Jo Nova, Andrew Bolt and others have written about the disgraceful paper by Lewandowsky et al which should be Exhibit 1 for the misuse of survey techniques and statistics. It says a lot about the state of science in Australia that such a paper could be published in a peer-reviewed journal (Psychological Science) when it would properly be failed if submitted by a first year undergraduate. Lewandowsky has shown once again that he is not a scientist – he is a zealot and alarmist who is sucking on the public teat; a high-paid welfare recipient.
I wrote previously of a tendency for shoddy, unprofessional and substandard charlatans like Kevin Trenberth to have mammoth CVs. Lewandowsky’s CV is 32 pages.
Could this be the worst academic paper ever written in Australia?
JC
7 Sep 12 at 2:33 am
Even by UWA standards? Sure.
benson
7 Sep 12 at 3:19 am
This travesty of a paper breaks pretty much every rule in the book on how to conduct an opinion survey.
It would be interesting to find out who pal reviewed it.
johanna
7 Sep 12 at 3:38 am
“Science”, as a brand, has become so debased that it’s going to take at least a generation if not more to rehabilitate its image. And that rehabilitation cannot even begin until the various universities, academies and professional organisations get serious and start turfing out – with extreme prejudice – the most egregious of the charlatans and hacks.
sdog
7 Sep 12 at 4:03 am
At this blog I also expect the resident economists to take down Stern and Garnaut for their misleading, propagandist output.
Blogstrop
7 Sep 12 at 6:16 am
I think when the era of the climate science scam is over and we look back on the use of educational institutions as weapons and the government grantmaking power to research universities as a deliberate corruption, this Lewandowsky paper will be seen globally as a seminal moment. The use of computer modelling to gain desired changes in human behavior and lucrative government policies for connected cronies is really starting to break through. That’s what Best Evidence now means. Not grounded in actual science but likely to produce desired effects. Politically desired effects.
In the same way Borking became a verb in the US after what happened to Robert Bork to keep him off SCOTUS as a decisive and hard to turn 5th vote, Lewandowsky needs to be turned into a verb as well. Academics who jump the shark to try to taint discussion of facts and hard science in a discussion they cannot win are Lewandowskying. It should be seen as a special case of ad hominem attack.
That it was Psychology Science is just a reminder that Climate Science is a social science, not a natural science. And it is totalitarian political philosophies who love to use social sciences and behavioral sciences as weapons against their citizens.
Robin
7 Sep 12 at 6:35 am
The universities, along with the ABC and SBS, need to be privatised urgently. There are no justifications for governments to control these key public opinion makers. Make them earn their living by providing a service people are actually prepared to pay for rather than spend their time sprouting their opinions.
johno
7 Sep 12 at 7:02 am
johno-until the accreditation agencies cease to have so much power to influence curriculum and academics and push the UNESCO vision of radically transforming ed globally, privatising is not enough.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/is-accreditation-the-enforcer-for-unescos-vision-of-solidarity/ is a story I wrote a few months ago explaining this point. Australia is heavily involved in both the Quality Assurance process to compel higher ed compliance with this vision and the Bologna Process generally. No, it has no connection to salami or pastrami. The university in Italy.
http://theconversation.edu.au/how-do-people-reject-climate-science-9065?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+7+September+2012&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+7+September+2012+CID_e7b49bd77bf586c83ba609ffbf7098d6&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=How+do+people+reject+climate+science is the rather long link that shows U of Queensland doubling down to protect Lew and the AGW scam by attacking doubters.
Conspiracy theorists and confirmation bias. Good grief. Must save Lew from his paper’s inanities.
Robin
7 Sep 12 at 7:22 am
Bottom line is that, if I were a parent of teenage children interested in any branch of science, I wouldn’t let them anywhere near UWA. Whereas it once had the prestige of a second-level uni like Monash, Lewandowski has given it the image of a hick regional TAFE. I imagine that employers in a booming state economy are also alarmed that “their” uni, which is relied upon for graduates, is a laughing stock. Yet we have not heard a peep from the UWA administration.
Tom
7 Sep 12 at 7:43 am
After exposing the enormously destructive wealth redistribution effects of the carbon dioxide taxation policy today, the editor of the Australian then concludes that there is perhaps a better way to abate ‘carbon’ emissions in Australia. In other words, the dickhead is still married to the idea that carbon dioxide abatement is necessary, and fails to see that the ONLY solution is to drop the entire silly ideological policy for the time bomb that it is.
Why is it that the intellectual ‘elite’ are always the last to see that their moronic and destructive secular ideologies are, well, moronic and destructive?
Uber
7 Sep 12 at 7:59 am
The reason that the good professor’s peer reviewed paper has attracted so much attention is because of the catchy title: “NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science”.
That was the intention; to get as much MSM publicity as possible (to get a headline) knowing that your average journalist lacks the skills to understand it, let alone recognise its flaws.
Unfortunately for the prof. it also attracted the attention of well-informed CAGW sceptics.
For all anyone outside the academic ramparts knows, the multiple grant papers and contracts he boasts about (total A$4,400,000) could be of similar quality — no one other than the authors themselves and a few ivory-tower chums.
manalive
7 Sep 12 at 7:59 am
If I had the misfortune to know anyone who was crazy enough to doubt the moon landings took place, I’d put money on them believing in CAGW.
Both concepts are patently absurd.
Rabz
7 Sep 12 at 8:32 am
Rabz : I don’t know. At first blush the moon-landing-hoax evidence looks plausible and believable. It’s not until you engage your brain you figure out it’s all cherry picked hogwash.
AGW – however – that ‘evidence’ doesn’t even pass first blush. ‘Extra heat will make the oceans evaporate and cause water vapour and clouds which will make it spiral out of control and make it extra hot, at which point we will be down to a few breeding pairs in the arctic’.
Yeah – no.
brc
7 Sep 12 at 9:10 am
I saw a very pertinent observation somewhere: That amongst the various conspiracies listed there is a notable omission – that climate scepticism is funded by big oil / big tobacco is missing.
I wonder how many climate science “beleivers” would have supported that conspiracy theory? Now THAT would have been a study worthwhile reading…
Arnost
7 Sep 12 at 9:27 am
I was wondering exactly the same thing. Although, if The Lewnatic took the same open approach as the IPCC to peer review as outlined by Donna LaFramboise, all the pals comments would have been stamped “Rejected”.
Megan
7 Sep 12 at 9:41 am
This paper comes on top of the peer reviewed Karoly Gergis paper ‘Southern Hemisphere Hockey Stick’ (University of Melbourne School of Earth Sciences) which did not pass blog review and was withdrawn.
Great for the reputation Australian institutions of learning — I don’t think.
manalive
7 Sep 12 at 9:56 am
I must admit I skimmed the story at first, thinking this was another undergraduate trying to get a bit of a suckle on the government teat..
I didnt realise the bloke was supposed to be taken seriously.
He should probably take a vacation, and try to forget his obvious obsession for a couple of months. That a serious scientist would attempt to pass of really, really dodgy numbers like that is just embarassing.
thefrollickingmole
7 Sep 12 at 10:33 am
What merits referring to Lewandowsky as a serious scientist?
Everything I have ever seen (and I had looked at him before) is he is a credentialled hack chasing after public funding pushing the cause du jour.
Robin
7 Sep 12 at 10:39 am
The “Art of Psychology” has a nice ring to it!
NoFixedAddress
7 Sep 12 at 11:28 am
Guess who pops up as Stephan Lewandowsky’s chief apologist/marketing agent? Of course, it’s Graeme Redfearn, the fruitcake zombie journalist who gave up an MSM career with the Brisbane Courier-Mail to become the bumboy for the climate alarmism industry, banished to sites like The Drum and Desmogblog.com.
Tom
7 Sep 12 at 11:51 am
A good example of a clueless Fairfax robot picking up the story – Ben Cubby.
boy on a bike
7 Sep 12 at 2:45 pm
A cognitive scientist – the brain, psychology, neural function etc, interesting stuff. Now lets consider the list of articles he’s had posted at The Conversation.
Can you spot the nothing-to-do-with cognitive science obsession?
Harold
7 Sep 12 at 3:08 pm
The Soviets used to call people insane if they disagreed with the Party, and put them into psychiatric hospitals. Seems to be a trait in the species homo totalitarii.
Bruce
7 Sep 12 at 3:57 pm
The great irony, lost on the idiot author, is that people who think the moon landings were faked are exactly the kind to hungrily gobble up the intellectual fellatio we call “AGW”.
Abu Chowdah
7 Sep 12 at 4:23 pm
The bastards bastardised science then claim all sceptics reject science!!
Seriously, if anyone sent in a 32 page CV to a corporation for a job, they’d never get an interview, because it would rightfully be assumed to be padded with waffle. Exhibit 1 indeed!!
Twodogs
7 Sep 12 at 6:07 pm
That is a little unkind . One presumes that the internet website that the CV was purchased from probably had a very high ebay customer satisfaction rating.
WhaleHunt Fun
7 Sep 12 at 7:23 pm
All of the above are serious responses to Lewandowsky who deserves no such analysis or consideration; he is a loon in the thick of a mass hysterical movement; these people are complete and utter fuckwits.
Lewandowsky’s mate John Cook has a post at the Conversation where this comment from one of the disciples features:
This clown apparently has a PhD in physics.; fuck me blind, God help us all.
cohenite
7 Sep 12 at 8:08 pm
A lot of people get them.Nowadays it gets you a job. It doesn’t make you smart.
WhaleHunt Fun
7 Sep 12 at 10:05 pm
The fact that this fool describes the rubbish presented as evidence shows that he is no scientist. His qualification works only to prove the need to raise standards by defunding and then privatising the so-called universities. Gina U has a nice sound to it. With tight performance targets, and instant dismissal for behaviour bringing the profession( if science in this country can still be called that after the AGW scam) into disrepute.
WhaleHunt Fun
7 Sep 12 at 10:12 pm
UWA acquired that sort of reputation during the Rindos affair.
benson
8 Sep 12 at 12:00 am