An SkS article in google cache begins:
EMBARGOED UNTIL 20 March 2014
Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper
Posted on 20 March 2014 by dana1981Given that fewer than 3 percent of peer-reviewed climate science papers conclude that the human influence on global warming is minimal, climate contrarians have obviously been unable to make a convincing scientific case. Thus in order to advance their agenda of delaying climate solutions and maintaining the status quo in the face of a 97 percent expert consensus suggesting that this is a high-risk path, contrarians have engaged in a variety of unconventional tactics.
It continues and then writes
Frontiers Bails Out
However, nobody likes being called a conspiracy theorist, and thus climate contrarians really didn’t appreciate Recursive Fury. Very soon after its publication, the journal Frontiers was receiving letters from contrarians threatening libel lawsuits. In late March 2013, the journal decided to “provisionally remove the link to the article while these issues are investigated.” The paper was in limbo for nearly a full year until Frontiers finally caved to these threats.
Meanwhile a screenshot for the underlying uri looks like this:
Oddly, it looks like you may be able to leave comment on a totally blank post.
Those interested in the original version can dash off to the google cache. Do “save as” if you want to be able to refer back to the original.
SkS article in google cache
I’m guessing Dana is revising? If so, a new article may soon appear at that uri.
I saved the cache version in a folder called “Lewandowky retraction” so we can compare later.
Update March 21, 9:40 am: In a recent blog post at “The Conversation”, the to recursivefury pdf seems to be on sks.to — a skeptical science site not University of Western Australia. I posted a comment asking for information.
Update II: 10:38 am
UWA is hosting recursive fury– though the sks.to link just redirects there. A rather hilarious (on many levels) pre-dendum is added to the version of recursive fury hosted at UWA.
I am sure the paper was retracted because it was very very bad – not because of any threatened litigation. I am sure they checked out the allegations raised by skeptics, found out they were true and decided to retract the paper.
A lot of Dana’s reasoning smells like conspiracy ideation to me. A conspiracy by “climate contrarians” to get the conspiracy paper retracted? Hmmmm – interesting.
Maybe we should do a paper on the bizarre reasoning of certain warmists?
By the way – what is a “climate contrarian”?
Someone who believes the climate is contrary? Maybe it is a person who wishes it was cold when it it hot, and visa versa?
RickA (Comment #127064)
“I am sure the paper was retracted because…”
But has it been? The journal page says:
“This article, first published by Frontiers on 18 March 2013, has been the subject of complaints. Given the nature of some of these complaints, Frontiers has provisionally removed the link to the article while these issues are investigated, which is being done as swiftly as possible and which Frontiers management considers the most responsible course of action. The article has not been retracted or withdrawn. Further information will be provided as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience. “
Nick, do you think that Dana was just practicing his writing skills or something? And why would Lew add this https://twitter.com/clim8resistance/status/446847328343691264/photo/1 to the top of his paper located on the UWA website if the paper is not being retracted? That pdf was created March 5, 2014 and modified on March 18, 2014.
sue (Comment #127069)
I simply point out what the Journal currently says.
ok Nick
The story of that post seems fabricated to me. As far as I know, only one person ever suggested they might take legal action, and Frontiers removed (or at least attempted to remove) the sentence referring to him.* Unless there was a lot of activity I’m not aware of, there were no legal reasons to remove the paper.
Incidentally, that post fails to acknowledge the fact two complaints filed against the paper resulted in changes to the paper due to it having misrepresented what a couple people said. That means everyone should be able to agree at least some of the complaints had merit. I’m sure Dana Nuccitelli won’t.
*Frontiers released two different versions of the paper when they republished it after taking it down the first time. One version inadvertently left the sentence in.
Brandon, this is from Steve posted at Bishop Hill’s
”
The Lewandowsky article made a variety of defamatory and untrue allegations against me with malice. I accordingly sent a strongly worded and detailed letter to the journal formally requesting that they withdraw the allegations and retract the article. The letter did not specifically “threaten to sue” in those words but was expressed in legal terms. It was my hope that the journal would recognize the many defects of the Lewandowsky article and behave responsibly, as they eventually did.
I urge Andrew and readers not to take the position that the journal’s decision to regard themselves having potential legal liability as “very strange”. Better to commend the journal for their belated decision to do the right thing by retracting the article.”
Mar 21, 2014 at 1:26 AM | Unregistered CommenterSteve McIntyre
I’m starting to think Lew might be writing a new paper 😉
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/20/science-journal-retracts-paper-showing-how-climate-change-sceptics-were-conspiracy-theorists-after-sceptics-shout
sue, I think Steve McIntyre’s comment is a bit misleading. I don’t think there’s any way to argue Frontiers is wrong to think it might have “potential legal liability.” However, the Skeptical Science post being quoted explicitly stated:
That is a “very strange” comment as it appears to be made up.
Incidentally, the comment attached to the paper explaining the situation is definitely “very strange.” It describes Frontiers actions by saying:
I assume they miswrote this sentence. If the legal context was insufficiently clear to retract the paper, they wouldn’t have retracted the paper.
There has been no motion from the journal — the article is still present. The only evidence seems to be the non-post from SkS. I wonder if Lew/Sks are baiting, a practice at which they are masters.
So if the paper is retracted, I get to pretend there’s no consensus, right?
HaroldW,
No, check what is written at that link (I quoted above). But the article is still up on PubMed.
Nick Stokes (#127079): “check what is written at that link”
That disclaimer has been up for a while — I suspect for nearly a year now. Wayback machine shows it as of Feb 24, 2014, but has no earlier snapshots.
I repeat: “There has been no motion from the journal.”
[Added: The disclaimer was added April 3, 2013, per this WUWT post.]
Brandon, I thought that the posts by both Andrew and Anthony had been inaccurate. I pointed out that I, for one, had sent a strongly worded letter to the journal objecting to untrue and defamatory statements about me in the article. I think that you misread my comment: I didn’t suggest that the journal was “wrong” to consider their potential legal liability in light of my letter. Quite the opposite. I was saying that Andrew was incorrect in presuming that the journal had not received formal complaints about defamation.
HaroldW,
I think you’re right that there is no change. But I don’t think the article is shown there; just the abstract, and then comments.
It’s now at retraction watch
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/03/21/controversial-paper-linking-conspiracy-ideation-to-climate-change-skepticism-formally-retracted/
There are implicit and explicit threats of legal action in the FOI docs that we’re posted by Desmog blog earlier today.
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Recursive%20FOI%20complaints.pdf
The link to the paper is now back up but without the retraction notice. It was modified around 6:30 this morning. There are so many things wrong with Readfearn’s story! Ben Pile has taken him on on twitter. I don’t Grahams up to the task 😉 Steve’s observation of missing FOI emails is interesting. Who was the FOI request actually made to? And take a look at page 1 of the FOI docs. The font size is different on some lines with a comma misplaced in the beginning of a sentence. And why would Lew, Cook and the other guy have “gagging” orders (gag)?? I’m getting a headache….
Steve McIntyre, you say you “didn’t suggest that the journal was ‘wrong’ to consider their potential legal liability.” I agree. I don’t think there’s a way to say they’d be wrong to consider that.
However, Skeptical Science appears to be wrong to say “contrarians [were] threatening libel lawsuits.” As such, I think it’s reasonable to say:
If the story Skeptical Science wrote about threats of libel lawsuits was made up, I’d say it is “very strange.”
DGH, where are you seeing these explicit and implicit threats? Excluding Foxgoose’s threat (which I discussed upthread), I don’t see what you’re talking about.
If nothing else, SkS is dependably kreepy, kooky and klownish.
A real credit to the scientists who promoted it. A little boy’s club of self-declared internet professionals who cannot run a site, who photoshop themselves up in nazi uniforms, who maliciously rewrite comments, delete comments capriciously and participate in deceptive propaganda dressed up as science. Now they trip over themselves with hysterical self-conflicted bloviations about wicked denialists intimidating journals.
The SkS gang used to be fun. Now they are just boring.
Sue: this is interesting at the DeSmogBlog link:
That Desmogblog article is so distorted! Oh well…
As for the journal reviewing Lew’s crap and deciding it actually was written as badly as some critics pointed out, that has nothing to do with skeptics. It is all on Lew and Cook and the rest of the SkS boy’s club to deal with.
The Lew/Cook paper was contrived transparent garbage from the start. If the journal where they dumped their faux paper figured that out and decides to take action, that is between the authors and the paper. Let’s sit back and enjoy the meltdown.
Lucia, How convenient that none of the authors can speak of it and now Graham has gone to bed so he won’t be answering any questions regarding his story…
Do you think that 1st page, (second email) looks odd?
Brandon,
I think Jeff Id might have mentioned “libel” in his letters to Recursive Fury. With regard to any libel claim, I also think he would have been satisfied by the paper being revised to:
1) Not write sentences that associated his name (Condon) with the lable of being a denier and
2) Not write sentences that associated his name (Condon) with believing that the only reasons the thermometer record shows warming is inclusion of unjustified adjustments in the true record.
At least original versions of the paper did both. Both claims would be false: Jeff does not and never had denied warming is real– in fact, has explicitly said otherwise. He does not and never has claimed the thermometer record only shows warming due to ‘adjustments’; he has explicitly claimed otherwise.
Had Fronteirs of Science published a paper that continued to include these false claims I think Jeff might very well have sued and he probably would have won.
The fact is: the paper contained numerous either utterly untrue or distorted claims. However, most were organized in ways that did not amount to libel. The mere fact that in the original version, the authors someone diagnosed Richard Betts as somehow being one of the people whose “conspiracy ideation” somehow supported their notion that skeptics or deniers suffer form “conspiracy ideation” shows how truly confused the authors were about either (a) which people are deniers or skeptics (b) which statements at blogs might suggests one has “conspiracy ideation and/or (c) what precisely is wrong with “conspiracy ideation” (if defined as broadly as the authors seem to define it.)
With respect to (c) it seems that all “conspiracy ideation” might mean is that someone thinks it’s remotely possible that some people (including scientists) sometimes do bad things and sometimes have bad motives. Of course, it’s true that some people (including scientists) sometimes do bad things and sometimes have bad motives.
Anyway: the paper was pitifully bad. But in this case, the lack of “fact checking” in peer review and actual attachment of names meant that a few people might actually have a basis for filing suits had they wished to do so.
correction: the retraction notice is still on the file from UWA.
Sue
Which first page (of what) nor which second email you are referring too.
The University of Western Australia (UWA) is standing behind the paper, and making it available at:
.
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf
.
They believe that the paper is academically and ethically fine, and they are not worried about the legal risk.
It’s a great day to be part of the powerful hidden conspiracy against those 97.365% of climate scientists. If we can shut down a paragon of scholarly excellence like Lewandowsky, then we must be unstoppable. The imposition of a “gagging” order was just a bonus.
Lucia, sorry this file http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Recursive%20FOI%20complaints.pdf
Thanks for the link.
The only email I see on 1st page is “@frontiersin.org”. The redacted the first bit. But… things are redacted. So, no I don’t see anything odd in that.
On blogs: If you are seeing something you think is odd, tell me what. Otherwise, I and others here are forced to guess what you are trying to suggest might be odd. And in this case, I’m failing to guess!
George
Whatever the “gag” order does, it doesn’t seem to prevent Lewandowsky from posting a very long vimeo vidoe nor writing a very long blog post telling “his side” of story.
New blog by Lew http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html
I don’t think that new law says what he thinks it says…
“Until January 1st of this year, the U.K.—where I now reside and whose laws are therefore applicable—was the country made in heaven for people who wanted to use “defamation†as a tool to suppress inconvenient speech, to the point that President Obama recently signed a law to make U.K. libel judgments unenforceable in the U.S. That law (PUBLIC-LAW 111-223) explicitly cites the “ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work†as motivating reason for making foreign libel judgments unenforceable in the United States.”
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ223/pdf/PLAW-111publ223.pdf
Lew is reading that law completely backwards. It protects Americans from being sued in foreign lands that do not have the same protections as our constitution.
sue,
Yeah. There are so many reasons that law would not protect Lewandowski in the event that someone filed a suit againts him in the UK.
1) US law here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10940211 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act
2) “It means US courts can refuse to enforce any foreign libel case judgements.” Note: “can”. Not “must”. Also note: ” unless those judgments are compliant with the U.S. First Amendment.” Note BBC article also mention of “Sullivan law” which means some cases in UK would not win in US. Purpose of new law is to extend “Sullivan law” protection to America writers (or those with US assets) who might be sued in UK. But “Sullivan Law” might be irrelevant to Lewandowsky libel issue– though that depends on who might have been libeled. (It would be difficult to imagine ‘Barry Woods’ is a ‘public figure’ even if he does tweet a lot.) And in other cases libel case might be won even if Sullivan criterion applied. ( I believe, Jeff Id, had, for example, told Lewandowsky his stance on climate change.) So, even if Lewandowski was American with American assets (and so covered by law), US courts might still impose judgement because “Sullivan” issues not involved.
3) Law only protects those with assets in the US. That is,if UK court awards damages, US courts might not allow person to file suit to use US power to freeze US assets. US law can’t do anything about assets in UK.
4) If someone sued Lewandowsky in UK and won in UK, they could still get UK to enforce UK award. US law can’t change that.
5) At least one person who mentioned libel at his blog lives in US. So, there is risk libel case would be lodged in US. So, the correct legal question is whether UK or Australia would uphold damage awards in US. I think answer is ” Yes”.
Beyond that:
Paper about conspiratorial thinking shut down by a conspiracy?
lucia, I don’t remember what Jeff Id wrote to them, but his complaint would be in the same realm as Foxgoose’s. The journal (at least tacitly) acknowledged both complaints were valid by changing the paper to address them. That’s all either asked for so that resolved the issues as far as those complainants were concerned.
I can’t tell if NathanD at Lewandowsky’s blog is serious or trying to be a parody. Read this comment:
He’s explicitly stating there’s a conspiracy amongst Lewandowsky’s critics. I can’t believe that’s for real.
Neal J King:
You don’t know they believe that or that they aren’t worried.
It takes mind reading capabilities to make these specific claims.
My stand is I quit taking Lewandowsky seriously after this paper. It tells me something important about people who still endorse this as “quality academic work”.
I made a comment at Lewandowsky website, If I may, I’ll reproduce it here (in case it gets removed)
http://shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html#3166
Barry Woods at 23:01 PM on 21 March, 2014
I wrote to Frontiers about my concerns about ethical conduct and conflicts of interest and vested interest of the one or more of the authors. In particular, I requested my name to be removed from the paper’s data set, Because one of the authors Marriott, (Watching the Deniers blog) had been writing over a dozen articles attacking the critics of LOG12 during the research period (ie not neutral as claimed) and more particularly, had personally attacked me, naming me (and others) on his blog Watching the Deniers.. and as such I said this compromised the paper.
I made the point,to UWA and Frontiers, as my name was merely in the data set, but not referenced in the main paper, the removal of my name should have no impact on the paper. and given the circumstances I thought this was a reasonable request.
I also said because of this it was also in Frontiers best interests to remove this paper for consideration, in light of these issues
I emailed Frontiers, links to Marriott’s personal attacks about myself and Anthony Watts, labelling us deniers, disinformation, denial Industry, writing ‘Verified Bullshit’ and worst labelling us with a psychological defect Dunning-Kruger, and he had adulterated an WUWT graphic (my article) with a red rubber stamped ‘Verified Bullshit’
https://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/?s=woods
This article I found was was endorsed by Skeptical Science, and it transpires that Mariott was also a Skeptical Science insider (writing rebuttals)- John Cook the founder of Skeptical Science, also being an author on this paper.
I did write to UWA ethics department, asking for my name to be removed from the paper, in light of Marriot’s conduct, as initially a reasonable request not a complaint. It was only when a complaint seemed to be the only way forward, that I made it a complaint
(I also repeated it had no impact on the paper, and this should be a simple request for UWA/ and the lead author to fulfill, given the circumstances) but UWA found no problems with Marriott’s conduct, or the other issues I raised about the paper, which says a lot about UWA, I think
From the FOI request for ethics approval for this paper, the ethics secretary directed professor Lewandowsky to a UWA webpage.
(extract from)
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/3758/
The page contains a ‘risk assessment checklist’ to guide researchers to whether a planned study would need ethics approval. It has these questions:
1 Active concealment of information from participants and/or planned deception of participants
2 Will participants be quoted or be identifiable, either directly or indirectly, in reporting of the research?
3 Will data that can identify an individual (or be used to re-identify an individual) be obtained from databanks, databases, tissue banks or other similar data sources?
4 Might the research procedures cause participants psychological or emotional distress?
5 Does the research involve covert observation?
The answer is a ‘Yes’ to many of these questions. ’Participants’ declared to be conspiratorial by Lewandowsky are directly identified by name in the paper. The element of covert observation is undeniable.
————-
so I do think ethics approval went a bit wrong with this paper.
Where is Frontiers located? They are supposedly concerned about the legal consequences, right? That’s why the paper is being redacted.
Note: In Lewandowsky’s March 21, 2014, link to paper is hosted at SkS.to not UWA:
Interesting about that location of the paper. Regarding that quote from the UWA lawyer, I doubt she thought Lew would publicly rewrite that…
Here is the retraction page at Frontiers in Psychology.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00293/full
Oddly, I went back about 1/2 hour later to copy the link of the page on which the retraction pdf was located, but couldn’t find it. Luckily I had already downloaded the pdf and found the page link embedded in the pdf file of the retraction.
Maybe it is only a provisional retraction.
If the journal truly was concerned about being sued fir publishing the article, surely they would issue a clear unequivocal full-blown retraction.
And even if they didn’t, I can’t imagine that they would think a half-hearted not really a retraction retraction would get them off the hook.
Imagine your the editor of a journal. You’re worried about being sued. Would you (a) wait a year before retracting, and (b) give your retraction in the form of “we retract the article, sort of, even though we still of course believe in everything the article said.”
Brandon,
I agree. It’s just someone wanted to know whether there were any actual libel complaints. There were: it’s just that paper was– supposedly– edited to deal with those and so that presumably wasn’t “reason” why it was yanked. It would be some other reason.
Copner, especially if they ‘know’ that Lew plans to post the paper, that they are retracting for fear of legal context, on his UWA site and possible other sites eg SKS.
sue: Note that Lewandowsky doesn’t tell us when the UWA attorney wrote that. Maybe yesterday. Maybe a year ago. Who knows? But the link is to sks.to, not UWA.
my comment here:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html#3166
which explains the ethics complaint I made, and no mention of libel
The article is presently at the UWA website with a pre-dendum containing the retraction statement and an absurd comment about U.S. libel law: http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf
When I looked at this link yesterday, it had been taken down, but is now back up with the predendum.
sks.to/recursivefury and sks.to/rf now point to the UWA website.
This is thecurrent wording of the retraction at
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00293/full
1) They don’t really say specific” “academic, ethical or legal” aspects were investigated, nor what threshold would be required for a breach of any rule to be said to have occurred.
2) They do tell us that “the legal context is insufficiently clear” which is vague but suggest that — possibly–t hey don’t find any breaches precisely because thinks do look pretty bad but they don’t know precisely where the various legal thresholds are (or ought to be).
3) Where ever they are, Frontiers is retracting.
4) The last suggestion sounds more or less like “The authors are grumpified by this and regret that sprinkling “peer review” chanting “academic freedom” on a paper doesn’t automatically give the contents carte-blanche during possible legal proceeding should a person file a legal complaint.
As for 4: Tough luck guys. It’s simply the case that if someone think you libeled them, then can file a suit. If the case is colorable, the suit will go forward. If the case is strong, there is a good chance they will win. “Academic freedom” and “peer review” doesn’t change this. And if anything journals are not going to want to lay open the review process to legal discovery and in some instances, they may not want facts of the review process (including names of reviewers, contents or reviews & etc.) be aired in open court. Likely the journal is aware there is a risk of both should any legal claim be adjudicated. And if these details did appear in open court, it’s not unlikely the “anonymous reviewers” would howl– so the journal is likely quite averse to getting sued for many reasons.
Lucia, you’re are right we don’t know when she wrote that. It just struck me as odd. Seems like an attorney/client confidential issue. And what does she mean by “…and I’d be quite comfortable processing such a phony legal action as an insurance matter.” Does that imply that if she ‘processed’ it as an insurance matter rather a legal action that if he or UWA were sued and an inquiry was made about any legal issues involving Lew, then Lew or UWA could respond with something like this http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/20/science-journal-retracts-paper-showing-how-climate-change-sceptics-were-conspiracy-theorists-after-sceptics-shout:
“Speaking to DeSmogBlog, Lewandowsky said because the reports had come from sources which relied on information “not in the public domain†he did not wish to comment. But he added:
I can confidently say that the University of Western Australia has not upheld any complaints against me from any party on any matter whatsoever. Beyond that, I cannot go into specifics.”
Oh.. the new predendum is bullshit.
Hhhmmm…. oddly, the protection against someone like — for example– Jeff Id suing for defamation where Jeff lives (Michigan) was the one year statute of limitations which had lapsed. But now UWA added the predendum!!! If the predendum was correct adding it was unnecessary as it would have had forece whether or not it was adding. If it is incorrect adding it might restart the clock on statute of limitations. If someone else now hosts the new version, we know its a version created no earlier than March 20, 2014– and the statute of limitations for any libel claims in Michigan would then end no sooner than March 2015.
That said: the new version does not contain the claims Jeff complained off. So, that would preclude the libel case Jeff might file, because it’s not posting the “thermometer” or “denier” claim. It is posting the claim that
But at http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/global-temperature-records-above-the-law/ Jeff did write
The paraphrase/quote is something in the “manufactured” side since Phil Jones is one person not many people so a fair paraphrase quote would either retail “Phil Jones” or say “one particular climate scientist” rather than turning “Phil Jones” into the group entity of “climate scientists”. But I doubt anyone would go to court over that. One would more likely just say “I said ‘Phil Jones’, and it’s actually true that he colluded with FOIA officials (i.e. government officials) to violate the law.”
If believing Phil Jones did this is “conspiracy ideation”…. well… uhmm yeah. He did this. It’s a fact.
In the UK, the courts have ruled each time a publication is downloaded, it is republished.
As (I understand) Lewandowsky is now resident in the UK, I think he would have a hard time arguing UK libel law doesn’t apply to him,… if somebody sued him in the UK courts.
In the US, the law on this would be on a state-by-state basis. Most– but not all- states follow a “single publication” rule where the publication — even online– happens on the day it first goes online. Jeff lives in Michigan:
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/michigan-defamation-law
So: We don’t know whether the statute of limitations for UWA’s posting had run out in Michigan– but it may have. But if it had, the adding of the ‘predendum’ might restart the clock. This means that with respect to Michigan law, adding that would be a dumb move. Of course, statute of limitations and etc. differ from state to state and country to country.
Copner
Yes. And if he lost in the UK courts, presumably someone could get the UK to enforce their judgement. Since his paycheck is issued by a UK entity and he may well bank in the UK, any US reluctance to enforce UK libel rulings would be rather… well… uhmmmm…
This is just one of the reasons why that pre-dendum is beyond stupid. If someone (we don’t know who) wanted to sue Lewandowsky in the UK or Australia or the UWA in Australia, that US law really does nothing. It doesn’t protect him or them. At. All.
Lucia, as you observe, Lewandowsky is now resident in the UK and employed by the University of Bristol and UK libel law would appear to apply to Lewandowsky’s re-publication of Fury on the website of his former employer. His decision to re-publish the article following the Frontiers retraction would presumably start the statute of limitations once again with.
I also wonder if the publication of the slightly revised (with predendum) article would have to comply with codes of conduct at Lewandowsky’s present employer.
Well – I was wrong. Now that I have read the actual retraction notice, which wasn’t up when I posted my comment above, I am disappointed to see that it is being retracted for legal issues, not academic or ethical issues.
I would really like to see more about Frontiers investigation related to the academic and/or ethical issues. Because the retraction should have been for those issues.
This paper was horrible. It was ethically bad it was academically bad and it was legally bad – but they only cite legal issues to support the retraction.
I am very disappointed.
Lucia I went back to look at that page 1, 2nd para of http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Recursive%20FOI%20complaints.pdf and this is what is odd:
It has no header
It starts with:
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 1:56 PM,
Notice the word wrote: all the way to the right at the top. These are the same fonts. Then the word Dear and the following sentence starting with “Thank you…. “ are in a different font. The next 2 sentences starting with “ We will…†and “will forward…†are in the same font as the date. Then the word Send switches back again, next sentence “These agreements…†switches again, etc.
Then I noticed that with all those supposed ‘redactions’ that it all reads as one full sentence: “We will not send these agreements to UWA, since they contain the names of the evaluation team members, unless an allegation of breach of this undertaking occurs, in which case Frontiers will provide this undertaking to UWA.â€
ack, not 2nd para but 2nd email
sue,
Thanks for clarifying. That’s not necessarily odd. My mail reader choses its own font for headers. The person sending the email can chose what they want when sending. The two might not match. As for changing font midstream: That happens when I cut and past into my mail on the mac– and I have to remedy it. If I forget to do that, which I sometimes do, I send out funky looking emails. So that email struck me as possibly badly formatted… but… so?
At Frontiers, the abstract page still has the old disclaimer — “provisionally removed … The article has not been retracted or withdrawn” — but the abstract itself is now gone. [It was there a few hours ago.]
Copner (Comment #127132)
March 21st, 2014 at 10:14 am
“In the UK, the courts have ruled each time a publication is downloaded, it is republished.
As (I understand) Lewandowsky is now resident in the UK, I think he would have a hard time arguing UK libel law doesn’t apply to him,… if somebody sued him in the UK courts.”
Not likely to happen.
S6 Defamation Act 2013.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/6/enacted
Does anyone know why Frontiers acted now, about a year after the posting? It seems unlikely that any investigation which they undertook would have taken that long to reach a conclusion. I wonder if one of the authors, or one of the complainants, recently reminded them of their “as swiftly as possible” statement.
Ok thanks Lucia, hadn’t thought of ‘bad formatting’
HaroldW,
Barry Woods has been a pain in their ass for a long time. Maybe he managed to get someone with a level of power interested. But mostly, your guess is as good as mine.
Bib Denton, two comments on the section that you cited. First, the exemption applies only to publication in an academic journal. The article was retracted by the journal and was re-published by Lewandowsky on the internet. Second, malice removes the exemption.
Lucia, according to their correspondence with UWA, Frontiers had established a committee of “senior academics” to consider the matter. It might have taken a long time for the committee to address the matter and to obtain responses from Lewandowsky. Such an investigation could easily drift for a year. I’ve written to the journal requesting a copy of the investigation report. I, for one, was never notified of the existence of the committee or provided an opportunity to comment on or rebut statements by Lewandowsky to the committee.
The letter from Frontiers to the UWA said that they wanted their procedure to be “even-handed and objective” and to be seen to “be so”, but these goals appear to have been ignored by the investigation, and without a copy of the investigation report or any details of the investigation, it is impossible for anyone to verify that the procedure was “even handed and objective”.
“Steve McIntyre
I also wonder if the publication of the slightly revised (with predendum) article would have to comply with codes of conduct at Lewandowsky’s present employer.”
I worked on the medical side in the UK and one never uses names of individuals or identifiers (like initials) that would allow a person to be potentiallyidentified, in any published material.
Bristol is a very good university and you can bet that have rules covering the naming of living people in research.
The symmetry of Mann vs Steyn and Many vs Lewandowsky et al., is rather comical.
Steve McIntyre (Comment #127146)
March 21st, 2014 at 12:55 pm
“Bib Denton, two comments on the section that you cited. First, the exemption applies only to publication in an academic journal. The article was retracted by the journal and was re-published by Lewandowsky on the internet. Second, malice removes the exemption.”
It was published in a journal.
No one alleges malice.
Bob,
I think based on your link, we’d need to know the substance of the alleged libelous claim. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/6/enacted
I’ll step through using a hypothetical example. Suppose the issue had been:
In his paper, Lewandowski said someone called “Joe Blow” was a climate change denier. In context of that peer reviewed paper, this would appear to be factual claim. (If it’s not, the paper is rather pointless.)
“Joe Blow” says he’s not a climate change denier, he believes climate change is happening and so on. Would this suit be thrown out on the basis that the statement appeared in a peer reviewed journal article. Let’s start:
Note: merely being in the journal doesn’t make a statement privileged.
Is the question of whether “Joe Blow” himself is or is not a climate change denier a “scientific or academic matter”. I think the answer is no. But perhaps I’m mistaken. Already, it appears this law might not protect Lewandowsky, UAW or Fronteirs.
Note there is an “and”. Did the journal editor and at least one other person experienced in whatever “scientific or academic matter” might touch on diagnosing whether “Joe Blow” himself is a climate change denier conduct any independent review of whether “Joe Blow” himself is a ‘climate change denier’? I put it to you that with respect to any one Lewandowsky might have called a “climate change denier” in his first draft, no one did any such thing so neither (a) nor (b) occurred.
I would put it to you that even if Lewandowsky or his team claim the did some sort of independent assessment of “Joe Blow” climate denialisms, the editor of the journal probably did absolutely no investigation to determine whether “Joe Blow” the individualwas or was not a climate denier. This is because editors do not fact check (neither do peer reviewers.)
I don’t think 4-5 apply. The look like they might be quoting the paper in other papers or venues. With regard to (6) I don’t know if the UK definition of “malice” matches the US definition. If “Joe Blow” informed Lewandowsky that he was not a climate denier before Lewandowsky wrote the pape, Lewandowsky’s publication would then likely meet the US definition of “malice”.
Points 7-8 seem to not matter to the issue. I don’t know how that statute has been applied in the UK. As it is new, likely no one really knows how it will be applied. But at least for the hypothetical I brought up, it looks like it ‘publication in journal’ would probably not protect the researcher in the sort of hypothetical libel claims that have been discussed at blogs. We probably won’t learn if it does because — quite likely– no one will sue. Suing is expensive, and one can’t be sure of winning even if one is right.
The graphic and links (from Watching the Deniers blog – Marriott – co-author) that I posted in my first comment at Lewandowsky’s website, were a few weeks before the ‘research’ period of the Recursive Fury paper..
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html#3166
Here is another graphic, in the middle of the ‘research’ period by Fury, co-author Marriott. Where Marriott is attacking Anthony Watts, who was later named as a ‘source of conspiracy ideation in the paper and the WUWT graphic shown, is adulterated by Marriott to say “Verified Bullshit†(the article in question is my authorship)
https://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/watts-explains-why-lewandowsky-paper-on-conspiracy-theories-is-wrong-its-a-conspiracy-between-john-cook-and-the-prof/
Marriot and Cook were brought in because they were supposedly independent of LOG12, yet Mariott was cheerleading Lewandowsky, and attacking LOG12 critics. (13 articles about it in the research period)
I don’t care what was said by Marriott on his blog, the issue is that ethically, how can a researcher be seen to be publically attacking his research subjects, before after, or especially during the research period of the paper. (I am even interacting with him in the comments!)
Bob Denton: It was published in a journal.
And then it was “unpublished” by the journal. So it’s no longer a valid publication.
Pretty sure that affects the equation somewhere…
lucia (Comment #127151)
March 21st, 2014 at 2:00 pm
“Bob,
I think based on your link, we’d need to know the substance of the alleged libelous claim. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/…../6/enacted”
I think the first question you’d be met with from the judge is, “But isn’t this precisely the sort of action S6 is intended to protect academics from?” So, you’d be rolling your stone up-hill.
The paper is about an association between certain types of conspiratorial ideation and the rejection of science – as represented by his previous paper – and is a textual analysis. His thesis is that the criticisms of his paper were associated with motivated thinking, though he’s careful to state that the analysis was without prejudice to whether or not the criticisms were valid. It’s aimed at a group, not an individual, though it identifies certain individuals and their thoughts. But their thoughts are alleged to be memes adopted by conspiratorial science-deniers. This thesis does not require, even, that the originators of memes be science-deniers. Merely that they have appeal for science-deniers.
Citing someone’s words as evidence of ideation in a textual analysis relates, at least. in my opinion, to an academic or scientific matter. If he’d mentioned in passing that Joe Blow sells drugs, that would be different.
You can find information on Frontiers Peer-Review system here.
http://www.frontiersin.org/about/reviewsystem
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2013_04_09/caredit.a1300068
It appears to satisfy the peer-review criteria.
S6(5) appears to extend privilege to accurate copies published elsewhere.
The US definition of malice approximates for this purpose to the UK meaning, which boils down to – a belief not honestly held.
But, what belief would be alleged that the author did not honestly hold?
Lucia:
Well that’s certainly my experience, on both ends of the process.
You assume competency on the part of the writer, unless requested to test this by the editor, or you have strong reason to doubt their competency.
If somebody submits a publication that has human subjects approval, the reviewers don’t see the HR application or any other documentation. However that is vetted, it is handled by the journal. I doubt the journal requests to see the researchers human subjects plan either—just forms that affirm the researcher and his institute have abided by applicable regulations.
University institutional review boards (IRBs) do review your application, but often don’t raise issues with you where none was raised by you.
For example, they will assume you are competent and know better than to reveal the names of the subjects involved in the study. I’ve never had anybody ask me “how are you going to protect anonymity”. Instead, I am handed an explanation of behavior expected of me, which I have to sign, and then expected to comply.
Off hand, the only place I have gotten any feedback that I can remember is in description of recruitment process and payment of services for subjects.
The University cares about the former because if you do something that is discriminatory during the recruitment process, that exposes them directly. If you pay your subjects for their time, they also have to track the payment to the subjects and report it as income to the IRS. They also have to verify you are manage your human subjects funds correctly.
Everything “down stream” of this relies on the ethics and integrity of the experimenter. That’s why abiding by the rules is so important, and why there’s such a push in the US to educate researchers on their ethical responsibilities.
Carrick,
Historically, as a practical matter, peer reviewers and editors really could not fact check. For example: in 1950, data might be collected manually, recorded in notebooks and so on. Then someone might compile a whole bunch of stuff, do analyses and submit a paper describing findings. Maybe the researcher is in the US, the journal n the UK.
Is the journal going to fly someone in to verify that the test rig looked the way described. No. And even if someone thought they had to fly to the US, the test trig might no longer even exist in the original form. Are the peer reviewers going to ask the scientists to send the notebooks for inspection to check data match up with whats in graphs? Obviously, this was not done and it didn’t matter because this was not the purpose of peer review then.
It still isn’t the purpose.
Lucia,
“At least original versions of the paper did both. Both claims would be false: Jeff does not and never had denied warming is real– in fact, has explicitly said otherwise. He does not and never has claimed the thermometer record only shows warming due to ‘adjustments’; he has explicitly claimed otherwise.
Had Frontiers of Science published a paper that continued to include these false claims I think Jeff might very well have sued and he probably would have won.”
To be libellous, statement has to, at least, be both untrue and damaging. You’ve contested truth. But why would such a claim about Jeff Id be damaging? What damage would he suffer if people did acquire that incorrect belief?
I think it’s funny that people think that scientist Mann is not libelled by someone saying that he molests and tortures data in the service of politicized science, while a claim that Jeff Id holds views that are in fact proudly held by many of his commentariat (and here) is libellous.
Nick, one obvious difference is Lewandowsky claimed to be representing Jeff Condon’s views, clearly statements of fact, and got it wrong, while Steyn was obvious stating his own opinions about Mann’s work, which may or may not not contain statements of fact, that he may have gotten wrong.
But I’m struggling to find any logic here in your comment:
Did you fall and hit your head?
Lucia:
You could make the argument that they should review the methods and procedures associated with human subjects. It’s probable, especially based on the initial approval to publish this paper, that no such oversight was present for this publication.
We are asked to render an opinion on certain aspects of the human subjects section when reviewing grant applications these days. So there is a bit of a shift here to more oversight, especially after abuses of the human subject process in clinical medicine were exposed.
Carrick,
“But I’m struggling to find any logic here in your comment”
Well, what damage would Jeff Id suffer if a rumor spread that he denied warming was real?
Nick,
His company could lose major customers who were “green” oriented. This could affect sales and $$.
This is an issue that would need to be thrashed out. As far as I can tell, it would be the only issue that Jeff could possibly find challenging to prove under the first version of the paper.
“the first condition is that the statement relates to a scientific or academic matter” could well also strip the article of any protection.
For example, if I write an article about some academic research, for example about the efficacy of a some proprietary medical drug, the legislation is intended to protect me if I conclude it is ineffective or even harmful. But it isn’t intended to protect me if I go on to say “and the CEO of the drug company is a criminal.”
Putting something into an academic journal isn’t intended to be carte blanche protection for any statement I might make.
I know, because I was involved in the campaign to get this law, and other libel law reforms enacted.
Of course, it’s still possible that the courts might still say that lewandowsky’s statements about various individuals are privileged (assuming they aren’t made with malice etc.), but I don’t think it is a given.
And malice in English law is different from us law. In english law, it pretty much means what it says on the tin: intent to do harm, or reckless disregard for the possibility of harm occurring.
If Lewandowsky set out to harm climate deniers, or the particular climate deniers or individuals named in his paper, malice probably applies, and he’s probably lost his privilege. I would think contemparaneous statements that Lewandowsky and his co-authors made in other venues, would be relevant to determining the possible presence of malice.
Nick,
Ah, the old “it doesn’t matter” if a scientist does shoddy work…
lucia (Comment #127166)
“His company could lose major customers who were “green†oriented.”
Well, he runs a blog where such views are plentifully expressed. He had a publicized role in the release of the UEA emails. How many customers are likely to shift their business because of acquiring a suspicion that he may be a skeptic after browsing through Frontiers of Psychology?
Nick, how likely is Mann’s employer to fire him, because of what Steyn wrote, especially since (according to Mann) already done their own investigation and cleared him.
These things matter because truth and free speech matter.
Those of us in the peanut gallery enjoy the legal entertainment, but they’re not really the important point to anybody except those who are personally involved.
P.s. My last comment is stuck in moderation.
Nick,
He uses a pseudonym at the blog. The Frontiers paper gave his real name.
Lewandowsky’s independent reviewer was a graduate student; how usual is that?
Sad to see so much effort spent on such a crap piece of “research”.
lucia (Comment #127173)
“He uses a pseudonym at the blog. The Frontiers paper gave his real name.”
The Frontiers paper said:
” climate deniers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming (e.g., Condon, 2009).”
and linked to
“http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/global-temperature-records-above-the-law/ (Accessed 6 May 2012).” So you couldn’t associate it with JC, businessman, without going through the blog.
It actually doesn’t say that JC holds that view – only that they are expressed at that link, as they are. But in fact, Jeff says there:
“The reason that people are so interested in global temperatures is that the large positive adjustments to the records provide most of the signal in the GISS global temperature record.” (emphasis in original).
So the paper was not wrong.
Nick Stokes (Comment #127159)
Not always. Depends on the jurisdiction.
Nick Stokes:
If Jeff Condon gained a reputation as a “crackpot” because of comments made by Lewindowsky, it could have a definite and negative effect on his livelihood.
How is that a negative?
What bullshit. It happens, I would say infrequently, usually by the same commentators. But Jeff and most of the others who regularly comment on that blog generally make it clear these views are disagreed with. Certainly it doesn’t get a round of applause when it happens.
By your f**ked up logic, Lucia’s views should be conflated with D O U G C O T T O N ‘ S.
I mean, after all, she created an entire thread about D O U G ‘ S ideas!
Oh dear, I spoke too soon! I guess Jeff really is a contrarian after all.
Radiative Physics – Yes CO2 Does Create Warming.
No, wait! That’s not contrianism. He just said that AGW is real!
Maybe this?
Land/Sea Bias In Satellite Temperature Metrics
Here Jeff is making the fictitious claim that there was more than one satellite and instruments calibration drift over time. No wait! These things are actually true.
My bad.
Seriously, you have to be completely indifferent to the truth to makes the sorts of specious claims made by Lewandowsky. Even if Lewandowsky withdrew the comments after his errors were pointed out to him, it still speaks to a careless indifference to the truth.
The fact that he made the errors, that apparently people like you were persuaded by them, and the fact he implicitly acknowledge the errors by correcting his paper, well, I’m not a lawyer (TB2G), but sure seems like that’s relevant, were anybody to sue for libel.
Nick,
“How many customers are likely to shift their business because of acquiring a suspicion that he may be a skeptic after browsing through Frontiers of Psychology?”
.
Don’t know for sure, but I bet more than the number of climate scientists who would think less of Mike Mann because of a 280 word post on a blog run by a conservative blogger. The issue is (once again) NOT that Jeff is skeptical of many of the projections of climate science, he clearly is (as am I!), it is that he is was reported by Lewandosky to believe specific things that he clearly does not believe. You seem to be off the trail there Nick.
.
Please also keep in mind the context… Lewandowsky was trying to show in his (IMO, toilet) paper that all ‘deni#rs’ (like Jeff!) are crazy. Now if suggesting a person is crazy, based upon cited information which is false, even after having been told by that same person the information is false, is not libelous, then it is hard to imagine what would be.
.
Maybe the answer to Carrick’s question “Did you fall and hit your head?” is the affirmative.
Nick
Who knows? I don’t. If your point is that Jeff might be required to show at least one did, and that that cost him: with respect to damages that’s likely true. But that speaks to damages. One can win a libel case and be awarded $1 as a formality. Few would take that to court– but some do.
Nick Stokes:
What do you think happens if you run the GISS algorithm, which does not apply any homogenization algorithms to the data, without using the adjusted data?
[Ans: The resulting trend is substantially smaller. ]
Note this does not say the adjustments are made in error or are intended to “fake” a global warming signal, just that GISTEMP requires adjusted data to function properly.
Not even plausibly.
Carrick (Comment #127188)
“Note this does not say the adjustments are made in error or are intended to “fake†a global warming signal”
The post that Lew linked was headed “Global Temperature Records – Above the Law”. Again, what Lew said was:
” climate deniers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming (e.g., Condon, 2009).”
Well, JC’s certainly saying that it has been adjusted, and the adjustments provide the signal. He goes on to ask:
“So my question is, if they have all the ‘adjusted’ data and all these ‘adjustments’ are above board honest science,…”
It’s not a stretch to infer from the heading and statements that he doesn’t accept the legitimacy of the adjustments. And in context it’s certainly not a libellous inference.
Carrick (Comment #127188)
“Note this does not say the adjustments are made in error or are intended to “fake†a global warming signal”
The post that Lew linked was headed “Global Temperature Records – Above the Law”. Again, what Lew said was:
” climate den iers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming (e.g., Condon, 2009).”
Well, JC’s certainly saying that it has been adjusted, and adjustments provide the signal. He goes on to ask:
“So my question is, if they have all the ‘adjusted’ data and all these ‘adjustments’ are above board honest science,…”
It’s not a stretch to infer from the heading and statements that he doesn’t accept the legitimacy of the adjustments. And it’s certainly not a libellous inference.
(space added to d– to escape moderation)
Nick,
Whatever you think one might “infer” from something not said, if it wasn’t said it wasn’t said. And if the inference is wrong, it is wrong. And in this case, the inference was wrong even if you are not surprised that someone might jump to the wrong conclusion.
What a court might have found I don’t know– but it’s a colorable case.
to my knowledge, Jeff Id was content with the changes by the journal in response to his original complaint as far as he was concerned personally. There is little to no purpose in re-hashing his original complaint, which is presumably why Nick Stokes has focused on this issue.
Mr. McIntyre, Eli wants to see all of the correspondence from Mr. Id to you so that he may audit your statement. Please feel free to not respond if you wish to be accused of stonewalling progress in this important field.
Carrick, you do know that Roger Tallbloke actively unbelieves general and special relativity??
Steve McIntyre,
Yes. Jeff was content with the changes the journal made. Consequently, there was no longer any need or motivation for any libel action on Jeff’s part. I have little doubt the journals accepting the need for correction and making the correction is a very important reason there was no suit.
Also, because the change was made quickly, there was little opportunity for potential reputational or financial damage to turn into real damage. It appears that Michigan (where Jeff lives) considers ‘damages’ to include hurt feelings on the part of the plaintiff. So even if Nick can’t imagine Jeff losing customers had the Journal refused Jeffs reasonable request the change the text of the original paper, Michigan’s statute would accepts things like “mental anguish” or “hurt feelings” to count as damage.
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/retraction-law-michigan.
“And it’s certainly not a libellous inference.”
But for the fact that its not presented as an inference that might be a good argument. But its presented as a fact, not an inference.
dont forget false light
I’ll take your doesn’t believe in special or general relativity (my father, who is actually a strong proponent of global warming mitigation, used to fit into that same group) and raise you “doesn’t believe in photons”.
Exhibit A: Claes Johnson:
Ironically, Roger carried a number of papers on planetary motion in that infamous issue. I guess he missed the memo you need General Relativity to accurately describe the orbit of Mercury—and not just a precessing ellipse… You need something that solves numerically the first-order parametrized post-Newtonian correction to accurately characterize the trajectory of Mercury.
Clifford Will has a nice article on SR & GR and GPS. Fun reading. I wonder if Roger doesn’t trust GPS either?
Steven Mosher (Comment #127205)
” But its presented as a fact,”
No, it’s not. Again, Lew wrote:
” climate den iers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming (e.g., Condon, 2009).”
It’s an academic reference. It just means you’ll find out more in (Condon, 2009). In future someone might well write:
” climate den iers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming (e.g., Lewandowsky et al, 2013).”
Remember the burden of proof here. A litigant would have to show that what Lew said was false, not just inexact, and that the difference amounted to libel (damaging).
Steven Mosher:
And it’s a flat-out misreading of Jeff’s blog post. This error just underscores the lack of care that was taken in preparing a paper that explicitly listed people by name and identified their supposed beliefs.
Looking at all the errors in that short paper, it’s hard to believe that a component of this wasn’t “punishing unbelievers” by naming and shaming them, rather than trying to advance the understanding of the psychology of d*niers.
Eli,
So the tall one is wrong; that is unrelated to Jeff. But I am wondering if you actually believe in the possibility of perpetual motion, as last night’s comment on the Doug Cotton thread suggests? I really do want to know this, since the comment was similar in quality to a disbelief in relativity.
Mosher,
Michigan — where Jeff happens to reside — is one of the states that does recognize false light. So,even though Nick seems to suggest that the sentences is just academic-speak that suggests one should read the blog post for more– that defense wouldn’t help much because doing that is false light and plaintiffs in Michigan are permitted to bring both charges simultaneously and let the trial sort out whether one, the other or both occurred.
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/michigan-false-light
Nick Stokes:
There’s no particular burden of proof that comes in with the expected level of ethical conduct of research on the part of researchers who engage in the study of human subjects.
Beyond that, this is a dead issue: The author has already modified his paper to remove the erroneous claims that Jeff Condon objected to.
This pattern of you defending mistakes that even the authors admit to is at times a bit disturbing.
lucia (Comment #127214)
“that defense wouldn’t help much because doing that is false light”
Your link just reinforces my query. It says:
“Offensiveness
The statement must be “unreasonable and highly objectionable.” Morganroth, 411 N.W.2d at 863-64 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E cmt. b). The material must be “highly offensive to a reasonable person.” Early Detection Ctr., P.C. v. N.Y. Life Ins. Co., 403 N.W.2d 830, 835 (Mich. Ct. App. 1986) (quoting Restatement 2d of Torts § 652E). In other words, it is not enough that the plaintiff is offended; it must be reasonable to take offense.”
So how would “JC believes that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming” be highly offensive to a reasonable person? Especially as it is so close to what he actually did say.
Carrick,
“This pattern of you defending mistakes…”
I’m not defending mistakes – I’m trying to find out why Lucia thinks the statement is libellous.
Nick Stokes (Comment #127208)
In many jurisdictions, a defamatory statement is presumed to be false, unless the defendant can prove its truth.
Well as I said, it’s a dead issue. But I guess you can be curious about what our proprietor thinks and why if you like. 😉
There will be a law suit over this because the Journal and Lewandowsky properly corrected the record. Feel free to contrast and compare that with a more recent case if you like.
Those of us who actually read Jeff’s posts understand that he, like many of us, engages in polemics at times. If you spent any time on his blog, it would be difficult though to come to the conclusion that he really believes what Lewandowsky claimed he believes.
This dead paper still smells more like self-aware “naming and shaming” than legitimate science to me.
Brandon,
I wrote, “There are implicit and explicit threats of legal action in the FOI docs that we’re posted by Desmog blog earlier today.”
Pg. 23′, “I should also remind you that, if this proceeds to legal action, any court or,tribunal…fraud and defamation are serious matters…”
Pg. 24, “I have sought legal advice..which has confirmed that I could potentially have amdefamation action against the authors and publishers…Obviously I understand that any legal action…”
Pg. 28 “…determining any future legal action.”
Pg. 52 “My only concern is my reputation and rights and I will pursue all means at my disposal to protect them.”
Pg 58 “Meanwhile you may like to read the story of Social,Psychology Professor Diederick Staple…”
From Retraction Watch, “Diederik Staple settles withnDutch prosecutors, won”t face jail time.”
Pg 98 “..The material falsehoods itemized herein are, in addition, defamatory,…”
Pg 106 “…The above material falsehoods were made either with an intent to deceive or with a reckless regard for the truth. Â Further, they were made with malice.”
(Note: this letter was carefully crafted to address 2 points from an excerpt from UWA’s  policies on academic misconduct.  Nowhere in the excerpt does the word “malice” appear yet the author makes a case on that additional point.)
Page 110 “I make this complaint because I believe this research was done not only improperly but with malice a forethought.”
(Note: This sentence comes from a letter originally sent to Psychological Science and subsequently forwarded to Frontiers In.)
Seriously, after seeing Mann tweet a link to this http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/03/21/the-paper-they-dont-want-you-to-read/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freethoughtblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28FTB%3A+Pharyngula%29 I’m sure Lew will be writing his next paper of “Recursive Fury”. wow, does he even glance at things he retweets?
“Oh, well. All I can say is that, thanks to the denialist ratf___ers, (I needed to change that so it got thru moderation @ Lucias, hopefully?) now everyone is going to be far more interested in reading the two papers by Lewandowsky and others. I recommend that you read Motivated rejection of science (pdf) and Recursive fury(pdf) now, or anytime — they’re archived on the web. You might also stash away a copy yourself. You make a denialist cry every time you make a copy, you know.
The first author on the papers, Stephan Lewandowsky, has a few comments.
The strategies employed in those attacks follow a common playbook, regardless of which scientific proposition is being denied and regardless of who the targeted scientists are: There is cyber-bullying and public abuse by “trolling†(which recent research has linked to sadism); there is harassment by vexatious freedom-of-information (FOI) requests; there are the complaints to academic institutions; legal threats; and perhaps most troubling, there is the intimidation of journal editors and publishers who are acting on manuscripts that are considered inconvenient.”
Is this considered a ‘new’ publication of the ‘retracted’ paper?
Not sure why the hyperlinks didn’t work but here they are:
http://www.thebrokenwindow.net/papers/L/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2014/03/fpsyg-04-00073.pdf
Nick
Given the climate debate as it stands, it is entirely reasonable for someone to take offense at either being accused of being a denier or being accused of having accused others of nefarious activities (i.e. conspiracy to commit scientific fraud.) And being reasonable to take offense appears to be the bar. Not only is it reasonable, but it would be easy enough for attorneys to find comparable examples of other people taking offense at being called “skeptics” (e.g. the Pielkes).
DGH, I don’t think it’s remotely reasonable to claim someone is implicitly threatening a legal action simply because they describe material written about them as defamatory. Given you apparently think it is, I doubt we’ll make progress on this issue. Suffice to say I think you’ve offered a lot of false examples.
DGH/Brandon,
Beyond that, in Michigan one must mention that they think the statement is libelous if they don’t wish to lose the opportunity to sue later on. Basically: you can’t sue for defamation unless you first inform the publisher and permit them an opportunity to remedy the issue having been informed the statements are alleged to be libelous. So, people would be advised to say so in their first letter to
a) get proper attention and
b) not have to wait to say so in the 2nd letter.
That means these are not necessarily “threats”, but rather what one must disclose to the publisher to properly inform them of the issue.
Eli is still awaiting the complete correspondence and any other emails in his account from Steve McIntyre so that a full auditing may begin.
Brandon.
My experience with these things is that if I receive correspondence which contains specific legal phraseology which the writer is applying to some action of mine, he is contemplating litigation.
I suspect that most people or organizations with litigation experience react this way.
“…and I’d be quite comfortable processing such a phony legal action as an insurance matter.â€
I wonder what their insurance company would have to say about her apparent willful disregard for potentially libelous behavior?
Brandon,
It’s hard to be confused by, “My only concern is my reputation and rights and I will pursue all means at my disposal to protect them.” Perhaps that was an invitation for tea but I doubt that’s the case.
I would expect lawyers to interpret terms like fraud, willful, fullest extent, libel, defamation, malice, and harm as threatening to their clients. And all of those terms were used in complaints to FI and UWA after Recursive Fury was published.
DGH
The Rabett is making strawmen. Again.
– What tax payer money went to Steve to give ownership to the public?
– What are the irregularities to be audited?
– etc.
Eli is apparently unaware of the difference between public emails(made in the context of being tax payer funded), and private emails.
.
Perhaps Eli moonlights for the NSA?
.
Or perhaps there is a simpler explanation?
.
http://www.jwbalsleycomix.com/?p=1621
Eli if you want steves mails. Do your own damn foi.
I would like to see all Eli’s emails to audit them, to ensure he is capable of auditing others work.
I suspect he will not present them, and we all know why.
lucia (Comment #127251)
“Given the climate debate as it stands, it is entirely reasonable for someone to take offense at either being accused of being a denier or being accused of having accused others of nefarious activities (i.e. conspiracy to commit scientific fraud.)”
OK, got it. So accusing someone of scientific fraud is nothing much. But accusing someone of accusing someone of scientific fraud is libel. Or maybe false light.
All this attention! I’m surprised to still see that point being discussed. Lucia is right though that the authors specifically stated that I hold a belief I have never held, that temperature records were illegitimately adjusted. If they were to apply the same accusation to proxy based hockey sticks, maybe I would agree.
One point though, Nick is right that I wrote that sentence. It has an editing error based on what I knew at the time that has bothered me but since it has become such a contentious post, I haven’t changed it. I believe the large GISS corrections I was referring to are USA based rather than global, and the corrections were widely discussed. Not that either situation means that I said they were illegitimate.
Just to remind Nick and others, I have also published a number of self and crowd generated global temperature calculations PRIOR to Lewandowsky’s false claim. They used much of the same adjusted data as the other global temperature series. One of the series I put together used RomanM’s least squares offset and anomaly algorithm. The result was used and compared favorably right here at the Blackboard to the other global series. I suppose that means it must be a one-man conspiracy by me.
It would be hard to say the series were illegitimately adjusted and then go and publish my own. Even harder when you realize that that series I made actually had a higher trend than it would have with more standard anomaly methods. My gridding method didn’t take ocean squares into account enough though and that pulled the trend back down a tweak.
Finally, I read the point from Nick that in paraprhase- I write at a blog where opinions of the public are expressed, so essentially there would be no damages from a false claim. It is ridiculous to even consider that anyone who has a blog where opinions from all corners of the world can be expressed, is somehow free game for people to make false claims about. Of course a person can be damaged by having false opinions assigned to them. This is especially true in my field of choice and that is why I think they retracted the claim so quickly. My impression was that Lewandowsky didn’t want to but others pressured him.
It was by choice that I write a blog and let off steam about climate and politics, and I should suffer whatever fate deals for doing that, but I or Lucia or anyone else, should not be assigned liability for opinions and actions we don’t hold or commit.
@Les Johnson (Comment #127265)
http://www.jwbalsleycomix.com/?p=1621
lolol!
And I just snapped on to one of the implications of posting as ‘hunter”.
Life can be lotsa fun, sometimes.
Jeff
“It is ridiculous to even consider that anyone who has a blog where opinions from all corners of the world can be expressed, is somehow free game for people to make false claims about.”
Lew didn’t actually claim that you held that view. He linked to your site as one where such views can be found.
Nick
No. I’ve got to call BS on that. That is not how one interprets that citation format. Ordinarily, it is not that one “finds examples” but that that references says or reports that. And Jeff did not report that. If what Lewandowsky meant was that a reader would find examples of skeptics who held that view at that source, he should have said something like “examples of such views can be found at xxxx” and then given a few example.
I know “some” might whine about the need for compactness and fitting in page limits. It’s well and good for someone to pretend that academic articles “must” be compact. But it’s actually BS and it’s especially BS if the compactness comes at the expense of clarity. And whether academics like it or not, they cannot dictate “rules” that mean they can write sentences that are so cryptic they could equally well mean many things including statements that are libelous and then be cleared of libel on the basis that these sentejces are some fort of obscure scholarly “code” language. This is particularly so if those same people are writing blogs and linking the articles and bringing them to the attention of ‘mere mortals’ who do not write “scholarly stuff”.
Nick – Lucia is right.
“and climate deniers believe that temperature records have been illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming (e.g., Condon, 2009).”
Statement and reference. Thats all. First – a climate change denier – false. Belief that records have been illegitimately adjusted – false. Reference is inaccurate.
How about:
“belief that pedophelia is ok — e.g., XX”
If the accused doesn’t represent the claim and the claim is damaging, that is libel.
Come on, lets be realistic about this. The whole purpose of the completely fake paper was to paint “prominent”? skeptics who won’t fall in line as crazies. They were funded to do it too. Lewandowsky et. whomever, simply went over the legal line in doing so and the otherwise supportive journal backed down.
Even the journal found the call in my situation easy. Pulling the rest of the nonsense paper down apparently had little to do with me and more to do with substantial paperwork from others. I didn’t see my emails in the FOI release.
A reply is stuck in moderation.
Feels like a good time to repeat my comment from a year ago:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/lews-furious-recursion/#comment-111706
The stack error in R is:
“Error: evaluation nested too deeply: infinite recursion / options(expressions=)?â€
Try this:
tolerance = 0.0001 # set to 0.1 to avoid “infinite recursion†error
is_it_a_conspiracy = function(){
if (runif(1) < tolerance){
if (Sys.info()[["login"]] == "lewandowski"){
return("It's a CONSPIRACY!!")
}else{
return("My stack is about to asplod!!")}
}else{
return(is_it_a_conspiracy())}
}
is_it_a_conspiracy()
j ferguson, even if I were to grant what you say (my experience runs contrary to yours), that still wouldn’t mean the complainants were threatening legal action.
DGH, I find your response incredibly confusing. You might consider that before deciding what is “hard to be confused by.”
Nick,
Huh? I suspect you have mischaracterize an argument about the Mann defamation action (or possibly attribute an claim by someone other than me as being held by me) and then having mischaracterized what I have said about Mann’s action using a snide tone to intimate that I am being inconsistent. But you are being too cryptic for me to be certain what you are claiming. As you are not quite spitting out your argument it is obviously impossible for me to rebut it. If you could make whatever you are trying to claim clearer, maybe I can figure out what you are suggesting and address it.
Lucia,
” If you could make whatever you are trying to claim clearer, maybe I can figure out what you are suggesting and address it.”
.
But obscure the best accompaniment for obtuse. It’s awkward to be one without being the other.
Lucia,
” then having mischaracterized what I have said about Mann’s action using a snide tone to intimate that I am being inconsistent.”
Well, I thought it was accurate rather than snide. You chose the example of “accusing someone of accusing someone of scientific fraud”; I’m not sure what you were referring to, but the contrast shown with the tolerance of Steyn/Simberg’s florid actual accusations of fraud is hard not to notice.
But yes, I do think you are being very inconsistent, and that has been the point of my questioning. I have been told much about the centrality in the US of freedom of speech, and how Steyn’s comments deserve that protection. I see some merit in that. Yet when Lewandowsky makes (on one reading) a minuscule misinterpretation of what Jeff certainly very nearly said, and an error which would only slightly misplace him in the spectrum of blog commentary, you’re saying that is a matter for a libel case. Coercion.
BTW, I have no problem with Jeff’s posts – that’s actually my point. He expressed strong (polemical) views on adjustments, and that’s fine. But you can’t cry libel if someone takes you at your polemical word.
You can ask for corrections as a matter of accuracy, and that correction was made.
Jeff Id (Comment #127287)
‘How about:
“belief that pedophelia is ok — e.g., XXâ€
If the accused doesn’t represent the claim and the claim is damaging, that is libel.’
Well, that’s more reminiscent of the Simberg gambit.
My eyebrows first raised here when Lucia said that associating you with what is a commonplace skeptic viewpoint is (colorably) libellous. Who’s being libelled here? I wondered. I know it’s annoying to have your views misunderstood. But the views attributed to you are a long way from “pedophilia is ok”.
But then I thought, well, I’ve been told over and over that Steyn can say whatever he likes as long as he believes it. Yet Lew has to get it exactly right, or it’s libel. WUWT?
Nick , putting an extrapolated super temperature rise onto a real temperature rise and then joining it to a proxy because there were no real measurements further back but choosing a proxy that proved it was worthless as it went the other direction from the temperature record as soon as it was joined on but conveniently ignoring this fact and that the actual temperature record has since gone the other way as soon as it was joined to the extrapolation,now lasting 17 years, means that the extrapolation is ridgy didge, correct.
And you as a living,breathing, grants and academic friends needing, fun loving scientist have to mouth this support every day.
I fully understand and support your dedication.
Nick
I thought you were trying to intimate some sort of contrast existed.
That said:
I think no contrast exists. Please (a) tell me what you think my position on Steyn/Simberg is, (b) find quotes to show why you think that’s my position on them and (c) explain why you think there is some contradiction. After that we can discuss it. But I think there is no contrast. Because I think there is a contrast between what you imagine my position is and what my position is.
For the time being, as I do not know what you think my position on these two is, I can hardly try to rebut what you are claiming because other than saying whatever this unexpressed position in your head is, it contrasts with my position on Jeff.
Sue The person I mean.
You did a link to Pharyngula blog above which I fortunately looked at. Conspiracy ideation in skeptics just took a dive. Someone should direct Lew there to do a paper as soon as possible.
Warning, reading comments there may cause some slight mental anguish to some readers
Nick,
Depends on if Jeff is considered a limited purpose public figure (like Mike Mann obviously is). Of course, the standard for a scholarly publication in a peer reviewed journal is (and ought to be) more than “did you honestly believe what you wrote”; the author is supposed to be presenting factual information with accurate supporting data, not personal opinion about a public figure. In Lew’s case it seems to me his ‘research’ amounts to pretty much his political views presented as if there were something more than that. Psycho-babble rubbish at it’s very worst.
SteveF:
1) I agree that the issue of whether Jeff is a limited purpose public figure would arise if Jeff sued. Maybe he would be found to be one. Or not. (I think it would not if we were discussing Barry Wood who also has complained– but not of libel.) In anycase, I don’t know why Nick would think this might contrast with my views on Steyn/Simberg.
2) I think we both agree that Lewandowsky would find it rather difficult to claim his statement was his “opinion or hyperbole”. If he did, a a court would likely find the fact that the statement appeared in a peer reviewed paper to suggest to readers it was not. I don’t know why Nick would think this “contrasts” with my views on Steyn and Symberg. I think whether it was hyperbole or opinion matters. It’s just in one it clearly was, in the other it clearly was not.
But beyond that:
3) I think Lew’s statement is much more direct. “Torturing data and molesting data” is the specific thing that Mann was accused of by Steyn/Simberg, and that’s a flowery term of art that does not mean fraud. That a hockey stick (which is a reconstruction and so the output of a model) might be fraudulent is not the same as saying the person who created it committed fraud. In contrast, the thermometer record which is observations or data— or treated as such. Observations or data themselves being “illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming” is specific in a way that “torturing and molesting data” , and the former claim says precisely what the reason for the adjustments is.
I don’t know why Nick would think this contrasts with my view on Steyn Simberg: I think in “illegitimately adjusted to exaggerate warming”” is a direct accusation of fraud. While “torturing and molesting data is not an accusation of fraud.
But since Nick wants to do nothing more than “intimate” a contrast, it’s difficult to figure out what he is even referring to as being “obvious” about it. I think there is none.
I’m finding it hard to see any sense in comparison between what a shock jock says in a blog, and what someone says about his colleagues in a scientific paper published in a serious journal.
By the way, did anyone see McIntyre’s complaint(s) to UWA and Frontiers (http://www.climateaudit.info/correspondence/lewandowsky/complaint%20defamation%20to%20frontiers.pdf)? Really fun reading, in the sense that anyone can enjoy reading an account of Lewandowsky as a real villain trying to hurt people. Of course, I expect he’s doing it for all the right reasons, for those who think that helps.
“and what someone says about his colleagues in a scientific paper published in a serious journal”. I don’t think that even that was said strongly enough. My honest impression is that Lewandowsky was actually attempting (among other things) a character assassination.
Lucia,
What I find troubling about Lewandowsky’s research is that it seems both technically very poor and designed to show that anyone skeptical of the catastrophic projections of GHG driven warming is not simply mistaken, but rather that they are crazy. In other words, it is little more than an effort to de-legitimize arguments by declaring the person making those arguments is insane, and so can’t be listened to. Lew’s ‘research’ is so grotesquely Orwellian that it would be funny… save for that it is a real danger for personal liberties. IMO, Lew would have been right at home doing ‘research’ for the party in the old USSR. They declared people who disagreed with communism ‘insane’, to justify throwing them in jail.
SteveF,
Regarding the public figure reference, I think it is fairly easy to meet that hurdle in my case, especially when you consider my professional life. I can go through the public history of my blog but work makes me even more public. That is one of the reasons the journal made quick corrective action in my case. I also encouraged resolution by using the approach of make a change and we will put this behind us rather than I’m going to sue. I haven’t re-read the correspondence but did express the problem in a fairly aggressive manner to make sure they would comply.
NIck,
There is one issue which you are missing in Lewandowsky’s reference. It wasn’t just temperature, he also called me a denier despite a large body of public work to the contrary. You have wondered openly if one can suffer damages from being called a denier or claiming illegitimate adjustment of temp records and I understand that. I think you misunderstand the risks a climate blogger takes in disagreeing publicly with a hundred billion dollar global pro-government industry. I used to misunderstand it myself.
How is it that a professor in another country can openly call for the deaths and prosecution of a list of “deniers” as defined by the desmog blog, without fear of retribution? How deep does that sentiment go in the population when the leadership of that particular political movement can write about government sanctioned execution so publicly? How come that professor isn’t fired before we even hear about it?
How can a different professor gather together groups of other professors and in a scientific journal, falsely characterize members of the public (by name!) as holding beliefs they don’t, in not just one, but two separate publications. Remember, I’ve personally been attacked twice by Lewandosky, not once, and not at an unfunded blog he personally runs, but rather in government funded research on another continent. Now he didn’t act alone either time, but rather got other people to sign their professional names on the list for the attacks.
Think about that for a moment. This is what these people do for a living. This is their professional reputation, what they define themselves with, how they gain employment, get paid etc. If any of them have aspirations of having long term scientific employment, why isn’t accuracy paramount to emotion in their science? The answer is simple.
Lewandowsky could have claimed he misunderstood the first time he misrepresented me and moved on. Even if we assume your point with repsect to my statement on the temperature record was a reasonable interpretation. But the SECOND time he attacked me, he said almost the same thing even though it had been explained to him very clearly by email. He committed by any definition, libel, with malicious intent. He also committed scientific fraud by any definition I know of because he knew the second time, from my personal emails, that his reference of me was 100% inaccurate.
[self snip before Lucia puts me on real moderation]
I think that the reason my name was used with such inaccuracy on two separate occasions, was not my climate stance, many people here hold the same climate opinions that I do. I think it is likely from Lew’s attacks on capitalism in these same papers, that my political stance- white male capitalist libertarian businessman, is what drew him to put the crosshairs on me. After all, finding that particular link on my blog means he is one of my esteemed readers so he couldn’t possibly have missed my politics! That is a bit of a guess though.
What I find troubling about Lewandowsky’s work is the same thing could be done to any group. I’ve previously shown how one can get spurious correlations in the same form as his. Recursive Fury is even easier to it with. All you have to do is cherry-pick quotes which criticize something, labeling them as conspiratorial. Since you can filter out whatever comments you want from your “raw data,” nobody examining your “data” can get different results.
Lewandowsky isn’t doing science. He isn’t doing statistics. He’s just engaging in a smear campaign. And it’ll work because he’s targeting a group people are comfortable demonizing.
Lewandowsky is a bully, and people are approving of it.
At the risk of beating a dead racehorse, given his analogy, it appears that even Nick is of the opinion that the Lewandowski et al. “peer-reviewed scholarly” publications are in the same category as Steyn’s political opinion pieces.
I wonder how many other “peer-reviewed scholarly” publications fall into this category.
I’m stuck in moderation again.
Jeff, the d*r word triggers moderation.
John M:
Very few I think, and mostly in the social sciences.
We certainly have the appearance of Lewandowsky serially abusing the peer review system with faux science papers in order to publish “hit pieces” on those he views as political enemies.
Jeff Id is out of moderation. (I think I need to add a plugin that auto-approves certain people despite any possible “trigger” words!)
All:
Odd, I think– potentially– had this case gone to a libel suit and someone wanted to take it all the way to an appeal to SCOTUS, the “Sullivan” principle might have been put to the test precisely because the claimed standard in a scholarly journal is that the information is “peer reviewed”. Remember: in Sullivan itself, the news organization published a advertisement by a 3rd party. Ads are generally indicated as “ads”.
But a statement of fact in a “scholarly journal” not only goes beyond the level claimed by any news organization publishing an advertisement it give the impression of a level of ‘checking’ that falls well beyond what is even claimed in newspapers — which do try to fact check, but after all, put out ‘news’ on a daily basis. They don’t have month long, slow processes involving journal editors, peer reviewers and so on.
So, in a sense, a peer review publication by it’s nature is representing that (a) what it publishes is true and that (b) authors who make the claim are expected to have checked the truth very carefully, (c) extra parties (i.e. peer reviewers) who are independent of both the journal and the author have performed a certain level of vetting (d) an editor from the journal is himself independent of the authors and has taken some care to pick those reviewers to ensure they are competent and disinterested and finally (e) the editor, over all, things the contents of the paper are worthy of publication, plausible, and not false.
While none of this is a guarantee, it goes well beyond what any newspaper claims about the contents of the material in its report. It is pretty much a given that newspapers do not request independent parties to “check” their stuff, and that an “author” of a newspaper article either works for the newspaper and the “author” of an advertisement paid the newspaper. So while newspapers need to uphold standards to remain credible, they actually make specific representations about their stuff being “externally reviewed” and so on. The situation is different for peer reviewed articles.
The fact is: one can argue that there are great distinctions between defamatory statements that might appear in a peer reviewed article vs. one that might appear in a newspaper article– even if that article is straight news. There are certainly huge differences between “opinion columns” and “scholarly journals”. Readers know this. And as such, even if we looked at absolutely identical claims (e.g. “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks.” reported as “fact” ) a potential plaintiff (e.g. Lizzie Borden who was eventually acquitted) might have a much stronger case against a peer reviewed journal that reported the alleged axe murder as a proven fact than against a newspaper opinion column, particularly one containing hyperbole.
Of course, in fact, we don’t know what SCOTUS would rule. But I personally think that if something is personally defamatory the level should be higher for peer reviewed journals than for newspapers. People preparing journal articles have plenty of time to make sure their statements clarify whether what they are saying is opinion (e.g. “Lizzie was acquitted, but I and others believe the evidence against her was strong” would not be defamatory. Nor would saying, “But some thing the evidence against her was strong, Doe, 2009” ) and so on. But an author saying she was guilty in a peer reviewed journal and saying it in a way that conveyed the impression this was a fact? And then refusing to change it if Lizzie complains? That is much worse than a newspaper slipping up.
If someone brought a libel case against a peer reviewed paper I wonder if the reviewers could be added as defendants. Such as J. Doe 1 and J. Doe 2.
Bob Koss,
That would seem rather unfair. On the one hand, the journal represents this as some sort of vetting. On the other hand: the aren’t actually expected to vett the material. That said: Their identities would likely be revealed to the plaintiff who could elect to call them as witnesses. Also, the reviews themselves would likely be revealed as would many other things. As much as academics like to say “academic freedom”, “academic freedom” has no special “freedom of speech” status under our bill of rights, and unlike privilege of the confessional (a religious issue) or attorney client privilege has no particular other right.
Academic freedom is related to employment rights and generally speaking negotiated ones. That is: universities can (and mostly do) extend it to their faculty members and faculty members expect it as part of their contractual relation between their employer and themselves. But it is not a general “right” that is somehow “sprinkled” on people who happen to get employed at universities and who happen to get scholarly journals to publish their stuff. And under our constitution scholarly journals have no particular “extra” rights beyond the first amendment. As far as the constitution is concerned, they are more or less on par with “The National Enquirer”– and the only real difference might be that to the extent that readers are lead to believe the contents of a Journal has under gone more vetting and is not mere hyperbole, writings in a “serious” publication might need to present stronger defenses during a libel trial. Because– in the US– whether the “bat shit crazy” defense can protect the “bat shit crazy” from libel accusations. But it’s really, really hard for a journal or an author in the journal to advance a “we’re bat shit crazy and/or authors who publish in our journal are bat shit crazy and everyone knows and can tell we are bat shit crazy” defense and still maintain credibility as a journal. If they advanced that defense, they would pretty much have to close their doors as a scholarly journal.
Jeff ID
As always that’s well stated.
Not only are things as bad as you describe the Lew et al crowd are now crying about their academic freedom as if that trumps all other concerns.
lucia (Comment #127321)
“(b) find quotes to show why you think that’s my position on them and (c) explain why you think there is some contradiction”
OK. On Steyn, we have:
“Steyn is supposed to be cleared of defamation charges if he believed Mann was dishonest (with some caveats about some basis needs to exist but can be so weak that most people wouldn’t even call it a “basisâ€.)”
and
“Nonesense. It also gets to the defense that Steyn had some reason to believe Mann is a fraud– which is enough even if Mann is not a fraud.”
On Lew, I noted that a person reading a post headed: “Global Temperature Records – Above the Law” saying, among other things:
“The reason that people are so interested in global temperatures is that the large positive adjustments to the records provide most of the signal in the GISS global temperature record.”
might very reasonably form an honest belief that the author thought the adjustments were illegitimate. But no:
lucia (Comment #127196)
“Nick,
Whatever you think one might “infer†from something not said, if it wasn’t said it wasn’t said. And if the inference is wrong, it is wrong. And in this case, the inference was wrong even if you are not surprised that someone might jump to the wrong conclusion.
What a court might have found I don’t know– but it’s a colorable case.”
You say that a journal should be held to a higher standard than a newspaper. But newspapers certainly claim accuracy, have sub-editors, in house lawyers, in fact far greater resources than F of Ψ.
And with NRO, it wasn’t something that slipped through. When the supervising editor was queried, he was unrepentant.
Nick,
Have fallen and hit your head yet again?
.
Please re-read Jeff’s comment above about how Mr. Lew continues to defame Jeff, even after Jeff clarified via email to Mr. Lew that he was mistaken about What Jeff thinks.
.
I do not doubt that you are sympathetic to Mr. Lew’s POV, but really this is a case where you only embarrass yourself. Here is a sincere question: do you honestly think that Mr. Lew makes a contribution with his papers on deniali$ts? No joke, I really want to know what you think, if only to make sure my assessment of your views is reasonably accurate.
Nick,
Yes. That’s the basis if Mann is a public figure and something is published in a newspaper. If Jeff were considered a public figure– which is a matter for the courts to decide, I would think the same would hold. But it’s not clear to me that Jeff would be deemed a public figure (and I assume that even if Jeff think such a risk exists, his attorneys would argue otherwise. I think the courts likely would not find Jeff a public figure, but I could be mistaken.)
Do you still think this shows any inconsistency? and if so what is the inconsistency.
I disagree with your analysis of what might be “reasonable” for Lewandowsky to believe. Because Jeff who would be the hypothetical plaintiff had previously corresponded with the author directly on this issue and told him the contrary and pointed to evidence on this point. And in this case, the statement whose truth is at issue is what Jeff believes about the thermometer record. Of course: once again, Lewandowsky could advance this argument and the decision about this this would be a matter for the courts. I think the case is colorable and the courts would let the libel case go forward.
Do you still think there is any inconsistency? If so: what? Because I don’t.
Yes. I think it should be held to higher standards on libelous statements leveled against individuals — and for many reasons. But I won’t list them here (because I need to go buy thread!)
But the magnitude of resources was irrelevant to the reasons I gave and it happens not to be one of them.
With respect to resources: Entities should make sure they have resources commensurate with the product they claim to produce. If journals don’t have them yet make excessive and unwarranted representations about their product, and readers come to believe these claims, the bar should be set by their claims about their standards, not by the fact that it turns out that their claims about high standards was mere puffery.
So? My reason for why NRO’s opinion columns which are full of hyperbole and opinion should be treated as opinion– or why journals which purport to be reporting heavily researched, scholarly, well vetted material didn’t have anything to do with “slipped through”. It’s that the material in NRO is represented as an opinion column in the first place. That an “opinion” would “slip through” is rather a silly notion since “opinion” is precisely what is in those things. And when interpreting what is said, one knows it is an opinion column.
SteveF (Comment #127341)
“do you honestly think that Mr. Lew makes a contribution with his papers on deniali$ts? No joke, I really want to know what you think”
I actually have no interest in Lew’s papers, and this is the first time I have commented on them (or, indeed, read them). It’s not my topic area. I’m just interested in the curiously different notion of libel that is being applied.
“might very reasonably form an honest belief that the author thought the adjustments were illegitimate.”
And so one MIGHT. However, If I publish a paper where I state this is a fact and not just an honest belief, and if the person contacts me and says your belief is wrong, then I no longer have a case where I can honestly believe that the author thought the adjustments were illegitimate. If I continue in my assertion that this is an honest belief it is only possible if I also belief the author was lying when he corrected my “honest belief”
Nick
Really? I am not interested in them, I have only read them for the first time?
Just so when I comment on the notion of libel being applied I don’t look ridiculous?
Of course you are interested, goes without saying.
Only just read them, well that clears you of having to express an opinion on them, ??.
Curious about different opinions,??
Well when you are defending one very central, very dodgy plank so hard for so long and so impartially
And then start in on another leaky boat, I would advise not linking the two together.
Nick,
No Interest?
You are too clever by half. BTW, for future reference, what is your topic area?
.
FWIW, I have no problem with Lew taking to the newspapers, radio, TV and blogs (yes, even blogs) saying pretty much anything he wants about how evil ‘deni#rs’ are…. you know, selfish, crazy, corrupt, fundered by ‘big energy’, etc…. that is the nature of politics. What I object to is using the ‘peer reviewed’ publication process, which is not supposed to be political, in an attempt to delegitimatize opposing political POV’s. That is, IMO, much less than honest, and might even be considered by some to be corrupt.
Calling somebody crazy, stupid, dishonest, or fraudulent is pretty much what passes for political debate these days. It’s a hyperbolic way of saying that you disagree with your opponent. So, while I don’t think that’s a good thing, if you get involved in a heated political debate, and get called these types of names, for the most part, i think you’ve just got to suck it up.
This applies quadruple to Dr Mann, since (a) he’s gone out of his way to get involved in controversies, (b) he seems to have no problem calling his opponents names, and (c) he can and does reply through his columns in national media.
In the case of Lewandowsky, I think what he did is potentially slightly different. Yes he called his opponents “crazy” which is a normal hyperbolic thing to do it. However, he went a bit further, and said effectively “I’m a psychologist, I’m writing in a peer reviewed journal, and when I said ‘crazy’ I literally meant crazy.”, and he has now added “and even though it has been retracted, I really meant it.”
That said, as offensive as Lewandowsky is, I can’t believe anybody except the most hardcore agw supporters take his stuff seriously, and they already seem to think that anybody who disagrees with them is by definition crazy and/or evil.
Steve Mosher,
Beyond that, imagine if the author of a peer reviewed journal article advanced this defense and explained that they held this belief because they didn’t research the issue and didn’t read the content of the posts the plaintiff sent him which showed that the plaintiff posted precisely the opposite belief– based on the plaintiff’s own analyses of the thermometer record? Even if the defendent managed to convince the jury that this was his honest belief, the admission that he made a claim of fact about something that was wrong and that he was mistaken because he did not do any research would be a stupendously damaging thing for the defendant’s reputation.
In contrast, the New York times admitting they did not do “fact checking” when accepting paid advertisements? That did not and would not damage a newspapers reputation because– really– no one expects newspapers to do anything other than “OMG! No. I don’t believe you are selling round trips to Mars for $19.99 so I wont run that!” sort of fact checking on most ads.
So: my view is, that with respect to someone suing Lewandowsky for libel, they are justified in doing so and seeing whether Lewandowsky advances that claim giving that evidence for the basis of his belief.
Nick,
At least with respect to my own views, I am applying the same notions to Mann and Id. I remain mystified why you think mine are inconsistent. As far as I can see, you are trying to make them inconsistent by bringing up things that are irrelevant to the issue of libel– like you think NRO has more resources than the Frontiers.
Steve Mosher (Comment #127344)
“And so one MIGHT. However, If I publish a paper where I state this is a fact and not just an honest belief, and if the person contacts me and says your belief is wrong, then I no longer have a case where I can honestly believe that the author thought the adjustments were illegitimate.”
Well, again, he didn’t say the author believes that; he linked to it as a piece of text where that viewpoint seems to be expressed. And it is. Some more quotes from the NoCon post:
“So what we have is a process which allows the systematic choosing of ever warmer records over time which is so convoluted nobody can figure out what really happened.”
“So my question is, if they have all the ‘adjusted’ data and all these ‘adjustments’ are above board honest science,…”
Whatever may be said later, it sure doesn’t sound respectful of the legitimacy of the adjustments, and so it remains an example of the point he was making. Of course, the practicality is, there are plenty of other people willing to affirm this sentiment, so he can choose one of them instead. But that’s what makes it further silly to claim that there is libel involved.
lucia (Comment #127354)
“As far as I can see, you are trying to make them inconsistent by bringing up things that are irrelevant to the issue of libel– like you think NRO has more resources than the Frontiers.”
No, you brought it up, by referring to their(Ψ’s) ability to use peer-reviewers, etc. I said that newspapers have sub-editors. But I agree that none of that is relevant to the issue of libel.
SteveF (Comment #127347)
“BTW, for future reference, what is your topic area?”
Science, mainly. I don’t normally read psychology journals. I do get involved in all sorts of arguments about libel cases etc, but I deal with the logic or otherwise as presented. I am not interested in trying to fit it into a psych framework.
I was pretty bored with Wegman’s psych stuff too.
Nick,
Noted, and I completely agree that psychology is rarely what a moderately disinterested party would accept as an example of science. Lew may put you on his list of deni#rs,
just interested in asking why does anyone take any notice of anything Nick Stokes says when it comes to law? He might be good at drawing graphs but that is about the limit of his powers, as far as I can see.
Next question, if you were on trial for questioning the “consensus”, would you be happy if Nick Stokes were on the jury? Surely he would be be an honest person….
Nick lewandowsky was informed of his mistake
He repeated it.
He made a claim that is factual not an opinion.
The journal knows better than you.
The journal is not in the business of publishing opinion.
Steyn wrote an editorial. The presumption is that it is an opinion piece.
Steyn is entitled to his opinion of mann
The journal and lew are not entitled to invent facts
That harm a test subject.
Pretty simple
Steven Mosher (Comment #127364)
“He made a claim that is factual not an opinion.”
Can you quote it?
Nick,
“Whatever may be said later, it sure doesn’t sound respectful of the legitimacy of the adjustments, and so it remains an example of the point he was making.”
Perhaps a review of his second quote, after my explanation to Lew that I did not believe the records were illegitimately adjusted, will resolve our differences:
““Conspiracist ideation is arguably particularly prominent on climate blogs, such as when expressing the belief that temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments (e.g., Condon, 2009) …..—
How can one interpret my blog and come up with that one? Especially after personal email conversations clarifying the first.
Jeff,
Thanks for quoting – I hadn’t seen that version. It is more substantial. I have no opinion about the conspiracist ideation, but I still think there’s a lot to support the view that your post was casting doubt on the legitimacy of the adjustments.
Nick,
You have the quote.
Now put yourself in lewandowskys shoes.
You want the BEST EVIDENCE that conspiratorial ideation is prominent on skpetic blogs with respect to adjustments.
You select Jeff ID?
He writes to you to correct the reference.
Now, IF you want to prove yuor case about skeptics, you just quote steve Goddard.
Hell you quote Anthony watts and SPPI which flat out accused NOAA of fraud. His argument about skeptics is correct
So why does he pick a source a reference that you have to twist and turn.. WHY?
1. Jeff took down Steig
2. Jeff publishes science
3. Jeff has a business and can be punished.
If you really really really wanted good examples of skeptics who had conspiratiral ideas about adjustments there are dozens you would pick before jeff. and dozens of posts you’d pick before that one, and if you were told your reading was wrong.. you’d find a better cite to support your case, IF you cared about your case. But Lew didnt care about his case.
He wanted to run a take down on the skeptics who had actually published science.
Casting doubt is different than claiming. At that time, I don’t think anyone really knew what the adjustments were comprised of. Doubting legitimacy in science is a normal process and entirely different from claiming the same.
Since Lew made the claim in the second paper, that I believed 100% of the trend was illegitimate adjustment, after being told I did not, do you have a different opinion on whether libel was involved?
Thanks Steve, I actually had never considered it that way.
Jeff Id (Comment #127370)
“Since Lew made the claim in the second paper, that I believed 100% of the trend was illegitimate adjustment, after being told I did not, do you have a different opinion on whether libel was involved?”
No, the second quote doesn’t say you believed the adjustment was illegitimate. In fact, it paraphrases you quite closely:
Lew:“as when expressing the belief that temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments”
Jeff:“The reason that people are so interested in global temperatures is that the large positive adjustments to the records provide most of the signal in the GISS global temperature record.”
But I can’t see any of this amounting to libel. Being possibly confused with Anthony Watts/SPPI is a bit different to being the Jerry Sandusky of climate science.
Nick,
Are you joking? Lew was using that as an example of conspiracy ideation. How could he possibly imagine conspiracy ideation after Jeff told him he did not believe there was a conspiracy? You are just being obtuse now. Fortunately, the journal exercised better judgement than you do.
SteveF (Comment #127374)
“How could he possibly imagine conspiracy ideation after Jeff told him he did not believe there was a conspiracy?”
I don’t know. I don’t know what the term means, but I think it is his opinion of what the facts mean. I was looking for Mosh’s ” claim that is factual not an opinion”.
It would be a really dumb argument to suggest that Lewandowsky, in writing a paper on conspiracy ideation by skeptics, would include a paraphrase of Jeff Condon, and not intend for it to suggest that Condon was engaging in conspiracy ideation.
Fortunately Nick’s not suggesting this. He’s “just asking questions”.â„¢
I think the truth is Lewandowsky is not very bright, nor very ethical. He’s just not smart enough to understand Jeff’s explanation that adjustments of data are required for the GISTEMP algorithm to work. And he’s unethical enough to not care to correct the record when given the opportunity to.
Not so much daylight between him and Steyn after all. Nick is right to draw comparisons. Main difference is Steyn was writing an opinion piece for a political magazine and Lewandowsky was supposedly writing a scientific article for a peer reviewed journal.
@Nick Stokes
You said:
and then go on to compare the two quote with emphasis added to show how you view that Lewandowsky paraphrased ‘quite closely’
So I take it you think Jeff Id believes multiple temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments?
Could you substantiate that with further quotes? I ask because the quote both you and Lewandowsky used so far doesn’t support that.
tlitb1 (Comment #127379)
“and then go on to compare the two quote with emphasis added”
The emphasis was in the original.
The post was talking about two datasets, GISS and HADCRUT. It is of HADCRUT that he says:
“So what we have is a process which allows the systematic choosing of ever warmer records over time which is so convoluted nobody can figure out what really happened.”
So maybe that is where Lew’s “systematic” came from.
@Nick Stokes
I beg your pardon you’re right the “large positive adjustments to the records” emphasis was in the original Jeff Id post
Don’t you think it more interesting to know where Lewandowsky got the idea of “only” from in this claim?
Do you think that claim is supported by that referenced 2009 blog post?
tlitb1 (Comment #127381)
“Don’t you think it more interesting to know where Lewandowsky got the idea of “only†from in this claim?
[Jeff ID expressed the belief] temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments…
Do you think that claim is supported by that referenced 2009 blog post?”
I don’t accept the words you have put in brackets. Lew describes what he says is a pattern of belief, and cites Jeff’s post as an example. An example doesn’t have to explicitly state everything in the pattern.
Jeff says “provide most of the signal”. Lew says the pattern is “warming only because of”. So sue him?
Jeff,
I was rather obvious when I lined up the people he went after.
Those selected were not selected because they presented the best cases of what he wanted to prove. Your case was particularly obvious.
Lew is smart. When a smart man makes a stupid argument especially when the better argument is plainly there for everyone to see, the question is why. The team won’t soon forget how you pwned Steig.
trust me, having seen how some of these guys work you’d be shocked at their pettiness.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the term means, but I think it is his opinion of what the facts mean. I was looking for Mosh’s †claim that is factual not an opinion—
Read Harder then Nick. Its there as plain as day.
@Nick Stokes
Let us see; you don’t accept my summarising
as:
Let me expand a bit here, ‘Jeff ID’ is Jeff Condon, and the ‘2009’ is a reference to a blog page discussing temperature records in light of the climategate emails written in 2009.
You explain why you can’t accept my summaring as follows:
I am fine with you expressing your subjective belief that you can’t accept my summarising it that way but your explanation does not persuade me I’m wrong to do that it that way, or compel me to apologise for misleading anybody (not that you asked 😉 ).
Who is the “he” here? If you mean Jeff Condon then can you show where a “pattern of belief” is associated with him in LOG13? The LOG13 paper only references Jeff Condon once as an example AFAICS, it is not a discussion of a pattern of his responses. If you want to illustrate a pattern of belief in a subject it would seem obvious you cite more than one example of that subjects output.
Also, the phrase “pattern of belief“* does not appear in Lewandowskys’ paper so it would seem what you actually mean by “pattern of belief” is actually “Conspiracist ideation”, which is the underlying subject of the paper and the subject of that sentence.
So you seem to be saying that what Lewandowsky is doing is citing 2009 Jeff Condon blog post.as an example of “Conspiracy Ideation in the blogosphere”. and we really need not pay any further attention to the associated references to temperature records.
An example has to show at least one specific thing that is illustrative of the subject it is illustrating. And in this case it clearly the “only” here that makes this an interesting and significant claim
I think the only additional information you have revealed here is that you adopt a rather convoluted outlook that makes no sense. 😉
*Footnote:
The nearest to that I can see to “pattern of belief” in LOG 13 is “cognitive pattern” which is only used in this context:
Which I would hope you would agree has no bearing on the 2009 blog post referenced.
Mosher raises an interesting point about Lewandowsky’s choices, which can also be extended to the ‘Moon Hoax’ paper.
If I was trying to conduct the survey as described in LOG12, and wanted a large cohort of skeptic responses (and especially if I was hoping to get a lot of ‘conspiracy’ responses), my absolutely first blog to contact would be WUWT – highest traffic, arguably the least technical and with the largest number of commenters who are primarily political skeptics.
I’d also contact Judith Curry, because her blog is the most bipartisan, and again seems to have high traffic (I suspect there are lots like me who read a lot but get involved very little because of the swamping of the comments sections by a few very vociferous individuals). I also think Curry would have been more conducive to helping with the survey than the more ‘skeptic’ sites selected (of course including Pielke jnr, who is not an AGW skeptic anyway…)
That he didn’t try to get his questionnaire posted at either of these blogs, and instead undertook a rather contrived means of attempting to get Steve McI (for one) to post a link (a means by which he could then describe a ‘gotcha’ agaisnt SM) does suggest his motivation was not (or at least not solely) to obtain questionnaire responses.
Ian Blanchard (#127387) : “I suspect there are lots like me who read [Curry’s blog] a lot but get involved very little because of the swamping of the comments sections by a few very vociferous individuals.”
Count me in on that sentiment. It’s a shame really. There are some provocative topics there that would benefit from a good discussion, but all posts are rather quickly turned into food fights. There might be some useful comments there, but I don’t have the time/energy to locate them.
Ian,
“That he didn’t try to get his questionnaire posted at either of these blogs, and instead undertook a rather contrived means of attempting to get Steve McI (for one) to post a link (a means by which he could then describe a ‘gotcha’ agaisnt SM) does suggest his motivation was not (or at least not solely) to obtain questionnaire responses.”
.
He was trying to collect ‘data’ to ‘prove’ all who are skeptical of catastrophic warming projections are probably crazy. It was an effort to discredit credible technical arguments via an attack on the person. The only targets that mattered were people who have a measure of credibility.
.
Discrediting of well known papers (like Steig’s Antarctic warming paper) by skeptics in the peer reviewed literature, is a big problem if your agenda is a political one like Lew’s. The ends justify the means, you know.
Nick Stokes (Comment #127382)
March 24th, 2014 at 12:05 am
“[Jeff ID expressed the belief] temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments…
Do you think that claim is supported by that referenced 2009 blog post?â€
I don’t accept the words you have put in brackets. Lew describes what he says is a pattern of belief, and cites Jeff’s post as an example. An example doesn’t have to explicitly state everything in the pattern.â€
Maybe even that puts it too high.
When I read the paper I read the reference, as to a source of commentary onto which those inclined to conspiracy theories could batten, not an allegation that Jeff ID was a conspiracy theorist.
I’ve seen videos of the masonry at the base one of the Twin Towers emitting puffs of dust before the tower collapsed. The video is neutral. Conspiracy theorist use this as peg on which to hang their theory that the government planted demolition charges. Others interpret these puffs deliberately.
I read the reference to Jeff ID, as to a neutral peg. I can see that conspiracy theorist might selectively sift his commentary for material tending to confirm their conspiracy theory.
Amongst the mostly level-headed responses to the post we find these comments, which are not inconsistent with conspiratorial ideation.
“It seems to me that this proves the American government to be responsible for international climate terrorism.â€
“If your entire evidence for warming is only in your adjustments, don’t you think they would reanalyze the adjustments in an open and transparent way? Not that there would be any reason to be suspicious of Jones Karl and Hansen, the owners of the data.â€
“So what I can gather is this: If the adjustments don’t quite look right, add more to the adjustments citing tree rings or other such easily obtained metrics. (But never anything to do with the large yellow glowing object in the sky during day time.) Climate Science sounds fun! We should all pitch in. I hear its lucrative, too!â€
“You may be surprised to find out that the CRU data recently disclosed href=â€http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11630″>includes a large file of updated global temps created in 2008 or 2009. Apparently Dr Jones lied when he said he lost the data years ago:â€
“CRU has been failing for years to disseminate the data. Now we find out that they have failed to preserve the data. (Given their willingness to break the FOI law, I think its likely they purposely destroyed it.)â€
Nick,
I didn’t refer to “ability to use peer-reviewers”. I said they did use them. Moreover, this use of people who are external to and independent of to the journal (i.e. not journal employees) is a defining feature and what gives the journal the “bragging rights” of being a journal rather than a mere “magazine”. But here’s the thing: it has nothing to do with the magnitude of “resources” but rather a description of a process they happen to use.
In contrast, sub-editors are employees of a newspaper.
Claimed, publicized use of external independent ‘verification’ or ‘checks’ to convey the impression of a higher standard of evidence in ‘peer reviewed journals’, is the issue. This not an issue of “resources”– like money to hire attorneys, company attorneys, subeditors and so on. Those are irrelevant. But standard processes that are used, claimed to be used and ‘advertised’ as quality hallmarks are relevant. Hence: my position stands. Journal ought to be held to a higher standard on libel. This has nothing to do with “resources”. It has to do with their claimed process, and what they themselves claim about their own standards.
Nick,
This interpretation of what Lew did is utter tosh. That’s not how that citation method is conventionally understood — or certainly not the way that was worded. Had Lew meant to suggest that the reader can go there and “hunt” for examples in the comments — with Lew providing no indication of which are examples, he would be required to actually say that because that’s not what that citation method means.
The “those in category X claim blah, blah, blah…. (Blow, 2009)” bit should mean that either
(a) Blow himself reported “those in category X claim blah, blah, blah” or
(b) Blow himself falls in “category X” and he is one of those who claimed “blah, blah, blah”.
What that citation method does not mean
“If you go look through “Blow” take on the frame of mind of the author citing Blow, the author citing Blow thinks if you read absolutely everything at that post (including comments) you may diagnose examples of ‘people in category X’ who are claiming ‘blah, blah, blah’ exist in the comments or supporting materials of Blow, 2009. But the author of the current scholarly article doesn’t feel any need to point out which of the zillions of comments correspond to people in category X nor which actually claim ‘blah, blah, blah’ and plans to provide no specific examples of his own analysis anywhere in the current paper”.
In a journal article (and heck, even a blog post) if a person presenting results of an analysis has diagnosed the existance of “examples” in Blow, he is expected to point out what these are and explicitely say that what is in “Blow”. But the method Lew used to cite conventionally does not mean what you claim it means.
In anycase: if we look at how that method is generally used: this sentence becomes ‘prima facie’ evidence that Lew is either claiming (a) Condon himself made that claim or (b) Condon reports that claim is made. Condon does neither. And so, this would get past the judge, not be dismissed, go on to the actual libel case where the jury would decide what they think of this.
I think almost no one would accept your tortured reading. But of course: juries are unpredictable.
I think Lewandowsky advancing that claim hoping it would clear him of libel would find the defense destructive to his reputation as a researcher. And the journal hearing such a defense– especially if combined with others that Lewandowsky might need to resort to the defend against libel– might then yank the paper for being deceptive and misleading.
The fact is: Even if “The Sullivan Defense” is permitted to journals (and I think current case law says it is), using it would be very damaging to the reputation of the author or a “scholarly” paper.
SteveF
You may think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.
I was trying to word my comment in such a way as to avoid as many of the ‘conspiracy’ identifiers as possible, although I think I fall foul of Lew’s ‘not as it appears’ one…
I’m really a bit torn with regard to the ‘Moon Hoax’ paper – it was either incompetently carried out or very competently done and with malice aforethought. On balance, given the involvement of SKS and their internet security competence, I suspect the former rather than the latter…
HaroldW
I’ve got to the point now at Climate etc where I only look for comments from about half a dozen individuals – Pekka Pirla is one who is often worth reading.
Bob Denton (Comment #127390),
.
The UEA emails showed that there was, at best, imprudent, and at worst, unethical and even illegal activity going on behind the scenes among the climate scientists involved. Those activities quite legitimately called into question both the judgement and the honesty of those same climate scientists. You don’t need to be a conspiracy nut to think intimidation of journal editors, trying to find out who among your peers reviewed a published paper you disagree with, and willful obstruction of lawful FIO requests are inappropriate behaviors for scientists.
@Bob Denton (Comment #127390)
Where do you get the idea that Lewandowsky is saying it is only some third party readers who are attaching conspiracy interpretations upon Jeff Condons 2009 blog post?
It seems clear to me that when Lewandowsky says “Conspiracist ideation is arguably particularly prominent on climate blogs…” and then cites that particular blog post as an example, it can only be applying the claim of “Conspiracist ideation” to the author of the blog, nobody else.
The conversation regarding Jeff ID is a bit immaterial in that the journal and/or the authors did the correct thing when challenged. His claims, had they not removed references to him in RF, would have been interesting given the US and international issues involved. But that isn’t going to happen.
None of the other people who were named by Dr. Lew appear to be interested at this point in pursuing legal action. So discussing them is probably academic. But their’s are the more interesting cases (at least to me).
The first thing I find interesting is the possible venue. The folks in the UK that claim they were harmed by RF have access to Dr. Lew now that he’s in Bristol. Their harm was mostly realized in the UK and the author is located within that jurisdiction. He couldn’t evade discovery and depositions. To the extent that he has assets they could be attached. Unfortunately, of the potential targets he’s probably got the emptiest pockets. But I think the people who were named are more interested in having the paper disappear than being compensated for any harm. If one wanted to have that paper disappear I should think a strongly worded letter from a lawyer to Dr. Lew might have an impact.
Of course there’s UWA and their insurance. Is UWA be obligated to defend Dr. Lew? Who knows? If they have that obligation or if they were made a party to the suit then the insurance company thing kicks in. That’s very interesting. I’d love to be in the room if UWA’s lawyer had to explain to the insurance adjuster, “In the name of academic freedom we published a paper on our website that was previously retracted by a peer review journal.”
Doesn’t the last 20 years of the climate debate support Lucia’s argument that journals should be held to a higher standard?
Hasn’t the mantra been that blogs, newspapers, magazine articles , etc., can’t be trusted, and that peer reviewed journal articles are the only reliable source of information?
DGH,
The reason the legal issues are being brought up is the Journal itself alluded to legal reasons as motivating the retraction of the paper. They don’t give any clue as to what these legal reasons might be. Could it be they retracted because of legal claims they new had been resolved? That would seem odd, but if so, then Jeff’s complaint might “matter” even though it’s clear that Jeff was not going to pursue anything based on the statement which the journal required Lewandowsky to modify. (That they required Lewandowsky to modify it suggests that the Journal or their attorney’s did not share Nick’s confidence in the complaint being so spurious as to justify leaving it in. Or even if they thought there was no legal claim, they may have seen that the statement was misleading. That could be so even if their people gave a different reason for the change because that is what people following attorney’s advice often specifically state they have a good faith belief they do not believe they committed libel when posting a retraction or failing that simply state they retracted for other reasons.
Could it be they retracted because of legal claims that were not resolved? Maybe so. But in this case, those of us in the peanut gallery haven’t been given any information what those claims might be. Could it be they journal realized there were other legal issues not mentioned in anyone’s complaint? Possibly; we are told nothing, so we can’t know.
In anycase, the wording of the retraction at the journal strikes me as something written by attorneys who were very concerned they gave no one any possible ‘hook’ to sue. For example:
1) Saying they found no academic irregularities or ethics violations means Lewandowsky and the other authors can’t claim they libeled them. (Note: they don’t say none existed. They only say they found none. We aren’t provided a report to read the level of detail in the investigation nor learn what they actually ‘found’. For all we know they “found” none because they do not really have any power to find any. Can they subpoena UWA for materials? Can they force people to pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury? Can they even fire anyone? Realistically can they even decree that if UWA doesn’t cooperate sufficiently, they will never again publish papers by people employed at UWA? None of these options are available– so with respect to doing a real investigations, their hands are actually tied.
2) Waving at vaguely at uncertain legal position neither admits nor denies libel, ethical violations on their own part nor anything else. So, they have not admitted anything that could be held against the Journal by those writing letters of complaint.
3) Being very vague about what the legal issues might be means they have volunteered nothing that could be used in any particular legal proceedings.
But: in the end they yanked the paper. So the one thing we know is whatever the real reason, uncertainty about legal issues is involved. But that doesn’t men other factors might not have influenced the decision.
Copner,
My argument about journal standards for libel has nothing to do with the climate debate. It merely has to do with the claims journals make about the process involved in vetting articles and the impression these claims make on readers. The word “peer review” gives readers the impression that unless explictly stated claims are factual and (b) that independent parties have been checking the degree of support of factual claims.
Opinions can appear in journal articles as can interpretations. But these need to be clearely noted as opinion and interpretation. Moreover, the opinion and interpretation generally need to be fact based with the facts supporting the opinion and interpretation either stated or cited. And the statements and citations need to be pretty clear. They aren’t supposed to be in some sort of convoluted, tortured reading. And more over, if some academic citing convention exists (like “people claim blah, blah, Doe 2009), one can’t go around claiming that the sentence “means” something that does not comport with what that citing method means. (That is: “deniers claim blah, blah, blah, Doe 2009” does not normally translate into “some deniers discussing things in comments at skeptic blogs claim blah, blan, blah, Doe 2009” — with sample comments numbers specifically indicated in the reference so readers can read the claims themselves.)
tlitb1 (Comment #127399)
March 24th, 2014 at 7:40 am
@Bob Denton (Comment #127390)
“It seems clear to me that when Lewandowsky says “Conspiracist ideation is arguably particularly prominent on climate blogs…†and then cites that particular blog post as an example, it can only be applying the claim of “Conspiracist ideation†to the author of the blog, nobody else.â€
Clearly not. When you inspected the cited reference, where did you find conspiratorial ideation? In the post, or in the comments?
What kind of science can the man do when from everything he says it’s clear that he has almost maniacal hatred towards the subjects of his research?!
Sven,
I think that ‘conflict of interest’ argument features prominently in one persons complaints to the journal.
Bob Denton:
Remember that there’s an SI that was included with the paper, that has specific examples (not just paraphrase). The quote from the supplemental material is specifically a statement of Jeff Condon’s:
and not that of some third party.
It’s a very strained interpretation at best given the the material enclosed with the publication, but if you read the various published comments made by Lewandowsky and Cook after its publications, I think it is also very clear the main authors (Lewandowsky and Cook) of this paper specifically were thinking of Condon, and not some third party.
DGH (Comment #127400)
March 24th, 2014 at 7:58 am
“The folks in the UK that claim they were harmed by RF have access to Dr. Lew now that he’s in Bristol. Their harm was mostly realized in the UK and the author is located within that jurisdiction.
There are a number of jurisdictions in the UK – England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. In theory, these are 3 jurisdictions out of the hundreds in which an action for a publication to the world can be brought, provided that damage has been suffered.
S6 The Defamation Act 2013 makes statements in peer-reviewed journals, and accurate copies, privileged in England and Wales.
Scottish law differs considerably from that in England and Wales. Peer-reviewed journals are not privileged, but they have a greater latitude for honest opinion. Edinburgh would not be a good place to sue academics.
Northern Ireland law is essentially the same as that in England and Wales before The Defamation Act 2013. So far as forum shopping is concerned, Belfast may be the best option.
Dr Lew is also resident in the EU, and consequently resident in each EU state for these purposes. That gives another 30 or so options.
“He couldn’t evade discovery and depositions.â€
Discovery is different here. The parties are not deposed.
@Bob Denton (Comment #127405)
Maybe we are talking at cross purposes but I don’t see a relevance in asking me what I see in the blog post. I think it is far more important to understand what Lewandowsky is asking us to see. It is Lewandowsky who was arguing there is some Conspiracist ideation to be found there and he directs the reader to that specific post and indicates why.
You imply you can’t see Lewandowsky implying anything about Jeff Condon and instead see him as merely using that specific post as a reference that third parties interpret using conspiratorial ideation.
I can’t understand how you see that and was curious how you could.
Remember we are talking about this single reference:
That is the single reference to Jeff Condon in the whole paper, it is not discussing third party readers who could project their interpretation upon it. It instead offers us, the readers, a claim that “Condon, 2009” is an example of conspiracist ideation “such as when expressing the belief that temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments”
Note the “such as when” there? That clearly expects the reader to see two things about Condon 2009 as an example of “expressing the belief that temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments” and accept this belief indicates a symptom of “conspiracy ideation”.
To me ths is a clear allegation that Jeff Condon is expressing conspiracy ideation because he expresses a belief that temperature records show warming *only* because of systematic adjustments.
I can’t see how that sentence could be understood as meaning anything else.
DGH:
I think the journal forced this change. As far as I’m aware there is no published statement from Lewandowsky or Cook stating that an error had been made and that Condon did not in fact believe they things they were to attributing him. Indeed, the most recent commentary I can find of Lewandowsky and Cook still mentions “one blogger” and links to this post of Condon’s.
They state that “One blogger cannot see that his claim that climate scientists “colluded with government officials to avoid the law†is conspiratorial”. The quoted material is Condon’s, statement is one of fact: The Climategate emails do contain specific instances where this happened.
SO I woud say this quote of Condon given in the SkS post (referencing the destroying emails, discussing how to skit FOIA laws from) is actually a counter example to the arguments given in the paper: This isn’t just conspiratorial ideation, it’s the reporting of conspiratorial behavior.
tlib1:
Me either. Especially since the “raw material” supplied in the Supplemental Material is a direct quote of Jeff Condon, rather than some third party. It’s not even a plausible interpretation that a third party was intended.
lucia, I’m not sure which complaint you’re referring to, but I know I gave some focus to the issue in mine. Amongst other things, I thought it was curious the paper included a conflict of interest statement which only covered certain types of conflicts (such as financial).
All else aside, I’m not sure how someone can write a paper defending their own work and claim not to have a conflict of interest.
Bob Denton
You missed out the ‘if’ parts of The Defamation Act (Lucia posted earlier, but recopied below):
==========
6 Peer-reviewed statement in scientific or academic journal etc.(1)The publication of a statement in a scientific or academic journal (whether published in electronic form or otherwise) is privileged if the following conditions are met. .
(2)The first condition is that the statement relates to a scientific or academic matter. .
.
(3)The second condition is that before the statement was published in the journal an independent review of the statement’s scientific or academic merit was carried out by— .
(a)the editor of the journal, and
(b)one or more persons with expertise in the scientific or academic matter concerned. .
.
(4)Where the publication of a statement in a scientific or academic journal is privileged by virtue of subsection (1), the publication in the same journal of any assessment of the statement’s scientific or academic merit is also privileged if— .
(a)the assessment was written by one or more of the persons who carried out the independent review of the statement; and .
(b)the assessment was written in the course of that review. .
(5)Where the publication of a statement or assessment is privileged by virtue of this section, the publication of a fair and accurate copy of, extract from or summary of the statement or assessment is also privileged. .
.
(6)A publication is not privileged by virtue of this section if it is shown to be made with malice. ..
(7)Nothing in this section is to be construed— .
(a)as protecting the publication of matter the publication of which is prohibited by law; .
(b)as limiting any privilege subsisting apart from this section. .
(8)The reference in subsection (3)(a) to “the editor of the journal†is to be read, in the case of a journal with more than one editor, as a reference to the editor or editors who were responsible for deciding to publish the statement concerned. .
=========
Of particular interest are sections 3 and 6. Obviously the interpretation of #6 is more straightforward than #3, as malice has a solid definition. It would be more interesting from a legal perspective to see how a case would go if argued that editorial and peer review did not specifically address the ‘statement’s scientific or academic merit.’ – i.e. that although the paper has been subject to normal review processes, these have not soecifically addressed the potentially libelous statement. In light of Phil Jones’ commentary about never being asked for the supporting data, I think this could be an interesting argument.
.
Of course the other thing to consider is whether the paper as now published by UWA is covered by the same privelege, as the retraction of the paper from the peer-reviewed journal presumably (from a legal perspective) means that it is no longer ‘published’ by a journal.
Ian Blanchard (Comment #127417)
March 24th, 2014 at 9:49 am
‘Bob Denton
You missed out the ‘if’ parts of The Defamation Act (Lucia posted earlier, but recopied below):’
You can read my response to Lucia’s post here:
Bob Denton (Comment #127155)
I have not been following this subject in any detail, but when it comes the difference between Mann and JeffID in handling these matters I found (given that I have the correct details in hand) that JeffID implied the potential of a law suit whereas Mann actually is proceeding with a law suit.
I have done what I think JeffID did here and that is to imply legal actions as a way of getting another party’s attention when I otherwise judged that I would be ignored. I would even note that I had access to legal counsel within my immediate family. My success rate was good with this tactic, but not perfect.
Another tactic was to use what I called the Krazy Ken routine whereby I would attempt to come across as someone who might be or become obsessed with the issue at hand and without legal counsel. That tactic depended on how well I played the role – and, of course, playing it too well could be a problem for me. With the advent of communications by email and perhaps growing older, I tend to confine these interactions to unemotional explanations of my position in these matters.
@Carrick (Comment #127414)
I don’t have all the SM from LOG13, I have the 40138_Lewandowsky_DataSheet1 for the paper but I don’t seem to find quotes from him in there. I would say it is also worth remembering that the purpose of LOG 13 was ostensibly only to examine “recursive” quotes pertaining to conspiracy ideation about his previous ‘Moon Hoax’ LOG12 paper, and not about climate science in general.
Which to me only adds to the implication that the non-sequitur use of Condon 2009 was another petulant attempt to have a dig at Jeff Condon, rather than an effort to illustrate the thesis of the paper. However, in doing this,it seems that Lewandowsky (motivated?) misreading of the posts’ content lead to his mangled statement about Jeff Condon having a belief of temperature record being *only* due to adjustments.
tlitb1 (Comment #127412)
March 24th, 2014 at 9:27 am
“I think it is far more important to understand what Lewandowsky is asking us to see.â€
The purpose of a citation is, trivially, to give credit, but importantly, an invitation to go and look to see if the proposition cited is supported. I went, looked, and reported back what I saw. I found material which supported the proposition.
Often I don’t. Sometimes I find things which contradict the proposition. That’s why propositions are supported by citations, so you can check them out.
The citation:
“Conspiracist ideation is arguably particularly prominent on climate blogs, such as when expressing the belief that temperature records show warming only because of systematic adjustments (e.g., Condon, 2009)â€
Well. I’ve re-read it.
Now the blog.
First, Jeff ID says: “The reason that people are so interested in global temperatures is that the large positive adjustments to the records provide most of the signal in the GISS global temperature record. In the case of the case of the more popular, higher slope CRU record, we don’t know what ‘adjustments’ were made to these records.â€
So, I find that the location cited is a climate blog, and that at the head of the post the blogger attributes most of the warming in the GISS record to large positive adjustments. Does the fact that the author uses “only†instead of “substantially†render the citation inappropriate. Not to me. It is not a transformational discrepancy. The proposal is carelessly framed, but in the context of the paper the location remains appropriate.
Next, I read the post and comments to see if there is evidence that “conspiracist ideation is arguably particularly prominent.†I find it, in the comments.
I have no real problem with the proposal or citation.
tlibt1:
Yes that is a good point, thanks. I managed to miss that. So we have a bit of pea and thimble going on here, in addition everything else.
I agree that it certainly appears that Lewandowsky and his small group of adventurers were going after anybody they could acquire a target on.
This seems to lead further credence to Steven Mosher’s comments (which almost seemed over the top at first)
Bob,
There exists a body of communication outside of that blog post that includes emials explaining my position.
The matter of adjustment to the US side of the GISS record is not in question. From memory, over half of the signal is from reprocessing data to create Tave. Whether this adjustment is reasonable or not is a reasonable question.
Nobody believes that all of the temp signal was created by illegitimate adjustments, and this has been made clear prior to the second citation. I’ve never witnessed a more clear case of scientific fraud in my life. That you would consider it to even potentially be reasonable is beyond any form of rationality I can see.
Jeff, Bob’s interpretation makes sense as long as you think the real point of Lewandowksy’s paper is that climate scientists engaged in evasion of the law, destruction of emails, performed acts to avoid scrutiny, etc.
I’m pretty that sure that wasn’t the stated purpose of the paper.
I still think you were a target of “name and shame” in an effort to penalize people for noticing the things that people in the climate community were doing that we’re supposed to not notice or comment on.
That and as well the extent of the complete ignorance on Lewandowsky and Cooks’ part on what is involved in constructing surface air temperatures, and that it does involve necessary adjustments when you e.g., shift the location of a station or change the time of observation (TOBS).
I think when lay people see you talk about “climate scientists adjusting data” they are seeing that as an accusation, rather than as a description of something they actually do.
Taken from this latter perspective as “something they do”, we have the right to see what it is “they do”, even if the only point of looking at it is to “find things wrong with it” (aka, critical examination).
tlibt1, the SI for Recursive Fury is a joke. When it was discovered Richard Betts was listed in it, they claim that’s okay because the file lists all comments related to what they examined, not just the ones which espoused a conspiracy theory. However, there were only ~120 entries in it. There were obviously more relevant comments. In fact, if you just looked at the pages they linked to in the SI, you could probably find a thousand relevant comments they didn’t list.
I actually raised this issue in the complaint I filed. Not only did the authors apparently lie when they claimed to provide all relevant data, some of the data they failed to provide contradicted their findings. That means they hid adverse data.
Not that anyone cares about these things.
Bob and Ian- Thank you. That’s exactly why I find the international component of this much more interesting than supposing what might happen here. I hope I will never have the opportunity to become as well acquainted with your system as I am with ours. Indeed I have a funny person apstory about the ridiculousness of our process in the context of defamation. But that will wait.
Lucia – I understand why this is being discussed. I don’t know why the retraction requires more than the legal issues that we know in fact existed. The journal was threatened even after the correction was issued. The threats came not from lawyers but from several individuals who used language that was strong enough and, perhaps, convincing enough to gain the attention of lawyers. Those complaints triggered the paper being placed in limbo for the better part of year.
It took some time for UWA to complete its investigation. It took some more time for the journal to process UWA’s report and to reach its decision – retract. Dr. Lew, UWA and their team would have objected to the decision. Indeed they would have squealed like stuck pigs. The language, terms and timing of the retraction would have taken some time to negotiate. The language of the retraction would be watered down as a result of the negotiations. And while that retraction statement might be a bit confused rest assured it cost quite a bit of money to produce.
Could there be more? Sure. The journal could have concluded independently that ethical, methodological or other issues existed. We dont know.
I still disagree comments like these are threats:
DGH:
Because there are ethical issues at play with scientific journals, not just legal ones.
When errors are discovered in papers, it is the responsibility of the journal and the authors to acknowledge the errors and correct the record.
When you take down a scientific paper because of legal threats, I suppose that’s an implicit statement that the paper is flawed beyond redemption, but the statement needs to be made, so that people in the future don’t rely on this paper as a legitimate scientific source.
Carrick,
Note he did quote me too. However, he skirts libel because after quoting me, he goes on the speculate what a person who wrote what I wrote must think attributing odd notions to what the person who he quoted “must” think. So this is clearly his “analysis” or “opinion”. It is a bat shit crazy opinion of what one “must think” if they suspect Lew and co didn’t try very hard to contact bloggers. (In fact: it’s pretty well proven they didn’t try very hard. The task was shunted off to an assistant who sent one email to each chosen blogger, and didn’t followup when receiving no responses and who did not name the head researcher: that is, the assistant sent an email crafted in a way likely to get as much attention as an email from someone selling the bloggers “SEO marketing help”. That’s fits my definition of “not trying very hard” if one’s goal is to actually get responses from skeptics who visits those blog.)
But anyway, his diagnosis of what one “must” think if they suspect he didn’t “try very hard” shows his ability to read minds or diagnose what one must think is about 0 on a scale of 0-100. But, while it’s a loonie theory about what one must think, it’s not libel because it’s just his opinion.
My reaction at the time was this:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/lews-furious-recursion/
DGH
My point is not that it required “more than the legal issues that we know in fact existed”. It’s only that we don’t really know which issues motivated the journal because they do not tell us. So: it might be implied threats in letters we are aware of. It might be something else. We don’t know.
Yes. That was my point.
Carrick
“This seems to lead further credence to Steven Mosher’s comments (which almost seemed over the top at first)”
There are also various comments scattered here and there that indicate various people were in on effort to use the reaction to the first paper as the basis for a new paper.
I suppose none of these guys on the Lew team realize
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano
Jeff Id (Comment #127425)
March 24th, 2014 at 11:08 am
“Bob,
There exists a body of communication outside of that blog post that includes emials explaining my position.
The matter of adjustment to the US side of the GISS record is not in question. From memory, over half of the signal is from reprocessing data to create Tave. Whether this adjustment is reasonable or not is a reasonable question.
Nobody believes that all of the temp signal was created by illegitimate adjustments, and this has been made clear prior to the second citation.â€
I accept all that. Your prefatory remarks in the post read as a very brief summary, not as a nuanced elaboration of your position. Equally, the authors’ proposition is summary and imprecise. But, I understood what was being said in both cases without believing that they were text either of you would nail to the church door.
“ I’ve never witnessed a more clear case of scientific fraud in my life.“
I’m aware of clearer cases The complete fabrication of everything.
This paper is blatantly self-serving, and how they insulated against experimenter bias is obscure. A dodgy paper perhaps, but fraudulent?
“That you would consider it to even potentially be reasonable is beyond any form of rationality I can see.â€
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing as reasonable. What I’m not seeing is defamation. I can see that you’d object to the word “onlyâ€, I just don’t see that your reputation hangs on it.
Brandon,
I’m not convinced “threat” is the proper word either. After all: saying
” My fence was damaged as a result of your negligence during your drunk driving spree during which you turned your car into my cow pasture, speed across the field and tore up the fencing. Enclosed herein please find my invoice for the cost of repairs. Please send a check for amount due ($250) to (name, address) by Monday. Bear in mind that these acts sprung from criminal behavior. If I am not reimbursed for damages to my fence, I will press this matter to the fullest extent possible. ” would generally not be seen as “threat” even though in includes “negligence” mentions criminal offences (drunk driving, trespass). It is explaining:
1) an injury
2) the remedy to set the injury right and
3) notes that this is a sufficiently serious issue that the person who damaged your fence ought to give it serious consideration.
But I don’t think it’s really a “threat”. What precisely is threatened? Will the person writing the letter probably sue if they don’t get $250? Sure. Will they probably win? If they have evidence that the person receiving the demand did damage the fence, yes. But how else is one supposed to negotiate a settlement? Start with a letter that says:
Dear Joe,
My fence was damaged. Here’s an invoice. Please send $250.
Thanks,
Jane.
If the alcohol that fueled the drunken spree also acted as “memory wipe”, Joe is going to be mystified by the request for $250. In contrast a letter setting out the case for why Joe should fork over $250 is just that: a letter setting out a case for why Joe should fork over $250.
Lucia:
Well I think it’s more of a problem wrt libel because it’s clearly opinion, clearly stated as fact. The question is, is that behavior normal in his community (and does that protect him if so)?
In the physical sciences, there is little room allowed for the expression of opinion, when it comes to the characterization of others views. You are allowed to say what they say they think, but not allowed to express your views of what they really think or why they are saying “X is what I think”.
Not without a d*mned sight more substantiation than was given here, anyway.
Carrick,
Well… he was certainly wrong about what the person he quoted (i.e. me) thought. And beyond that, it didn’t make any sense. After all: I said some people suspect he didn’t try very hard to achieve X. Then he explained what one “must thing” if they believe he didn’t try at all. But one could think he made a feeble attempt (which appears to be what he did) and then one need not think any of the things he concluded one “must” think. So for example: only a feeble attempt was required to make his method section nominally correct. So one who thought attempts were feeble didn’t have to think he lied in the method section. And there were temporal issues- of which he should have been aware because he was involved in them. So for example: when I wrote that suspicion was raised by his refusing to provide information and giving a feeble excuse, he should have been aware that I specifically emailed him, asked him for information and he gave an excuse. He might not have thought it feeble (but later evidence confirmed the excuse, was, indeed, feeble.)
Carrick (Comment #127426)
March 24th, 2014 at 11:13 am
“Jeff, Bob’s interpretation makes sense as long as you think the real point of Lewandowksy’s paper is that climate scientists engaged in evasion of the law, destruction of emails, performed acts to avoid scrutiny, etc.â€
The experiment was designed to be orthogonal to the truth.
@Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #127427)
Yeah I kinda lost track about the exact explanation they gave to Richard Betts but somehow it became all OK to his satisfaction.
All the comments shown in 40138_Lewandowsky_DataSheet1 I have were all categorised under the main heading “Excerpt Espousing Conspiracy Theory” and then refined further into sub-headings; e.g. Richard Betts was in “Didn’t email deniers”
I was kinda looking forward to the paper coming out and seeing how they would modify the SI. Would they just have taken out just Richard Betts entry? Would they have taken out that whole “Didn’t email deniers”
column? I suspect that whatever they did it would’ve highlighted the arbitrary nature of the data gathering. That is one thing they don’t have to worry about dealing with now 😉
I think it is worth reproducing what RIchard Betts said on the Guardian comments about his inclusion:
So you see, even after Richard Betts had “cleared the air” with the papers author over a coffee, he still has no better opinion about why he was put in the SI! He even guesses it could have purely been a prejudicial decision based on the location of the comment and nothing to do with “the actual content of the comment”!
Great eh? How would that look in court? 😉
Carrick,
I don’t know the obligations of the journal to defend a peer reviewed article that they’ve published. Must they stand by the paper at all costs? I have no idea but apparently in this instance the answer is, no.
Two parties in a legal dispute never agree hence the dispute. But most cases are settled in advance of trial because the parties have weighed the costs, risks and value of the case and come to terms with the fact that “winning” is not an option. So they compromise.
It is entirely possible that Frontiers In does not believe that the paper has ethical or academic issues but has chosen not to risk a litigation with one or more parties in one or more venues. Indeed they claim that the retraction was related to “legal context” and I have no reason to doubt their word. Perhaps somebody knows something dark secret about the integrity of Frontiers that I am unaware of but thus far they’ve acted honorably as I would have hoped albeit slowly and haphazardly. They’ve stated their reason for the retraction and refusing to take them at their word is baseless speculation.
It’s a bit surprising to see both sides of this discussion pointing fingers at the Journal. Lew et al don’t like the decision. Around these parts the Journal’s motives are questioned.
Color me confused about Frontiers’ actions here. The journal is evidently concerned about legal liability but simultaneously states (while issuing a retraction) that its “… investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study…” This reads as an endorsement of the academics and ethics of the study and thereby could increase Frontiers’ legal liability. In other words, they are saying: “I re-iterate that what I said is true and am only retracting it because you may sue me. But it is still true”. This is too cute.
Just for the record, I don’t recall ever stating to these people that I would sue. Others took it much further than I did. I simply told them that the record was inaccurate and that I had never made the claims he stated, that I could be damaged by the false statements, and asked to please remove them so this can be put behind us.
That worked fine for me -twice!
Bob,
By other material, I don’t only mean the thousand-plus blog posts with many dozens of technical posts on temperature records, to help them understand some nuanced position on what is legitimate. I was referring to the personal emails directly to Lewandowsky after the first paper, explaining in no uncertain terms that the adjustments are well known and standard in the field, andI told him that they are completely necessary.
It was with that knowledge right in his own emails that he wrote the second paper.
DGH
I don’t know where you are coming from with this. Who do you think is ‘refusing to take them at their word’? Nothing I’ve said constitutes any such thing and as far as I can see no one else has refused to take them at their word.
Who do you think is finger pointing? All I’ve said is that their stated reason is vague. If you think that’s not true and that it’s specific, you’ll have to explain their reason better than they did themselves. Taking them completely at their word: We don’t know the specific legal issues that motivated them to retract. And beyond that, we don’t know if ‘legal reasons’ were the only reasons — because taking them completely at their word– they didn’t say that legal reasons were the sole motivation.
Jeff,
“It was with that knowledge right in his own emails that he wrote the second paper.”
Confirming yet again that worms are usually slimy.
DGH:
No, but there were questions about the veracity of the results. This was not addressed when the paper was withdrawn.
Nor can I imagine that any of the complainants had a larger bankroll than the journal, so the “takedown just because of legal threats” comes across as a bit dodgy to me.
I can imagine legal reasons for not admitting there was anything more wrong with the paper than just that it exposed the journal. So I do have reason to review their stated reasons for the takedown to make sure I’ve parsed what is undoubtably carefully crafted legalize designed to minimize additional exposure.
Lucia:
I haven’t addressed this one way or another before now, but I am now that DGH brought it up. When lawyers get involved is where you should start parsing what was said really carefully.
As you say “they didn’t say that legal reasons were the sole motivation.” Because they didn’t say that, we can easily read into their words that it wasn’t the sole motivation.
Lucia wrote: ” we don’t know if ‘legal reasons’ were the only reasons — because taking them completely at their word– they didn’t say that legal reasons were the sole motivation”.
As I mentioned at CA, the journal turned down my request to see their “investigation” report. In that letter, they said “Our decision on the retraction of this article was taken on the basis of a number of factors”.
I also interpret the wording of the retraction as legalese. Think how often executives move on to “pursue other interests”
Bob Denton:
That wouldn’t be a very good experiment then.
DGH/Carrick
Note that the Journal did not “takedown just because of legal threatsâ€. They didn’t alluded to any threat. The reason is ‘insufficiently clear legal context’
We seem to agree here. My impression is somehow DGH thinks this is not taking them at their word. But they are silent on this point. They didn’t say the legal context was the only reason. They just said it was a reason. And to me, this looks like legalese that says very little.
If there is something DGH thinks someone suggested that is actually contrary to the precise wording by the Journal, I don’t know what that is. Because as far as I can see, you and are are taking them at their word. We are just noting what those words are– and what is not there.
Steve McIntyre,
Or people working with presidential administration resign to spend more time with their families. ( It might even be partly true. But mostly…. nah.)
There’s much discussion here of retraction. The Journal page has been updated; it still says, firmly:
“The article has not been retracted or withdrawn.”
It may be that the editors looked at the complaints and decided that they were justified. They the contacted UWA and asked a number of very tricky questions (for UWA).
Once you commit yourself in writing that response becomes admissible at a trial.
It is highly likely that the UWA refused the request for the quite specific details of their investigation and exoneration and would only give a blanket statement of support on legal advice.
(We will give further details if legal action arises).
Given the refusal of the UWA and possibly the authors to submit their actions to scrutiny the journal then had the
chance to act conscientiously and ditch the paper with the very carefully worded legalese to avoid giving away this scenario.
A lot of psychologists and editors are normal, ethical people, after all.
Nick,
The retraction dated 2014 is here
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00293/full
I don’t know why the abstract page dated 2013 is not updated
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/abstract
Possibly they will never update the abstract page.
The page Nick Stokes refers to has not been updated in any meaningful way. This page on the same site does display the retraction notice.
McIntyre takes apart the UWA ethics investigation the way a watch maker takes apart a golden Swiss watch.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/03/24/lewandowsky-ghost-wrote-conclusions-of-uwa-ethics-investigation-into-hoax/#more-19039
There was no Journal investigation because there was no UWA investigation. Steve has revealed this game before.
Brandon and Lucia
A threat is a perceived event. You both seem to be saying that expressing an opinion is not a threat.
I would take any complaint, no matter how you veil it or address it as a possible threat. The person making the complaint does not see this as a threat in any way but the person it is being made to does.
My impression is you would both complain to the restauranteur that the steak is over cooked or the red wine is off (perfectly justified by the way, so you don’t think I’m making a complaint about behaviour) and expect this to be normal behaviour, what people do.
I would pay for the meal, leave without a complaint but not recommend that place again
Nick Stokes:
And the Terran sky is not blue on a sunny day, either.
angech,
On the one hand, I sort of agree threats are perception. But really, it’s both how it’s precieved and how it’s intended..
With respect to your example, I rarely complain about bad meals in restaurants. I do as you do: I just don’t return.
But if the meal was poor and and they asked, I might complain. Once– about 5 years ago–, Jim and I went to a restaurant that had been open for a month. The food was extremely poor and overpriced. The place advertized itself as a sort of “white tablecloth” place, so we expected better service and we expected wine. The wine was shit.
The owner came over and asked identifying herself as the new owner. Jim told her the food was bad. We did not demand our money back. The owner didn’t volunteer any refund. We didn’t file a lawsuit for bad food. There was no ‘threat’.
Of course we also didn’t return. The restaurant closed within 6 months of opening.
angech:
That’d mean you’d take comments like, “This soup has too much salt in it” as threats even though there’s no implication any action will be taken. That seems silly.
I’d hate to imagine how you’d interpret, “Man, it’s too hot outside.”
Uh… I can’t say whether lucia or I would do that, but it is normal behavior.
This is also normal behavior.
lucia (Comment #127453)
“Nick,
The retraction dated 2014 is here”
Thanks. I had been watching the page for the paper.
Going through Steve McIntyre’s latest post, I was struck by this part:
If he didn’t update his research plan with the explicit changes that were made (including the very different thrust of the research) and get new permissions before engaging in his internet survey, this would be, in the US anyway, a clear breach of ethical conduct on Lewandowsky’s part.
Can it be substantiated that his original request was not updated?
At my university, simply the amount of time elapsed would have required a reissuance of HR approval before research with humans subjects could proceed.
Nick
YW. It is confusing. Earlier on someone on Twitter referred to it as “Shrodinger’s paper” because it either was or was not retracted depending on which page one visited. I googled the wording given at ‘Retraction Watch” to find the newer page.
A similar thing was happening with the hosting of the paper at UWA. It disappeared from their servers for a bit of time and then re-appeared with the strange “pre-dendum” giving advise about US libel law (likely written by someone in Australia.) It may be inaccurate. Or not.
But the mystifying thing is : What does adding that accomplish? The only “legal” effect is — possibly– to restart the clock on statute of limitations for filing suits in the US or elsewhere! That clock had already run out for the state of Michigan. It may or may not have run out in Illinois– depends on how it ends up being applied for the internet. I have no idea what it is in Canada, the UK, Australia and so on. )
Carrick, just to be clear, I presume that you’ve taken note of Lewandowsky’s August 2010 email request (cited in my post). To this email were attached lists of questions from which the conspiracy theory questions were drawn ( a point that I’ll clarify).
Evidence that the original questionnaire and checklist were NOT amended is that such amendments would have been within the scope of previous FOI requests and were not produced.
Carrick,
I suspect some Australian somewhere is making FOI requests. Possibly they are already submitted.
Steve McIntyre, yes I read through that.
I think a clear statement from UWA is in order here on the actual, final HR approval that Lewandowky was working under; being a statement is produced without undue involvement or interference from, on Lewandowsky’s part.
Certainly this looks very bad. Sometimes things aren’t as bad as they look when sunlight illuminates it, but either way, this deserves sunlight.
“Nobody believes that all of the temp signal was created by illegitimate adjustments, and this has been made clear prior to the second citation. I’ve never witnessed a more clear case of scientific fraud in my life. That you would consider it to even potentially be reasonable is beyond any form of rationality I can see.”
Mann(2008) has to be a close second.
“Just for the record, I don’t recall ever stating to these people that I would sue. Others took it much further than I did. I simply told them that the record was inaccurate and that I had never made the claims he stated, that I could be damaged by the false statements, and asked to please remove them so this can be put behind us.”
.
Jeff, this has been a matter bothering several people. The peer-reviewed literature is not a venue of discussion as understood in the usual sense. It is not a democratic platform as a newspaper or a website is. If a scientist makes an case that certain people are conspiratorial (or racially motivated, or some such thing) and uses individuals as examples in a paper in a journal, the concerned individuals cannot write another paper showing him wrong (unless they are scientists themselves). At the most, they can write a ‘letter to the editor’ which may be published. The asymmetry in power relations involving a researcher and his/her study subjects is well understood. The asymmetry has been learned painfully over the years with recurring examples of exploitative researchers putting test subjects at harm. “…[the] burden of medical experimentation has historically been borne by those least able to protect themselves.” (http://www.und.edu/instruct/wstevens/PROPOSALCLASS/MARSDEN&MELANDER2.htm). Protection of research subjects therefore falls on the researcher and the research enterprise.
.
Because there is no ground to equal reply, suing would become the only recourse available to individuals defamed by research scholarship. The other option is doing nothing. This can be easily visualized by imagining a situation where Frontiers has published the paper and let it stand and you and Watts and Jo Nova stand fuming and unable to do anything as Lewandowsky and Cook become famous giving talks at meetings across the country, trashing your name to further their careers as psychologists.
Carrick–
For non-human studies, the first questionnaire asks several questions about reproducibility and generally applicable knowledge– questions that I might have a hard time affirming in the Hoax study. I should think humans are afforded similar protections against professorial windmill tilting.
Anonymous surveys– can’t they be exempted by the IRB?
conard:
I think you are exempt from keeping consent records. I don’t think it exempts you from IRB oversight and I am pretty sure you still need an HR approval number to conduct the actual survey.
[NB: It’s much more complicated when it’s an international survey because in principle you have numerous different sets of laws you have to abide by. Fools rush…]
An IRB exemption is determined by the IRB. The problem is, UWA appears to have very poor institutional mechanisms and staff.
.
Carrick, Lewandowsky did submit a modified application for the Moon hoax paper. Not sure if his email itself counted as an application or whether he submitted a formal application, but nevertheless, there was an application or some sort from him for ethics approval. Is this what you are asking for?
.
On the other hand, -no- application was submitted for the Fury paper. At least, none that we know of. The ethics person treated the email from Lewandowsky enquiring whether an application would be needed, as an application, and ‘approved’ it herself without any further review. Quite the scrupulous people.
Brandon,
As I tried to establish upthread, I perceive a threat in a communication couched in legal terms which complains of some act of mine which taken in the light of the specific legal terms in the complaint might be actionable – whether the complaint is accurate or not.
There apparently are some legal reasons why one might not want to actually specifically threaten a suit but it isn’t difficult to get the nature of the discomfort across in a letter that implies that failing some remedy there might be such a thing in the offing.
For these reasons, it isn’t crazy to be “threatened” by a letter or email such as I describe above.
When you suggested that my experience was different from yours did you mean that you’ve never received a communication of the sort I refer to, or that if you did you didn’t infer from the words that the writer was contemplating a suit? If not threatened, what was your reaction?
It could be that you’ve never said anything stupid in public. I have and it took some doing to defuse the righteous and legally emboldened rage of the subject of my carelessness.
I can assure you that if you ever should do something like I did, and receive the sort of letter I did, which did not specifically threaten suit, but was nonetheless very clear, you too might feel threatened.
lucia (Comment #127463)
lucia, take a look at this:
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e332/bding0bding/pretextbox_zpsa044038a.png
Textbox properties show the author as “lewan”
predendum written by Lewandosky? Not surprising, really.
Interesting. Oddly, your screenshot cuts off the part of the predendum that strikes me as strange: the part that talks about US law passed in 2010 making foreign defamation judgments being unenforceable in the US. That claim goes way beyond what the law does.
Steve M:
As someone who has been involved in retractions, I disagree that the wording of the retraction is legalese. The language saying that the investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study appears deliberate and can act as a re-endorsement of the integrity of the study. This is not standard retraction language and potentially increases the legal risk of the Journal. I think you would be well justified in pointing this out to the editors.
carlb,
I suspect with respect to defamation, since the paper has been yanked, the journal is in the clear due to statute of limitations. Now they are merely saying they didn’t identify issues– which they didn’t. That’s not the same as saying there are none. And it really doesn’t matter if this is an ‘endorsement’ because it’s only republication that would matter under libel. The paper is not republished.
I googled a bit and statute also 1 year in England, Australia and Swizerland (where Lewandowsky lives, where he used to live and where the Journal operates.) In Scotland evidently it’s 3 years. I think I found 2 years in Canada. So for most named people the statute of limitations is over– and the statute of limitations is specifically over in Australia.
So really at this point, most discussions of whether a statement was libelous is academic. With respect to the journals initial publication, legal remedies are barred in most jurisdictions even if statements are libelous. ( UWA’s publication may also be past statute of limitations — if they published back when Fronteirs did. But not if they only just posted the paper. But I think they posted back a year ago– if you don’t count the ‘change’ due to the predendum. But I doubt anyone is going to go to the expense to file any suit based on the theory that the pre-dendum is a significant change. Suing costs money, it’s always iffy, and collecting on suites involving people in different countries is also iffy.)
I don’t know about the effect of language on liability on any other potential legal issues. It’s impossible to try to gauge it because the nature of the legal issues aren’t stated.
lucia (Comment #127459)
March 24th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
“But if the meal was poor and and they asked, I might complain. Once– about 5 years ago–, Jim and I went to a restaurant that had been open for a month. The food was extremely poor and overpriced. The place advertized itself as a sort of “white tablecloth†place, so we expected better service and we expected wine. The wine was shit.”
I think the threat thing is overdone here and probably my posts here are off the topic – but I cannot help myself. Threats are not only perceptions but also perceived differently in different cultures.
My wife will tell me sometimes that something is not quite right when we dine out, but she will finish her meal anyway. A waiter/manager/owner might wonder over and ask about the food and my wife will politely and almost apologetically explain what she did not like. Her record for comps is darn near perfect and even when she tells them she is not complaining to be compensated.
On the other hand, we have a friend who can be hyper critical of wait staff and food and will sometimes ask to speak to a manager or owner. He seldom or never gets comped.
When we have an off dining experience and after time passes I will suggest to the wife that we try that establishment again. She invariably says no and relents only when a girl friend has gone there recently and comes back with a favorable report. I call it the girl friend rule – and, of course, feel my opinion is chopped liver.
Carrick (Comment #127448)
March 24th, 2014 at 4:06 pm
“Bob Denton:
The experiment was designed to be orthogonal to the truth.
That wouldn’t be a very good experiment then.â€
My response was intended, in part, to be humorous. However, I’ve re-read RF yet again, and now think that this element of the design may be a major design flaw.
At first blush, the purpose, to restrict the analysis to easily identifiable patterns of thought, seems reasonable. However, it seems to me, that to be conspiratorial the thought pattern must invoke something beyond the immediate issue under consideration, and that must involve some consideration of truth values, ie: whether there is plausible factual basis for the thought, or whether something is assumed because of pre-existing conspiracy theory.
If you’re arguing forward from pre-existing facts, that’s not conspiratorial, if you’re arguing backwards, construing facts according to a pre-existing conspiracy theory, that’s conspiratorial ideation.
So, provisionally, I’d have to give the paper a fail on that point.
But it also has ethical implications. If you have no criterion related to truth value, you sweep up many people into the conspiratorial net who may not be exhibiting conspiratorial ideation. That may be fine if everything is anonymised, but where the “quotees†are identified or identifiable, then you risk labeling the innocent along with the conspiratorial.
Furthermore, it’s noticeable that neutrality to truth values, in this case, insulates the authors’ papers from peer-review, that chastening process that occurs when you publish you work to the world. If all criticism arises from a conspiracy theory, which it will do if there is no consideration of validity, they needn’t go to the trouble of answering it. Or at least, need only point, and shout “Conspirator.â€
I also wonder whether they are insulated from criticism only in respect of this paper. Are they now immunised from criticism of any future papers? Any potential critic exposes themselves to being outed as a conspiracist in their following paper.
A sort of recursive vengeance.
Kenneth
Well… thing is, if you haven’t gone back, you have no data to know it’s improved. In contrast, the girlfriend may have gone back recently.
As for whether there were threats or not: we could go back and forth all day because as I’ve noted, I’m not really sure whether we can identify ‘threat’ purely by the intention of the ‘threatenor’ or the ‘threatenee’. My view is: kinda-sorta both.
The reason the ‘fact’ of whether threats were made is discussed is that those who support Lewandowsky are all suggesting these were all baseless threats and/or there was some sort of “conspiracy” to make threats. But really: Things were said about people attributing to them things they did not say. The people thought this things were damaging to them. Merely stating this amounts to saying the statements were libel.
More than one person thought they were libeled, mistreated, misquoted, distorted, whatever. Each person who thought they were libeled, mistreated, misquoted decided for themselves to write; a number did. For example, I interpreted the claims of what someone who said what I wrote “must think” as opinion (though utter tosh), and didn’t write the journal because I don’t think it libels me and I don’t think it’s an ethical matter. I do think it shows the poor reasoning skills of the authors and also the poor review standards at the journal– but that’s peer review. Papers that pass peer review get published. On the other hand, the wording for other made false attributions of what they did think (not “must”– there is a difference). So they wrote.
The people involved wrote to the journal and asked for correction. What else are they supposed to do? Just say, “Oh well. It’s a journal. They have a right to say false things about me personally? Even if it’s damaging? I’ll just go ahead and sit here not saying a peep?” That’s not right. Might it look “collective” to those who think all these individuals who were named because Lewandowsky chose to name them specifically acted together? Possibly it does to those who like to think of these others as some set of “conspiracists” who band together to “attack people like Lewandowsky”.
As for threat: I get someone might perceive writing, expressing the facts as one sees them and requesting a remedy to be a threat. But really: what is one supposed to do?
And with regard to how one’s tone might get action: At least in the restaurant, the manager knows that if nothing is done you won’t come back or you’ll tell your friends about your bad experience and so he might be motivated to give you comp– even though in this situation the chances you could win a lawsuit for ‘overcook steak’ is close to zero. In this case, it’s possible that if you seem to be a whiny, critical, complainer, the restaurant will decide they’d be happy enough if you never came back. They also might judge that as you are complainer, your friends will not take you seriously when you slam the restaurant because they know you always slam restaurants. So being polite will tend to get you better service.
But in the case of a journal: what precisely is a 3rd party who thinks they are libeled supposed to do? In comments at Dana’s guardian post, there was some insinuation you should write another paper. (And what– pay page charges?!) But really…. another “scholarly article” saying “I was misquoted and that was damaging to me?” That’s not ‘interesting’ in a scholarly sort of way. So it’s a ridiculous suggestion.
If a journal publishes a paper in which people are misquoted in a damaging way, they should expect to receive letters requesting retractions. If a journal doesn’t have a reasonable mechanism to deal with this,that’s the journals fault, not that of the 3rd parties who perceive themselves damaged.
Bob Denton
I didn’t write a complaint. But we might as well use me as an example since I was quoted and Lewandowsky wrote a long interpretation after the quote. The retraction ought to mean that future authors can’t quote this as a “peer reviewed publication” that, for example, showed/said/reported what I (who was quoted) “must have thought”. That said: it’s a fiction to say it can’t be cited. It can’t be cited in– say– the IPCC. But scholarly papers have long permitted things like “personal correspondence”, “emails”, “blog posts” and so on to be cited. Court cases certainly do not consider ‘peer reviewed papers’ any more or less published than “letter I sent to my mother”– and the Supreme Court has cited blog posts– and even comments in blog posts. So, the paper can be cited– but it’s just not a ‘peer reviewed finding’ and that might influence future peer reviewers views if they see the paper ‘cited’ in some way.
Also: being retracted might affect how citing its findings are seen under the new UK defamation laws since the paper is not not “blessed” as “peer reviewed”. But — who knows? That law is new, and I don’t know how retraction status will be interpreted.
In the US, repeating a libel is a new libel. So the retraction does nothing– because people could still sue if the way things are worded in the new paper is itself libelous. But the existence of the peer reviewed paper might merely permit people to say “Lewandowsky reported” or such like, and that would get around the issue.
But broadly, across the world, the papers retraction will tend to rob Lewandowsky or other authors of a “short cut” to repeating the libel by citing a “peer reviewed paper”. Certainly, it will make certain claims riskier because there would at least be a colorable case (meaning: prima facie evidence will get it to trial.)
Bob Denton:
So was mine. 😉 Thanks for the reply.
Shub:
Since it is using human data that the author is collecting himself, I believe he is still required to have IRB approval to conduct this study. Certainly a non-confrontational query to UWA as to the auspices under which this study was approved by the university would be appropriate.
Regarding the “approved” email, I don’t know how UWA works, but I’ve always viewed the IRB as to be more advisory rather than direct oversight. They are there to help you avoid doing something wrong—a similar function to legal advise. If you don’t tell a lawyer honestly what you are planning on doing, his advise won’t help much.
So if you feed the IRB officer erroneous information, and they acted properly within the confines of the information you supplied them, then the response they gave you is not relevant, since it relates to something you intimated you were doing, rather than something you actually did.
It’s true they have an oversight role, but in practice it is very limited, and is affected by the conflict of interest inherent in asking professors to act in an oversight role of other professors.
ucia (Comment #127483)
March 25th, 2014 at 8:58 am
“carlb,
I suspect with respect to defamation, since the paper has been yanked, the journal is in the clear due to statute of limitations. Now they are merely saying they didn’t identify issues– which they didn’t. That’s not the same as saying there are none. And it really doesn’t matter if this is an ‘endorsement’ because it’s only republication that would matter under libel. The paper is not republished.
I googled a bit and statute also 1 year in England, Australia and Swizerland (where Lewandowsky lives, where he used to live and where the Journal operates.) In Scotland evidently it’s 3 years. I think I found 2 years in Canada. So for most named people the statute of limitations is over– and the statute of limitations is specifically over in Australia.â€
Lucia,
The publishers aren’t necessarily in the clear. The paper may be pulled, but it’s been put into circulation by the publishers, it’s still available on the internet and they can’t put it back in the bottle.
The single publication rule – time runs from first publication – applied, almost exclusively, in the USA. Almost everywhere else followed the multiple publication rule – time runs from the last publication.
To see if action against the journal is time-barred in jurisdictions outside the USA you’d need to check their publication rule jurisdiction by jurisdiction. You’d also have to check what protection is given against internet dissemination, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
In England and Wales, the first publication rule applies only from 1st Jan 2014, so time MAY still be running in respect of the last publications (viewing or download) before 1st Jan.
Incidentally, S6 Defamation Act extends to Scotland, though I don’t know whether it’s been brought into effect yet.
Lucia,
Thanks for your comments. I am not familiar with Swiss libel law, but in the US, there is at least a colorable argument (I think a strong argument) that the new positive reference to the paper would constitute republication under Rinaldi v Viking Penguin.
My original point was that the Frontier’s language was not standard legalese and does not strengthen the Journal’s legal position. I understand your argument that saying they didn’t identify issues is technically different from saying there are none. However, I don’t think this works.The Journal originally accepted the paper for publication – which means the paper met its standards – and now pointedly says that after a detailed investigation, it finds no reason (apart from fear of lawsuits) to dispute the original decision. (“Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study.”) This is strong language and a reasonable person could take it as Frontiers’ vindicating Lewandowsky. Certainly, that is how his supporters are presenting it – just look at the Guardian comments section.
Bob Denton (Comment #127492)
“In England and Wales, the first publication rule applies only from 1st Jan 2014, so time MAY still be running in respect of the last publications (viewing or download) before 1st Jan.â€
In fact, the first publication under the multiple publication rule, after 1st Jan, counts as a first publication under the new single publication rule. So time will still be running – 1 year from first provable publication after 1st Jan 2014.
Bob Denton
Good point. Though cursory reading of Michigan’s law suggests that the publisher retracting and stating they were doing so because Jeff’s request was valid when Jeff requested might be sufficient to protect the publisher even if Lewandowsky or others later republish. That said: I don’t know how a retraction made along with some feeble “we only did it because other references were better” holds. These sorts of things are likely to give an publisher pause.
With respect to the internet publication the same holds in the US because defamation is a state tort, not federal. Many states have not made any explicit statement about the internet, and in the absence of clear statutes, that means a judge will likely interpret laws when a specific suit with relevant facts is litigated and decided in a particular state. But given the fact that the plaintiffs are unlikely to have ‘deep pockets’ in terms of wanting to litigate something that might need to go to their state’s individual supreme court, as a practical matter, it’s likely a plaintiff would act on the basis of assuming the statute of limitations had run out. Meanwhile a potential defendant in UK, Australia or Switzerland might, as a practical matter, worry that the plaintiff does have a colorable case that whose statute of limitations has not run out.
In some ways, this is a “nice” spot with respect to negotiations because if it looks like the case has merit (other than statute of limitations issues) the author/publisher should still have strong incentive to make what is– after all- a minor revision of quoting accurately, while the potential plaintiff is unlikely to sue unless the damages are very severe.
Bob Denton
Ahhh! Thanks. I hadn’t considered the whole ‘it’s a new law’ bit when thinking about statute of limitations. Of course that would matter in the hypothetical that someone brings a suit.
lucia (Comment #127486)
I am in essential agreement with what you say in this post- except about girl friend data. I failed to add that it is girl friend data over restaurant critics and other anecdotal evidence that I collect and that flavors my opinion.
Just to be clear about where I stand on conceived threats and using implied threats to obtain satisfaction, I favor those approaches as long as it is not threatening physical violence or anything not within the law. It is a way of getting someone’s attention and letting them know you mean business. If someone did to me what I think Lewandosky did to Jeff Condon in his silly paper published by a silly publisher I would probably have taken stronger action or, at least, initially just to get their attention.
By the way, the publisher of the paper (or is it the WAU or both) seems like a real milk toast organization(s) by the way they attempted to placate Lewandowsky. Maybe they felt threatened by him and or the situation vis a vis the AGW consensus. My problem is that I cannot get sufficiently interested in a nonsensical paper like this one or an organization that would publish it and thus I have not followed all the details in the matter.
Kenneth,
I’ll take your word for it. That sounds a bit like my Mom. Her friends recommendations seem to carry a lot of weight with her. Do you recall that in “The Inlaws”, Robert DeNiro mentions “The circle of trust” which seemed to mostly be the close family. We joke our mom has an “annulus of trust”. Her friends, second cousins and so on are all in “the annulus of trust”, and their opinions seem to carry much more weight than that of family members or strangers. Why? Well..why ask why. It just “is”.
“The single publication rule – time runs from first publication – applied, almost exclusively, in the USA.”
If anyone wants to sue, it’s still published here. Deep pockets too!
Speaking of pockets, looks like Steyn’s deepened his.
http://www.steynonline.com/6201/what-kind-of-fool-am-i
I guess this is why Mann supporters are out begging for more money for his legal “defense” fund.
Lucia,
The discussion of whether using the words “defamation”, “harm”, and etc is a threat or a simple statement is a bit off point in regards to the complaints. The people who felt they were harmed had no choice. I agree with your post above in that regard.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the lawyers and journal would analyze the “legal context” of RF in reaction to the use of those words. Perhaps nobody is surprised. Threatening or not the words have legal meaning and weight.
My objection above was reading beyond the words of the retraction. Carrick’s statement, “Because they didn’t say that, we can easily read into their words that it wasn’t the sole motivation” is illogical to me.
Steve wrote, “Think how often executives move on to ‘pursue other interests.'” That analogy misses the mark. In that case the company doesn’t announce, “The executive wasn’t sexually harassing staff members but he is moving on to pursue other interests.” They ignore what we all expect is the cause of the resignation and allow us to draw our own conclusions from the vague, yet familiar, language.
That’s not what happened here. In the case of RF, the journal stated that they found no ethical or academic issues with the paper. Despite what we all presumed or expected would be (or should be) the cause of the retraction they made it clear that wasn’t the case. They have not invited us to read between the lines a la the quiet resignation/termination of an executive.
Given the specifics in the statement – no ethical or academic issues – I can’t imagine what the journal found that caused them to retract the paper except a lack of appetite for litigation. Perhaps I’m dense or stubborn but I’m not getting the hint.
Lucia (#127486):
Interesting. I’ve just been solicited by the AAAS to join their fine organization and part of the solicitation was a free copy of the Jan. 24 issue of Science Magazine (unfortunately behind a pay wall to mere mortals).
In it (p. 358) there is an account of some Nano-imaging kerfuffle.
The “victim†complains:
Two “skeptics†(card-carrying members of the tenured academic guild) are quoted:
It looks to me as if those who insist on hiding behind the “so publish a paper saying we’re wrong†meme may be on the “wrong side of historyâ€, to coin a phrase.
But then, I suppose climate science and psychology are different…
DGH,
Actually, sometimes a company will say something exculpatory sounding if there has been public discussion of the issue like “We have investigated allegations about ‘bad thing X’ and found no credible evidence, but due to… mutually agreeable…. blah, blah, executive Y is leaving.”
Companies do this especially if having overlooked the bad behavior might reflect badly on the company itself and negatively affect it’s business or image.
Yes– they found none. But we have no actual information about level of detail, nor what would be required for them to “find”– or if they even have the power to “find”. That takes care of your first sentence. As for your second, the did not make it clear that suspicions about ethics or academic issues– or quesy feelings– did not contribute to the lapse. Neither ‘suspicions’ nor ‘queesy feelings’ are ‘findings’. So: no, they did not make it clear that the material is beyond criticism.
But you are reading between the lines to find ‘clarity’ where there is none. You are taking their words to disavow the possibilities there words do not disavow. Us observing they did go as far as you diagnose when you read between the lines is not us reading between the lines.
Once again: they didn’t say there are none of these things. They say didn’t “identify” any. The latter is a much weaker statement. And we don’t know how hard they looked. How detailed is “detailed”?
As for this
I’m willing to believe they have no appetite for litigation. But it seems to me the likelihood of litigation was very slim. They complied with Jeff’s request– so no litigation. The complied with someone else’s (foxgoose?) So those two complaints are largely out of the picture. Statute of limitation questions are all over the place on these things. So…?
Presumably we will learn more. Or not. The journal is probably outside the bounds of FOI! Heh. But we will likely learn precisely what UWA sent and so on. So…we’ll see. (I’m not dogging this. Not my big interest.).
DGH,
“In the case of RF, the journal stated that they found no ethical or academic issues with the paper. Despite what we all presumed or expected would be (or should be) the cause of the retraction they made it clear that wasn’t the case.”
.
Humm…
Then I would suggest either the journal is being less that forthcoming, or more likely, acting like cowards. If they think there is nothing wrong with the paper, then they should stand by it and, if needed, face any resulting legal actions…. because if they are right, then they have nothing to fear. If they think the paper ought to be withdrawn based of serious problems (which is I think quite clear), then they should state that directly. The course they have chosen (the paper was just swell, but we are too afraid to face potential legal action, so we are withdrawing it) is weak, cowardly, and worse than that, probably dishonest. Shame on them.
The journal is probably outside the bounds of FOI! Heh. But we will likely learn precisely what UWA sent and so on.
My impression is that the UWA would not hand over any details of their investigations because it would then be available under FOI and that if it was seen to have the paucity of effort surmised by some to have been put in this would then be on even more public display.
I do feel very sorry for the people at UWA who had to support Lewandowsky’s paper. They will be reading Climate Audit and here and having sleepless nights not having realized that an academic could do such a difficult paper.
Yes, Lew is extraordinarily reckless. There must be quite a list now of people who wish they’d never heard his name.
angech,
The paper is terrible. But I doubt anyone at UWA is having sleepless nights. No matter how bad the paper is, it’s really not the sort of things someone who blithely granted permission to do would actually lose sleep over. No one died after all.
Lucia, it has nothing to do with the paper and its quality. These people are administrators and it’s not a good look to have sloppy work paraded on the internet. They were railroaded by Lew into cutting corners, and I’m sure they now regret not having done it by the book.
Lucia,
I think DGH’s argument is correct here. The Journal said it conducted a “detailed” investigation. It said further that this detailed investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. By any reasonable person standard, the Journal is vindicating the study. As evidence, look how the Journal’s explanation is being spun by Lewandowski (“In other words, the article is fine but Frontiers does not want to take the legal risk that its restoration on the website might entail.”). Dana Nuccitelli was able to use Frontiers’ wording to headline his Guardian article “Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper – After threats of frivolous libel and defamation lawsuits, a journal will retract an academically sound paper.” I submit that this read is the natural conclusion that a reasonable person would reach.
I am not a fan of legal action, but I think Steve M (and others who lodged complaints) would be well justified in pointing out to the editors of Frontiers how their wording is being (reasonably) construed.
carlb,
Based on what’s written, can you tell me what steps are required to make an investigation qualify as “detailed”? (I can’t. And I can’t tell if “detailed” would be sufficient to find irregularities if they occurred. But if you know the precise details of what they did, point me to their description. Until that time, I’ll see “detailed” as an ambiguous decoration that does not say much of anything.)
The wording suggests vindication. I haven’t said otherwise. But it suggests it without saying it directly.
What I am saying is that they words don’t tell us what was done. And even if it sounds vindication– which it does if you read between the lines, the words don’t say that what they did was sufficient to assure us that no academic or ethical lapses existed. Is it worded to suggest that? Sure. But that’s because they are counting on people reading between the lines and inferring things that are not actually said.
Sure. Like lots of people he can “read between the lines” and claim things that are not literally said.
I submit this is a conclusion many people will reach because people do have a tendency to read between the lines. And I submit that it is worded to incline them to do so while not actually saying what people infer.
How this would affect court cases– I do not know. In defamation– especially states that recognize “false light”, this sort of wording would not protect the journal from a defamation suit. But it might in some other cases. I don’t know.
The issue with DGH here is he is saying people should accept what the journal literally said and not “read between the lines”. Yet his interpretation requires reading between the lines while– if taken literally the paragraph says less than it might appear.
As for what a person might infer? People generally do read between the lines, and “public statements” on these sort of things often count on that. And they often are written to convey an impression while simultaneously (a) not lying but (b) not actually claiming something they know most will infer. That is: those crafting these things know people will ‘read between the lines”. The fact that people can be counted on to “read between the lines” (as DGH does– and evidently you do) and that it is naturaly for them to do so does not turn “reading between the lines” to be “not reading between the lines”.
I think people are reasonable to point out how the wording is being construed. Frontiers can either clarify and say they really do mean to say “that which many think the text implies” or that they mean only what is literally there.
The thing is: My position is that while it is reasonable for someone to infer (i.e. read between the lines) what DGH says the journal meant, that is not what the journal actually said. So if we take an absolutely literally reading and do not read between the lines, we do not find what DGH wrote. And DGH seemed to think he is the one not reading between the lines.
@lucia (Comment #127518)
Are you aware of another response from Frontiers elicited by a commenter called Travis Stewart on the recent PZ Myers post on this subject? It flatly contradicts Dana Nuccitelli’s headline.
Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper
You can find it if search for comment number 141. Travis. If it’s ok I’ll quote most of it here with my emphasis:
I’m adding the link so others can see in context
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/03/21/the-paper-they-dont-want-you-to-read/comment-page-1/#comment-770446 -lucia
carlb, DGH:
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– “The Journal said it conducted a “detailed†investigation. It said further that this detailed investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. By any reasonable person standard, the Journal is vindicating the study.”
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– “I submit that this read is the natural conclusion that a reasonable person would reach.”
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– But you also say: “but I think Steve M (and others who lodged complaints) would be well justified in pointing out to the editors of Frontiers how their wording is being (reasonably) construed.”
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What is it that convinces you that Frontiers mean anything different from what they appear to be saying?
Neal J. King,
I think the issue is that if they mean to say what they appear to say, their actually saying it rather than implying it would help clarify things. Until they do so, the difference between what the actually do say (which is very little) and what reasonable people might read between the lines (which is quite bit more) will be noted and commented on. In this regard, it is useful for people to ask Frontiers if they actually mean what people are taking their words to imply. It may very well turn out the do mean what their words suggest. Or it may turn out they don’t.
Or– I suspect this is more likely– they will decline to clarify because they prefer the ambiguity.
addendum to #127520; lucia (#127521):
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“It seems to me that retractions really should be open and the actual reasons need to be given.”
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I think people on all sides can agree to that.
leopard discussed a claim by a “Travis” commenting at PZ Meyers:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/03/21/the-paper-they-dont-want-you-to-read/comment-page-1/#comment-770446
I’m reposting the full comment. (Leopard included most of it.) People can see the discussion in the link above.
In comments here, Steve Mc wrote
So it would seem those who are not reading between the lines are correct: there were a number of factors involved in retraction. So: in fact, their not saying “and this was the only factor”, was intentionally. It was not the only factor and people should int “infer” that it was the only factor based on the journal not saying things. Basically: you can read the journals retraction as divulging what they consider to be one of the reasons that was by itself “sufficient” reason to retract, but they do not give “allthe reasons that swayed them to retract”.
@lucia (Comment #127523)
Thanks for adding the links. I didn’t want to risk getting caught in the spam filter 🙂
The spamfilter is pretty insensitive to reasonable numbers of links. I think you have to insert something like 4 before it’s a problem here.
Carlb –
For a bit I thought I was out in left field on this one – glad to hear I’m making sense to someone. Clearly Lucia and I see this differently. I’m sure it won’t be the first time either one of us was wrong. Hopefully we will learn more with time.
One thing that’s made her position difficult for me to understand is that there hasn’t been any example given of what might be read between the lines. Whatever she and others are seeing between the lines isn’t clear to me.
The good news is that the paper has been retracted. I’m sure that those folks that were named in the paper have some level of satisfaction.
Neal – I think you’ve got my position and carlb’s backwards. IMO The Journal’s statement fits all of the various pieces that we know and provides sufficient cause to retract the paper.
carlb:
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No, I think I understand your point of view on the paper.
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I don’t agree with your point of view.
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But I think that Frontier’s attempt to maintain a strategic ambiguity is chcknsht: If they’re going to be in the business of publishing science, they need to be a lot more straightforward than that.
Neal J.,
You ask “What is it that convinces you that Frontiers mean anything different from what they appear to be saying?”. I think you misunderstand me. The whole point is that nothing does. Some people seem to believe that the retraction is the critical action and the associated language is standard legalese. It is not standard wording and I have been involved in enough retraction lawsuits (successfully!) to speak to this. Frontiers is far from disavowing the study. My point is that those who feel they were libeled by the original study are fully justified in letting the editors know that this charade of retracting the paper while simultaneously re-endorsing it does nothing to remedy the original harm. And if this is what the editors intended, then they should make it clear.
As I said in my first posting, I do not understand what Frontiers is doing here. The Journal claims to be concerned about legal liability but then issues a retraction while simultaneously clearing the study. This makes little sense as they had likely passed their legal risks already under various statutes of limitations. Their comments now could well be seen as a republication, increasing legal exposure.
I couldn’t agree more with you that “Frontier’s attempt to maintain a strategic ambiguity is chcknsht”.
carlb:
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I am broadly in agreement with you regarding the interpretation of Frontier’s wording and the consequential instability of their position.
Neal J. King, carlb –
I suspect that all of us here agree with Neal’s “Frontier’s attempt to maintain a strategic ambiguity is chcknshtâ€. But, I agree with Lucia’s (#127521) “I suspect this is more likely– they [Frontiers] will decline to clarify because they prefer the ambiguity.”
The Frontiers notice appears to have been constructed with the participation of the authors and speaks carefully so as not to suggest any impropriety on the authors’ part. Frontiers are trying to walk the fine line between avoiding any culpability for libel, and offending the authors. Ambiguity suits their purposes.
Over at CA reader Sue has pointed out that the majority of problems are with the SI rather than the paper itself. The UWA are currently hosting the paper but no SI that I am aware of.
Personally I think the paper still has serious problems associated with “conflict of interest” but the UWA ethics questionnaire as made available by FOI for the LOG paper does not really address those. Was such a questionnaire required for “Fury”?
Frontiers’ decision makers are acting like faithful believers stuck with with some really counter-fact they would like to reject on faith grounds, but cannot ignore any longer.
“I suspect this is more likely– they [Frontiers] will decline to clarify because they prefer the ambiguity.â€
Further, I would think that the usefulness of FOI would decrease as lawyers entered the conversation. They should have the sense and the ability to facilitate the negotiations without leaving a paper trail that must be produced in response to a request.
HaroldW:
That is very much my take on this too.
DGH,
1) You were the one who first brought up the “reading between the lines” suggesting those who disagree with you are doing so.
2) You are saying things like this:
That wording seems to we must think that is the only reason. You chastise people for suggesting that it is not. I am saying that we are not required to believe this is so. And moreover: your chastising people for believing or suggesting otherwise, in intimating that there is something wrong with believing otherwise appears to be “reading between the lines” on your part.
So: it may well be Carrick read between the lines– but you are equally guilty of doing so.
I’ll note that it may well be that you can’t imagine any other reasons. But I and other can certainly imagine many things– and there are plenty of examples of reason in the comments thread here. So there is abundant evidence that other people can imagine other reasons– and moreover, those other reasons are not contradicted by the text of the journal retraction.
There is nothing in the retraction to permit us to conclude that they absolutely did not consider or suspect the paper to have substantive research flaws, ethical lapses and so on. They merely didn’t “find” — and a “finding” is a term of art. As in “found not guilty” doesn’t mean people didn’t suspect it, that they had no evidence for the case, nor that going forward, those same people won’t be leery about the homocidal tendencies of a particular person.
To give an example: Local police could if they wished, correctly report that after a “detailed investigation”, they have they have not “found” Drew Peterson guilty of killing his fourth wife Stacy Peterson who has been missing a long, long time. But lots of people suspect he did so– and quite likely the local police now think he did so to. But they can’t pin this particular murder on him: for various and sundry reasons they can’t “find” enough evidence. (Note he is in jail for killing one of his 3rd wife.)
With respect to Drew Peterson, it is pretty reasonable to interpret police’s response of “no comment” to questions like “Do you believe Drew Peterson killed Stacy Peterson” to mean that, quite likely they either think he did do or they suspect so. If they thought he was absolutely clearly innocent they would say, “No. He has been cleared and is not a suspect.”
Lucia,
With respect, you are straining the plain language used. They conducted a “detailed” investigation. The investigation did not find “any” issues. Under any reasonable person standard, the message is clear.
Even in your Drew Peterson example, you refer to “enough evidence”, not “any evidence”. To extend your example, consider what would the reasonable interpretation would be if the local police said: “We conducted a detailed investigation and could find no evidence linking Peterson to the murder”
Lucia, it’s very clear to me from the additional information provided by the boilerplate statement, that DGH and carlb got it wrong in their interpretation.
I would maintain I didn’t read between the lines, I just properly interpreted what they actually said (and didn’t say) in their takedown notice.
This is as close to a slap-down of Lewandowsky as you can expect:
especially given the compromised nature of the relationship between the editor in chief and Lewandowsky.
To the disfavor of not so solid science.
“Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study.”
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What reading between the lines is required here? These sentences mean exactly what they state. After a detailed investigation, no academic or ethical issues were uncovered. It is a clear endorsement as to the academic and ethical integrity of the paper. A person who is unaware that there are actual ethical and academic issues would come to the logical conclusion that there are none on the strength of this statement. To come to any other conclusion requires reading between the lines and prior knowledge of the incident.
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Furthermore:
“It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article.”
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So although the academic and ethical status of the paper is not in doubt, the legal status is, and so on these grounds the paper is retracted. You can point to the obvious disconnect between an ethically and academically sound paper being subject to legal issues, but this is also reading between the lines. The clear message to an outsider would be that the journal withdrew the paper simply because they didn’t want to end up in frivolous legal battles.
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The general public are familiar with the concept of the law being used to silence people with valid concerns and this is how they will interpret the statement.
“I’ll note that it may well be that you can’t imagine any other reasons. But I and other can certainly imagine many things– and there are plenty of examples of reason in the comments thread here. So there is abundant evidence that other people can imagine other reasons– and moreover, those other reasons are not contradicted by the text of the journal retraction.”
You’ve made it clear that you could imagine many things about why this paper was retracted other than what Frontiers In has written. I get it.
I strongly disagree. Barry Woods has been very vocal on this and his issues are with the SI, but other people, including me, take issue with the paper itself.
DGH
You don’t seem to be groking my point which is: You seem to be telling people that somehow one must not imagine any such thing because the journal text precludes the possibility of these other reasons.
So, I’m going to ask you: Do you think the journal precludes the existence of having additional reasons beyond the vague “legal” ones? If you think the language does not preclude other reasons, maybe you should clarify and explicitly say you agree that what they wrote does not preclude that.
(If you do not answer that direct question, I will “interpret” your silence to mean…. something. 🙂 )
DavidJR:
No, a clear endorsement would read like an actual clear endorsement. Like maybe this:
Choose another word beside exemplary if you like. Or perhaps
But it doesn’t say anything of the sort.
It didn’t spell out what academic and ethical elements were even considered, nor even what it mean by “identified”.
I read “identified” here to mean “as a group there were no issues that we could agree needed to be identified”. I also suspect the weaselly word choice comes from the fact there wasn’t unanimity in views by the Frontier staff and external reviewers who looked at this issue.
And many people are also educated enough to know about statute of limitations, including the legal staff at Frontier, which would apply here. Making the theory that the takedown was strictly over legal threats a bit of a baffling one.
Anyway their boilerplate statement makes it clear your theory is false:
Given all of the ambiguous language, it’s interesting that it is clearly spelled out that the decision had nothing to do with caving in to pressure…
DaveJR, DGH –
You should also consider that Frontiers has (privately) said, “Our decision on the retraction of this article was taken on the basis of a number of factors. This decision had nothing to do with caving in to pressure and was driven by our own analysis of various factors and advice received.”
[Edit: should have refreshed before posting. Carrick mentioned that first. Oh well.]
The interpretation of their public statement as legal intimidation does not seem consistent with the above.
Clearly “our own analysis of various factors and advice received” is a ringing endorsement of the ethics and research caliber of this paper. Nothing ambiguous there. >.<
Carrick wrote: “No, a clear endorsement would read like an actual clear endorsement. Like maybe this:…”
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Which is simply a different form of clear endorsement, one you would be happier with because you expect the current statement to be read between the lines by people in the know. To people who have no reason to be highly cynical as to the wording of the statement, it is already a clear endorsement of academic and ethical integrity.
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“Anyway their boilerplate statement makes it clear your theory is false:”
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I’d have to say that I believe their boilerplate statement is on their website for all to see, not in private email.
Steve McIntyre – ok – I don’t think we are far apart on this. I should have qualified the comment with from a legal perspective the majority of problems that led to complaints from people are with the SI rather than the paper.
Shrug. Steve McIntyre’s point remains after all this. Here is what they said they wanted to say: “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.)â€
Whatever you think of what they did say, it is pretty obvious that they are not saying what they wanted to say. I think I have the right to infer that something in what they wanted to say, they couldn’t say because it isn’t true. Take your pick.
How was Frontiers supposed to conduct an ethics review? They have no standing to do so, and no access to evidence, except to ask the University if they did a proper ethical review of the paper. To which, the University said ‘sure did, everything’s rosy.’ Frontiers isn’t required to believe them, or to agree with them, but to the extent they did a ethics review, the response from the University clearly left them unable to identify anything.
A similar argument applies to the scholarship, since I’m pretty sure Frontiers isn’t about to start auditing papers, they asked around a bit.
Neither of these may have resulted in anything they want to stipulate specifically, but they may have still had serious reservations on one or both, and in light of the complaints they had already received and dealt with legally, they may have been unwilling to place themselves at further risk, and unwilling to conduct further investigations that would have created an adversarial relationship with academia. So they punted on ‘legal’ reasons and did not care to ‘identify’ any issues.
Having worked in government where I’ve seen such CYA reasoning applied, that situation makes sense to me, and explains both available statements on the matter.
Of course, this is only speculation, and I am not making any statements of fact. My opinion is mine, and does not reflect the views of the other posters here, the blog owner, skeptics, alarmists, or any other group potentially involved in conspiracy ideation. No permission is granted to use this post in any research without express written consent of the author (me).
DavidJR:
What you are reading as an endorsement reads like a failure to achieve a consensus to me.
Given the care with which the statement was written, the rather vague word choice cannot be viewed as a “clear endorsement” of anything.
It appears everybody who has made inquiries by not-so-private email received this same boilerplate statement. So it’s available for “all to see” as well.
If it bothers you that they are saying things via not-so-private email that they aren’t saying in their takedown notice, I suggest you raise a complaint on this.
Anyway, it’s a silly argument that you should only take the words of a terse takedown statement at their face value, and not mix in other things, like not-very-private emails. And common sense.
Carrick,
I do agree with you that Frontiers’ correspondence should be considered and does suggest the Journal acted on motivations other than simple legal concerns. However, I disagree with your interpretation of the retraction language and I am really struggling to understand your point. Saying that you investigated something and found no evidence of misconduct is standard legal exoneration language. I have seen it multiple times. I have even used it myself. Just google it and see how many hits you get.
carlb:
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If you wouldn’t find this too intrusive: Would you be willing to acquaint us with some background concerning your above-mentioned experience with retraction lawsuits? This might give readers some perspective on how to evaluate your considerations on this particular announcement and situation.
Carrick wrote: “Given the care with which the statement was written, the rather vague word choice cannot be viewed as a “clear endorsement†of anything.”
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That’s my point. If I had no reason to believe that care might have been taken in the wording, I would take it at face value to mean exactly what it said. To me, there is no ambiguity or vagueness behind the meaning of the words “detailed investigation” which “did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study”.
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Only if I was to believe that the investigation wasn’t detailed, and that there are academic and ethical issues with the study, would I conclude that the wording is possibly vague because I would be looking for possible interpretations other than the most obvious aka reading between the lines.
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“Anyway, it’s a silly argument that you should only take the words of a terse takedown statement at their face value, and not mix in other things, like not-very-private emails. And common sense.”
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Argument for/against what? That their public and private statements are different is not in question. Retraction Watch quote the website. The media quote the website. People who read the website will take it to mean exactly what it appears to mean, unless they have reason not to. Until the website is updated to include the “clarification”, which is also vague and ambiguous, it is of note only to those who care.
Neal,
You’ll excuse me if I don’t go into too much detail. The suits I have been involved in weren’t technically “retraction” lawsuit (I used the term rather loosely). They were large company libel suits that resulted in settlements involving retractions. The retractions were very clear and involved words like “regret” and “apologize”.
carbl,
Ok. So tell me: what is that message? Precisely. I previously commented that we don’t know what “detailed” means and so on. Do you know? I don’t. But if you do, tell me.
Actually, the police wouldn’t even say that in this case because Stacy disappearing, there is no evidence of a murder. And I can tell you, that the police if asked would tell you they can’t find any evidence Stacy was murdered– because they haven’t found it. And I can also tell you that many people– and many in the police believe that Stacy Peterson was murdered and Drew did it. So: What I am saying is if asked, the police would say “We conducted a detailed investigation and can find no evidence of any murder.” And all that would mean is what it literally says: they found no evidence. Yet, it is nearly certain many officers believe Drew killed Stacy. So that sort of statement is entirely consistent with not clearing Drew of the murder and even not thinking him innocent. Many, many, many people believe Drew killed Stacy– and many police number among these. There is no other suspect.
Steve, I posted a follow up comment this morning on your blog. I was just trying to figure out how the editor could possible justify his statement. It’s just baffling to me.
Posted Mar 26, 2014 at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Reply
tlitb1,
I’ve been thinking about the investigation on Frontiers part some more and I’m not convinced about what I wrote before. I believe there is some evidence of some real academic and ethical problems with the paper itself.
As for the victimhood and bullying, if I was a Lew supporter, I would be laying low to see how this pans out rather than printing excuses and opinions in a national newspaper, since now they seem to have been contradicted by the publisher themselves 😉
sue
Posted Mar 26, 2014 at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Reply
I also wanted to link to recent retraction watch article to illustrate the polar opposite of how Lew has handled himself. The last quote of the article is interesting in comparison.
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/03/24/oh-the-irony-paper-on-ethics-and-integrity-of-the-publishing-process-retracted-for-duplication/
carlb:
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The terms “regret” and “apologize” are pretty clear-cut and definite: No question about who is in the wrong in those cases.
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On the other hand, when ambiguous language is used, is that ever done to “send a signal” that one side is more wrong than the other; or is ambiguous language just intended to be ambiguous?
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Can one find a way to draw a conclusion based on ambiguous language?
carlb:
In fact, I refer to private correspondence my my peer reviewed papers. In my opinion, it can and should be used to provide context when there is dispute over the interpretation of a particularly sentence. Sentences don’t have exact meanings, so we need to use the context provided by other words by the same author(s) to resolve disputes over interpretations.
You say:
I think the issue is pretty simple. Do you notice the word “found” that you substituted for “identified” (their word choice)?
I think you are construing “identify” to mean the same as “find.”
Here’s the sentence again:
The key word here that introduces ambiguity is “identify”.
I think you are reading “not identify” to mean “not find” as in:
I agree that this rewording results in an unambiguous interpretation. So there is progress of sort.
I find the the word choice in using “not identify” to be curious: It doesn’t have the same exact nuances as “not find”. In the context of a committee, the word choice “not identify” to me could either mean “not found” or “failed to reach a consensus on whether or not something was found”.
Give the care with which the statement was crafted, that word choice signaled to me that “clear exoneration” had not occurred. Rather, likely some disagreement was present over whether there was evidence of “issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study”.
As you point out, the additional information from the publisher makes it unlikely that the only reason for the take down was legal. I thought before and still think that unresolved issues (again at Frontier, between staff and outside advisors) relating to “academic and ethical aspects of the study” was the main driving force that lead to retraction of the paper.
I think both you and DavidJR are misreading the text (but in a way that the lawyer who wrote it probably hoped you would interpret it) because you are taking “identify” to mean “find”. I think the additional evidence suggests this assumption of “identify” equals “find” is not a valid interpretation of their legalistically phrased takedown rational.
Carrick,
Thanks for your comments. I think we are fairly close and just have a different definition of “identify”. The term “identification of evidence” or “identify evidence” is also a fairly standard legal term (it is common, particularly in criminal cases, for an investigation to require identification of evidence and you can see this language in many statutes) so I don’t see “identify” as particularly curious, nor distinct from “find” in this context. We’ll just agree to disagree.
Carrick, I agree. IMO, they did find “issues” but couldn’t “identify” them unanimously. This looks more like a compromise.
Neal,
I have not seen a situation like this. I have seen a number of cases where the language is carefully wording to allow face saving (“we never intended for our article to suggest …and we regret if anyone interpreted it in this way”). However, I have not seen strategic ambiguity of this type (doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, though). As I said before, the whole Frontiers approach confuses me as their actions do not appear consistent with their words.
carlb, I think the meaning and usage isn’t that different in my field. Perhaps there are important nuances though, but it’d be interesting to look at examples where “not identify” are used, and refer to an organization rather than an individual from your field.
Had they said:
wouldn’t you agree that this is unambiguous? We’d know that conclusions were made that there were problems. The meaning isn’t that dissimilar to “found issues [….]”.
Also, if you are used to seeing the results of a single investigator, find and identify could even be used interchangeably. You aren’t likely to have places where you disagree with yourself as an individual, and you are sane. So the words fail to convey different meanings in that context.
But wouldn’t you also agree that my reading is closer to the information that is provided in the boilerplate email than your interpretation?
I think that is the bottom line here: What the authors meant to convey versus what we think it was meant to convey.
“You seem to be telling people that somehow one must not imagine any such thing because the journal text precludes the possibility of these other reasons.”
No, the journal’s statement definitely, absolutely, without qualification does not preclude you from considering other possibilities.
My turn. You mentioned that many other possibilities have been discussed. Care to actually cite an example that would help me understand what FI might have been hinting at in their carefully crafted statement? My imagination is lacking.
DGH,
I didn’t say they were hinting at anything nor as far as I can tell did anyone else say their words “hint” at something else. I am only saying that other things were not precluded and so may be true. Lots of people already noted that their words do not preclude the journal believing there is something dodgy about the scholarship, ethics or any number of other things. Their wording doesn’t even preclude the journal having decided the paper is a piece of crap (which it is). All these could be factors in addition to the legal issues.
On another note (and with apologies if this has been posted elsewhere)…
In regards to the retraction of Recursive Fury Dana Nuccitelli wrote in the Guardian this week, “Frontiers may very well be worse off having lost the confidence of the academic community than if they had called the bluffs of the contrarians threatening frivolous lawsuits.”
There are thousands upon thousands of scientists in the world hoping to have their research published in a prestigious peer reviewed journal. Will many of them join Dana’s boycott against one owned by Nature Publishing Group?
http://www.frontiersin.org/news/Nature_Publishing_Group_and_Frontiers_form_alliance_to_further_open_science/266
Lucia,
I answered your question directly but you avoided mine.
“You mentioned that many other possibilities have been discussed.” Cite one.
(If you do not answer that direct question, I will “interpret†your silence to mean…. something. 🙂 )
DGH
“You mentioned that many other possibilities have been discussed.†Cite one.
I cited one already angech (Comment #127452)
It may be that the editors looked at the complaints and decided that they were justified. They the contacted UWA and asked a number of very tricky questions (for UWA).
Once you commit yourself in writing that response becomes admissible at a trial.
It is highly likely that the UWA refused the request for the quite specific details of their investigation and exoneration and would only give a blanket statement of support on legal advice.
(We will give further details if legal action arises).
Given the refusal of the UWA and possibly the authors to submit their actions to scrutiny the journal then had the
chance to act conscientiously and ditch the paper with the very carefully worded legalese to avoid giving away this scenario.will this do ?
apologies to Lucia
I don’t think there were any emails from UWA , so I’m assuming that Readfern only requested emails FROM Frontiers. I’m sure in the near future that new emails FROM UWA will come forth to provide new evidence of what happened during the “investigation”. It seems like a weird, maybe even selective FOI request from Readfern…
DGH,
Your question was
I thought I answered directly.
(1) There were no hints. This directly addresses the “hinting” part. Specifically: no one said they were “hinting”. So, the answer to what they were “hinting” is “the empty set”. The words I used to address this part of your question was
This is not failing to address your question directly. Nothing more would have been required to answer the question you asked “directly”.
(2) But went further to try to “help you understand” what I am trying to say. And I think I did so directly.
I wrote
If you wish “cite one” in there, the cited thing is “.. paper is a piece of crap”. So:there you go. One citation of a thing.
However note: They did not “hint” this: so the number of citations to what is “hinted” is zero. This is because you are the one who injected the idea of “hinting” in here– which I never said they did . But ‘they came to realize “paper is a piece of crap” ‘ one of the things their words do not preclude.
There are an infinite number of things their words do not preclude– because their words were very vague. They tell one so little about the specifics of why the paper is retracted that one can’t help but realize that they really haven’t said why it’s retracted. So: the reason isn’t really stated.
DGH,
To add to “citations” to the list of things that might be consistent with the Journal statement:
1) They may have found that UWA was evasive or at least ‘economical’ in responding, and concluded they would be unable to find academic irregularlities if they existed.
2) They may have found UWA was evasive in responding and concluded the journal would be unable to identify ethical concerns if they existed.
3) They may have found Lewandowsky’s responses appeared disingenous or equivocal.
4) Their 3rd parties may have volunteered the paper is a piece of trash.
5) They may have concluded that Lewandowsky and his authors were not objective in evaluating evidence and in this instance were in a position of conflict of interest.
There are zillions of things they may have found– none of which amounted to actually finding “ethical” or “academic” lapses, but all of which they found disturbing. All of these things are entirely consistent with the vague statement they posted. But no one suggest the statement “hints” at these things.
Carrick,
Yes, I agree that the your reading is closer to the information that is provided in the boilerplate email. This is one of the many things that confuses me about Frontiers’ actions. To my mind, it is as if the email and the retraction wording were written by different people who did not communicate.
carlb (#127573): “it is as if the email and the retraction wording were written by different people who did not communicate.”
That wouldn’t surprise me at all. The retraction notice appears to have been crafted by Frontiers lawyers in conjunction with the authors. The email response was, I think, from an editor. Both are trying to say as little as possible, but in slightly different ways.
I went to the Journal page Nick linked to above and noticed that it now says the paper is retracted.
The retraction date is today: March 27, 2014.
carlb:
From my experience, this disconnect is pretty common where you have a group that isn’t able to arrive at a consensus view. Each writer ends up reflecting a bit of his/her own perspective, since there is no “consensus view” there. That’s consistent in my worldview with using “not identify” instead of “did not find” in the retraction, since I view “not identify” as “failure to obtain a finding” rather than “found no” (which is a finding).
I would never have left things so ambiguous, but I think the ambiguity served the purpose of people who were trying to protect Lewandowsky (and who probably didn’t agree there was anything wrong with what he did).
The Frontiers in page where the paper was originally posted has been updated. The language about the complaints, etc, has been replaced with
“This article has been retracted. Please follow the link to the full retraction notice for details.”
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/full
Will the pubmed listing be updated eventually? I see that they don’t remove the paper but mark the page with the retraction information.
Lucia (Comment #127565)
March 26th, 2014 at 8:46 pm
“Their wording doesn’t even preclude the journal having decided the paper is a piece of crap (which it is).â€
I’ve found myself sucked into critically reassessing RF. For those with time and inclination, I’ve seived the turd here:
http://spacenab.com/dissid/96/Recursive-Fury-The-fatal-flaws.html
Carrick: #127581
.
You said:
“I would never have left things so ambiguous, but I think the ambiguity served the purpose of people who were trying to protect Lewandowsky (and who probably didn’t agree there was anything wrong with what he did).”
.
That would be an assumption too far.
.
My affiliation with SkS is no secret. But I would definitely prefer a straightforward honest statement about what Frontiers’ problem was, instead of the pussy-footing around.
I made an ethical complaint directly to UWA. Their internal handling of that would be interesting…
I am apparently unable to foi this, as a non Australian, apparently.
How UWA managed to conclude my examples of ethics violations and conflicts of interests by the authors of ‘Fury’ had no case, would be fascinating….
All my correspondence to Frontiers, was in the foi material released by , Desmog. However that is not to say all complaints to frontiers have been released. I am aware of one persons complaint that is missing. Presumably Frontiers passed it to UWA? Did UWA release it, did desmog obtain it and with held it.. Who knows…
Too be clear, there is a lot wrong with the paper LOG12 itself, not just the SI. In fact one of my non SI criticisms is what landed me in the Fury dataset as espousing conspiracy ideation..
A comment I might add, that either Fury researchers Marriott or Cook found at a blog called- Lucia’s Blackboard.
Neal J King:
Actually I was thinking of people at Frontier, that is the people who wrote the retraction notice vs the boilerplate email and specifically people who were running interference for Lewandowksy (as opposed to other authors on the study).
OT:
An opinion piece in today’s WSJ reported that the AR% WGII report on the costs of global warming is due out soon. The cost, ~2% of global annual production, is reported to be much lower than in AR4 WGII and well below the cost estimate used in the Stern Report, 5-20%. All we need now is for the AR5 WGIII to show that the costs of mitigation have increased.
I’m betting that they still manage to spin it as a catastrophe in the making and that we need to take drastic action starting yesterday.
JC TalkingPoints Memo reports Nate Silver’s climate author threatening critics
The article drew an extremely negative reaction from the science community, including from Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth, both of whom were critical of Pielke in an interview with ThinkProgress.
Mann and Trenberth said that Pielke responded to their comments with what appeared to be threats. ThinkProgress editor Judd Legum informed Silver and FiveThirtyEight managing editor Mike Wilson of Pielke’s emails.
“Once again, I am formally asking you for a public correction and apology,†Pielke wrote in the email that was sent to both Trenberth and his bosses. “If that is not forthcoming I will be pursuing this further. More generally, in the future how about we agree to disagree over scientific topics like gentlemen?â€
Is this a threat or not?
It is beyond hypocritical for a pair like Mann and Trenberth–part of the incrowd that gets editors fired, critics silenced, dissidents excluded –to claim that “further pursue” is a threat when they are actively trying to silence and exclude Pielke. Boo hoo, you thuggish clowns.
Pielke’s substantive contribution to climate science is a very comprehensive economic analysis of hurricane damage demonstrating that increased dollar figures for storm losses is entirely a function of the increases in investments and value in the shore property being damaged. When you further consider that (a) hurricane frequency has not increased–we are still setting records for days since last U.S. landfall; and (b) there is zero scientific reason to believe that AGW would increase hurricane frequency, Pielke’s work almost seems like confirmation of the obvious.
But it still makes him a climate heretic because it debunks one of the more popular bogus CAGW claims. Worse, Pielke is known to associate with other prominent lukewarmers who pose a far greater potential threat to the authority of the Climategate Magisterium than Skydragons or lay critics.
Alarmofascism Is beyond tiresome.
“Further pursue” means at minimum discuss with an attorney where I come from and is intended to encourage some sort of remedial action by person to whom addressed.
Like it or not, it is a threat.