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"
Professor, School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol
Posted on 14 May 2015
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