Recurrent Fury: Conspiratorial Discourse in the Blogosphere

Looks like a SkepticalScience.com double-header considering the noteworthy Guardian.com article by Dana Nuccitelli that SkS shared this morning.  The reason is that I know all too well that implying a grand conspiracy, denigrating scientists and the reactionary dismissal of the significance of a "97% consensus" among actual experts regarding the causes and dangers of society's relentless injection of atmospheric insulation (read greenhouse gases) are about all we can get out of climate science contrarians these days, so I thought this was a must article to add to this collection.

It's about a new study:  "Recurrent Fury: Conspiratorial Discourse in the Blogosphere Triggered by Research on the Role of Conspiracist Ideation in Climate Denial"

By Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Klaus Oberauer, Scott Brophy, Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Michael Marriott

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Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

Posted on 8 July 2015 by dana1981

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-denial-linked-to-conspiratorial-thinking-recurrent-fury.html

A new study has examined the comments on climate science-denying blogs and found strong evidence of widespread conspiratorial thinking. The study looks at the comments made in response to a previous paper linking science denial and conspiracy theories.

Motivated rejection of science

Three years ago, social scientists Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac published a paper in the journal Psychological Science titled NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science. 

The paper detailed the evidence the scientists found that, using survey data provided by visitors to climate blogs, those exhibiting conspiratorial thinking are more likely to be skeptical of scientists’ conclusions about vaccinations, genetically modified foods, and climate change. This result was replicated in a follow-up study using a representative U.S. sample that obtained the same resultlinking conspiratorial thinking to climate denial.

Of course science denial and conspiracies go hand in hand

This shouldn’t be a terribly shocking result. When confronted with inconvenient science, those in denial often reject the evidence by accusing the experts of fraud or conspiracies. We saw a perfect example of this behavior just a few weeks ago. When scientists at NOAA published a paper finding that there was no ‘pause’ in global warming, one of the most common responses from those in denial involved the conspiratorial accusation that the scientists had somehow fudged the data at the behest of the Obama administration.

Nevertheless, nobody likes being characterized as a conspiracy theorist, and so those in the denial blogosphere reacted negatively to the research of Lewandowsky and colleagues. Ironically, many of the attacks on the study involved conspiratorial accusations, which simply provided more data for the social scientists to analyze. For example, the authors were accused of everything from faked data to collusion between Lewandowsky and the Australian government.

Exhibit 3b: Lewandowsky responds to Betts critique re "Seepage" study.

For this exhibit #3b I'm reposting Prof Lewandowsky's response to Prof Betts (bio) prefaced by a comment and question I have for any takers.

What mystifies me to no end, is that although scientists thoroughly understand the physics of atmospheric greenhouses, the impression experts such as Professor Betts project is that until we achieve totally complete and absolutely correct measurements of every component of our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine - we can somehow pretend greenhouse gases aren't doing their job 24/7/365 - specifically relentlessly increasing the heat and energy within our climate system.

What happened to our appreciation that the map is not the territory?

Can anyone explain how that rationale works?

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Voices from the climate community on "seepage"

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySeepageII.html

By Stephan Lewandowsky

Professor, School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol

Posted on 14 May 2015

Our recent article “Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community” in Global Environmental Change, authored by me and Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell, and Michael Smithson, has attracted a bit of attention over the last few days. I sample a few comments here and reply to a lengthy post by Richard Betts, Head of the Climate Impacts strategic area at the UK Met Office, that critiqued our paper.

A Critical Voice: Richard Betts on “seepage”

However, not unexpectedly, there are also some critical voices. We expected that our paper would evoke some spirited disagreement, and so Richard Betts’ critique of our paper is most welcome as it provides us with an opportunity to restate our argument and address some of the objections raised by Professor Betts. 

To facilitate discussion, I begin by noting that there is much in Betts’s post that we can agree with—for example, the increased role of social media, the increased focus by governments on the need for adaptation and hence decadal predictions. No disagreement there. But then again, none of those points pertain to the issue of seepage.

Exhibit Three: Lewandowsky et al. 'Seepage' paper and fabricated bias.

I've come to realize that my idea of getting San Francisco State University administration to take some action in response to Landscapesandcycles' Mr. Jim Steele's malicious slander and equally execrable misrepresentation of wildlife studies was naive and is dead in the water.  However, that doesn't mean I can't send SFSU Administration a well formulated complaint along with a learning experience regarding the ways of the con artist and how university administrations have an ethical obligation to proactively reject the active fabrication and dissemination of deliberate, and with malicious intent, lies and misrepresentations regarding the work of scientists.

Thus, my effort to collect, organize and support my argument will continue.  Serendipitously, yesterday the Hotwhopper blog alerted me to a new study by Lewandowsky, Oreskes, Risbey, Newell, and Smithson. It details something I've noticed for a long time, but haven't been able to enunciate.  

For my Exhibit #3 let me present 

Seepage: 

Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community 

Stephan Lewandowsky , Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell, Michael Smithson  -  Global Environmental Change  -  Elsevier Ltd 2015 

Summary

Appeals to scientific uncertainty are often used to forestall action on climate change:

 *We examine the seepage of this contrarian discourse into the scientific community.   *We highlight psychological reasons for scientists’ susceptibility to seepage.  *We use the global warming ‘‘hiatus’’ as an example of the consequences of  seepage.   *We offer ways in which the scientific community can detect and avoid such seepage. 

From the abstract

 We show that although scientists are trained in dealing with uncertainty, there are several psychological reasons why scientists may nevertheless be susceptible to uncertainty-based argumentation, even when scientists recognize those arguments as false and are actively rebutting them.   

Specifically, we show that prolonged stereotype threat, pluralistic ignorance, and a form of projection (the third-person effect) may cause scientists to take positions that they would be less likely to take in the absence of outspoken public opposition.  

We illustrate the consequences of seepage from public debate into the scientific process…"

FYI, in the internet this is shaping up to be quite a kerfluffle that I intend to report on after I get caught up on all the action.  But, first it would be good to allow Professor Lewankowsky's to speak for himself, so with a tip of my hat to Professor Lewandowsky I'm reposting his description of the study - followed by links to HotWhopper's triple play, and AndThenThere'sPhysics' guest post by Prof. Richard Betts, who's the Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office and disagrees.

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update:

Voices from the climate community on "seepage"

By Stephan Lewandowsky

Professor, School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol

Posted on 14 May 2015

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySeepageII.html

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By Professor Stephan Lewandowsky

Posted on 7 May |  http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySeepage.html