Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation

Stephan Lewandowsky1*, John Cook1, 2, Klaus Oberauer1, 3 and Michael Marriott4

    1Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia
    2Global Change Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia
    3Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
    4 Climate Realities Research, Australia

This article, first published by Frontiers on 18 March 2013, has been the subject of complaints. Given the nature of some of these complaints, Frontiers has provisionally removed the link to the article while these issues are investigated, which is being done as swiftly as possible and which Frontiers management considers the most responsible course of action. The article has not been retracted or withdrawn. Further information will be provided as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Conspiracist ideation has been repeatedly implicated in the rejection of scientific propositions, although empirical evidence to date has been sparse. A recent study involving visitors to climate blogs found that conspiracist ideation was associated with the rejection of climate science and the rejection of other scientific propositions such as the link between lung cancer and smoking, and between HIV and AIDS (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, in press; LOG12 from here on). This article analyzes the response of the climate blogosphere to the publication of LOG12. We identify and trace the hypotheses that emerged in response to LOG12 and that questioned the validity of the paper's conclusions. Using established criteria to identify conspiracist ideation, we show that many of the hypotheses exhibited conspiratorial content and counterfactual thinking. For example, whereas hypotheses were initially narrowly focused on LOG12, some ultimately grew in scope to include actors beyond the authors of LOG12, such as university executives, a media organization, and the Australian government. The overall pattern of the blogosphere's response to LOG12 illustrates the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science, although alternative scholarly interpretations may be advanced in the future

Keywords: Science denial, Conspiracy theories, conspiracist ideation, Internet blogs, Climate Change

Citation: Lewandowsky S, Cook J, Oberauer K and Marriott M (2013). Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation. Front. Psychol. 4:73. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073

Received: 05 Nov 2012; Accepted: 02 Feb 2013.

Edited by:
Viren Swami, University of Westminster, United Kingdom

Reviewed by:
Viren Swami, University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Elaine McKewon, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia 

Copyright: © 2013 Lewandowsky, Cook, Oberauer and Marriott. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Western Australia, Psychology, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, 6027, WA, Australia, lewan@psy.uwa.edu.au

Rider wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 3:04pm:

And your qualifications are? 

# wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 3:08pm:


Motivated rejection of idiocy. You qualify.

your peer reviewed nonsense has been seriously debunked and reclassified as junk science.

Seriously, you'd have to be paid to push this tripe, are you?

There are no conspiracy theories my friend just facts.

Like for example,

Quote:


Now about the moon landing did that really happen...??

Well between the Earth and the moon there is a radiation belt was the lunar module insulated to stop this radiation passing through.....??

Well it must of been cause the astronauts are still alive today.

The lunar module had a rocket propellant device under its fuselage as it descended to make the landing this rocket should have dug out a little bit of a crater directly under it.

But guess what no crater of any size to report of.

This would have caused a lot of sand particles to become air borne (rocket pressure) even though the moon has only one sixth of the earth's gravity, eventually all these sand particles would have eventually settled back down again.

If one looks at the lunar module after it landed it looks like the astronauts have taken a rag and Mr. Sheen to its exterior, its squeaky clean.

But hell what do I know.......??

Now where the twin towers demolished or did they fall in accordance with the official story the authorities gave.

What pulverises steel reinforced concrete........????

What can melt steel....???

You know we may not be as educated as you would like us to be, but we're not smacking stupid either.....

muso wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 3:38pm:


Dude you can jump up and down until the cows come home but thems is the facts.....?????........

muso wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 3:38pm:


and yet you posted up the video time serious of the artic ice melting as though it had some sort of credibility ..... but that's ok cause you believe in the 'cause' .... pardon me whilst I wipe the tears of derision from my eyes 

muso wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 3:29pm:
The fact that both papers survived peer review is good enough for me.

Almost three decades ago, I was trained in psychology. Nothing fancy, just enough for basic accept/undecided/reject triage of job applicants. Certainly not a formal qualification, by any stretch of the imagination.

I stayed in that job for more than four years and got pretty good at it. The ones I classified acceptable went on to the next phase: formal evaluation by qualified psychologists. At the time, the job market was such that we never got to the ones I classified undecided.

Feedback from the psychologists was that I  was pretty good at weeding out psychotics, but often let psychopaths slip through. Truth be known, even the best had difficulty with the latter. From a labour market perspective, the difference as it was explained to me is that, while a psychotic can affect the profitability of a business, a psychopath can destroy it. The purpose of all that expensive testing was to minimise disruptive (and potentially destructive) influences in the workplace.

Anyway, in Ajax, I recognise something familiar. That set me searching to find out whether anyone else had made the connection. Hence this topic.

The description of conspiracy theories as "self-sealing" is particularly interesting. Anything that contradicts the theory becomes part of the conspiracy. There's a certain psychotic brilliance in that.

The upshot is that, while one such on a forum is not unhealthy, there are too many here. I don't have the time or patience to play this game. I might drop by occasionally, to see whether the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Muso, if this was a workplace, my advice would be: RUN! As it stands, all I can do is wish you good luck.

Quote:


I know what you mean. Most people will at least listen to rational argument. He's a true faithful. No amount of logic will prevail.

# wrote on Sep 7^th, 2013 at 7:54pm:


Can you provide an example of a person who is in contact with reality?

what is reality?

You may be confusing a psychotic episode with a schizophrenic episode. Schizophrenia is a mental state whereby the perception of reality is split or torn (often confused with a split personality which is totally unrelated)

# wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 2:40pm:


Sorry #, can you link an actual skeptic website that uses the 'moon hoax = no ACC' argument??? Because I've never seen it listed before.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 8^th, 2013 at 12:14am:


So what are your thoughts on Ed Caryl's little piece Gizmo? Did you also cringe when you read that? How well calibrated is  your "sillyness meter" ? 

Do you agree with his point that the oceans are warming? 

http://notrickszone.com/2013/08/30/university-of-colorado-admits-radar-altimetry...

You have always struck me as being objective. Let's see if I'm right. 

... but I also think you're scared to think through every post objectively in case you're proven wrong. Prove me wrong.

Strangely enough the diagnosis of mental illness seems to be, to a large extent, geographically determined. The same symptoms are interpreted differently in different countries. They have some completely different ideas in the US for example.

That, admittedly was the viewpoint of one single psychiatrist whom I met at dinner once. I haven't really  delved into the subject enough to determine the validity of his viewpoint.

A few years ago, I completed a short course on cognitive psychology applied to the workforce.  That's about my limit.

Edit: Just found this. It seems that there are two main classification systems, so my psych. acquaintance was probably on the ball:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_mental_disorders
 

DSM Group (US): Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders

Ajax wrote on Sep 8^th, 2013 at 1:02pm:


I hope you mean Chimp and #. They're the ones arguing about whether you're Psychotic or Schizophrenic. I was the one who gave you the benefit of the doubt.

muso wrote on Sep 8^th, 2013 at 10:37am:
Conflating psychology and psychiatry is probably unwise. Though related, they're not the same.

My job was to detect, not to treat. In Ajax, I see some of what I was trained to detect. Psychiatry is more about detailed diagnosis and treatment.

We Conservatives quite like hard facts too. Brain food, old chap. The nutritional value of facts is considerably more than that of bullsh1t.

Relieved to hear that the truth is not a partisan issue.

Let me guess - Business and Government?

Ajax wrote on Sep 8^th, 2013 at 1:02pm:



You wouldn't like to rethink the highlighted bit would you??

muso wrote on Sep 8^th, 2013 at 3:03pm:


The truth will be what we progressives say it

Postmodern Trendoid wrote on Sep 8^th, 2013 at 5:59pm:


is

Ajax wrote on Sep 9^th, 2013 at 8:35am:


Hmm, so you are quite happy to let stand a comment about sand particles becoming 'air borne' on the Moon, which doesn't actually have any 'air', or other type of atmosphere ?

Ajax wrote on Sep 9^th, 2013 at 9:02am:


Quite possibly a small amount it might have, however, saying that the whole lunar landing didn't happen because you can't see that dust on the lander or see the crater on footage taken with Westinghouse Apollo Lunar Television Camera is as silly as saying the troposphere hot spot does exist, but is just invisible.

NONE of the reasoning you've used makes the Apollo lunar landings (all 6 of them) impossible, or faked.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 9^th, 2013 at 8:56am:


cheese particles 

Gizmo,  Now you know how I feel. Hey Ajax! I saw the Apollo 11 burn that started its journey to the moon.

muso wrote on Sep 9^th, 2013 at 5:00pm:


I saw it too muso, it interrupted the blonde & dagwood show.

My 2 cents is the landing and roaming around was filmed much earlier to take off.

The two astronauts spend most of their moonlanding time orbiting the Earth in the lunar module.

When the time came to show the world the US had indeed conquered the moon, Armstrong & Aldrin just popped the beta video taken of them in area 51 weeks before take off roaming around in the Nevada desert.

# wrote on Sep 10^th, 2013 at 8:57am:


Thanks i'll take that as a compliment.

I should have added.

Quote:

# wrote on Sep 10^th, 2013 at 8:57am:


Yes. He is really good at it. Does wonders for the credibility. I'm sure that your fellow denialists are really appreciative of your contributions.

Tell us more about the staged moon landing. Tell us about how the banks really have control of the Energy companies, and how the ocean is warming and is bulging outwards like Monckton's eyes.  We're all ears.

Here. Take as much as you want.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 10^th, 2013 at 12:47pm:


Correct. It's the main cause of it. I was referring to another previous point though.

Ajax wrote on Sep 11^th, 2013 at 8:39am:


Which time scale are you talking about? The last 50 years, the last 10 years, the last 2 years,  the period following the last glaciation or  the next 80 or 90 years?

It's not a trick question.

Why were there no stars in the Apollo Moon photos? Please tell us.

You didn't answer the question. Gizmo and I were talking about "the" sea level rise, where you were talking about sea level rise in general. You need to clarify what you mean.

Ajax wrote on Sep 11^th, 2013 at 9:41am:


No. What you are after is anything that you can use to support your conspiracy theories. It doesn't matter how much you simplify things. If you can use semantics to support your case, you will dishonestly use semantics.

For example, taking about recent sea level rise in the context of the last 50 years, I said that the major effect is thermal expansion.  You jumped on this and said that "oh well if that's the only cause of sea level rise, then we have nothing to worry about."

No consideration of time scale. No consideration of the fact that when temperatures were last similar to those of today in the Eemian, Sea Levels were 5 to 7 metres higher globally than they are today, and that this was mainly due to Glacial meltwater. 

muso wrote on Sep 11^th, 2013 at 8:37pm:


That sounds more like you, when you cannot defend the flimsy science AGW is based on you revert to ad hominem.

Quote:


Thermal expansion of the ocean is not a new phenomenon, its been around as long as the oceans have been around, and yes we have had many sea level rises & drops.

Quote:


Then why aren't they 5 to 7 metres higher today...????

I agree sea levels are rising but not at the alarming rate the alarmists predict.

Sea levels are expected to rise somewhere between 100mm to 150mm by 2100.

This is pretty much in concert with the Earth's natural cycle of cooling and warming periods.

The alarmists in order to scare everyone to death and quickly pass a tax on the air we breath are telling us some ridiculous figures for sea level rises.

The medieval warm period was about as hot as today yet we didn't see 20 feet of sea level rise.

When I first came on here you guys made it sound as though sea level rises where due to glaciers and the arctic melting.

Now its thermal expansion of the oceans.....

OK, so you don't buy the chemtrails conspiracy too.

Ajax wrote on Sep 12^th, 2013 at 7:41am:


Can you describe this natural cycle? (its periodicity, intensity etc)

what is its underlying mechanism?

(I wonder which scientific discipline and which peer reviewed scientific journals you will refer to in order to entertain these questions, and support your statements? I hope you don't cite Bolt and Monckton as authorities or the Peabody Coal Company)

800,000 years of atmospheric CO2, showing two possible projections to 2100.

Entering unknown territory.

As usual, you come back with an ad hominem.

Keep trying. Only 2500 climate scientists to go.

Specifically, what do you have a problem with?

Another flawed opinion based survey.

Ajax wrote on Sep 16^th, 2013 at 1:59pm:


A survey of opinions is worthless. A survey of papers is a totally different thing.

I know why you're concentrating so much on this bullsh1t survey. It's because you are clearly out of your depth on anything remotely technical.

Is this the original paper by John Cook that you're talking about?

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

You were going on about John Cook, and this seems to be the one as far as I can see.

Ajax wrote on Sep 16^th, 2013 at 4:36pm:


Well, you confirmed it was the right paper. I'll quote from the abstract:
Quote:



No survey of opinions there, it was a survey of peer reviewed papers. As I said, A survey of opinions is worthless. The paper you cited was just that.

What are you talking about?

muso wrote on Sep 16^th, 2013 at 6:13pm:


What ever dude..........?????



Quote: