Monday
Apr142014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Reddit, dislikedit, deletedit
Apr 14, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Journals Stephan Lewandowsky is doing a two-day question and answer session at Reddit. The first day's questions were fired off in the great man's direction today with some eye-opening results.
As Jo Nova reports, Lew having responded to a Richard Tol question about data availability by saying that he was all in favour of it, Barry Woods decided to ask about Lew's own data, quoting the University of Western Australia's response stonewalling of an earlier request.
At which point Reddit decided to delete the comment.
Reddit, dislikedit, deletedit.
Reader Comments (21)
Brilliant.
Lewandowsky comes across as someone living out the dream of brutality hidden behind banality.
What a creepy shallow deceptive dude.
He wouldn't have had to ask multiple times if the data had been readily provided, as it should have been. Lewandowsky clearly knows it would not stand up to any sort of scrutiny
Troll comments and follow ups deleted
Anyone not realizing that we now are a bridge to far into political terroir?
Rhetorical questions (I'll go look for myself):
Who or what is Reddit?
Who owns them/it?
What claims do they make for accuracy, openness, fairness?
How do they select topics/guests?
Do they have an "ombudsman" or any other formal complaint mechanism?
Who is their audience?
Do they matter?
Nuccitelli has a second article accusing Frontiers of giving in to bullying by retracting the Lewandowsky paper.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/apr/14/climate-contrarian-backlash-journal-difficult-lesson
This time he goes further. In comments below the line he accuses Frontiers of lying.
Thought I'd mention it here before the Graun's lawyers get cold feet and pull the article.
Reddit is a revolting corner of the internet and anyone who does an AMA there is tainted by it:
Link
(Comment moved from previous thread.)
Here's what I felt like writing on reading a number of posts:
I probably won't do it this time. If three others were to join me I definitely would.
(Addendum.)
It's no surprise to learn, having felt this, that decent-minded comments - that assumed some decency in turn in those moderating, which I did not - were deleted. I think we should have this stock response ready for any thread where those in charge clearly delight to call us deniers. Every time such a statement is deleted the people concerned have a chance to examine their consciences (and we can keep score). We cannot afford to let the conversation in the coming years to be contaminated by this oppressive and deceitful label: we only take part when it is removed and repudiated.
[Snip - venting]
whatlysenkospwanedIT
hunter (Apr 14, 2014 at 7:08 PM ) you have it in one.
Now why should anyone wish to communicate with such a "creepy shallow deceptive dude."?
Lewandowsky seems to be hiding his decline.
he's busy telling he's a scientist in a pure political activism manner
In fact if you plough through this stuff there are comments on the issue, including links to the relevant CA posting and to the Barry Woods exchange of letters. You have to find comments by "steeplebomb". The discussion trails off in a rather limp discussion of UK libel law.
Junkie,
reddit is one of those decentralised things that evolves with the internet, like bit torrent for file sharing, or bitcoin for a deflationary currency with no central bank.
Ayone can make a page on reddit, anyone can post a comment and anyone can up- or down-vote a comment. So its fairly democratic - what you see on there is what the people who hang out on the site like.
Theres definitely no ombudsman - if you don't like something, your down vote cancels out someone else's upvote. so often you can get no useful information from comments on reddit until you scroll to the bottom of the page where the comments which lots of people disliked have been sent. that's where to find a few sensible comments.
Want to know what people think about this site, go to reddit.com/domain/bishop-hill.net and reddit.com/domain/bishophill.square space.com just don't do it for the guardian website, that's probably a bit depressing.
Oh yeah so the question will have been deleted by a volunteer moderator who is probably a 14 year old kid, wasting their own time by moderating an interview when they should be watching porn.
Over at the latest Frontiers statement, posted on Friday 11th, the editor Henry Markram provides further support for the complainants: "publishing the identities of human subjects without consent cannot be justified in a scientific paper", and "Science cannot be abused to specifically label and point out individuals in the public domain."
He has now added a further personal view in the comments:
"My own personal opinion: 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."
They did the same when Michael Mann was doing 'Ask me anything'.
What they meant is you could ask, 'Which awards have you not yet gotten?'
and 'Who else is a denier?'
There is a thread at WattsUpWithThat with lists of questions that got deleted.
I asked, 'What's the status of your lawsuit with Tim Ball. Has he paid up yet?'
I actually enjoy reddit as light entertainment. But the political correctness is smothering. As Rc said, it is quite democratic. It also skews toward 20-somethings. This means you get to see the results of decades of school and media propaganda. It's rather disheartening, really. It only takes perhaps 10 downvotes for a comment to be semi-hidden, and sorted to the bottom, so you do have to look for the thoughtful comments which defy the convential wisdom. Generally anything related to the environment, feminism, or the welfare state is indisputable, by reddit 'voters'.
Yet I also see some countertrends, discussion forums ('subreddits') where conventional dogma gets logically dissected and shredded. There are actually a good number of smart people there. Too many are wearing blinders put on by their education, but others have thrown that off and started to question vigorously.
If Lewandowsky was seeking importance in the world, he sure found a way to do just that.
I know Stephan wrote in psychological journals, I'm guessing about psychology, but ever since he became a climate scientist his fame and import has skyrocketed.
So if your chosen field of expertise is not progressing anywhere, become a climate scientist. It worked for David Suzuki; it can work for you too.