back to article Climate denier bloggers sniff out new conspiracy

Climate skeptic bloggers the world over have a shiny new conspiracy to obsess about: whether a University of Western Australia psychology professor "faked" a research study. In a deliciously recursive fury, the research – which looked at correlations between belief in "climate change conspiracies" as associated with other " …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Conspiracy theorists

    .... seem to be acting in similar ways to those suffering from paranoia.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Conspiracy theorists

      Very frequently, the former is frequently populated WITH the latter. It takes a certain kind of paranoia to think that the world is engaged in a convoluted plan to get you because only YOU know the true truth (and everyone else is just a mindless zombie without even knowing it). Worst part is, they genuinely believe it and believe anyone else is just trying to shake them, making them believe it all the more in a self-fueling loop.

      1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
        Black Helicopters

        Must resist, must resist!..... Cannot resist

        Just because you are paranoid, does not mean they are not out to get you

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Must resist, must resist!..... Cannot resist

          But then, it could be said that 'perfect paranoia' is 'perfect awareness' - whatever that may be :)

          1. Tom 13
            Joke

            Re: Must resist, must resist!..... Cannot resist

            But there is good news: Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least 2 to 1!

  2. PatrickE
    Flame

    denial denial denial bwahahaha

    Chirgwin - you really are a dick.

    The study caused contention ond consternation on "denier/sceptic/nazi-loving conspiracy blogs" (sarc) like Watts Up With That because of glaring oddities which came to light after publication. For instance - it looks as though 3 different surveys were used, depending on where the recipient seemed to fit on the denier-believer scale and Lewandowsky claimed that sceptical blogs failed to respond to the survey(s), whereas blogs such as WUWT have stated that they were never approached to begin with. Lewandowsky refuses to identify which sceptical blogs he approached and failed to note in his paper that more than 1 survey was used.

    Since Lewandowsky is impugning the reputations of various sceptics by associating them with deniers of the NASA moonlandings, it seems only reasonable for them to respond. Perhaps in you opinion they should shutup and simply accept Lewandowsky's opinion of them?

    For myself - I watched Neil Armstrong et al reach the moon and was totally captivated. As far as I am concerned, it happened. Similarly, I accept that there has been slight warming over the last 100 years or so of approximately 0.7degC. I accept that part of this will be anthropogenic *especially* as related to land use change (see Pielke Snr), part will be natural and part is due to artefacts of adjustments to the temperature records for *homogenisation purposes* as these seem to cool the past and warm the present.

    On the other hand I do "deny" the extrapolation of this warming to imply some frightful, disastrous future. In fact, I go so far as to say that whether or not this future arises, that reactions to it are social and political in nature and not merely technical and therefore I have as much right to decisions regarding how we deal with this future as any politician, lobbyist or scientist.

    1. magrathea

      Re: denial denial denial bwahahaha

      I've noticed repeated attempts to asociate, in the public's mind, three groups with moon landing deniers -

      1) Iraq, afghan war objectors

      2) 'Something fishy and corrupt happened at the world trade centre' types

      3) Climate change theory detractors

      I guess it can't be a conspiracy - but, if not, what is it? ;)

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: denial denial denial bwahahaha

        Someone always seems to try and link those they disagree with to any group that is popularly disliked as a way of attacking them, no matter how ludicrous. Someone was on here the other month ranting about how fascism was a right-wing ideology. Completely oblivious, apparently, that it's a Left Wing ideology. Mussolini pretty much brought the term into modern usage as part of his socialist movement. The NAZIs were the National Socialist Workers Party. But "fascism" is bad. Right wing politics is (to the poster) bad. Therefore Right Wing is Fascism. It's muddy thinking at its best (worst). Some people don't care about accuracy - they just love throwing mud and hoping it will stick. It's easier than making an argument for some people.

  3. jake Silver badge

    I smell large quantities of crap ...

    Substitute "The Internet" for "Usenet" in the following:

    "Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea. Massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."

    --Gene Spafford, 1992

    One of the few times I actually woke up my wife laughing when reading/contributing to Usenet in the wee hours.

  4. Diogenes
    Headmaster

    Also not stated was...

    ... the fact that for the "warmists" Lewandowsky sent the invitations, for the "skeptics" his totally unknown reasearch assistant did. To quote Jo Nova "He did it through another name, Charles Hanich, an assistant who was not named on the paper, so how would skeptics know to look for it?"

    And to further quote Jo

    "Once Steve McIntyre figured this out (not with any help from Lewandowsky) he found 2 emails which he had not noticed or replied too. The other blogger at JunkScience not only got an email but posted it with the warning that the survey looked dodgy: “Basically it seems to be fishing for conspiracy theorists in an effort to associate them with CAGW skepticism. I suspect Hanich & HREC are likely to get a lot of complaints about this framing.”

    For the record

    I believe climate is changing.

    I do not believe that man has more than a small influence on the change.

    I believe the massaging of the raw data and an underestimation of the UHI effect is skewing the record

    I believe Neil Armstrong landed on the moon

    I do not believe the CIA assassinated Kennedy

    I do not believe Harold Holt was taken by a Chinese submarine or the CIA had any involvement in the Whitlam sacking (for my fellow antipodean readers :-)

    Right - got that

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Also not stated was...

      I find it all kind of funny.

      I'm a hard scientist. A statistician by trade who writes statistical models. Having read innumerable papers I don't buy the arguments for AGW. In fact, it is funny, neither do a significant number of the papers. The consensus view appears to be that the climate is changing. Whether this is relevant against climate effects in the recent past like the Medieval Warm Period is contentious. Some researchers have smoothed it out, others have not. Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere having increased is also the consensus. Whether that increase is relevant in geological time is contentious. Whether Carbon Dioxide in the air has a causal relationship to the climate, or vice versa, or neither, is definitely contentious.

      Most of the people I know who have the same position as me regarding disbelief in AGW (a rather large crowd of people I have to say) are hard scientists of one form or another. None (at least as far as I am aware) are conspiracy theorists in the anti-moon landing ways. Many are probably of the opinion that the Iraq war was not about WMD though, and since that seems to be part of the poorly conducted survey it worries me that a paper of this nature can make it through peer review.

      1. perlcat
        Unhappy

        @ ""I find it all kind of funny.

        I don't. I find this kind of stuff (bogus science used to demonise opposing viewpoints) with the added legitimacy of "peer review" that turns out to be more of a "buddy review" to be downright scary. Especially when it gets used to gin up media lynch mobs that trash real people with real careers.

  5. Kharkov
    Pint

    I think THEY told you all to say all this...

    You're ALL with THEM...

    Me against the world...

    But there's always beer!

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: there's always beer!

      [Cackles evilly]

      Yes, Kharkov, keep drinking the beer. It's good beer, isn't it. You /like/ the beer, yes?

  6. Homer 1
    Holmes

    Libertarians reject science shocker

    "Rejection of climate science was strongly associated with endorsement of a laissez-faire view of unregulated free markets"

    IOW science denialism is strongly linked to right-wing politics, which in turn is linked to Christian fundamentalism, exactly the sort of people one would expect to reject science and create conspiracy theories in defence of their dogmatic principles.

    Not to mention the fact that such people typically come from the southern (i.e. oil) states in the US, which makes them equally predisposed to reject anything that might threaten the source of their affluence.

    Surely Lewandowsky didn't really need to conduct a study in order to understand that. He could have attended a few Tea-Party conventions, or just watched Faux News for a couple of days.

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

      And you got all this from his 10 respondents who participated in his survey? You are certainly a master of insight to be able to get the above from such a tiny sample size.

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

        I misread that. He got more than 10 respondents. It was 10 respondents who said that that the Moon landings were hoaxes (that's 0.9% of respondents). And interestingly, those 10 respondents included people who agreed with his views on AGW.

        Apologies for the wrong information.

    2. Psyx
      Stop

      Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

      "Libertarians reject science shocker"

      WTF has Libertarianism got to do with it?

      I don't think you can make that link, unless the word has somehow changed it's meaning.

      Just because the Tea Party somehow claim to be part Libertarian-defined, that's not reason to link every Libertarian movement with right-wing religious nut-bars, nor anti-science viewpoints.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

        "Just because the Tea Party somehow claim to be part Libertarian-defined, that's not reason to link every Libertarian movement with right-wing religious nut-bars, nor anti-science viewpoints."

        No, but the overwhelming prevalence of angry, insecure, racist, sexist, homophobic, science-fearing right-wing religious nut-bars in the American "Libertarian" sector is.

        1. Psyx
          Stop

          Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

          "No, but the overwhelming prevalence of angry, insecure, racist, sexist, homophobic, science-fearing right-wing religious nut-bars in the American "Libertarian" sector is."

          Please don't call them that thing. They aren't. It's not what the word means. It's like when Far-left communist countries call themselves "Democratic", or totalitarian regimes refer to themselves as "People's"

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

            Sorry, Psyx, but going on my (unfortunately apt to increase when I least want it) sample so far, pretty much every self-identifying "Libertarian" I've met has been a swivel-eyed borderline nutjob, convinced that The Foreigns, The Homosexualists and The Liberals are taking part in a grand conspiracy to do down good folk.

            Male, pale, stale, ill-informed, angry. They exhibit the classic hate and blame pathologies of the disenfranchised, yet they're the most influential group of people in the most heavily armed nation on the planet. Something is fucked-up there.

            As Eurotrash, I was horrified to discover the doublespeak involved- "Libertarian" basically means "freedom of the strongest/richest/most violent/least ethical" and fuck the rest. I was expecting exactly the opposite, a John Stuart Mill style attempt to check abuses of power both by the executive and the mob to maximise public good by giving the largest amount of freedom to the largest number of people. Instead, I discovered a horrifying petty, childish, dog in the manger set of rationalisations that I would find troubling even in a toddler.

          2. Tom 13

            @Psyx

            Leave the troll alone. He's just found a new term and he doesn't know what it means so it must be evil. Progressives are like that.

            I'm not a libertarian myself, but I know what the term means and I respect their logical faculties.

      2. Homer 1
        Holmes

        Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

        "I don't think you can make that link, unless the word has somehow changed it's meaning."

        You must be one of those non-libertarian libertarians then, the sort don't subscribe to the most fundamental tenet of libertarianism: "a laissez-faire view of unregulated free markets".

        Which is sort of like being an atheist Christian or a vegetarian sausage.

        1. Psyx
          FAIL

          Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

          "You must be..."

          You effin' what? So you've decided that my quibble with a definition ties me to that politic leaning?

          What have my personal politics got to do with the definition of a word?

          And no: I'm neither a Libertarian, an Atheist Christian, nor a vegetarian sausage.

          1. Psyx
            Thumb Up

            Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

            (Obviously the thumbs-down there was from someone disagreeing with me about what my personal politics are) /rolleyes

          2. h4rm0ny

            Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

            I have some vegetarian sausages in my freezer. They're quite nice actually.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Libertarians reject science shocker

          "You must be one of those non-libertarian libertarians then"

          Anti-antidisestablishmenlibertarianism?

          You have helped coin a new and probably unwanted word!

  7. bill 36

    when i meet a moon landing denier

    I point out a simple inescapable truth,

    You can bet your bottom dollar that the Chinese and especially the Russians were tracking the Apollo missions as though their lives depended on it, including listening and measuring the radio traffic.

    If either of them even sniffed a fraud it would have been front page news.

    As to this article, the author is simple reporting the story and i dont read any bias in it.

    Why are you attacking him?

    I ask the question as a CO2 skeptic and not as a climate change skeptic. The difference is important.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: when i meet a moon landing denier

      "As to this article, the author is simple reporting the story and i dont read any bias in it.

      Why are you attacking him?"

      It's a Reg reader fad. One does it then nearly all of them are. Sooner or later, most Reg readers resort to a personal attack, be it against the subject of an article, its author, someone on the forum who disagrees with them ... you name it. Of course, my statement could be construed as a personal attack too, but it's one of those sad cases where just stating facts will be painted that way in the usual, "No, *you* are!" argument ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: when i meet a moon landing denier

        SHUT UP U SMELL OF WEE

        (etc.)

      2. Goat Jam

        Re: when i meet a moon landing denier

        "Why are you attacking him?"

        Because he "reported the story" which was utter nonsense without doing the most rudimentary research to evaluate its veracity.

        You know, that "fact checking" that profeshinul jernahlists used to do back in the olden days.

        He even went out of his way to point out that it "survived the peer review process" and failed to note how spectacularly that peer review process had failed and how that once being subject to public scrutiny the entire thing was shown up to be a complete load of warmist lies and propaganda disguised as science packaged specifically so that it was easily digested by the easily led and overly credulous brigade in the mainstream media (and its consumers).

        If you want pre-chewed nonsense presented as "a story" go ahead and watch any nightly TV news program, they are filled with that crap.

        Just don't expect people here to swallow such tripe without complaint.

        1. bill 36
          Mushroom

          Re: when i meet a moon landing denier

          "Because he "reported the story" which was utter nonsense"

          And you don't get the irony in that? Never mind eh!

          The Register is the satirical publication of the technology world and advertises itself as just that. Even the logo is a clue along with its slogan.

          Its full of fanbois, androids, chocolate factories, ink companies, online tat bazaars, you name it and its all the better for it.

          It often hits raw nerves though doesn't it, especially when the stick is being poked at your particular nest which for me anyway, makes it all the funnier.

          I don't think that i need reminding that the nightly news is indeed is full of crap, no argument from me but if you want your technology world dumbing down then Computer Weekly is the answer.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    El Reg

    Well done El Reg you have fianlly reached the bottom of the barrel it's shameful really I liked this web site.

    1. Psyx
      Stop

      Re: El Reg

      "Well done El Reg you have fianlly reached the bottom of the barrel it's shameful really I liked this web site."

      You'll be back for Lewis' articles.

      Which are just the same in their selective reporting, except they support the opposite viewpoint.

      But that's ok, I guess?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: El Reg

        Try some stats.

        http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/theregister.co.uk

        All in the red.

        1. bill 36
          Mushroom

          Re: El Reg

          Yes and only ranked three behind RBS one of the biggest banks in the world.

          Statistics are good eh?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OH and...

    The Author can go rot by the use of the word denier and what it entails.

  10. PatrickE
    Facepalm

    The study itself seems to find that there is a conspiracy to squash science - Pg 3

    "The reasons for this declining public concern are manifold. Researchers in history and sociology frequently cite the manufacture of doubt" by vested interests and political groups as a factor (Jacques, Dunlap, & Freeman, 2008; McCright & Dunlap, 2003, 2010; Mooney, 2007; Oreskes & Conway, 2010; Stocking & Holstein, 2009). For example, over 90% of environmentally sceptical books published since 1972 have been demonstrably sponsored by conservative think tanks (Jacques et al., 2008). Oreskes and Conway (2010) analyzed the shared ideological underpinnings of organized attempts to question well-established scienti c ndings over the last few decades, from the link between smoking and lung cancer to the causal role of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) in eroding the ozone layer to, most recently, the ndings from climate science. "

    Hmm. Vested interests, conservative think tanks, shared ideological underpinnings. Lewandowsky looks like he wants to find bad anti-science guys and what do you know? He does, he does! Its a giggle really.

  11. Steelhead

    Nothing particularly new here. From someone who is both a Christian and a scientist, nearly all the Christians I talk to who believe in a 6000 year old Earth created in 6 days quote me various studies both a) supporting their claim for a young Earth and b) supporting evidence against AGW. These two certainly go hand in glove along with their flat out rejection of the scientific concensus. And, oh yes, many state either a) disbelief in the Moon landings or b) If we did do it we shouldn't have as it is too much like the Tower of Babel [sic].

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      agreed nothing to see here. You don't really need to do a research study and publish a paper, its pretty much common sense, it’s as obvious as the link between doner kebabs and food poisoning.

    2. fishman

      As an atheist, most of the Christians I talk to don't believe in things like a 6000 year old earth - but they come from more mainstream churches liike the Catholic Church, Methodist Church, etc.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And can I just be extremely snippy and point out the long and glorious history of quacks and bad academics in Anglo countries hiding behind "exotic" names and a "Doctorate", lame or otherwise not relevant in some cases, in order to self-promote? Sometimes folk even change their surnames to get credibility in this way .... a reverse example would be Netanyahu''s father - changing from original Polish surname Mileikowsky to appear more "local".

  13. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    What is does not seem to recognise

    Is that many people would believe in conspiracy theories to justify to themselves that no action needs to be taken about any particular matter.

    I know many such people. Usually, it goes like "If I accept that smoking is causing me to cough up pieces of my lungs every morning I will have to do something about it. Instead I will convince myself that the dangers of smoking are a conspiracy by labour/greens/NHS/communists and pretend that I have a chronic bronchitis which has nothing to do with smoking. Problem solved."

    Such people would come up with a conspiracy theory of convenience whenever faced with anything they can procrastinate about, but it is a complete cause-effect reversal in terms of the study mentioned in the article. Not that believing one myth will cause them to believe in others but it is that they will embrace any number of myths to suit their desire to avoid action.

  14. Robinson
    Stop

    Conspiracy...

    I'm not a conspiracy theorist, preferring the cock-up/Human Nature theory. However this phrase gave me pause:

    "(which means it’s survived the peer-review process)"

    The reason it gives me pause is because there's a bit of a myth that peer review is somehow aids progress and guarantees that the study contains an element of truth. This is wrong. All it means is that the study has gained the acceptance of other people who do the same kind of studies, in the same kind of way (the Paradigm).

    I find Lehrer instructive in this instance:

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer

  15. mhenriday
    Pint

    Wow, Richard - you really seem to have touched a nerve !

    But thanks, anyway, for reporting this and in particular for providing a link to the article, which I found of great interest. The greatest problem, apart from that mentioned by Vladimir Plouzhnikov above (which to my mind is a wee bit beside the point, as what he seems to propose is one mechanism (there are surely others, as well) behind the corollations observed in the research, rather than a denial of them), lies in what was chosen to represent a «conspiracy» - introspection is a blunt probe, but I detect no tendencies in myself to believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked, despite a strong belief that the US/UK invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with «weapons of mass destruction» and Anthony Charles Lynton Blair's infamous «45 minutes». No reasonable person with any knowledge of human history can deny that conspiracies do exist - and that new ones are launched all the time - it is when one begins to believe that history itself is a conspiracy that one crosses the fine line to paranoia. But how to tell them apart ? I think, for example, that such organisations as Scientology or the Unification Church have rather more to do with extracting money from the gullible than with a «spiritual» impetus on the part of their respective founders ; do these beliefs make me paranoid ? Probably not, but then again, I haven't checked the criteria outlined in DSM V....

    Henri

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: Wow, Richard - you really seem to have touched a nerve !

      I'm sorry if I made an impression that I think it is the only mechanism. I suspect it may be statistically significant but no attempts were made in the study to isolate and identify whether such mechanism exists.

      Regarding conspiracies - I think there are plenty of conspiracies that happen all the time but they are short-lived and involve a limited number of people. Even so, the presence of such conspiracies becomes suspected/known/confirmed very quickly.

      When the alleged conspiracy requires decades of cover up by hundreds of people in order to exist you can pretty much rule it out quite safely. Humans are not able to keep secrets (I think we evolved this way and for a good reason).

      Now, there may be situations where interests of a group of people are aligned in the same direction through some objective causes and, logically, these people would individually act to preserve their interests (without any specific agreement with or even knowledge about the others) which will create an impression of collaboration or concerted action. I think those are often confused with conspiracies but they are not.

  16. deadlockvictim
    Trollface

    Neil Armstrong

    I'm beginning to wonder if Neil Armstrong himself is just a figment of NASA's imagination. I need to find a website with a black background, white text and animated GIFs to prove that his life-story was filmed in a Hollywood parking lot. It would explain why he was so «recluse» all these years.

    One wonders what the Apollo 13 crew knew and why they needed to be taken out.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Neil Armstrong

      The moon landing didn't use a "Hollywood parking lot" for filming as you suggest. In actual fact it was a slag heap in Rotherham which is now unrecognisable, having since been transformed into a nature park.

      1. Psyx
        Joke

        Re: Neil Armstrong

        "The moon landing didn't use a "Hollywood parking lot" for filming as you suggest. In actual fact it was a slag heap in Rotherham which is now unrecognisable, having since been transformed into a nature park."

        I know this is untrue, because nothing in Rotherham would ever pass as a nature park.

        And the slags are all still there.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Neil Armstrong

      You just called him a spider? Godammit, man!

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