Frontiers and Lew

Handbags at ten paces:

The authors of the retracted paper and their followers are doing the climate change crisis a tragic disservice by attacking people personally and saying that it is ethically ok to identify them in a scientific study. They made a monumental mistake, refused to fix it and that rightfully disqualified the study. The planet is headed for a cliff and the scientific evidence for climate change is way past a debate, in my opinion. Why even debate this with contrarians? If scientists think there is a debate, then why not debate this scientifically? Why help the ostriches of society (always are) keep their heads in the sand? Why not focus even more on the science of climate change? Why not develop potential scenarios so that society can get prepared? Is that not what scientists do? Does anyone really believe that a public lynching will help advance anything? Who comes off as the biggest nutter? Activism that abuses science as a weapon is just not helpful at a time of crisis. (link)

Ouch. And that’s from a warmist.

(h/t Bishop Hill)

Cook ‘n’ Lew

Popcorn time. Stephan Lewandowsky ties himself in knots attempting to reconcile his unshakeable belief that Recursive Fury was scientifically and ethically sound with Frontiers’ statement that the paper ‘does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects’ and ‘categorises the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics’.

According to Lew:

No other cause was ever offered or discussed by Frontiers to justify the retraction of Recursive Fury. We are not aware of a single mention of the claim that our study “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects” by Frontiers throughout the past year, although we are aware of their repeated explicit statements, in private and public, that the study was ethically sound.

This brings into focus several possibilities for the reconciliation of Frontier’s contradictory statements concerning the retraction:

First, one could generously propose that the phrase “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects” is simply a synonym for “defamation risk” and that the updated statement therefore supports the contractually-agreed statement. This is possible but it puts a considerable strain on the meaning of “synonym.”

Second, one could take the most recent statement by Frontiers at face value. This has two uncomfortable implications: It would imply that the true reason for the retraction was withheld from the authors for a year. It would also imply that the journal entered into a contractual agreement about the retraction statement that misrepresented its actual position.

Third, perhaps the journal only thought of this new angle now and in its haste did not consider that it violates their contractually-agreed position.

Whichever it is, it’s truly astonishing that Lew finds it so difficult to grasp that labelling those who disagree with him as suffering from some psychopathology is ethically and morally unacceptable.

For the record, according to Recursive Fury, my particular pathologies are nefarious intention and persecution-victimisation – and of course, I am a ‘denier’ and rabid conspiracy theorist. If the paper cannot even characterise my view on AGW correctly (lukewarmer), it really has little hope of getting anything else right.

Lucia considers her free diagnosis here – I have to say, she comes off worse than me.

Cook ‘n’ Lew

Lewandowsky’s cheer squad in the moonbat media have been breathlessly proclaiming that his ‘academic’ paper Recursive Fury was withdrawn from the journal Frontiers as a result of ‘bullying by contrarians’.

Lew even published a roundup of all the hyperbole to save me the bother (thanks, by the way), the prime example being Über-cheerleader Dana Nuccitelli from Un-Sk Ps-Sc, who writes in an article entitled ‘Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper’:

Frontiers may very well be worse off having lost the confidence of the academic community than if they had called the bluffs of the contrarians threatening frivolous lawsuits.

Fortunately, several journals and organizations have stood up against this type of contrarian bullying. The journal Environmental Research Letters easily withstood the campaign against our consensus paper, and the Australian Psychological Society has been very supportive of Lewandowsky and his team, as has the Association for Psychological Science.

These groups offer a good example for journals to follow when subjected to organized bullying from contrarians trying to censor sound but inconvenient research.

This, together with all the other manufactured outrage from Lew’s hangers-on, has forced the Journal to respond, and it’s a massive slap-down for the Lewsters:

There has been a series of media reports concerning the recent retraction of the paper Recursive Fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation, originally published on 18 March 2013 in Frontiers in Psychology. Until now, our policy has been to handle this matter with discretion out of consideration for all those concerned. But given the extent of the media coverage – largely based on misunderstanding – Frontiers would now like to better clarify the context behind the retraction.

As we published in our retraction statement, a small number of complaints were received during the weeks following publication. Some of those complaints were well argued and cogent and, as a responsible publisher, our policy is to take such issues seriously. Frontiers conducted a careful and objective investigation of these complaints. Frontiers did not “cave in to threats”; in fact, Frontiers received no threats. The many months between publication and retraction should highlight the thoroughness and seriousness of the entire process.

As a result of its investigation, which was carried out in respect of academic, ethical and legal factors, Frontiers came to the conclusion that it could not continue to carry the paper, which does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects. Specifically, the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics. Frontiers informed the authors of the conclusions of our investigation and worked with the authors in good faith, providing them with the opportunity of submitting a new paper for peer review that would address the issues identified and that could be published simultaneously with the retraction notice.

The authors agreed and subsequently proposed a new paper that was substantially similar to the original paper and, crucially, did not deal adequately with the issues raised by Frontiers.

We remind the community that the retracted paper does not claim to be about climate science, but about psychology. The actions taken by Frontiers sought to ensure the right balance of respect for the rights of all.

One of Frontiers’ founding principles is that of authors’ rights. We take this opportunity to reassure our editors, authors and supporters that Frontiers will continue to publish – and stand by – valid research. But we also must uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects included in a study or paper.

Ouch. It also raises significant queries regarding the level of ethical approval for Recursive Fury if, as the statement claims, it ‘fails to uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects.’ Sounds like a fairly major ethical blunder to me.

I’m betting the journal had wished they’d never got entangled with the likes of Lewandowsky.