As many know know documents obtained under FOI revealed that Lewandowsky’s ethics request for work involved in Recursive Fury said the effort would not “ involve experimentation, surveys, questionnaires or a direct approach of participants of any sort“. 
Shub Nigguruth posted on the extent of interaction by Lewandowsky. Today, I want to highlight some additional involvement by the authors during the second phase of the study. This period is described in Fury as follows
The second phase of the search traced the response to LOG12 in the blogosphere.
An on-going web search in real time was conducted by two of the authors (J.C. and M.M.)
during the period August-October 2012.
Note: I refer to LOG12 as “Moonhoax”. Recall that this paper’s content related to the notion that climate skeptics might tend to believe in conspiracies. So, tracing response to LOG12 would involve examining discussions touching on any topic of the paper: i.e. believe in conspiracies, or any discussion of the quality or finding of the paper.
The three authors are Lewandowsky, John Cook (J.C.), and Marriot (M.M). Presumably, these gentlemen number among those who will not approach the blogs. One might imagine this might also mean they would not write things to affect the discussion about ‘conspiracy theories’ or get involved in discussion of any of the hypotheses later touched on in their paper.
The blogs whose participants were not being “approached” were wattsupwiththat.com, joannenova.com.au, junkscience.com, climateaudit.org, bishophill.squarespace.com, australianclimatemadness.com, climatedepot.com, rankexploits.com/musings, warwickhughes.com, and noconsensus.wordpress.com.
Participants specifically named are
JN=Jo “Nova” of joannenova.com.au; ROM=Anonymous commenter with pseudonym
ROM at www.bishop-hill.net; GC=Geo Chambers (commenter at
www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org); SMcI=Steve McIntyre of www.climateaudit.com;
AW=Anthony Watts of wattsupwiththat.com.
For today, I will highlight some interactions between John Cook and studied participants. I make no claims of completeness, and would welcome any other evidence contacts between John Cook and either named individuals or blogs listed above during the relevant period.
John Cook: Interactions with blogosphere during phase 2.
On September 21, 2012, while involved in collecting evidence of reaction to “Moonhoax” in the blogosphere, John Cook posted a blog on at Skeptical science 21 September 2012 in which he brought up the topic of “conspiracy” theories and specifically named the lead bloggers (Watts and McIntyre) at two blogs being studied:
… for now, let’s shine some sunlight on the most over-the-top conspiracy theory of them all. This originated from Anthony Watts who claims:
…
involved relatively small-scale conspiracies to falsify data (Steve McIntyre uses the word “scam” 21 times in one article). Watts takes it to a whole new level with his imagined “global climate activism operation”. The subsequent comments thread is a journey into the surreal – look for the out-of-left-field assertion that Maths Professor Kevin Judd is the puppetmaster pulling the strings behind this global conspiracy (affirmed by two other WUWT commenters).
In the Recursive Fury, McIntyre is specifically named. Watt’s blog is studied.
During September 2012, on a thread mentioningStephan Lewandowsky, John Cook interacts with Geoff Chambers, responding to questions about whether Skeptical Science posted a link to the survey in “Moonhoax”. Some screen shots of the interaction follow all can be clicked to enlarge:
Note the response by “John Cook”. Also note that Geoff’s comment is edited by the moderator. While the moderator is likely “DB” and not “John Cook”, the blog itself is John Cooks, as such one might interpret the moderator’s interactions to be under the agis of John Cook. If so, this means John Cook is both participating in by adding his own comments, and shaping reactions on the part of Geoff or other participants in the blogosphere by either editing Geoff’s comments or allowing them to be editing.
Note in this conversation, Geoff mentions a post at one of the blogs being ‘studied’ (http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/multiple-ips-hide-my-ass-and-the-lewandowsky-survey/)
Finally, the moderator instructs Geoff to contact John privately.
My understanding is Geoff did contact John by email, and further interaction occurred by email. Note the conversation involves members of the blogosphere attempting to sort out which blogs Lewandowsky contacted, when he contacted them and when invitations to participate in the survey were posted at blogs. Two of the ‘conspiracy hypotheses’ discussed in “Fury” fall in this general category.
In Fury, Geoff is later identified by name and associated with discussion of “conspiracy theories” relating to how, when or if Lewandowsky contacted blogs. As we can see, John Cook interacted with bloggers involved in these sorts of conversations.
So we see that during the period Fury authors ‘observed’ responses at the blogosphere, the 2nd author was interacting with the participants at the blogs whose behavior they were observing and with other participants who they named in their study.
As I said: I make no claims of completeness here. These are interactions I found. I hope others can assist me in finding more. To maximize helpfulness, I urge people to stay on topic in comments on this post. For this post ‘on topic’ means specific interactions between John Cook, and named blogs or named participants during the observation periods. Please provide links to evidence where possible. I will later be writing a two posts one discussing Lewandowsky the other Marriot.
If you wish to discuss other issues — including your opinion about the ethics surrounding the interaction — please leave those on the miscellaneous thread. Keeping this on topic will help me find bits of information when I need them later on.
Lucia:
Here is a post from Sept. 6, 2012 by John Cook at the conversation:
http://theconversation.com/how-do-people-reject-climate-science-9065
It discusses conspiracy theory and mentions a number of skeptics, including Anthony Watts.
I searched the comments and didn’t see any interaction from Watts commenting, but still the post is about (in part) Watts.
Sweet. It is fun to watch someone hoisted on his own petard.
Lucia:
Not sure if this is very relevant but just to record it –
Here is a John Cook comment in a Tamino post about Anthony Watts:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/anthony-watts-breaks-the-record/#comment-68357
We should give credit where credit is due. Gareth from Hot Topic saw much of this coming back in August 12 (except he underestimated the timing of the record setting, faster than even he realised):
http://hot-topic.co.nz/arctic-sea-ice-forecast-its-going-to-be-tough-to-stay-cool/
When Arctic sea ice extent sets a new record low in September, the following arguments will be run in parallel:
There will be a frantic search for a definition of extent in which a new record was not set
There will be a complaint that the satellite record has been blighted by the failure of a sensor and the calibrations needed to get a new sensor in operation have corrupted the record2
It will be claimed that it was all caused by the major Arctic storm that hit in August, and thus can’t be attributed to global warming3
It’s cyclical — it’s all happened before, in the 1930s4, and is therefore nothing unusual
That it’s irrelevant, because it’s not global and not happening where anyone lives so can’t possibly matter.
When the sea ice extent and area anomalies blow out to record levels in early October because of the delayed freeze-up, there will be silence.
Here is a link to a John Cook youtube video:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2012/08/john-cook-debunking-climate-myths-in.html
I have not listened to it, but record the link here as it is in the relevant period.
This is from earlier than the reference period – but I post a link because it is interesting (he mentions the moon landing hoax conspiracy):
http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/a-conversation-with-a-genuine-skeptic.htm
It is an interview (March 8, 2010) with John Cook (JC), in which he says:
There are thousands of scientists all over the world, all measuring different phenomena, and all point to the same picture. If you’re of the opinion that every scientist is dodging up their data – satellite data, on-site data, ocean data – well, it would have to be the greatest conspiracy of all time. It would make the Moon landing hoax conspiracy theory seem plausible in comparison. It would have to be a wide-ranging conspiracy among just about every climate scientist on earth. There’s no evidence of such a conspiracy. The emails don’t show that at all: They show a number of scientists struggling with the issues, trying to understand their data.
Hi Lucia, you might want to look at this again.
RickA– earlier can be useful. Later would not. 🙂
j ferguson,
I know you are trying to be helpful but what do you think I want to look up again? The post is 21 September 2012
If you mean the text is infelicituous.. uhmmm.. yeah.
infelicitous? maybe a bit lumpy.
This is nice detective work, but the whole thing is madness. If Lew wanted to study conspiracy theories and bloggers he could have, um, like, interviewed Anthony Watts, Steve Mc, lucia, etc. But he did not want to study any such thing. This was thinly veiled, incompetent agitprop. That so many good, smart people have been sucked into this farce is a real shame.
Tom C,
Currently, I just wish to accumulate events that show the authors were interacting with the people they studied. Comments discussing their motives belong– if anywhere– on “miscellaneous”, not on this thread.
j ferguson,
Thanks. At first I thought you mean the link didn’t show material from the data i said and so on. I think I’ve fixed the text a bit.
here: (4 days before Lew received ethics approval)
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=1&t=153&&n=160
Geoff Chambers and myself commenting on Lewandowsky’s blog, being moderated (comments snipped) AND Marriott (watchingthedeniers) was directly interacting with Geoff and myself, and 2 or 3 other people (tlith1, foxgoose) that were in the dataset.
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=153&&n=160#748
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=153&&n=160#724
lots of other examples on that page..
There is more to come. Please wait.
Lucia, obviously you’re aware of the series of blog posts by Lew at Shaping Tomorrow’s World in Sept 2012, which directly named and taunted me and my comments back at STW. Prior to these “interactions”, I had not commented on Hoax at Climate Audit and probably wouldn’t have.
I also regard Lew’s failure to unwind his 2010 concealment of his connection to the Hanich emails as a interaction that is not only relevant but important.
Also his email back to you in which he misled bloggers by saying that the five bloggers had “replied” to him – entirely different from merely ignoring him. People, including me, were misled by this as evidence by comments at Blackboard.
Marriott also made numerous posts at Watching the deniers in which he attacked Jo Nova and especially her husband, David Evans, in August and September 2012, including accusations of anti-semitism. It seems possible to me that Nova might have responded differently without the prior attacks, but in any event the many Marriott posts were “interactions”.
Shub,
You’re sounding like Dana!!!
As I said yesterday, “slimetroopers”.
It’s interesting to see John Mashey has entered the discussion of the “real” reason for retraction, apparently after he found some article indicating the frontiers group wasn’t rolling in cash.
I expect him to produce one of his 200 page opuses (opi?), possibly written in green ink, and a really small typeface, exposing the secret but complex web of links that he has able to discern which explain the retraction if lewandowsky’s paper.
Maybe, it’s just me, but I think if Lewandowsky’s wants to find some really bizarre modes of thinking in the climate debate, he’s been looking in the wrong place.
Moreover, I think you can find kooks supporting correct positions. The fact a kook might support an idea, doesn’t make the idea wrong. Most kooks believe in gravity for example.
Copner,
…But do the kooks believe kooky things about gravity?
Climate kooks believe we are experiencing a climate catastrophe that could lead to Earth becoming Venus v2.0. And we must not build a pipeline if we are to avoid becoming Venus v2.0. And the only opposition to their saving us from the climate catastrophe are paid den^alist scum under the control of the Koch brothers. Now *that* is kooky, and I can’t find anyone who thinks that kooky about gravity, exept possibly some UFO nuts who like to write about watching UFOs ‘break the laws of known physics’.
Steve McIntyre (Comment #128760) ,
Absolutely. The reason I posted John cook first is he seems to have the fewest online interactions.
Lew was blogging regularly. I need the charting software to show just how bad it is!
another interaction that’s worth noting as well:
all of Tom Fuller’s comments at STW were deleted by a moderator. The identity of the moderator has not (to my recollection) been admitted, but Cook has been proposed.
Hunter:
“There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.”
In other words, finding an idiot, kook, or monster supporting a cause doesn’t make the cause wrong.
E.g. Hitler believed in Darwinistic evolution. Creationists pointing to that has no bearing on whether we should.
Copner,
Of course fools, kooks and idiots don’t make a cause right or wrong.
I was not aware of creationists (is ‘antievolutionist’ a better term?) making the specific case that since Hitler believed in evolution, therefor evolution is wicked.
But, to use your example, it was not believing merely in evolution that put Hitler in a bad light. It was his (and many, many others) believing that evolution in humans was best expressed by the then settled science of eugenics. And then, to add to that, eugenics scientifically supported his deep hatred of certain people and their wicked lifestyles and terrible role in history. And of course that led to the need to hurt those people up to and including an huge industrial sized program of eradication.
My real point, is that the fact that kooks may support a correct cause, actually demonstrates the scientific purposelessness (and political maliciousness) of Lewandowsky’s work.
Even if he were able to conclusively demonstrate that some climate skeptics were kooks, it teaches us nothing about whether climate skepticism is right or wrong.
And even if here were to demonstrate that there are more kooks among climate skeptics than on his side, again it teaches us nothing about whether climate skepticism is right or wrong.
The only way that conceivable way that his research could be relevant to the climate debate, is if the skeptics, every single last one of them, were *all* kooks. But there is no conceivable way he could do a study to demonstrate that. And his own data doesn’t even begin to demonstrate that (in the first paper most of his research subjects on both sides didn’t believe in conspiracies – and in the second paper he took only a small selection of blog comments, which he interpreted as indicating that some comments by some people were indications of kookiness). So in terms of the scientific content of his papers, attempting to make the argument that ALL skeptics are kooks is an obvious complete non-starter.
Nevertheless, in publicity terms, and blog posts, and even titling his papers, he has been very happy to chose themes which implied ALL skeptics were kooks (skeptics don’t believe in the moon landing, etc.). And his accolytes have been quite happy to run with and expand on that theme.
But that central claim of the publicity campaign, that all skeptics are kooks, was never even attempted to be made in the paper.
I think taunting and observing the response would be an intervention not an interaction. (It would still make the individual being observed a human research subject.)
The thing that perplexes me about Lewandowsky’s methods is that they are so cluttered with unquantifiable input – mainly his – that I can’t imagine how he could think that his results could even be ascertained, much less understood.
Subjects are treated differently. His slice of the population is very small and maybe idiosyncratic in ways that would be difficult to discover.
I assume he works/worked in departments devoted to his “discipline.” Surely other people in the department must have realized what a duffer he is.
Which makes me want to ask of the academics who comment here. Is anyone of you aware of a department in your (or an allied) discipline) which is home to someone whose work is so incompetent?
I doubt if many in academia have worked in as many shops (construction design) as I did during my time in-yoke, but I did work in two which were cargo cults – unqualified, un-credentialed, amateurs daily attempting architecture and engineering in the hope that somehow it would all work.
In both cases this situation had been enabled by the appointment of a non-professional to head-of-office in a branch office and then went on because no-one who actually understood the work ever talked to any of these guys or reviewed their work.
It could be that the people who could tell stories about academe cannot because their fellows would recognize who they were discussing.
If this condition does not inhibit, it would be interesting to hear from someone on the frequency with which Lewandowsky types get loose in otherwise serious endeavors.
I’m confused, having read the paper itself, which seems more prank than stunt. It’s evidently an embarrassment to ‘Frontiers’, which put itself in the position of having to retract. And so while I’m aware of the irony of my joining in, why are people still taking the time to discuss Lewandowsky? Is there anyone taking him seriously any more? Why not simply let him sink under the weight of his own words?
Lucia, sorry for sounding like Dana. Ouch.
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Lewandowsky had assembled his team by about Sept 5th-7th 2012. Then, he posted a series of articles with loaded language, sarcasm and innuendo*. Based on available evidence, it appears John Cook informed members of the Skepticalscience private forum about comments being harvested as data. Subsequently, SKS insiders like Tom Curtis, Doug Bostrom and John Hartz participated in the STW comment threads. I am sure there a few other names I’m missing.
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This is important because these associates of the researchers are out interacting, posting comments with little taunts and supporting Lewandowsky, all of which keeps the issue on a slow boil and elicits further and further responses.
I noted Hartz’ volunteering of Skepticalscience moderator Daniel Bailey’s services at AndPhysics and following, Hartz’ comments on STW as follows:
http://nigguraths.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/john-hartz-ostrich.gif
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http://nigguraths.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/lew-john-hartz.gif
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The post is here: The Crusher crew Sockpuppets
Brandon and I discussed it would be really bad if Hartz knew about the data collection, as opposed to just joking. Brandon:
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Subsequently and incidentally, Andy Skuce happened to admit/mention on Retraction Watch that Skepticalscience insiders knew about the project and followed it with interest.
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http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/04/journal-that-retracted-conspiracy-ideation-climate-skepticism-paper-says-it-did-not-cave-into-threats/#comment-90175
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If Skepticalscience insiders knew and kept quiet, they are party to a bunch of people making fools of themselves submitting comments and analyses to a researcher in right earnest who is rubbing his hands in glee, collecting them for his research.
Walter Manny,
BTW: One of the few rules around here is that instead of rhetorical questions, express your idea by telling us the point or “answer” to your rhetorical question. So for example instead of this: “why are people still taking the time to discuss Lewandowsky?” in non-question form, tell use why you think we should not discuss Lewandowsky. In the process you might realize that if you were tot ry to make the case that ‘people’ do not take Lew seriously, you would find it difficult. He still has a job at a prestigeious university. He still has various appointments. He likely still gets interviewed by journalists.
But with regard to the “rule” about rhetorical questions: these are generally “burding shifting” argument points where the person who asked the Q’s get to be lazy and not really make any points while ‘others’ are challenged to run around answering ‘the Q’– with the implication being that if the ‘Q’s’ aren’t answered, somehow they are unanswerable. There are other problems with rhetorical question: they cause confusion because readers don’t know the precise point or claim you are making and so on.
So: The rule is:if you ask the Q, you must actually supply your own answer first.
I note that in his latest post that SL is trying to promote the view that the people whose blog posts he has culled are not participants.
These appear to be the appropriate sections from the UWA and National Guidelines
http://www.research.uwa.edu.au/staff/human-research/facts
Who is a ‘participant’ in human research?
A ‘human participant’ in research is any person who, for example:
Provides research data, e.g. completes surveys
Participates in interviews, discussions, a focus group, or observations
Undergoes psychological, physiological or medical assessment that is not part of their clinical treatment
Tests software or a device, or equipment
Grants access to personal data or records, photographs, etc
Provides human tissue, e.g. blood, urine, saliva, hair, etc
Is identified in a record, e.g. employment record, medical record, education record, membership list, electoral roll
Is identified in a databank, including unpublished human research data, e.g. an analysis of existing unpublished data collected by another researcher or collected for another research project
http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/book/purpose-scope-and-limits-document
What is human research?
Human research is conducted with or about people, or their data or tissue. Human participation in research is therefore to be understood broadly, to include the involvement of human beings through:
##taking part in surveys, interviews or focus groups;
##undergoing psychological, physiological or medical testing or treatment;
##being observed by researchers;
##researchers having access to their personal documents or other materials;
##the collection and use of their body organs, tissues or fluids (eg skin, blood, urine, saliva, hair, bones, tumour and other biopsy specimens) or their exhaled breath;
##access to their information (in individually identifiable, re-identifiable or non-identifiable form) as part of an existing published or unpublished source or database.
The term ‘participants’ is therefore used very broadly in this National Statement to include those who may not even know they are the subjects of research; for example, where the need for their consent for the use of their tissue or data has been waived by a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).
In addition, the conduct of human research often has an impact on the lives of others who are not participants. When this impact is reasonably foreseeable, it may raise ethical questions for researchers and for those ethically reviewing research.
Fair enough. Re-casting: I read the entirety Dr. Lewandowsky’s paper, and it struck me as more prank than stunt. It’s evidently an embarrassment to ‘Frontiers’, which put itself in the position of having to retract. And so while I’m aware of the irony of my joining in, I think it’s a bad idea to keep elevating the man, who has demonstrated, arduously, that he has no business being any part of the climate debate. I doubt that there are any serious climate scientists who want to get caught up in his arguments, and I think there’s a danger in beating up this straw horse — if you want to be a serious skeptic, you should focus on serious subjects.
I find the other tangent of Lewadowsky, where is giong after people Judith curry who point out that uncertainty is high, is actually more pernicious than his goofy conspiracy stunts. He is selling the idea that increased uncertainy means we must do *more* of what the climate obsessed like him demand, not less.
And apparently Lew has decided that those wicked people spreading uncertainty are pathological, perhaps even worse off than deni^alist scum bloggers.
John Cook at 17:33 PM on 11 September, 2012 at STW commented:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=118&&n=161#751
Ironically, this was in response to a comment by Geoff Chambers which, after citing Tom Fuller’s speculation that the reaction of skeptics to Hoax was the subject of the study, suggested that this speculation had some support in secret SKS forum comments.
While Cook attributes “not getting the full context” as a “danger of digging through illegally stolen private correspondence”, “not getting the full context” seems to me to be an entirely distinct issue pertaining to the quality of content analysis.
Chambers’ quotation of SKS forum comments was censored at the time ( but restored after publication of Fury). http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=118&&n=161#751
Carrick,
I’ll remember to use “intervention” for ” behavior that arises as a result of prompts by researchers”. The prompts presumably would be “interactions”?
Anyway, we have stuff going two ways:
1) Lew says something at blog or in email. This is “a prompt”.
2) Person being ‘observed’ (i.e. subject/participant) responds to ‘prompt’.
3) Lew does something else in response to subjects behavior– what Lew does is affected by their behavior.
4) Person being ‘observed’ (i.e. subject/participant) responds to ‘prompt’.
And it goes on. 1->2 would seem to be ‘intervention’, 3->4 would seem to be ‘intervention’. The terminology is inflicted by the frame which is Lew is the ‘observer’ and the ‘subject’ is ‘observed’. Then the study is reported by the ‘observer’.
I meant it as a joke. He’s been breathlessly announcing “more to come!!” over the past week.
With respect to planning a study
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=1&t=155&&n=1540#84315
” doug_bostrom at 13:26 PM on 2 September, 2012
Here’s a thought: Lewandowsky 2012 itself is a stimulus created for the purpose of experimentation.
🙂 ”
Is this evidence in the private forum?
The reason I’m trying to assemble a tree is to interlace all these things. It’s a PITA, but it helps figure out which things happen when. Software suggestions on the bleg are good… nothing seems perfect. (Or… at least, not being a power user while ‘shopping’ nothing seems perfect.)
Shub,
From both an ethics, and research merit POV, the more important issue is whether it affected their behavior at blogs. That is: extra taunting, extra ‘demands’ for people to ‘elaborate’ on a hypothesis that Lew, Cook and Marriot later ‘detect’ catching on and so on. In this regard, having a group who “knows” the observation some of whom also act and prompt reactions is a serious methodological flaw. This is especially so if their behavior or their potential behavior is not reported in the final report.
https://theconversation.com/how-do-people-reject-climate-science-9065
Lucia writes:
As you are aware, many, if not most, of the Fury SI comments do not contain “conspiracy theories” under any usual definition. In particular, many comments are correct (in one of Lewandowsky’s articles, “conspiracy theories” are by definition false.)
But thinking about the “interaction” at the time, one of the most conspicuous aspects – and one noted at the time – was Lewandowsky’s almost obtuse refusal to clarify even simple questions at his blog. In most climate blogs, there is some “aftermarket” interaction between the blogger and commenters, including responses to questions. Especially if someone named in a blog post turns up (as I did in a couple of Lewandowsky threads.)
In retrospect, Lewandowsky’s failure to interact in blog comments was highly unusual relative to standard practice at climate blogs (though his recent blogposts also maintain that practice.)
Among Lewandowsky’s failure to interact were his failure to respond to elementary requests for clarification, which could have been readily disposed of by a one- or two-sentence response at the STW blog, where Lewandowsky was actively posting and commenters were commenting. This perceived obtusesness led to frustration by commenters. For the most part, I don’t see that this resulted in more salacious commentary (most Fury SI quotations do not seem to me to allege any actual “conspiracy theory” as the term is generally understood), but it did lead to more comments on some of these topics than would otherwise have been generated.
Lucia,
you quoted the Doug Bostrom comment
http://www.skepticalscience.co…..1540#84315
†doug_bostrom at 13:26 PM on 2 September, 2012
Here’s a thought: Lewandowsky 2012 itself is a stimulus created for the purpose of experimentation. 🙂 â€
The next comment in that thread is from Geoff Chambers:
Geoff Chambers is quoted in Fury for the STW comment a few days later in which he quoted the Tom Fuller comment (attributed in Fury to Chambers):
So there’s a connection from the SKS comment to the later STW comment. Plus Bostrom appears to deserve priority for this particular idea.
Lucia, it’s probably worth looking at the wikipedia description of intervention.
For an intervention in an observational study, you are generating an action and measuring the reaction of the subject to that action.
For an interaction in an observational study, you are generating an action, measure the reaction of the subject to that action, then give the user feedback.
So posting a taunt then measuring the response is an intervention, unless you generated additional taunts in response to your observations….
I love this comment from Doug Bostrom:
Unless Peter Gleick steals it. Then it’s okay.
Carrick,
I would suggest that occurred…..
Lucia, after a bit more thought, I think the taunt would always be an intervention (similar in connotation to a “stimulus” for physical experiments, but we’re looking at qualitative changes in behavior rather than quantitive changes in physical measurables), and the interaction would be the feedback process by which you read the responses and developed new stimuli (taunts).
Lucia
Skuce’s comment indicating that Skepticalscience insiders were aware of a data harvesting project is here:
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http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/04/journal-that-retracted-conspiracy-ideation-climate-skepticism-paper-says-it-did-not-cave-into-threats/#comment-90175
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The relevant passage is:
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I do not believe he could have been any more categorical than that.
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Steve,
There is more from Doug Bostrom:
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Bostrom posted this the 2nd Sept 2012 (emphasis mine)
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This is Albatross:
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Albatross:
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doug_bostrom: (here he’s explaining recursion, on 6 Sept 2012)(emphasis mine)
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Kevin Cowtan (emphasis mine)
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#128806 I would admit I’m more with Walter Manny here.
While I am curiously interested in this topic, it is more from a morbid curiosity, driving by a car wreck, or reading a tabloid headline kind of thing.
I see where Lucia may be driven by a “he picked the wrong person to f with this time”, and may really want to take him down, a personal vendetta kind of thing.
However we saw what happened with Mann, the more his integrity was self tarnished, the more he became a hero to some. Now I have no problem with Mann and Lew becoming self elected leaders of their movement, it is probably a much better scenario than having competent people in charge.
There’s opportunity costs though. Producing a meticulously documented irrefutable legal epic of Lew’s nuttiness accomplishes what exactly? Oops, rhetorical question, ha ha. Letting Lew continue to be high profile nut case is a good thing in my opinion, and I imagine there might be more useful work that could be done in the meantime.
But if it is personal, and it probably is, I completely understand that. Chew him up, spit him out, good luck.
Tom & Walter, I personally see no reason to give Lewandowsky a free pass on what I perceive as unethical behavior.
I can see why some people might not be interested in it, but fortunately it’s baseball season, so there’s alway the sports section.
Tom Scharf,
That’s not my motivation. If I had felt injured enough to feel the need for personal vendetta, this would presumably have been a big issue for me a year ago. It’s not.
I’d say it’s more like this: I am aware of the issue and know quite a few details because it does involve me– including quotes by me. So it’s true I would likely be doing nothing if a similar thing happened in another context. But that’s merely because I wouldn’t know about the event and certainly not the details.
But my motive for caring is more abstract: this sort of tortured treatment and ethics should not be tolerated. Also: it’s political game playing masquarading as science, and that’s a very dangerous thing whether or not it happens to rope me into the situation.
Feel free to do that work.
It’s not personal. That you might not see the same issue I do, or think it’s not important doesn’t mean my motivation is personal.
I get it. For the record, you will personally be my hero if you successfully get UWA to slap Lew with an ethics violation. I’m sure my appreciation is the top of your list of motivators, ha ha.
But I ask (here we go with the rhetorical questions again) what are the two possible outcomes? You file, UWA slaps him down, or they don’t. If they don’t, and from previous “investigations” and current responses from UWA are any indication, they won’t, then Lew parades around yet another “vindication” and “clearing of all charges” charade after some undocumented internal investigation. In every case I know of, when a university has been asked to side with skeptics or their own professors in this science area, they choose to protect the institution. The usual suspects scream victory. Clear loss.
They do hit him with an ethics violation, and little has been accomplished(?) as the paper has already been retracted and the journal’s editors have come right out and said they believe there were ethics problems already. Reasonable people already see Lew as a clown. Vague win? It will be old news, the usual suspects pretend it never happened. Lew’s speaking rates double after he is deemed a victim of the Koch brothers’ funded attack on climate science, etc.
So the devil’s advocates view is, a lot of work, chances of success are small, not much to gain, and more to lose(?).
But since I’m not doing any of the work, I’m all for it! Really, I do hope you succeed, and in a sane world ruled by actual ethics and sound science, you will.
Tom Scharf
You are missing possible outcomes. You seem to be under the impression that the complaint terminates when the University sends a “we’re done go away letter”. It is not. 🙂
Because is not, I am following the complaint process in the National Statement to. the. letter.
If even UWA admits ethics violation, they will likely take the paper off their servers. Also: the admission will be something in and of itself. Other things can be accomplished… I’m not going to elaborate.
i think much of what Tom Scharf says has some merit.
Looking at the national statement, i see 5.6.2, 5.6.3 and 5.6.6 that are potentially relevant.
5.6.2 and research misconduct. I have got no idea if any complaint you make could get covered by research misconduct. The university has tremendous latitude in what is covered, how it investigates and disposes of research misconduct. (see http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/r39.pdf)
5.6.3 there must be significant doubt if you can get traction with this, when the precise procedure is not plain and it is likely that existing procedures do not cover the nature of the complaint.
There is also the possibility that a complaint can be deemed “non-serious”, and then it falls outside of the national statement completely.
Re: 5.6.6 good luck. I cannot see where this external person or agency is identified on the UWA website. I cannot even see from the statement what is the purpose of this external review, its scope, its power; so this looks to me to be missing some key parameters for functionality.
nonetheless, it is clear that unless someone makes a complaint, then no complaint has been made and the University has no problem. If someone does make a complaint, only then is it possible for the University to make a finding that the complaint is valid.
I wish you good luck
per,
You are correct that it is difficult to find the external agency or person. However, the document states one must exist. The solution to being unable to identify that agency or person easily is to ask UWA who they are. If they are unable or unwilling to say, that itself would be a violation of the ethics code. I suspect that they will be willing to say. After all AWU is bound by this:
Refusing to answer questions about the complaints handling procedure would itself be an ethics violation on the part of UWA.
Steve McIntyre writes
So if I’m reading you right here, Steve, you’re suggesting that sceptics were doing what sceptics do, (ie not believing what is said until they check the facts) and in doing that checking (ie along the lines of “which blogs did you email?” ) they are labelled conspiracy theorists.
But that resulted almost directly from not getting the answers they needed to create the full picture from Lewandowsky.
And that, in turn, seems to have resulted directly from what appears to be SkS’ incompetence of not posting the survey at the SkS site when they said they did. And Lewandowsky’s incompetence for assuming SkS web traffic stats were somehow representative in his paper when they weren’t even relevant!
The University of Western Australia has its own Complaint Resolution procedures. Complaint Resolution
Among the principles espoused by UWA are:
Fury listed numerous supposed “conspiracy theories” and most of the air time has been spent on the five-blog identity, which is different in structure to the other listed items e.g. a simple item of whether warmist blogs were approached different/y and/or earlier than skeptic blogs; or the purpose of the different versions etc. Usually these issues began with simple questions.
The five-blog identity is different because Lewandowsky had failed to unwind his earlier deception and the failure to locate emails resulted from this.
It is evident that there was no SKS link to the Hoax survey. This was widely publicized when the Hoax preprint was analysed. The Fury SI appears to have been written subsequent to the discussion of the preprint and, as discussed before, Lewandowsky decided to double down on his position that SKS had been linked. This decision does not result simply from “incompetence”.
Lewandowsky has also twisted the five-blog issue: most of the contemporary discussion was which blogs were contacted. Lewandowsky portrayed this as a widespread “conspiracy theory” that no blogs were contacted – though there is negligible contemporary evidence that this position had been posited other than a couple of comments that were not adopted by other people.
Lucia, I will be following with interest any of the relevant discussions that you see fit to put on your blog if you decide to pursue your complaints with the various parties. From what I have seen in cases similar to how I view this one, the party being complained against appeared to flexibly (arbitrarily) interpret the applicable rules and apparently felt no need to cooperate with the complaining party without evidence that their stand was drawing adverse public opinion and/or the complaining party might chose to pursue legal action.
Unfortunately with complaints originating from someone who at least appears out of the mainstream of public opinion or with an apparent minority point of view, raising money for legal actions or obtaining an opportunity to state a case for the media to report are problematic. Civics 101, I am afraid, does not apply in these cases and the odds are stacked against the complaining party obtaining a satisfactory result. I am strongly of the opinion that many of these rules that surface in these cases were formulated more for show than for use.
Will,
I am with Kenneth on this:
The main way UWA is going to resolve this is to tell the complaining parties to go to he11 and stonewall/aggressively ignore the issue from that point forward.
There may be value however in documenting the violations regardless of short term outcome. Opinion will change slowly on this.
There are clear escalation routes available and if they have any common sense the UWA Officers may already be using them. If not then other people will have every right to use them.
The UWA Officers have sleep walked into a massive dilemma. Their researchers have published a study that the Journal has now rejected on ethical grounds. The reason for rejection appears to align with what is in the Australian National Guidelines. The study has caused harm to named people. This is a breach of ethics and also privacy.
The UWA process is supposed to align with the National Guidelines so there is no way they should be in this situation unless they can show that the National Guidelines are somehow inappropriate for this study.
Otherwise they are forced to recognise that their process has either failed or is inadequate or both. People here are now trying to itemise and document the failings which for whatever reason the UWA investigation did not properly investigate.
This probably has some way to go. SL and supporters are also coming up with their arguments. We even have the lovely irony of SL selectively quoting from a confidential report by the Journal (which says he cant publish) as part of his rational why it was ok to publish.
“5.6.6 Institutions should identify a person
or agency external to the institution to
whom a person can take a complaint that
has not been resolved by the processes
referred to in paragraphs 5.6.1 to 5.6.5.”
indeed. and if i read this parsimoniously, it says that they have to identify a person to whom you can take a complaint. It doesn’t say that person has any powers to investigate that complaint, or even any remit to do so, etc.
but good luck 🙂
Agreed. But they are external.
Steve writes “This decision does not result simply from “incompetence—
I think you’re right. I think SkS was incompetent but Lewandowsky appears to be academically fraudulent because his decision to use SkS web traffic comparisons was intentional and he must’ve known it was never linked from there (ie no data could have originated from there)
Its one thing to do that kind of thing but then to deny doing it takes the transgression to a whole other level.
To my mind, Lew blew whatever vestige of credibility he might have claimed for his “work” when he demanded “apologies” from those bloggers he had knowingly and falsely asserted that he’d “emailed” requesting that they post a link to his Moon Hoax “survey”.
His well documented dissembling and descent in credibility prior to and from that point onwards – along with the dishonesty of his little gophers, Nuccitelli and Cook – is not in the least surprising.
That Lew and Mann should have teamed up to concoct their Nov. 2013 pre-retraction “intimidation and bullying of publishers” meme, while perhaps not entirely predictable, is also far from surprising, IMHO.
That so many “climatologists” – and their acolytes and lesser lights -have failed to denounce these reprehensible behaviours on the part of Mann and Lewandowsky (along with those of Gleick) speaks volumes about the supremacy of their dedication to the “cause” at the expense of any respect for truth or honesty in their respective “contributions” to science.
TimTheToolMan,
I suspect the distinction between Twitter and “at the blog” didn’t really occur to Lew at the time they sent out invitations (2010). It’s quite possible it didn’t even occur to them in 2012.
There are all sorts of stupid things about the original survey– including ease of scamming KwikSurveys– which was noted by a commenter at Deltoid. I think Lew didn’t think about these things– and to some extent didn’t really care a whole bunch. Certainly, if he’d read comments at Deltoid, he would have realized his survey was vulnerable.
lucia writes “I suspect the distinction between Twitter and “at the blog†didn’t really occur to Lew at the time they sent out invitations (2010).”
Well the distinction between web traffic via twitter and web traffic via SkS is obvious enough. At best its incompetence on Lew’s part but I think he needed the result and it went further than simple incompetence. I think he made the decision to use the data knowing full well his methodology was flawed due to the oversight. Let alone any considerations on scamming…
Lucia, but the distinction between twitter and SKS was crystal clear before the Hoax SI was published (which was subsequent to commentary on the preprint to Hoax.) Even Tom Curtis was quite shocked by Lewandowsky’s insolence in using SKS traffic as the basis for Hoax SI calculations given that the lack of an SKS link was well known prior to the writing of the Hoax SI.
Lucia, here’s another intriguing interaction.
One of the Fury SI quotations is taken from Watching the Deniers:
http://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/#comment-14459.
This is a response to a characterization by Marriott of a blog post at WUWT as being “standard conspiracy theorising”. The WUWT blog post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/12/the-cook-lewandowsky-social-internet-link/ had pointed out the link between Lewandowsky and Cook, a connection which was obviously known to Lewandowsky, Cook and their pals, but which was not then well known: most of us (including me) had never heard of Lewandowsky prior to Hoax. Nor had I paid much attention to SKS to that point. Lewandowsky and Cook had even worked together on a “campaign” to “reframe” Climategate. (I guess Lewandowsky and Cook use an irregular Latin verb conjugation: “‘we campaign, you conspire”. )
In the Fury SI quotation, commenter James at WTD pointed out that Lewandowsky;s direct financing by the Australian government had been very considerable and that Lewandowsky had been involved in the “Conversation”, which had also been financed handsomely. This (apparently true) observation was a direct interaction with a Fury coauthor that was characterized as a conspiracy theory and written up in the running text.
As an aside, Lew’s methodology describes how he supposedly selected skeptic blogs from which to cull quotations, but he made no mention of STW or Watching the Deniers, though quotations from each are used.
And obviously the unfolding of events is impossible if STW is omitted.
Yep. There are tons of STW posts during the observation period!
This may be a little late, but I think you may have too narrow of a focus… which may be needed if there is already a lot of data to go through.
You are searching for specific direct back and forth interactions with the people in the paper. I would think you need to expand that to any baiting of people. The first category being specific mention in a blog post or comment of a studied person by name or website (or any nickname or grouping of similar sites). The second being of posts regarding subject matter that is known to be of interest to those being studied but does not actually give data requested by those asking it.
The reason I say that is that he also says there will be no experimentation. To me writing snarky/taunting posts regarding these topics about Log12 is an experiment. He is actively trying to push the direction of his next paper.
There may have not been much of a direct back and forth communication with those studied, but there are several different ways in which his ethics application was misleading.
He says he is not going to do a,b, or c but is instead going to do x, y, and z. You are focusing on c, but there are others as well, frankly anything that they did which does not fit into x, y, or z should be looked at.
Stilgar,
Do not mistake the blog posts narrow focus with my having a narrow focus. My view is that even if scope of the ethics violations are broad, one must still recognize that in an investigation, people will examine to see if specific guidelines are violated.
Perhaps. But i’m going about this differently. I’m trying to look at what he actually did (i.e. x,y,z) and how that fits into ethics guidelines in Australia’s National Statement showing how or when what he did do violates stated ethical guidelines.
That he said he was going to do something differently might matter– but I will only focus on that to the extent that Australia’s National Statement…. actually says that deviating from what he said he would do violates one of their principles.
Others may wish to do this differently, in which case they may, pursue that. I realize some people are very bothered that he said he’d do “a” but then did “x”. But I’m going to say “he did ‘x’ ” and point out how doing ‘x’ violates a guideline whether or not he initially said he’d do a.
Stilgar
As it happens there was what I would consider a lot of interaction. Don’t be mislead by how little there was with John Cook. Lew wrote numerous posts, as did Marriot. Many engage the “conspiracty theories”.
Steve writes “Even Tom Curtis was quite shocked by Lewandowsky’s insolence in using SKS traffic as the basis for Hoax SI calculations given that the lack of an SKS link was well known prior to the writing of the Hoax SI.”
It occurs to me that “twitter followers” are well known and so the SKS traffic comparison could be made by selecting and using only those followers from their site’s traffic data.
Too bad Lewandowsky wont share his data to allow that to be done. My instinct is that the results would be quite different indeed as the twitter followers make for a very specific subset of participants…people Lewandowsky probably wouldn’t want to be accusing of conspiracy ideation 🙂
Keep up the articles on this man Lucia.
The more oxygen he is given the more furious and irrational he becomes.
The more he responds the more attention the articles get and the more obvious his follie becomes to the wider scientific community.
There will be little action in the first year as he holds prestigious past and present appointments and will have initial support, like Frontiers and UWA, until enough sensible people actually read his papers and methods.
As they ease him aside and try to quieten him down he will perceive them as part of the conspiracy against him, and rant and rail further, leading to full exposure of his tortured mindset.
I think it is quite OK to publicise this approach as I am sure he is reading your blog assiduously and will be unable to change his spots.
In fact reading this will only make him feel more secure in his mindset and ability to foil the conspiracy.
By the way is anyone able to do a skeptical science family tree of Australian scientists and psychologists to show how they all tie together?
Like Gergis and Neukum and Cook, Cook and Lewindowsky, Cowtan and Way not Australian but in the fold, the rain man Tim Flannery,
The Antarctic ship of fools fellow and the Frontier’s reviewer etc.
And their universities.
Perhaps Jo Nova would have one. It would help when assessing who is reviewing them. New South Wales has an interesting legal process going on exposing politicians who do deals happening at the moment. Perhaps we need an International Panel on Climate Corruption to sort it out .
IPCC tm angech
angech raises a good point: Tallbloke was read the riot act for daring to have some people who had followed his theories review a study of his. It seems that Lewadwosky & crew went far beyond that threshold in the way he arranged the reviews of at least the two controversial papers.
Let the Lewandowsky parodies begin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL_QWRgj_-k#t=210
Beat me to it hunter 🙂
Gotta laugh.
dougieh,
The proper metaphor for Lew & crew is “target rich environment”.
By the way, I was remiss in not giving a hat tip to Bishop Hill Blog for introducing me to the Lewandowsky parody.