niers”.
Diogenes, nobody ever accused Greg Laden of being an intellectual.
His suggestion to avoid the passive voice—makes me wonder if this deep learning that he received from the Grammar Check… panel in Microsoft Word?
For the sake of people who wonder about the use of passive voice in science–we use it because passive voice puts the emphasis on the object of action rather than the actor. It is considered to be a legitimate prose style, and even preferred, in cases like that
Laden is one of Lewandowsky’s “slimetroopers” reacting to a “disturbance in the farce”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/15/quote-of-the-week-beyond-noble-cause-corruption/
Carrick,
“It is considered to be a legitimate prose style, and even preferred, in cases like that”
.
I think it is becoming less popular, though still used by many. My biggest problem with it is that, if taken to the extreme, the prose is too wordy and too stilted…. makes for an awkward read.
SteveF,
It goes both ways. Sometimes, use of passive voice is stilted. Other times, trying to turn the sentence around is stilted. Odd things also happen with the decision to avoid first person. Like “it is the authors opinion” rather than “our opinion”. English is flexible and arbitrary rules generally degrade writing.
There is no ethics violation, and Frontiers has already stated that clearly. Subsequent unofficial statements by people who work at Frontiers are interesting but not relevant to that fact.
But aside from that, I find it interesting that you suggest that methodological flaws are a reason for a retraction. Is that what you are saying? Few applications of methods are totally flaw-free, and the way things work in the peer reviewed literature is that if a scientist or group of scientists think someone else’s methods are flawed, they are free to write a paper saying why, what that implies, and how the methods should be improved.
Or are you suggesting that the methods were intentionally flawed. Like, as part of a conspiracy to make the conspiracy-ideationalizing science deniers look … conspiratorial?
lucia (Comment #128696)
“But with respect to rules governing his discipline, he is not going to bend the rules as he sees them merely to let someone like Lew publish something that might hurt people who Markam doesn’t think highly of.”
Lucia, actually Frontiers did publish Fury and retracted it only after receiving personal communications from those involved and then only after a protracted discussion with the authors in attempts evidently to placate them. Is Markam motivated mainly by the ethics (and long after the fact to be sure) of the situation or PR? Sorry but I am skeptical? One can do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Lucia, I think I am looking at this in a different light than you. You are attempting, I think, to establish the specific ethical, rule and code violations of the matter while I am looking at it as matter of where the AGW debate is headed.
I also think that Lew and Crew might be testing the waters of opinion and reaction in the climate communities to determine whether it is worth their putting more pressure on Frontiers to publish an amended paper that makes the same points and innuendos but could withstand a lawyerly defense. Has anyone seen any big names in the climate science community making critical comments on the Fury paper?
Diogenes (Comment #128706)
Actually, the sentence uses the active voice:
The action is “are doing a disservice”. The actor is “authors”. This sentences is an example of “active voice”. The active voice is explained here
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/
Carrick
I am glad that the advice of self-styled authorities such as George Orwell and Strunk and White is not taken to extremes in the science world. The passive is fine when you are recording “what was done”. In technical writing, you don’t always want the emphasis to be on the person doing the work…A professional take on this subject:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2011/10/01/mistakes-are-made/
I agree, Lucia, that it is an active verb in that sentence but the fact is that Laden did not even quote a verb.
Diogenes,
It’s true Laden did not quote the full sentence. He snipped it up in a weird way that seemed to suggest a fragment was a full sentence. The fragment he quoted contained no verb and so could have no ‘voice’.
Language log discusses mis-identification of the passive voice by those who criticize its use here:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922
lucia,
In no way am I over looking what Lew did. I am thinking of how his community is rationalizing circling the wagons to defend him. And also how the blogosphere can present a challenging venue for applying ethics. As for my editorializing, I apologize if it is distracting.
Fritsch,
No. But it’s also not their area. Unless someone applauded it when it came, I think they are justified in continuuing to ignore it.
Based on things Dana is saying, there will be another round of fire from the “Lew and Crew” side of the trenches.
SteveF (Comment #128713)
College instructors, and including those in the science fields, invariably would tell me that (over)use of the passive voice indicated lazy and not well thought out writing. Proper science writing appeared to me back in the day to be one of avoiding using the first person and at the same time using the active voice as much as possible. I plead guilty to laziness in sometimes overusing the passive voice.
If no-one will come to Mr Laden’s defence, I will.
It’s well established that those who should know better confuse the Passive Style (a manner of writing that conceals agency) with the Passive Voice.
Professor Pullam names and shames them here:
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf
as he notes:
“ the usage advice literature, and the comments about usage and
style by writers and critics in general, show an extraordinary level of ignorance of simple facts of this kindâ€
“Tim Levell in a BBC blog post (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/covering
distressing news for.html) about how the BBC strives to be sensitive when covering stories
about upsetting events such as school shootings:
“We use passive constructions (‘Five girls have died’, not ‘The man went in and
shot ï¬ve girls’). . .
â€
Steve Inskeep interviewing U.S. Army General Dan McNeill (NATO commander, Afghanistan)
on National Public Radio (USA) in 2007 (see http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/#myl/languagelog/
archives/004527.html):
“Let’s put it in the passive tense: there was a ceaseï¬re agreement in Southern
Afghanistan with some members of the Taliban at one time.
â€
From a blog discussion of Paul JJ Payack’s claims about the 2008 presidential debates in
the USA (see http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=816):
He cited Obama’s ‘There will be setbacks and false starts’ as
an example. ‘He’s spreading the responsibility around,’ Payack said. ‘He didn’t
say, “I will have setbacks. I will be wrong. I will make mistakes.†He used the
passive voice for those types of constructions.’
From a post by Tom Maguire on the blog JustOneMinute, discussing the arrest afï¬davit
for George Zimmerman after he shot the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin (see http:
//languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3897):
“I especially like the passive voice at the critical plot point: ‘a struggle ensued’.â€
and so on.
I can’t vouch that his paper has passed peer-review since it’s not yet been published, but he has quoted passages posted in the public domain and he has attributed to persons who communicate in English professionally, the inability to distinguish the passive voice from the passive style. He has traduced them in their profession.
Is he ethically obliged to conceal the identity of the incompetents, or as Laden suggest, is he ethically obliged to identify cite his sources?
The excerpt I found most interesting in Mr Markham’s comment was “Activism that abuses science as a weapon..†which indicates that he thought the sole or predominant purpose of Recursive Fury was to cause harm, and not to advance knowledge. If he as a “Warmist†thinks that, who knows what a judge might think?
Bob,
I don’t see how any of that is a defense of Greg Laden.
As for Pullam’s paper: Pullham does not ascribe any psychopathological characteristics to the people he quotes. Lewandowsky ascribe characteristics to the people he quotes. Specifically: Lewandowsky ascribes things like NI,NS, MbW and so on. I realize you are likely to say Lewandowsky ascribes NI,NS, MbW to the text. But that’s a distinction without a difference. And in anycase, Pullam doesn’t describe any characteristic other than “factually incorrect content” to the sample content. This is nothing more than to say someone made a mistake of fact.
I realize that may not be understanding the point everyone keeps telling you over and over and over, and you may really believe people are saying the violation is quoting named individuals is an ethics violation. I have never said that, and so I’m a big tired of you trying to make me defend such a statement. You can’t “turn” the point we are all trying to make by merely ignoring a feature that matters to the ethics discussion.
That looks an awful lot like a rhetorical question. Do you mean a judge in a possible defamation suit lodged by a named participant in Fury? But I suspect if even a warmist knows science can be used as a weapon by activists, the judge would be more likely to deem Fury was a product of activism that abuses science as a weapon. If so, the risk that the judge would find for the plaintiff would increase and escalate fines against any journal or author to the maximum.
Greg Laden (Comment #128715)
Are you addressing me? I’ll assume so.
First: Frontiers has not said there “is” no ethics violation. They didn’t even say that in the contractually agreed on statement negotiated with the authors. You might want to go re-read it with your “read thing literally” glasses on.
Second: Even if Frontiers had said that, no one is bound to agree they are the ultimate arbiter of what is or is not an ethics violation. No one here is advacing the argument that Fronteirs statements are ‘proof’ or ‘disproof’ of violations.
I didn’t suggest that. I wrote
I”m not under the delusion that my opinion which I never shared with Frontiers is what motivated Frontier’s retraction.
Huh? You sure like to read things in. I find it difficult to believe a person who is in his right mind would interpret what I wrote to say or even intimate that the methodology is intentionally flawed.
I might also suggest that the method of your ‘reading in’ something I clearly did not say and then suggesting that based on your suggesting I might think this thing (which I do not think and have never said or intimated) suggests I harbor the conspiracy theory you dreamed up is similar to the sort of reasoning contained in Fury. It’s what I refer to as a “methodological flaw”. While you can go on and on an on about how it’s ok for peer review papers to contain such things, I would point out that this particularly flaw might be called “unreflexive counterfactual reasoning”.
so Greg Laden finds that here was no ethical violation…..
How many other holes can Greg Laden dig for himself? (rhetorical…no answer required)
Meanwhile, Kenneth Fritsch, I think the mainstream team are highly visible for their lack of condemnation of Lew. On some blogs, however, they think that Lew is some kind of genius…Andthentheresphysics. Please do not go there without heart medicine at hand – the standard of discourse is distressingly low.
Bob
His name is Pullum. He is a real live professor, not in the buy-a-seat-style of Lew. Get his name right. He has real publications under his belt. Real accreditations.
Diogenes:
And Pullum is engaging arguments not “characterizing their content” and not “categorizing the content as falling in a psychopathological category”.
exactly Lucia…the passive voice is not something bad or anti clinate science, however Greg Laden might think of it, if he had a mind
The climate kooks are hung up on ‘conspiracy’, seeing any sort of question about people cooperating together on things they believe as evidence of the questioners’ mental health. What a shallow circular bit of faux reasoning they have stuck themselves into.
Greg Laden:
Look, a clear example of “conspiracy ideation” ideation.
&hunter:
If two authors jointly write a paper, and both put their names to it, is recognising that fact and their must have been some degree of cooperation, conspiracy ideation and indicative of mental illness?
Presumably recognising that a man and woman (or man and man, woman and woman, depending on jurisdiction) might get married, live together, jointly set up home, and buy a house, will also be regarded as a firm of conspiracy ideation too.
It’s ironic to see a fragment of the left trying so hard to prove that “there is no such thing as society”, and taking the phrase so over literally. (the original quote has been quote mined out of context for 30+ years, mainly by them and their allies, lending it a meaning that was never intended in the first place, which screwed up their interpretation of the original phrase, but that’s another discussion).
Copner: It’s only a conspiracy if the thing they do jointly is a considered a bad thing. If it’s a good thing, it’s not a conspiracy.
Conspiracy requires:
1) more than one actor,
2) some degree of nefarious intent by the group.
3) concealment of project for others outside group.
lucia,
“Conspiracy requires:
1) more than one actor,
2) some degree of nefarious intent by the group.
3) concealment of project for others outside group.”
Sort of like what was seen in the climategate leaks?
Hunter:
That depends on whether there was more than one actor involved in the climategate leak/hack.
I have seen no evidence of more than one actor.
RickA,
hunter may be referring to the conspiracies revealed in the climategate emails.
j ferguson,
Yes, thanks. I should have been more clear:
The content of the climategate leaks showed climate scientists conspiring.
The leak/hack itself? I have no idea if it was one person or a group acting together.
Ah – yes. I certainly agree that there were conspiracies shown in the climategate emails.
RickA,
One fo the thigns about the climate obsessed that has been as predictable as the tides is their ability to project onto others accusations about what their own co-believers are actually doing.
Skeptics cooperate about as well as a herd of cats. Fanatics enjoy being part of the enlightened select.
Look at that creepy “secret” SkS nazi dress up section that was supposed to require a secret decoder ring to enter. Just read mann’s over heated advice about deleting emails to make certain the wicked skeptics did not get wind of their special secret plan to make certain we could not look at their data.
look how Lewadowsky refuses to show his work and data even now.
But we are the kooks? Lew is a maroon.
lucia,
There are several definitions of ‘conspiracy’ that can be used.
This is the one I have always thought was the most useful:
“any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result. ”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conspiracy
I prefer it because one person’s “evil intent” can be another person’s noble cause.
hunter
Yes. Generally speaking, people will call something a conspiracy if the speaker think the cause is ignoble or nefarious. Failing that, if the speaker knows others think the cause ignoble or nefarious. While one could argue the word can be used otherwise, it generally is not used that way.
Hunter –
Conspiracy: “any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.â€
Under that definition, it is a conspiracy to agree on a time for lunch.
I conspired to do laundry last night.
Lewandowsky wants to show that skeptics tend to be Conspiracy Theorists. So, let’s use more commonly understood meanings:
….
1. Conspiracy Theory: unfounded accusation of a conspiracy.
2. Conspiracy: a coordinated, veiled effort by two or more people to cause harm and/or commit a crime.
…
Now, consider this hypothetical: Suppose that it could be proven that Lewandowsky coordinated a veiled effort which resulted in harm to the reputations of certain skeptics. That ‘proof’, if also accompanied by unfounded speculation of intentional harm, might be one definition of Conspiracy Ideation, which afterall is what Lew believes is a property of skeptics.
The most sensible and charitable assumption which initially explained Lew’s odd behavior is that he harmed UNINTENTIONALLY, i.e. his problem is due to ethical and/or technical incompetence.
But that assumption alone grows weaker each day. It fails to explain the persistence of his inability to: meet ethical standards, share data and methods, make overdue apologies.
blueice2hotsea,
Your question makes my point:
Lew’s obsession with proving deni^lists are wackcy conspiracy believers is a contrived game based on his admitted obsessions. His obsession is so marginal he had to rig a phonied up survey, taunt and interact with his targets, misrepresent what they said, hide his data, conflate his opinion with something people give a darn about, etc.
We get to have the fun of deconstructing his work and those of his apologists, and holding it up to the light of day for people to go, “yuck”.
I wholeheartedly agree with “yuck” re: Lew paper.
But I didn’t ask a question. And I thought your point was that all agreements are conspiracies.
blueice2hotsea,
For me, no. Not all agreements are conspiracies in the rational world. But Lew is not in that world. In a way declaring everything we do as a conspiracy is an “I am Sprartacus” sort of moment: the entire effort of Lew is yucky garbage, lost in the noise of reality.
Lucia @128749:
That may be your definition of conspiracy, but I am not sure that is lew’s or lew’s supporter’s definition.
They seem to have pretty much eliminated 2 and 3 from the criteria. Any time a skeptic or an enemy makes a comment about a joint enterprise, even a well known one that actually exists, it counts is conspiracy ideation.
The term conspiracy theorist is essentially robbed of its meaning, such that it can be applied to anyone making even the mildest most commonplace of comments or inquiries, including your good self.
By that definition, you are conspiracy theorist (although so is Everybody). They are not lying.
However when it gets reported elsewhere in the media “Scientific study shows lucia is a conspiracy theorist”, most readers and journalists will simply Assume the traditional meaning of “conspiracy theorist” applies, rather than recognising it as a term of art.
Copner, they’ve pretty much eliminated 1 as well. I observed this last year when John Cook and Michael Mann said Steve McIntyre was seeing a conspiracy in a post where he blamed everything on one person – Michael Mann. According to them, saying Michael Mann deceived people is espousing a conspiracy theory.
For additional humor, according to John Cook, paying someone to make a website is a conspiracy. Or at least, believing Al Gore gave John Cook money to make his site is believing in a conspiracy.
My response on Twitter seems appropriate:
DCA – doesn’t appear anyone has addressed this question of yours.
Yes we do know who this Editor is – it was Dr. Viren Swami – not one of the resigning Editors.
http://community.frontiersin.org/people/VirenSwami/51072
http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/view/people/Swami=3AViren=3A=3A.html
Swami is the Editor responsible for publication of this paper, despite the unanswered concerns raised by initial peer reviewer Michael Wood. Swami would have been the Editor who named Prof. Prathiba Natesan as the replacement reviewer when Wood withdrew, and Swami would be the Editor who almost immediately removed Natesan as a reiewer and decided to name himself as peer reviewer in addition to Editor.
Lewandowsky’s work in conspiracy ideation is directly, and integrally based upon the prior work of Swami (2010, 2011). Lewandowsky’s conspiracy questions, flaws and all, are directly from Swami.
A. Scott:
I think this is an overstatement. There is no question that conspiracy ideation occurs. 9/11 is a perfect example of that. There are even examples in AGW of that (but the number of believers in conspiracies seems to me to be more nearly equal on both sides than suggested by Lewandowsky).
It’s my impressions Swami is looking at places where the behavior is clear cut, but feel free to find counter examples. So the hypothesis is much less tenuous, making the study of the problem a lot easier. (False things are harder to study than true ones. ;-))
I also think it’s easy to understand why Swami gave this a free pass–he was ethically conflicted himself: He really shouldn’t handle papers that place his own work in such a prominent role.
IMO it’s clear from the rapid rotation of reviewers, that there was not generally favorable responses to this paper. If the paper is good, people find the time to review it. When the person whose work this is based on is the editor and a loopy graduate study who appears to be delusional herself are two of the three reviewers… this doesn’t bode well for the scholastic process.
Carrick, A. Scott is right about this: the list of CY questions in Hoax is directly derived from a prior Swami list. Swami’s list (and Lewandowsky’s ethics application) included one additional Swami question about whether there was a conspiracy to withhold energy efficient technology from the public. Although this was in Lew’s ethics approval, he didn’t use that question. It would have been interesting to see how the warmist blogs responded to that question: one presumes that their CY ideation on this question would be higher than skeptics. Lewandowsky’s methods didn’t include an explanation for the omission of this question.
BTW I asked Swami for his benchmark data, but didn’t get a reply.