Da Lawyer!, Da Lawyers
On the coming Lewandowsky et al. vs. Frontiers (maybe, but don't put your bottom bitcoin down on it not happening)
Some, not Stephan Lewandowsky to be sure, have lost sight of the fact that Frontiers and the authors signed an agreement that was negotiated by their respective lawyers and the agreement specified the original statement accompanying the retractions
In the light of a small number of complaints received following publication of the original research article cited above, Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.”only for the Friday news dump to contain this amended statement on their blog
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.This, if anything is, a clear marker of the pressure that Frontiers is under from those unhappy with the paper being retracted in the first place and there are many of those. Super Lew (as opposed to the guy who scores goal for Borussia Dortmund this year and Bayern next) has just pointed out a few things to concentrate the minds over @ Frontiers
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.
This statement was the result of negotiations between the lawyer for Frontiers and a legal representative of the authors in the U.K., and it formed part of a formal retraction agreement signed by both parties. Although we disagreed with the journal’s decision, we were provided with sufficient information to understand it. Our position on the decision was shared by officers of the Australian Psychological Society and other organizations, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists.who also were not happy with Frontiers. Lewandowsky reports being contacted by several editors and authors who were unhappy with Frontier's actions. He pointed out to those who discussed the matter with him, that he himself continued to work on Frontiers projects, something that perhaps he will not continue to do. This case has a long paper trail.
Eli is not going to get much deeper into these weeds, you can obviously read all about it at Shaping Tomorrow's Future and other places, but perhaps the bunny will leave you with a Roy Spencer moment. Frontiers editors in their new justification for withdrawing the paper write
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.Recursive Fury is a report on the public response on blogs to Lewandowsky, Obenauer and Gignac. Now some, not Eli to be sure, might take this as a statement that Frontiers believes one should not identify those whose public behavior identifies themselves, but what does Eli know? Certainly it will call for re-writing a bunch of papers, no longer allowed are such as
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17 comments:
Ya hafta realize, Eli, that in many US states it's already illegal to complain about bullshit.
Our court system decided that the British East India Company et ilk is a person deserving protection from its victims.
It won't be long until the ag libel protections are extended to protect bullshit produced by septics, corporate and sockpuppet type included.
Gotta practice, I'm not cynical enough yet.
"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
"psychopathological"
Seriously?
Kind of suggests something, don't you all think?
Like an actual psychopathological classification system.
You know, something along the lines of actual classification of mental disorders?
Somehow I didn't see DSM-4/5 or ICD-10/11/CM/PCS referenced in the original paper.
I also didn't see psychopathological or pathological or pathology or even path in the original paper.
"path" only four letters, but a very important four letters, given their location in this 2nd retraction statement, and it's total absence in the original paper.
So did the purported authors of this 2nd retraction statement pass it (both the original paper and their 2nd retraction statement) before a practicing clinical research psychologist/psychiatrist?
Because no one in the current known chain of command at Frontiers meets the minimum criteria necessary to be making such a statement AFAIK.
Yeah, "psychopathological characteristics" may be a bit too strong considering the context, but we should bear in mind that:
> The term psychopathology may also be used to denote behaviors or experiences which are indicative of mental illness, even if they do not constitute a formal diagnosis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathology
Conspiration ideation can be found in the DSM, and
personality disorders still belong to psychopathology.
Quite simply, if:
1) a person who has no appropriate education/training/experience imagines that they know better than tens of thousands of experts in a field, and
2) those experts warn of profoundly serious risk to life, livelihood and general social and ecological security, and
3) the person in (1) not only ignores or contradicts said experts but knowingly and deliberately works to contaminate their message such that no action is taken, and
4) this lack of action consequently places at grave risk the life, livelihood and general social and ecological security mentioned in (2),
then I would say that the person in (1) is afflicted with a psychopathology.
But that's just me...
I'm not sure "being afflicted by a psychopathology" is a good way to put it, Bernard.
To go from psychopathological symptoms to psychopathologies can be problematic for disorders or simple traits, as the pathology is less clear.
The fact of the matter is that unless we can claim that conspiracist ideation is normal behavior, then psychopathological it is.
I, for one, would suspect that it's a plot by the conglomerate that controls the DSM.
Maybe psychopathological symptoms might include talking about yourself in the third person and using a stuffed animal as an identity.
Willard, can you point out where the DSM discusses conspiracy ideation as a form of personality disorder?
I know it can be a characteristic of certain personality disorders, but I can't remember it being a disorder itself.
A good friend was a reviewer for both DSM and ICD, and that means invited, not like self-nominated IPCC "expert reviewers." We talk about this stuff now and then.
I suggest all this psychopathology discussion is red herring stuff. It is trivial to find objective evidence of conspiracy ideation in blog discussions. Leaping from that to diagnosis is not something professionals would do, and Lewandowsky and co didn't.
Conspiracy ideation: psychopathology
AGW : CAGW
straw men
Now some, Tom, not Eli to be sure, might say that.
willard, Marco, John Mashey,
First IANAP/P or IANAPCRP/P
Having said that, I too can read :)
There is only one place in DSM-5 that discusses conspiracy, and that is p.90, Schizotypal (Personality) Disorder, Delusional Disorder, 297.1 (F22);
Persecutory type: This subtype applies when the central theme of the delusion involves
the individual’s belief that he or she is being conspired against, cheated, spied
on, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed, or obstructed in
the pursuit of long-term goals.
This is a one-to-one relationship (meaning the individual is being singled out) and can't be interpreted as applying to NWO conspiracy theories (e. g. global conspiracies) affecting the entire human population.
Under the same category we also see;
Grandiose type: This subtype applies when the central theme of the delusion is the
conviction of having some great (but unrecognized) talent or insight or having made
some important discovery.
Now perhaps we can all agree that the deniers do exhibit this symptom RE: Galileo/Newton/Einstein/Feynman complex.
However, this particular symptom has nothing to do with conspiracy ideation.
Mashey,
strawmen/red herring?
Well, if you've never been diagnosed with a mental disorder (DSM-IV/V), then, well, in so many words, just STFU!
I am tring to protect the group of people who do suffer from mental disorders, as a class, who do fall under DSM-4/5, I am not trying to protect a group of nutter bloggers (on either side of the climate science "debate").
I have now become completely tired of your anecdotal tangents and in general your tangents pointing to your verious PDF screeds/rants/manifestos!
Oh and stop with your own strawman above;
"It is trivial to find objective evidence of conspiracy ideation in blog discussions. Leaping from that to diagnosis is not something professionals would do, and Lewandowsky and co didn't."
I have never said otherwise.
> Willard, can you point out where the DSM discusses conspiracy ideation as a form of personality disorder?
Conspiracy ideation is not a disorder, only one characteristic of a disorder. Here's one place in the DSM IV where conspiracy thinking is involved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_personality_disorder
> [T]his particular symptom [in the DSM V] has nothing to do with conspiracy ideation.
Sure, let's drop DSM IV along the way.
Perhaps we ought to make sure that conspiracy ideation is at best a direct symptom or something like a comorbid trait:
> In a 2013 article in Scientific American Mind, psychologist Sander van der Linden of the London School of Economics argues there is converging scientific evidence that (1) people who believe in one conspiracy are likely to espouse others (even when contradictory); (2) in some cases, conspiracy ideation has been associated with paranoia and schizotypy; (3) conspiracist worldviews tend to breed mistrust of well-established scientific principles, such as the association between smoking and cancer or global warming and CO2 emissions; and (4) conspiracy ideation often leads people to see patterns where none exist.[53]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
***
That said, what I believe is EFS_Junior's main point looks valid to me. One does not simply provide online diagnosis on one's way to Mordor. Speaking of which, there's this one in philosophy that did not end so well:
http://lemmingsblog.blogspot.ca/2014/03/i-left-new-apps-when-blog-post-of-mine.html
We have empirical evidence that calling people sociopaths did not turn out so well. I don't think calling them "sociopathological" would provide much to ClimateBall (tm). Besides, as EFS_Junior says, we should also mind those to whom this kind of diagnostics can be helpful.
Ugo Bardi has resigned as Editor of Special Topics for Frontiers
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/04/climate-of-intimidation-frontiers.html
The piling on is very strong over at
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/04/06/co-author-of-retracted-conspiracy-ideation-climate-skepticism-paper-addresses-apparent-contradictions/#comments
The voting ratio is worthy of a Pharyngula-type pointer if he's still doing that
So Bunnies, go vote.
Just got back to this:
I wrote:
'I suggest all this psychopathology discussion is red herring stuff. It is trivial to find objective evidence of conspiracy ideation in blog discussions. Leaping from that to diagnosis is not something professionals would do, and Lewandowsky and co didn't.
Conspiracy ideation: psychopathology
AGW : CAGW'
I thought, at this blog that would have been obvious, but since some people did not find it so, I spell it out:
1) Conspiracy ideation gets plenty of study on its own only sometimes related to specific psychopathology studies. I've heard enough sad stories to sympathize. The first part was supposed to express a strong, informed-by-discussions with psychologists, disinclination to ever extend that to psychopathology diagnoses. From experience with reaction to a Skeptical Inquirer a few years ago, the AGW issue can sometimes bring out quite selective conspiracy ideation in people who were demonstrably sensible otherwise, stunning the SI folks.
2) Scientists say: AGW, dismissives invented CAGW as a strawman exaggeration so they could attack it.
The paper studied conspiracy ideation, people who didn't like the paper exaggerated that to psychopathology, presumably so they could attack that instead.
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