Comments on: Motivated rejection of stupidity

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 01:37:26 +0000

It’s the same kind of leftist brain dead thinking that would interview a selection of Palestinian activists to get a balanced view on Israel.

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 00:54:23 +0000

Yes that was my immediate reaction – “hang on, those blogs are alarmist perspectives not sceptical perspectives”

Or at least they are the perspectives that alarmists wanted to be revealed in the results.

I don’t recall any mention of the survey at Hot Topic, and if Hot Topic was selected from NZ (I have my doubts) then why not CCG?

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 00:48:23 +0000

Nuccitelli and Winkler tip toe around the awkward reality that Germany will need to build 10 – 20 GW of fossil fuel capacity over the next decade (along with renewal programs) if they’re to phase out nuclear power and then take the rather naive view that:-

“…we can only hope Germany straightens out its priorities”

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/nuccitelliGermanPriorities.html

Whistling in the wind in my view.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 00:27:58 +0000

ACM now reckoned the data used for the paper shows that more “alarmists” think the moon landings were faked.

i.e the complete opposite of the paper’s conclusions

http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/09/lewandowsky-data-shows-more-alarmists-believe-the-moon-landings-were-faked/

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 22:19:37 +0000

Lewandowsky is also behind “Shaping Tomorrow’s World”

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/

By: Alexander K

Alexander K — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:42:15 +0000

Obviously Lewandowsky and his colleagues don’t get out much. I can imagine the response to them broaching this topic in a public bar!

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:06:37 +0000

Cognitive Science Laboratories

School of Psychology, University of Western Australia

HOD Stephan Lewandowsky

Research Areas:

Computational Modeling

All research within the Cognitive Science Laboratories involves “computational modeling” of one sort or another: That is, we try to understand human cognition by developing computer models of how people process information. We are particularly interested in connectionist models and their application to various cognitive phenomena, in particular category learning and short-term memory. In pursuit of this goal, the models are first fit to existing results, and novel predictions of the models are then explored experimentally.

Category Learning

Category learning refers to people’s ability to learn to classify objects into different categories; for example, as children we learn to differentiate between furry things that are dogs and other furry things that are cats. As adults, we learn to differentiate between meaningful email messages and spam. In all experiments within this line of research, people are taught arbitrary new categories involving artificial stimuli (e.g., line drawings). The aim of these experiments is to tell us something about the fundamental way in which people acquire, organize, and revise their knowledge.

etc.

http://www.cogsciwa.com/

I have learned to differentiate between BS and non-BS quite early on. This was an important part of my own “category learning” development

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 20:20:28 +0000

Blogs surveyed (supposedly) as listed at JoNova:-

* Deltoid,
* Tamino
* Scot Mandia,
* Bickmore,
* A Few Things Ill Considered,
* Hot-Topic (NZ)
* Trunity (unconfirmed?)
* John Cook [Skeptical Science] (unconfirmed?)

Hardly representative and they missed at least 2 Weblog award winners.

Does prove that if you ask silly questions you will probably get silly answers but how this paper can be University standard is beyond me.

By: Mike Jowsey

Mike Jowsey — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 11:14:55 +0000

Yes, I’m still up, and I’ve got a big day tomorrow…..
My thought of the night is this:
This example of psycho-science-gone-nutty serves to remind us that it is easy to listen to the echo-chambers of our own beliefs or paradigms without ever seeking truly challenging points of view.

By: Mike Jowsey

Mike Jowsey — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 10:07:41 +0000

Further to my previous, this article is a real pearler (to put it in the Australian vernacular):

http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/08/climate-deniers-are-extreme-free-marketeers-or-conspiracy-theorists-lewandowsky/

Excerpt: It’s a tired old tactic – rather than acknowledge that there exists a spectrum of scepticism, the majority of which is entirely valid, this study is yet another attempt to tar all realists and sceptics as extremist fruitcakes.

Jo Nova does some digging on which blogs were asked to run the survey. No surprises there….
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/lewandowsky-shows-skeptics-are-nutters-by-asking-alarmists-to-fill-out-survey/