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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Are climate disinformers like Anthony Watts more likely to tell lies?

Sou | 1:03 PM Go to the first of 4 comments. Add a comment


Anthony Watts, climate disinformer, writes about a study of students and nurses in India to question the academic integrity of climate scientists throughout the world. (Archived here.)  His headline reads:
Could this study on honesty and government service explain the EPA climateer fraud and ‘Climategate’ ?

Anthony doesn't mention Enron or any of the other huge scandals in the private sector.  He prefers to suggest that dishonesty is rampant among climate scientists.

This is the same Anthony Watts who:


etc etc

What a dismal excuse for a human being is Anthony Watts.  He goes to the extreme of inventing rapid onset UHI disease and global warming by Russian steampipes and when that doesn't work, he resurrects old wrong interpretations of stolen emails to "prove" something nefarious.  Is it the thief who was wrong? Not according to Anthony Watts. Stealing isn't a crime.  To him it's a crime to want to do good science.  I don't believe Anthony ever wrote about the real facts of the matter. His honesty doesn't stretch that far.  He either lies outright or is dishonest by innuendo or omission.

It doesn't take a research scientist to demonstrate the truism that climate disinformers have a tendency to be dishonest and unethical.

It doesn't take a giant intellect to figure out that if multiple lines of evidence from a wide variety of independent sources point to the same result, then that result is most likely to be correct.


PS The study that Anthony referred to is about students and nurses in India.  It is not reported in a very clear manner, for example there is no quantitative indication in the conclusion, merely a statement that "college students who cheat on a simple task are more likely to prefer to enter government service after graduation" without indicating how much more likely.  At one point it points to a small percentage:
Students who scored higher on the dice task (i.e. are more dishonest in this task) prefer government jobs. A one standard deviation increase in dice points reported corresponds to a 4.2 percent increase in the probability of preferring a government job.

Elsewhere it reports that:
Students who believed that networks are necessary for success were 5.6 percent more likely to prefer public service positions. However, students who believed bribes are necessary to operate a business in India were 4.5 percent less likely to prefer government work. Thus, it seems that reporting that corruption is pervasive or necessary in standard attitudinal questions about corruption do not consistently predict preferences.

Which tells us what exactly? That students who believe bribes are necessary in India are more likely to prefer to pay bribes rather than receive them?

4 comments:

  1. That's "Climategate" due to its similarity with the "Watergate" scandal, which revealed the appalling lengths that McGovern was prepared to go to.

    Eventually, it was revealed that McGovern, a Democrat, was even prepared to stand for election against the POTUS, the saintly Richard Nixon.

    Naturally, the President had to take measures, and due to Nixon's exemplary behaviour, it was shown that McGovern had been conspiring with known journalists from the liberal media to get burgled.

    I think that must be something like the WUWT version, no?

    I seem to remember a different version of events, myself, but WUWT universe is a strange place. I don't know how you manage to wade through it all, Sou.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I looked at the paper. They don't specify what dice they used, and they don't adjust for dice (most shop-bought dice are not fair). They also don't cluster results within individuals, so it's possible that a few extreme cheaters are messing with the model. It's pretty basic stuff to analyse at the unit at which your highest level of data is collected, not at the lower level units; if you do the latter, you need to use a model that adjusts for the correlation within higher-level units. They also don't adjust for the battery of personality tests they did ... I wonder why? And having a parent in government service reduces willingness to cheat. I wonder they didn't mention that?

    Also, everyone in this sample was cheating. And this is a "working paper," a classic example of economists publishing incendiary crap without having to worry about peer review. But I guess you can expect that, since it's on a govt funded website and govt is corrupt ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your forgot about the time he said he'd accept the BEST result no matter what....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Plus, he lied (and then admitted it) about my reaction to a slide showing a WUWT page at the recent AGU conference:
    http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/12/watts-fesses-up.html

    ReplyDelete

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