Sou at HotWhooper has written three insightful posts regarding Lewandosky et al 2015 that belong in this WUWTW collection of exhibits for my eventual complaint/presentation to the SFSU administration...
The following was copied verbatim from HotWhooper.com. Then I starting deleting it down to it's core points, my "cliffnotes" so to speak. A couple long sections are complete, but most have been reduced. Please read the full versions.
On Seeps and SCAMS Part II: Pat'n Chip'n David Fake a Debate
Seeps and SCAMS Part III: Richard Betts misunderstands (and misrepresents) a paper
I thank Sou for her excellent research and getting this information out there and tip my hat to HotWhopper's CC policy.
Highlights: HotWhopper's "Seeps and SCAMS"
On Seeps and SCAMS Part I:
Lessons for Climate Scientists
HotWhopper | Sou | May 14, 2015
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/05/on-seeps-and-scams-part-i-lessons-for.html
- the scientific community has adopted assumptions or language from discourse that originated outside the scientific community or from a small set of dissenting scientific voices.
- those assumptions depart from those commonly held by the scientific community.
If that's not clear enough, the authors add:
That is, at the very least it must be shown that in other circumstances or at a different time the scientific community did not accept the reasoning offered now. This criterion would be fulfilled if scientists are doing and saying things now that are at odds with what they were doing and saying before, but without any methodological or empirical argument to justify that change.
The paper brings to mind the Overton Window, which is defined as the range of ideas the general public will accept. Which is why activists push people to the extremes in order to get the community at large to accept a less extreme position, that is different to what was accepted in the past. Deniers use the same tactics, and those tactics are working to some extent.
The scientific community can, at times, allow deniers to frame their own communication of science. The prime example of that being the late addition to the IPCC's AR5 report on the so-called "hiatius" or "pause" in the relentless rise in global surface temperatures. The authors write:
"...even when scientists are rebutting contrarian talking points, they often do so within a framing and within a linguistic landscape created by denial."
SCAM - Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods
(Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods -
You might be wondering where the SCAMS in the headline comes from. It's from the paper. Everyone who's come across Judith Curry knows that she frames her disinformation efforts around uncertainty. Did you know that this disinformation method has been researched? It's even been given a name: SCAM - which is exactly what that particular technique is. SCAM stands for Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods. ...
How seepage occurs - the psychological basis
The authors describe how the seepage can be helped by three psychological mechanisms:
- Stereotype threat
- Pluralistic ignorance and false consensus effect
- Third person effect.
Stereotype threat - this is when scientists don't want to be stereotyped. (...)
Pluralistic ignorance and false consensus effect - an example is when scientist think that the size of the denier outcry is an indication of the number of deniers, when in fact deniers are only a very small proportion of the community. (...)
Third person effect - this is when a scientist mistakenly thinks that most other scientists are more conservative than they themselves are. (...) As the authors write:
Thus, a public discourse that asserts that the IPCC has exaggerated the threat of climate change may cause scientists who disagree to think that their views are in the minority, and they may therefore feel inhibited from speaking out in public. (...)
The case study - allowing deniers to frame the science
The authors go further than speculation and psychological theory. They do an analysis of the science. The way it was framed in the IPCC report was as a "15 year hiatus". ...
... Which brings me back to seepage. The authors of Lewandowsky 2015 argue well that the reaction of some in the scientific community to the so-called "pause" was an example of seepage into the scientific community of denier nonsense and framing.
Seepage is in the framing, not the science itself**
(...)
... some in the scientific community framed their own discussion in terms that denialists used.
This includes words like "pause" and "hiatus". It includes the fact that Nature published not just one but two editions with a focus on "the pause" - Nature Climate Change: "March 2014 edition" and Nature Geosciences: "March 2014, Volume 7 No 3 pp157-244". It includes the fact that the IPCC itself didn't just refer to a "hiatus", it went as far as letting deniers define the start as being in 1998, the year of an anomalously high surface temperature.
If you are wondering whether a particular behaviour or event can be described as "seepage" - just go back to the criteria, set out up top:
- Has the scientific community has adopted assumptions or language from discourse that originated outside the scientific community or from a small set of dissenting scientific voices? And
- Are those assumptions a departure from those commonly held by the scientific community?
(…)
In my view, this paper should provide food for thought, particularly for the climate science community and any of us who write or talk about climate science. It's a timely reminder, before COP21, that:
- Deniers are only a small proportion of the general public
- When rebutting denier talking points (and it's important that be done), we should take care to not fall into the trap of letting deniers frame the discussion
- We need to be careful not to overly downplay the impact of climate change, or exaggerate uncertainty.
We can't let the small minority of disinformers, deniers and contrarian scientists shape how information about global warming and climate change is presented - particularly to the public at large.
References and further reading
Stephan Lewandowsky, Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell and Michael Smithson. "Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community." Global Environmental Change, 2015 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.02.013 (open access)
How climate science denial affects the scientific community - ScienceDaily.com
Seepage: The effect of climate denial on the scientific community - article by Stephan Lewandowsky at Shaping Tomorrow's World
Voices from the climate community on "seepage"
James S. Risbey, Stephan Lewandowsky, Clothilde Langlais, Didier P. Monselesan, Terence J. O’Kane & Naomi Oreskes. "Well-estimated global surface warming in climate projections selected for ENSO phase." Nature Climate Change (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2310 (subs req'd)
No fatal blunder: Matching climate models with ENSO matches observations - from HotWhopper
________________________________________________________________
B. commented May 14, 2015 at 6:44 PM
I'm most pleased to see this paper on the springboard. As one of the rather small band of people who has resisted succumbing to the "pause" meme I'm pleased that Stephan faced this psychology face-on and pointed out the facts.
Speaking of facts, Tamino's back at work and has devastated those who claim "pause":
___________________________________________
On Seeps and SCAMS Part II:
Pat'n Chip'n David Fake a Debate.
HotWhopper | Sou | May 14, 2015http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/05/on-seeps-and-scams-part-ii-patn-chipn.html
RE: Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger" "Lewandowsky’s Competing Theories for Source of Bias in Scientific Research."
The title was misleading. Pat'n Chip's WUWT article was more a promo for another article by David E. Wojick and Patrick J. Michaels. Their's is not a scientific paper, it's a CATO article. ...
What they wrote about could have been an interesting topic I suppose, though it demonstrates a naive view of the world on the part of the authors. They were ostensibly exploring whether or not government funding can bias research. Their paper had the title:
Is the Government Buying Science or Support?A Framework Analysis of Federal Funding-induced Biases
They claim:
The research question is clear: does biased funding skew research in a preferred direction, one that supports an agency mission, policy or paradigm?
The reason I say it could have been an interesting topic is that research that is primarily funded by government is subject to the vagaries of government priorities.
Not in the results, but in what areas research is undertaken.
Not in the results, but in what areas research is undertaken.
What I mean is that if a government of the day regards tackling obesity as a priority, then it is more likely to fund research into the causes of obesity and how best to reduce obesity. A research project on obesity would be more likely to be funded than one investigating something of lower priority (such as tinnitus). If a government regards climate change as being a priority, then it will make sure that research on climate will proceed. What it won't do is tell the scientists that they must come up with particular results. Or most governments won't do that. There have been instances in the USA where state governments have forbidden employees from talking about climate change. And there has been at least one instance of where a government has tried to get scientists to only investigate "natural", not human, causes of climate change. ...
"allegations" galore - but no evidence!
... I kept reading the words: "In the climate change debate there have been allegations of bias" - ... Nope. It's not me who's exaggerating here. Heck, the following are direct quotes from their CFACT article - which is about 30 pages long:
- In the climate change debate there have been allegations of bias
- In the climate change debate there have been allegations of bias
- In most cases we also provide one or more examples where bias has been alleged, in each case drawing on the climate change debate
- In the context of the climate change debate there have been numerous allegations of funding-induced bias.
- In the climate debate an example of this sort of bias might be the heavy funding of carbon cycle research compared to sun-climate research in the USGCRP budget. The government's policy on climate change is based on the hypothesis that carbon dioxide emissions are the principal driver. That climate change is driven by solar activity is a competing hypothesis.
- A Google search on the terms "climate change funding bias" (without quotation marks) gives the flavor of the debate
- Allegations of this sort of bias have been made in the climate change debate
- Allegations of this sort of bias have been made in the climate change debate
- A Google search on the terms "climate change funding bias" (without quotation marks) gives the flavor of the debate.
- Allegations of this sort of bias have been made in the climate change debate.
- Allegations of this sort of bias have been made in the climate change debate. A Google search on "climate change peer review bias" (without the quotation marks) gives the flavor of this debate.
- Allegations of this sort of bias have been made in the climate change debate. A Google search on "climate change peer review bias" (without the quotation marks) gives the flavor of this debate.
- A Google search on the term "IPCC bias" (without the quotation marks) gives an introduction to this widespread debate.
- There are a number of prominent cases of allegations to this effect in the climate change debate. An example is the public controversy over NOAA (and NASA) historic temperature data "adjustments."
- There are numerous allegations to this effect in the climate change debate. In fact there is a broad general issue that is often phrased as to whether or not the science is settled. A Google search on the term "climate science is settled" (without the quotation marks) provides a good introduction to this debate,
- There are numerous allegations to this effect in the climate change debate
- Exaggeration is a major issue in the climate change debate. In fact skeptics often refer to their opponents as "alarmists." A Google search on "climate change exaggerated" (without the quotation marks) provides a glimpse of this widespread debate.
- A Google search on "climate change exaggerated" (without the quotation marks) provides a glimpse of this widespread debate.
- Google searches on "climate change media bias" and "climate change media hype" (without the quotation marks) will give the flavor of this widespread debate topic.
- Google searches on "climate change media bias" and "climate change media hype" (without the quotation marks) will give the flavor of this widespread debate topic.
- In the climate change debate there have been allegations of bias for each of the stages described above.
- In the climate change debate there have been allegations of bias for each of the stages described above.
... look up some of their references to see if there were any "allegations of bias". Surprise surprise - all Google gave me back was a bunch of tired, half-hearted denier blogs (like WUWT and worse) full of more denier speculation and rhetoric and disinformation! Yes, there are lots of "allegations of bias" about climate science and the IPCC. But none that are supported by evidence. All the "allegations of bias" come from fake sceptics, deniers and climate disinformers! That won't surprise anyone. With one of the references Google returned Pat'n Chips own CATO blog in the top ten or so listings three times!
It's the same tactic used by all deniers who follow the Denier 101 bible. Evolution deniers and anti-vaxxers and probably flat-earthers, and certainly conspiracy theorists all do the same thing.
If they bother to link to any "evidence" of their made up claims, it's to another denier blog, which links to another denier blog and so on - so that the rare person who tries to get to the bottom of things finds themselves in an endless loop of denier blogs - but fails to find any actual hard evidence.
Trying to gain seepage
The "talking point" that CATO want scientists to argue in this case is "bias". They've faked their own talking point using faked "allegations" and want to frame a non-existent "debate".
(…)
Disinformer talking points
Pat'n Chip argue:
We humbly assert that Lewandowsky, Oreskes, and colleagues have this completely backwards.
When global warming was occurring faster than climate models expected during the 1990s, there was little effort by the mainstream climate science community to look into why, despite plenty of skeptic voices (such as our own) pointing to the influence of natural variability.
More disinformation. Not just wanting to reframe the discussion, Pat'n Chip want to rewrite history. They are wrong about the effort from "the mainstream climate science community". Here is a quote from the Third Assessment Report (TAR) from the IPCC:
Faster warming of the land-surface temperature than the ocean surface temperature in the last two decades, evident in Figure 2.6, could in part be a signal of anthropogenic warming (see Chapters 9 and 12). However, a component, at least in the Northern Hemisphere north of 40 to 45°N, may result from the sharp increase in the positive phase of the winter half year North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)/Arctic Oscillation (AO) since about 1970 (Section 2.6.5), though this itself might have an anthropogenic component (Chapter 7). There has also been a strong bias to the warm phase of El Niño since about 1976 (Section 2.6.2). In particular, Hurrell and van Loon (1997) and Thompson et al. (2000a) show that the positive phase of the NAO advects additional warm air over extra-tropical Eurasia north of about 45°N. The positive phase of the NAO or AO is therefore likely to be a major cause of the winter half-year warming in Siberia and northern Europe in Figure 2.10, as also quantified by Hurrell (1996).
(…)
Daylight is the best disinfectant
In another article, Stephan Lewandowsky (and Michael E. Mann, Linda Bauld, Gerard Hastings, and Elizabeth F. Loftus) once wrote how daylight is the best disinfectant, which is what I've tried to do. Here's some more sunshine for you :)
____________________________________________
Seeps and SCAMS Part III: Richard Betts
Seeps and SCAMS Part III: Richard Betts
misunderstands (and misrepresents) a paper
HotWhopper | Sou | May 14, 2015
Correction: In the comments, Richard says that he did read the paper before he wrote his article. (I don't know how missed all the things he missed or why he got so much so wrong or why he appeared to write about the blog article and not the paper.) - Sou 6:48 pm Thursday 14 May 2015
(…)
A strange approach for a scientist to take
(…)
In his article, Richard Betts quoted Stephan Lewandowsky, not his paper, but his blog article, writing:
They assert that “on previous occasions when decadal warming was particularly rapid, the scientific community did not give short-term climate variability the attention it has recently received”.
Richard didn't write that in context. What he glossed over was:
Crucially, on previous occasions when decadal warming was particularly rapid, the scientific community did not give short-term climate variability the attention it has recently received, when decadal warming was slower. During earlier rapid warming there was no additional research effort directed at explaining ‘catastrophic’ warming. By contrast, the recent modest decrease in the rate of warming has elicited numerous articles and special issues of leading journals and it has been (mis-)labeled as a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’. We suggest that this asymmetry in response to fluctuations in the decadal warming trend likely reflects the ‘seepage’ of contrarian memes into scientific work.
Richard is perplexed...
What is more perplexing ..., is that Richard entertained the notion that a climate scientist like James Risbey did not know that short term climate variability received a lot of attention in the 1990s. James has written papers going way back, with titles including:
- On the limitations of general circulation climate models (GRL 1990)
- A Case Study of the Adequacy of GCM Simulations for Input to Regional Climate Change Assessments (J Climate 1996)
- Representing and communicating deep uncertainty in climate-change assessments (Comptes Rendus Geoscience 2005)
- and many more.
... The authors (Lewandowsky et al.) would be very well aware of scientific research going back in time. They were not arguing that there wasn't any research into short term climate variability. What they were referring to was the fact that the type of attention paid to short term variability over the period since 1998 (the so-called "hiatus") - and the way it was framed - was shaped to a great degree by deniers, not by science itself.
(…)
SCAMs: Uncertainty, Trust and Apparent Disagreements
(…)
...From the paper, where the authors discuss SCAMs
(Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods -
(Lewandowsky et al 2015) "There are several known psychological factors that can explain why SCAMs can be an effective tool in public debate to delay policy action. Perhaps the most inhibiting type of uncertainty arises from conflicts or apparent disagreements among scientists. Smithson (1999) demonstrated that conflicting estimates from experts generate more severe doubts in participants’ minds than agreed but imprecise estimates. Conflicting estimates also tend to decrease trust in the experts. …"
(…)
Diverting resources away from science priorities to denier messaging
(…)
Responding to a stereotype threat
In the paper, the authors write about stereotype threats and the responses by climate scientists, for example:
Another response would be for scientists to ‘‘bend over backwards’’ to appear to be open to contrarian claims, for example by giving unwarranted attention and credence to internet-based arguments or by inviting contrarians to conferences or public events. …
(…)
What Richard wrongly assumed...
Richard assumed that when the authors wrote about periods of rapid warming "they are referring to the 1990s, probably the period 1992-1998". They weren't. The authors didn't refer to the period 1992-1998, which is only seven years after all. They looked at 15 year windows, not seven year windows. What they did discuss in particular was the 15 year period leading up to 2007. ...
(…)
(…)
From the "Seepage" study:
"Our conclusion does not imply that research aimed at addressing the causes underlying short-term fluctuations in the warming trend is invalid or unnecessary. On the contrary, it is a legitimate and fruitful area of research, and we are certain it was not done because climate scientists intended to accept a contrarian frame—rather, if any values other than scientific curiosity drove their research, it was more likely to have been a desire to rebut contrarian talking points than a willingness to accept them.
Whether that research constitutes seepage depends on whether it ignores, adopts, or rejects the framing of those fluctuations as a ‘‘hiatus’’ in climate change. Research that ignores or rejects that framing could not be seen to be subject to the cognitive processes underlying seepage and is not seepage. On the other hand, research that explains fluctuations by uncritically adopting the language of ‘‘pauses’’ and a ‘‘hiatus’’ likely fits the definition of seepage. ..."(...)
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