Just plain evil: Anthony Watts and PopTech sink to a new low

I'm not surprised that the despicable denier, PopTech would sink this low, but I must admit that I'm surprised at Anthony Watts, despite all the slime that has come from him over the years. They are both effectively arguing that no descendant of any of the tens of millions of people conscripted to the German armed forces early last century, no matter where they live now, and no matter what their or their forebears' personal beliefs or politics are or were, has any credibility when it comes to climate science. Why? Because they or their ancestors "fought for the Nazis".

It is probably the most abhorrent use of Godwin's Law you can imagine.

Note: See the upshot below in the update.

On the recurrent fury of unethical bloggers and how Anthony Watts issues a correction

Anthony Watts issues a correction? Surprised? Yes, you should be. Anthony Watts makes too many mistakes and publishes too many more. If he corrected all the wrongs on his blog WUWT would be one long correction. He didn't issue a correction for the following that have appeared on his blog in the past few days:

• We are about to enter an ice age (we're not. 2015 will almost certainly be another hottest year on record. Hotter than the current hottest, 2014.)
• UHI caused last year to be the hottest on record (it didn't)
• Sea levels physically can't rise by a metre this century (they can and quite possibly will.)

Nor did he issue a correction to his article that claimed that global warming is caused by steampipes in Russia, or that it's insects that are causing global warming.

And has Anthony published an apology and correction to his false allegations that NOAA researchers committed fraud - here and here and here? No, not at all.

But today, he's published an article (archived here) that complains that authors have issued a correction to a paper. That's right. Not only does Anthony Watts almost never issue a correction for the errors on his blog that are made multiple times every day - he has posted an article complaining that some authors did issue a correction!

Anthony Watts publicly accuses NOAA scientists of fraud (again) - plus his "people go to jail"!

If you mistakenly thought that deniers like Anthony Watts might have some ethics or even a tiny shred of decency hidden very deep, you're wrong. In a topsy turvy and ugly article at WUWT today, Anthony Watts has someone trying to defend his appalling email to Tom Peterson of NOAA, in which he accuses Dr Peterson of fraud. Kip Hansen (archived here) tries to twist this into it being Andy Revkin who committed "a public journalistic offense". (I did say "that's gotta hurt".)

Andy Revkin wrote this after learning about Anthony's defamatory email:

Any notion that Watts is interested in fostering an atmosphere of civility and constructive discourse evaporates pretty quickly in considering how he handled his questions about that paper. Alternating between happy talk about rooftop solar and slanderous accusations is not constructive or civil.

WUWT's unethical use of the most vulnerable, denying them clean energy

One thing few would accuse Anthony Watts (or any science disinformer) of is applying ethics. Today is no exception. Unethical Anthony has a hypocrisy posing as "care" in an article with a headline:"The Ethics of Climate Change" (archived here).

He's using an article by someone called Bob Lyman** to pretend that letting poorer nations sink under rising seas is good for them. Once again he is hosting someone arguing that letting people starve from drought-caused famine, die from heat exhaustion or thirst, or suffocate under heavy smog, will be better than helping them modernise, survive and thrive with lots of clean energy.

Tasteless and ignorant at WUWT: A repugnant combination in denial of rising sea level

Anthony Watts sense of humour would not be shared by most decent people. It might even shock. Today he has copied an ugly cartoon that he said was posted by Rick McKee on Anthony's WUWT Facebook page (archived here). To save you looking, I'll describe it.

The cartoon pictures seven bearded men dressed in gear the colour of the garments worn by Buddhist monks, all wearing a crucifix around their necks. Bearded Christian Buddhists? The men are all kneeling in front of a puddle of water. Behind them is a large figure in black wielding a large knife and wearing a full face mask. That figure is probably meant to signify an ISIS militant. To the right is what I think is meant to be a caricature of President Obama, talking to the kneeling bearded men (I think they are meant to represent journalists brutally beheaded). Underneath is the caption: "I just want you to know I'm throwing the full force of the U.S. military behind stopping the horror of this rising sea level!"

The word "horror" is highlighted in red and underlined.

Anthony thinks this is funny. Seriously. He thinks the brutal murder of journalists in the middle east is cause for mirth and mockery. He put his cartoon under the headline and text:

Friday Funny – the horror of rising sea levels in context

As many know, Mr. Obama made some wild claims about climate at the recent U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement.

For example:

“The world’s glaciers are melting, pouring new water into the ocean.  Over the past century, the world sea level rose by about eight inches.  That was in the last century; by the end of this century, it’s projected to rise another one to four feet.

How the unethical Anthony Watts goes for the ethical Michael Mann

You might have noticed I've not written about the numerous Anthony Watts' articles from AGU14 yet. That's because there aren't any. From Day 1 the only "reports" from Anthony are two tweets - here and here, unless you count his latest Michael Mann bashing (archived here), which looks as if it was written before Anthony went to AGU.

At WUWT a day or so ago, the ethically-challenged Anthony Watts thought it's "hilarious" that Professor Mann should give a talk about professional ethics. Anthony doesn't have an ethical bone in his body when it comes to climate discourse. I doubt he understands the meaning of the word "ethics".

Yesterday, Michael Mann and Kent Peacock gave an invited talk: ED11D-02 Professional Ethics for Climate Scientists. It wasn't posted on the virtual options website, which is a shame because it's an important topic. Below is the description:

WUWT indulges in malfeasance

I don't know what Anthony Watts and Tim Ball think they are up to. Perhaps Anthony Watts is wanting to be added to one or other of the defamation suits against Tim Ball.

Today Tim Ball writes an article headlined: "Climate Science: Separating Mistakes From Malfeasance" in which he writes one lie after another in quick succession. It is a testament of the malfeasance of Tim Ball and those who publish his lies, like Anthony Watts has done. It's a gish gallop of old disproven falsehoods and innuendo and smear, all aimed at attacking climate science and climate scientists.

I know that nobody in their right mind would take anything that Tim Ball writes as being truthful. The default position is that if Tim Ball says it, it won't be true. Still, I do hope he gets his comeuppance sooner rather than later. And it would be great if the bloggers who promote his smears and falsehoods were made to pay as well.

No. I won't link to the WUWT article itself. The ugly little man is trying to rewrite history about McIntyre and McKitrick and Ben Santer and the Oxburgh Review of CRU and the IPCC, among other things. This is just to comment on the immoral and unethical behaviour of Anthony Watts in promoting the lies and smears that ooze out of the keyboard of Tim Ball.

Tim Ball is not even fit to be put on par with scum of the earth, like slime. Slime has a useful role to play, after all.

(I'm not inviting any comments. Click the links above if you want to see the real story, rather than what Tim's been lying about this time.)

No need for fury: Ethics and internet research

After all the fuss about Recursive Fury, I did some reading on ethics as it relates to internet research. There is quite a bit of material available. Below is some of what I found. These are from international literature and I'm not claiming they would apply in all jurisdictions.

The short answer is, however, that if what I've read is any guide, there was no breach of ethics by the authors of Recursive Fury in preparing or writing the paper, and none by its publication. (I can't say the same for its withdrawal by Frontiers. I didn't research that aspect however the behaviour of the "Chief Editor" did not come across as very professional to say the least.)

No diagnosis

Complaints about Recursive Fury were largely centred on two themes.  Firstly, that the study "pathologised" people who made comments.  This took the form complaints such as:

• diagnosing people in absentia as having mental disorders, - claimed by Anthony Watts at WUWT
• naming people in a science paper as having a psychological affliction without their consent - a similar claim in the same WUWT article

Yet the paper itself contained no diagnoses of individuals, let alone one that attributed a "mental disorder" or "psychological affliction". (Not that I've noticed Anthony Watts being in absentia, nor would I think too many people would consent to having a psychological affliction.)

No human subjects

Another objection raised related to whether informed consent was necessary.  Whether or not informed consent is required from an ethical standpoint, the first condition is that the research relates to "human subjects".  The National Science Foundation has a policy: 45 CFR Part 690: Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, in which it defines "Human Subject" as follows:

 (f) Human subject means a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) conducting research obtains 

(1) data through intervention or interaction with the individual, or

(2) identifiable private information.

Intervention includes both physical procedures by which data are gathered (for example, venipuncture) and manipulations of the subject or the subject's environment that are performed for research purposes.

Interaction includes communication or interpersonal contact between investigator and subject. 

"Private information" includes information about behavior that occurs in a context in which an individual can reasonably expect that no observation or recording is taking place, and information which has been provided for specific purposes by an individual and which the individual can reasonably expect will not be made public (for example, a medical record). Private information must be individually identifiable (i.e., the identity of the subject is or may readily be ascertained by the investigator or associated with the information) in order for obtaining the information to constitute research involving human subjects.

In the case of Recursive Fury, although some of the textual material came from the blogs of the researchers the comments arguably were not as a result of any such communication or interpersonal contact but rather were because of the publication of the "moon landing" paper, LOG12.  The research certainly did not meet the definition of "intervention". There was no venipuncture or any manipulation of the subject or the subjects' environment. Nor did it meet the definition of "private information".  The blogs from which the information was gathered were not merely public blogs, rather than private, they were much publicised public blogs and, according to Alexa rankings, were the more popular blogs in their sector of interest and, indeed, on the internet as a whole.  Blog owners did not require readers to log in.  There was no expectation of privacy. In addition, it is obvious from reading the blogs that many of the blog owners (and commenters) crave publicity, promoting new blog articles on Twitter for example.  One blog owner boasts of wide readership.

Therefore the complaint that prior consent was required fails before passing the first hurdle, that of "human subjects".

Waiving requirements

Given that the textual analysis did not involve human subjects as per the definition above, the following waiver does not apply.  Still it's worth reading.  This is from the same National Science Foundation policy:

(d) An IRB may approve a consent procedure which does not include, or which alters, some or all of the elements of informed consent set forth in this section, or waive the requirements to obtain informed consent provided the IRB finds and documents that: 

(1) The research involves no more than minimal risk to the subjects;

(2) The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects;  

(3) The research could not practicably be carried out without the waiver or alteration; and  

(4) Whenever appropriate, the subjects will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation.  

(e) The informed consent requirements in this policy are not intended to preempt any applicable federal, state, or local laws which require additional information to be disclosed in order for informed consent to be legally effective. 

(f) Nothing in this policy is intended to limit the authority of a physician to provide emergency medical care, to the extent the physician is permitted to do so under applicable federal, state, or local law. (Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under Control Number 9999-0020.)

A strong argument could be mounted that requirements (1) and (2) would have been met in this study and (3) would arguably apply as well. That's if the policy had applied to this research, which it didn't because the entire policy only relates to "human subjects".

Public vs Private

Here's a snippet from a paper by a PhD student in Sweden, which discusses the distinction between public and private in the context of internet research ethics (my paras and bold italics).

Without reducing the complexity of problems and previous arguments, it should be noted that the private/public distinction is a recurring theme in IRE [Internet Research Ethics] debates. More precisely, in online contexts, the boundaries between private and public appear blurred (Bromseth, 2002; Löfberg, 2003; Mann, 2003; Thorseth, 2003; Sveningsson Elm, 2009). This makes it difficult for researchers to assess the sensitivity of information and situations, It also makes it difficult to determine when research requires informed consent.

Attempts to solidify the private/public status of online phenomena have been made from various ontological and epistemological viewpoints, but arguments tend to follow one of two lines of reasoning: online phenomena can be considered public either

(1) if publicly accessible or

(2) if perceived as public by participants (Bromseth, 2002; Chen, Hall, & Johns, 2004; McKee & Porter, 2009; Sveningsson Elm, 2009).

According to the first argument, online phenomena are essentially public if they can be accessed by anyone with an open Internet connection. Moreover, public discourse must always be open for scholarly analysis and critique, and, in lack of restricted entrance, there is no need for consent or even anonymizing. The second and often counter-posed view holds that, though something may be accessible, the general public (including researchers) may not be the intended audience.

Researchers must therefore base their ethical decisions on a community’s purpose and participants’ expectations of privacy. Without taking consideration to personal privacy, researchers might instigate feelings of intrusion and exposure, or attract unwanted attention to online communities. My description of the above positions is, of course, a simplification.

In the context of the above, the material for Recursive Fury was public in that there was no restricted entrance nor was there any expectation of privacy on the part of people commenting.  Quite the contrary. An examination of comments shows that some of the same people posted their ideas on multiple public high profile blogs, indicating the the authors wanted as many people as possible to read them.  Indeed since Recursive Fury was published, some commenters have been posting their objections / conspiracy ideations on every site they can find which mentions the words "Lewandowsky" or "Recursive Fury".  (In some cases, so quick is their response that one might surmise they have a Google alert notification set up for these words.)

---

Rosenberg, A. "Virtual world research ethics and the private/public distinction." International journal of Internet research ethics 3, no. 12 (2010): 23-36.

Lewandowsky, Stephan, Klaus Oberauer, and Gilles E. Gignac. "NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore,(Climate) Science Is a Hoax An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science." Psychological science 24, no. 5 (2013): 622-633.

Lewandowsky, Stephan, John Cook, Klaus Oberauer, and Michael Marriott. "Recursive fury: conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation." Frontiers in psychology 4 (2012): 73-73.

Ethically-challenged Anthony Watts is seeking revenge, playing games with tragedy. How low can he go?

Postscript: And it continues...

---

Anthony Watts is not one to admit mistakes.  Nor is he one to let an opportunity go by to protest global warming.  Nor will he miss an opportunity to have a go at people who criticise his behaviour.

After a series of disgusting articles in which Anthony Watts slammed people, not for what they wrote but for what he decided they were going to write, he's now decided to dig in deeper and in a most appalling manner.

Anthony has doubled down on his dreadful series of Typhoon Haiyan articles and is wanting payback.  He's trying to get revenge on Greg Laden, who wrote that "WUWT Science Denialist Blog Hits New, Historic Low".

People will tell you that records are broken all the time.  Now, another record is broken.  That "new, historic low" has just been broken again.

Consider what Anthony Watts has done so far:

1. Super-Typhoon Haiyan "will be hyped" - sez Anthony Watts

He started his first protest article with:

Prepare yourselves for the second coming of Katrina, because you can bet that this storm will be hyped as an indicator of “global warming”.

This article was all about pre-empting any link between weather disasters and global warming.  The tragedy was just unfolding and all Anthony Watts was worried about was whether or not it would be viewed as a sign of things to come as the world warms.  In that first post he was also having a go at Heidi Cullen for goodness knows what.  All she did was tweet a link to a NASA article, which seemed to have escaped Anthony's attention at the time.

2. Super Typhoon is "another overhyped storm" - sez Anthony Watts

Next Anthony put up an article arguing that the unfolding disaster was being "overhyped".  Yes, the title of his article, if you can believe it, was:

Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda – another overhyped storm that didn’t match early reports

The WUWT article was arguing about windspeeds (which the media got from NASA JPL and the US Tornado Warning Centre).  It was Anthony and his guest blogger who got it wrong not the media.  But the real point is that while Anthony and his mates were arguing over wind speeds and saying the disaster was being "over-hyped", thousands of people had died in the tragedy and hundreds of thousands had their homes and businesses destroyed.

3. Adapt don't mitigate

Then he posts an article by Bjorn Lomborg, arguing that while global warming will make the worst cyclones worse, it's going to be "cheaper to adapt" at the global level by the end of the century.  Not only wrong but no consolation to the people who lost all in Typhoon Haiyan.  Ironically, in that article, Bjorn Lomborg was making the very link that Anthony had spent a lot of his blog space decrying!

4. "Global-warming-alarmist hype"

Then Anthony goes full circle and posts about the very same article that Heidi Cullen linked to in her tweet.  The same tweet that Anthony Watts complained about in his first protest article.  I don't think he knew what he was doing.  This time he and his guest poster were apparently trying to argue that NASA was wrong about the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential or some such nonsense.  And calling reports of the typhoon "global-warming-alarmist hype"

5. Payback time.  "An ethical challenge"?  Seriously?

Now, instead of admitting his errors, Anthony is trying for one-upmanship (archived here and here).  It is truly weird to see this sort of appalling behaviour from a grown man.  Anthony has decided to stick the boot into Greg Laden for being one of many who were utterly disgusted with Anthony using the typhoon to play climate politics.

What Anthony is trying to prove, and failing dismally, is that he is "ethical" and Greg Laden isn't.  All because Greg Laden called out Anthony for his appalling response to the tragedy unfolding in the Philippines and now Vietnam.

"It's payback time", thinks Anthony!

He is basically trying on:  "Look at me, I'm the good guy.  I made a donation of $115 to the Red Cross".

Who on earth goes and posts their donation on the internet?  Especially when they are doing it just to play games and get revenge?

Then Anthony plays the sympathy card: "One of my wife's relatives lost their home."  I have to wonder what his wife's family would think if they knew he was busy arguing over wind speeds while hundreds of thousands of people were in a daze, looking at their broken towns and cities?  What would they think if they knew Anthony was using their loss to seek payback?

I am getting more and more disgusted by the minute.  It's hard to comprehend Anthony Watts' behaviour.

Unethical doesn't cover it.

If Anthony Watts had any decency he'd stop posting about the typhoon altogether.  Or better yet, he would admit that his first reactions were way out of line.

He wouldn't be playing games like this.  He certainly wouldn't be playing one-upmanship with his donation or trading on the loss of his wife's relatives just to get revenge for someone telling him how dreadful his behaviour has been.

(If Anthony Watts just wanted to raise funds for the Red Cross he wouldn't be playing games with the tragedy.  All he'd have to do is urge his readers to give and provide a link, for those who can't use Google.)

Postscript

The above wasn't enough for Anthony Watts.  He still hasn't stopped behaving badly.

Lessons from a journalist

In the last couple of days a journalist has graced this little blog with his presence.  He was kind enough to give tips that surely will help any aspiring science journalist.

If you get an embargoed press release out of the blue - break the embargo.  No need to concern yourself about ethics.  More justification here.  (There might be consequences, but if you're an aspiring also-ran freelance journalist, who cares?)

An explanation of the journalist's job, with some examples: "A journalist's job is to provide information, context and analysis, not to just pass along information as if they're someone's message boy. It's naive to think otherwise."

Here is a brilliant example of "information, context and analysis".

Here's another example.  In writing about a study of scientific consensus, complain that it's not a study of something else - like providing the answer to life, the universe and everything.

The simple statement doesn't address questions like how much warming? What kind of warming (where)? How much are humans causing? How are they causing it? How well is this knowledge known? How good is the data? What are the consequences?

Very deep!  See?  Easy peasy - anyone can do it.  I'd caution that in trying to be controversial rather than informative if you miss instead of hit, you'll risk being seen as starting to head down this path.  For example, this is how the rest of the world saw that particular study:

IdiotTracker says it better - here and here.