No Mrs Nova, you are not a sceptic.

Perth’s resident science (mis)communicator and climate change denier, Jo Nova, continues to display a complete lack of self-awareness by confusing “denial” with “scepticism”.

Recently she has developed a real dislike for academic Stephan Lewandowksy. In her latest venom filled post, she attacks him by cherry picking facts from his work:

This is too rich. Baa Humbug has found scientific peer-reviewed research that skeptics are more attuned to reality and better able to discount misinformation (!) but, oh the irony, which researcher makes this claim? The man with the fairy dust logic, Stephan Lewandowsky. It’s just a shame he wouldn’t know a skeptic if one sat on him.

I can see why she would find Lewandowsky’s work confronting, as his work looks at the psychological basis of denial and how people commit “misinformation” to memory as facts:

We draw three pragmatic conclusions: First, the repetition of tentative news stories, even if they are subsequently disconfirmed, can assist in the creation of false memories in a substantial proportion of people. Second, once information is published, its subsequent correction does not alter people’s beliefs unless they are suspicious about the motives underlying the events the news stories are about.  Third, when people ignore corrections, they do so irrespective of how certain they are that the corrections occurred.

Lewandowsky called out the denial movement on the ABC’s Drum Unleashed few weeks back, pointing out the paranoid style of their thinking. This prompted Nova to attack Lewandowsky in her usual style of half-truths, barely concealed ad hominem attacks and by reproducing a picture of a submarine. She also attempted to thread the needle of not offending the committed conspiracy theorists that frequent her blog by referring to 9/11 as a “building accident”.

Nova: classic example of quote mining

This week she continues her personal vendetta against Lewandoskwy by quote mining some of Lewandowksy’s writings in an attempt to undermine his credibility (see first link above). First she launches into an ad hominem attack:

Get ready, Lewandowsky has written the Guide to being a Skeptic and it has all the value of any guide written by The Gullible.

Take that pointy headed professor! Zing! What a wit that Nova is!

Nova does not need facts when her repertoire of one liners can easily dismiss her opponents.

Next she fundamentally misrepresents key points in an opinion piece by Lewandowsky on the site Online Opinion, in an article titled “A sceptics guide to politics“.

First, she distorts the point Lewandowky makes by selectively quoting [I’ll mark his text in blue, Nova’s in grey]:

Third, being sceptical means to consider the track record of politicians and specific media outlets. If their record turns out to be patchy, should you continue to trust them? [Lewandowksy]

The first rule in the Good Guide to Get Confused is to mix up the message with the messenger. You can spend hours going through someone’s CV, or their “track record” on unrelated topics, and never learn anything about the actual topic that matters. (This is the point that blows him away as a fake skeptic. This is Argument  from Authority — judge the person not the particulars. The first requirement of any skeptic is surely to look at the evidence, not the character of the messenger.) [Nova]

Actually Jo, he is saying use the media as one means to track their performance as a piece of evidence. Let’s look at the whole passage:

Third, being sceptical means to consider the track record of politicians and specific media outlets. If their record turns out to be patchy, should you continue to trust them? For example; then British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Howard thoroughly and rather glibly dismissed the famous 2006 Lancet study which estimated that more than 600,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the invasion.

Yet we now know that Blair’s own scientific advisers had informed him that the Lancet methodology was scientifically sound and the best technique available. Howard received similar advice from prominent Australian physicians. Does this indicate a good track record?

This is not an argument from authority.

I’m not sure Nova actually knows what an argument from authority is: it means do not accept the views of someone based on their position or status alone. She likes to talk about logical fallacies, and yet (a) does not appear to understand what they are and (b) can’t seem to properly identify them.

Logic sounds good doesn’t it Jo, but for fraks sake learn to use it. Please?

Lewandowksy argues that we not simply accept the word of Blair/Howard unless we measure it against other sources of information:

Yet we now know that Blair’s own scientific advisers had informed him that the Lancet methodology was scientifically sound and the best technique available. Howard received similar advice from prominent Australian physicians. Does this indicate a good track record?

Yet more quote mining and framing by the denial movement. A few paragraphs before, Lewandowsky actually says this:

Indeed, if there is anything positive to be rescued from the Iraq fiasco, it is the reaffirmation of the intelligence of common citizens who disbelieved their leaders’ statements and showed more common sense than their governments.

The entire article is about weighing up the track record of politicians against evidence presented in a variety of sources.

I’m not sure *how* Nova arrives at her conclusion, but it is a strange and twisted path.

A denier, is a denier by any other name…

Nova prides herself on being a sceptic, when in fact what she practices is denial.

When called on it she gets rather touchy. As we’ve said before, her thin veneer of light heartedness masks a very brittle personality. It’s worth remembering what Michael Shermer, one of the world’s leading sceptics has to say about Jo’s brand of scepticism:

WHAT is the difference between a sceptic and a denier? When I call myself a sceptic, I mean that I take a scientific approach to the evaluation of claims. A climate sceptic, for example, examines specific claims one by one, carefully considers the evidence for each, and is willing to follow the facts wherever they lead.

A climate denier has a position staked out in advance, and sorts through the data employing “confirmation bias” – the tendency to look for and find confirmatory evidence for pre-existing beliefs and ignore or dismiss the rest.

Let’s be honest Jo, I think this best describes your world view:

What sometimes happens is that people confuse these two types of questions – scientific and ideological. Sometimes the confusion is deliberate. Denial is one outcome. Thus, one practical way to distinguish between a sceptic and a denier is the extent to which they are willing to update their positions in response to new information. Sceptics change their minds. Deniers just keep on denying.

What evidence would change Nova’s mind that AGW is real?

None I suspect, as she repeatedly waves away evidence presented to her.

How do we know Nova is a denier, and not a sceptic: polar bears

We know Nova is a denier, and not a sceptic because she keeps using the same discredited “facts” that circulate in the denial blog-o-sphere and that have been debunked repeatedly. In the same post she peddles the old “polar bear populations are growing” argument:

Polar bears are dying out? (Even though there are five times as many bears as there were 50 years ago.

For the last time Ms. Nova, that is not true. Here’s the Sceptical Science article on the issue:

While there is some uncertainty on current polar bear population trends, one thing is certain. No sea ice means no seals which means no polar bears. With Arctic sea ice retreating at an accelerating rate, the polar bear is at grave risk of extinction…

A study conducted by the U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS 2006) studied polar bear populations in 4 Arctic regions. Currently, populations were stable in two of the regions while numbers were declining in the other two regions. The decline was linked to a fall in sea ice. Based on the projections of diminishing Arctic ice, polar habitat is expected to decrease by 42% by 2050.

Studies have shown declining populations of the polar bear. The United States Geologic survey has been monitoring polar bear populations in different areas and notes the following:

“It is very difficult to quantify demographic trends on the basis of only 5 data points (i.e., vital rates for the 5 yearly intervals from 2001-2006), especially for a species with a multiyear reproductive cycle that lives in a complex and dynamic ecosystem. Nonetheless, the intensive capture-recapture study in the SB region from 2001-2006 established a relationship between declining sea ice and decreased survival..”

The article from Wikipedia sums up a range of research:

“The effects of global warming are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear’s range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed.[115] The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant.[106] The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.[106]

Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season.[106] The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004.[106] Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%…”

I’d recommend you go to primary resources as well, and not take Wikipedia at face value. However it is an accurate summary of the research.

Polar Bears International, a group dedicated to the study and conservation of polar bears has this to say about their numbers:

In 2006, scientists reported clear signs of stress in the southern Beaufort Sea polar bears compared with 20 years ago, including:

• A drop in the survival rate of cubs.
• Lower body weight and smaller skull sizes in adult male polar bears.

The western Hudson Bay population showed the same signs of stress before its numbers crashed, dropping from about 1200 bears in 1987 to about 950 bears in 2004.

But really, what would scientists studying these animals in the wild know?

Polar bear populations are not exploding. If anything this magnificent animal is at risk.

Nova: a critical lack of self-awareness

You’ve heard a fact, an incorrect one at that Ms. Nova, and you’ve continued to believe polar bear numbers are growing despite the most authoritative source stating otherwise.

This is exactly what Lewandowsky was talking about Ms. Nova. That little factoid is lodged in your brain and refuses to budge. You won’t let it budge. You don’t want to let it go.

“But there are more polar bears! I read it once!”

Your’s is a perfect text-book example of Lewandowsky’s research.

It explains why we know you’re a denier, and not a true sceptic.