Ethical dilemma

UPDATE 2 [Tuesday 16 October]: Further research has unearthed the specific procedure for amending an ethics approval at UWA. It can be found here. It states, inter alia:

When would a new ethics application be required?

Should a request for an amendment propose a significant change to the procedures and ethical implications of a project, the applicant may be required to submit a new Human Research Ethics Application to the HREO.

In such cases, a new human research ethics project will be established with a new project reference number.

The amendments proposed in the email of 12 August 2010 would have constituted a “significant change to the procedures and ethical implications” especially given the approval had already been used for an earlier piece of research. The policy in force at the time of the amendment (see here) are less specific, and only require a request to be in writing, however, the old policy still anticipates that if significant changes are made to procedures and ethical implications:

“the amendments will be referred to the full Human Research Ethics Committee, which could request the resubmission of an application form.”

UPDATE [Monday 15 October]: The “first” paper – dealing with interpretation of graphical data – is in fact no longer “in press” but was published in the journal Psychological Science as far back in April of 2011. Abstract is here. The paper states that the survey was completed during February 2010, seven months prior to the request for the amendment. Note that in the email, he states: “I want to administer THE survey not in person but via the internet”. The truth is, however, THE survey had already been completed and the paper written.

The Freedom of Information documents received recently from the University of Western Australia (and discussed here) suggest that Prof Lewandowsky submitted a substantial amendment to an existing Ethics Committee (“EC”) approval, which had already been used for one study, in order to use it for the now infamous “moon landing denier” paper (see here).

The amendment was approved by an administrative officer in the EC in less than 24 hours, and I currently have an email in to the head of UWA’s Ethics Office with a number of questions regarding the conduct of the approval of the amendment. The text of the email is reproduced at the end of this post.

However, notwithstanding the above, I have spent a little time researching the Australian National Statement of Ethical Conduct in Human Research (which can be found here). The introduction provides some background to the Statement’s purpose:

The purpose of this National Statement is to promote ethically good human research. Fulfilment of this purpose requires that participants be accorded the respect and protection that is due to them. It also involves the fostering of research that is of benefit to the community.

The National Statement is therefore designed to clarify the responsibilities of:

• institutions and researchers for the ethical design, conduct and dissemination of results of human research; and
• review bodies in the ethical review of research.

The National Statement will help them to meet their responsibilities: to identify issues of ethics that arise in the design, review and conduct of human research, to deliberate about those ethical issues, and to justify decisions about them. 

In the introduction, the Statement discusses the basic principles which apply to ethical considerations in research involving humans:

[…] the values of respect, research merit and integrity, justice, and beneficence have become prominent in the ethics of human research in the past six decades, and they provide a substantial and flexible framework for principles to guide the design, review and conduct of such research.  

In section 1.1, Values and Principles of Ethical Conduct, we find the following with regard to “merit and integrity”:

Research that has merit is:

[…]

(d) designed to ensure that respect for the participants is not compromised by the aims of the research, by the way it is carried out, or by the results;

[…]

Section 1.6 deals with “beneficence”:

The likely benefit of the research must justify any risks of harm or discomfort to participants. The likely benefit may be to the participants, to the wider community, or to both. 

Section 2.1 deals in more detail with Risk and Benefit, and the following extract is from the section “Harm, discomfort and inconvenience”:

Research may lead to harms, discomforts and/or inconveniences for participants and/or others.

No list of harms can be exhaustive, but one helpful classification identifies the following kinds of potential harms in research:

• […]
• devaluation of personal worth: including being humiliated, manipulated or in other ways treated disrespectfully or unjustly;
• […]

The next consideration is:

Do the benefits justify the risks?

Research is ethically acceptable only when its potential benefits justify any risks involved in the research.

Benefits of research may include, for example, gains in knowledge, insight and understanding, improved social welfare and individual wellbeing, and gains in skill or expertise for individual researchers, teams or institutions.

The UWA Ethics Office web site links the duties of researchers at UWA to the terms of the National Statement:

The ethical conduct of research involving humans is governed by a number of guidelines and by legislation. In particular, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research embodies the key values, principles and guidelines for the design and conduct of human research.

The University, and its staff and student researchers, must comply with the principles and guidelines contained in the National Statement when designing and conducting human research.

Does the research raise questions regarding “respect”? Given Prof Lewandowsky is on the record, well prior to the research being carried out, that he was of the opinion that climate scepticism was linked to far-fetched conspiracy theory ideation (see here), it could be argued that there was a substantial risk of humiliation or disrespectful treatment of participants, given that it may be argued that the intention of the research was to make that link – which in itself is objectively demeaning (either to the participants or a subset of the “wider community”). Even if it did not reach the threshold for “harm” could be regarded at least as a “discomfort”.

The emails to “sceptical blogs” stated:

” … I am seeking your assistance with a web-based survey of attitudes towards climate science (and other sciences) and skepticism [sic]. The survey has been approved by the University’s ethics committee and carries no risks for participants.”

We will see what kind of approval the survey received in due course, no doubt.

What benefits did the research provide? Evidence that climate sceptics have a psychological inability to accept climate science, linked to an acceptance of wacky conspiracy theories? It would be easy to reach the conclusion that the purpose of the research was simply to confirm a belief already held and portray sceptics in a negative light, in order to make a political point.

This conclusion is lent weight by the close association between Prof Lewandowsky and the Skeptical Science web site, which is well known for ridiculing and demeaning anyone (including respected atmospheric and climatic scientists) who questions any part of the AGW consensus. Examples of the tone employed include sections entitled “Lindzen’s Illusions”, referring to MIT Professor Richard Lindzen, “Spencer Slip-Ups”, referring to Dr Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville to name but two.

As it turns out, there were only 10 responses out of over 1100 that either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the moon landings had been faked, and six of those also accepted the alarmist consensus on AGW. [In reality, of course, they were probably mostly fake response from “believers” wanting to assist with Lewandowsky’s effort – seriously, who in their right mind honestly believes the moon landings were staged? – Ed]

I consider that the above does not represent an appropriate benefit from supposedly impartial academic research.

I therefore suggest that the nature of the study, as understood from the final paper itself, would raise sufficient concerns regarding the criteria set out in the National Statement to require considerable evidence to demonstrate that they were not, in fact, sufficiently serious to warrant the study not taking place. The EC may, of course, have imposed special conditions on the approval, had a full review process taken place.

I further suggest that such a study, being as it was of a substantially different nature to that originally proposed, would require a fresh application to the EC at UWA, giving full details of the survey and the methodology to be applied. The casual email amendment to an existing approval (which, it appears, had already been used for another, different, paper) would be likely to be regarded as an inappropriate manner in which to seek ethical approval.

The email sent to the Ethics Office is as follows, and the response received will hopefully illuminate some of the questions above. If a response is not forthcoming, a further FoI request will be submitted for documentary evidence to show the what review of the amendment took place.

I have recently been provided a copy of the above document and various related correspondence via a Freedom of Information request to UWA.

 

I have some follow-up questions, which I would be grateful if you would address:

 

1. The original proposal provided by Prof Lewandowsky to the Committee in December 2009 related to a project entitled “Understanding Statistical Trends”. The approval relating to that proposal was RA/4/1/4007. It appears that the paper, Popular consensus: Climate change set to continue, follows from the specific research authorised by that approval. Is that correct?

 

2. Ethics approval for the paper that was the subject of my FoI request, NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science, was sought not by a fresh application, but by an amendment to the existing approval above. Please would you kindly explain why it was not necessary for Prof Lewandowsky to submit a fresh application to the Ethics Committee, given that the nature of the paper and the methodology to be employed was substantially different from the first?

 

3. Prof Lewandowsky submitted the request for an amendment to the approval by email to Kate Kirk on 12 August 2010, for which approval was granted by her by email the following day. What form did the ethics review of that amendment take?

 

4. The amendments proposed by Prof Lewandowsky altered the nature of the research to such an extent that even the Title and Aim of the research (as set out in the original approval) were rendered wholly inaccurate, since no amendment was proposed to those sections by Prof Lewandowsky in his email. Why was Prof Lewandowsky not required to make consequential amendments to the approval so that the approval was at least internally consistent and made some sense in the context of the new research to be carried out?

 

5. Is it considered normal practice at UWA to amend an ethics approval granted for one project in order to use it for a second, entirely different, project? If so, how is this abridged process carried out to ensure that ethical considerations are fully understood and examined prior to subsequent approval, especially where there are such wholesale changes to the original? If not, why was Prof Lewandowsky permitted to use this course of action in order to seek approval for the second paper without going through the full ethics procedure procedure?

Cook and Lew – best buddies

UPDATE: Take a look at this article [backup link] on ABC’s The Drum, from May 2010, which reveals that Lewandwosky had already made the link between scepticism and conspiracy theories well before his paper was published – he just needed the right survey to confirm it:

Why would anyone believe that Prince Phillip is running the world drug trade? Why do some people believe that NASA faked the moon landing? Why is the internet abuzz with claims that 9/11 was an “inside job” of the Bush administration?

Conspiracy theories are part and parcel of modern life and some people clearly find their allure irresistible.

…

Likewise, climate “sceptics” obsessively yelp at the alleged frailties of the surface temperature record and accuse respectable scientific agencies of “fudging” data, oblivious to the fact that multiple independent analyses of the temperature record give rise to the exact same conclusion. The further fact that the satellite data yield precisely the same result without any surface-based thermometers is of no relevance to climate “sceptics.” It is also of no relevance to climate “sceptics” that their claims about the absence of global warming are logically incoherent with their simultaneous claim that humans didn’t cause the warming.

…

The conspiracy theory known as climate “scepticism” will soon collapse because it must be extended to include even the macrolepidoptera, including the rhopalocera, geometroidea andnoctuoidea. Yes, the European moths and butterflies must be part of the conspiracy, because they mate repeatedly every season now, rather than once only as during the preceding 150 years.

I’m not planning on posting any more on this ridiculous paper until I have some more news on FOI, but I do have a few final thoughts.

Steve McIntyre is doing sterling work digging into the data in great detail. But my question is, why bother? It’s lending credibility to a study which had zero to start with.

Let’s look at the facts:

• Lew is well known as a vociferous critic of anyone who questions the “consensus”
• He’s buddies with John Cook, he of climate alarmist heaven Skeptical Science fame
• He’s previously published a lengthy catalogue of patronising articles relentlessly and repetitively attacking “deniers”, and often questioning their psychological health
• He has already decided that he can besmirch his ideological opponents by linking climate scepticism to kooky conspiracy theories, and designs an online survey accordingly [see article in the update above]
• Alongside questions regarding the effect of CO2 on the climate, there are questions about HIV/Aids, smoking and cancer, JFK, the moon landings, and a bunch of other crazy conspiracies
• He gets the survey published on a bunch of headbanger blogs, many of which have undisguised contempt for realists, and probably think that they can help achieve his unstated pretty clear goals
• None of the sceptic blogs approached publish it (maybe because it’s so painfully obvious to them what he’s attempting to achieve and don’t want a bar of it)
• 10 out of 1100 or so survey responses express belief in the faking of the NASA moon landings, a large proportion of which were probably faked by alarmists having a laugh…
• Despite the fact that six of those ten also believe the consensus on climate change, he submits the paper for publication in a journal with a title linking moon landing “denial” to climate “denial”
• Newspapers in the UK pick up on the story (Telegraph, Guardian) and in passing at the Sydney Morning Herald, making sure the moon landing bit features heavily in the stories
• Objective to portray sceptics as nut-jobs achieved

And as a postscript, when any of the above is questioned by the great unwashed, Lew labels that a conspiracy theory as well. Enough said.

Last word goes to A Scott on WUWT:

For the first time, in a now total 9 blog posts on this paper, [Lewandowsky’s] most recent story is more talk, less condescension and derision towards those who would dare challenge his work. Well OK, mostly, sorta less. It is a long story, with lots of fancy terms, initials, equations and descriptions.

In it he reminds us lowly unwashed masses that we are knowledge-less simpletons – merely “toying” with his data. That we couldn’t possibly understand all the important stuff real scientists like him know. Or maybe he didn’t say it exactly that way, but it’s just how it came across.  

He takes the long way around to re-tell us why skeptics are somehow conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landing, and (science), is fake, or something like that. I guess the parentheses mean because the answers to some of the other questions about science were true, that we can perform a latent variable analysis, and prove we actually DO believe in that fake old moon landing even though we said we didn’t. Or maybe not.

That’s this cool new idea he shares – we can’t just look at the simple answers to the questions – like whether we believe the moon landing was fake, nah, those 10 people don’t know nothing – they’re just noise. Nothing to see here – no one behind this curtain – now move along …

No – we must look to the answers of the other questions, to determine if we believe the moon landing was fake and thus are nasty old science rejecters. And motivated ones at that. Or something like that.

I think we’ve given Lew enough oxygen for now.

Lots of questions…

More on the moon landing denier paper:

• UPDATE: Jo Nova: Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions
• Lewandowsky names the five blogs contacted for the survey
• Climate Audit on moderation of comments over at Lewandowsky’s blog
• Climate Audit on “The Third Skeptic”
• Lucia on Lewandowsky’s questions for the blogs

I particularly like this bit in Lucia’s post in response to Lewandowsky’s third question:

3. Where do we go from here?

We read the contents of the invitations, note the dates and request copies of the other invitations and compare them. This will provide data to determine whether the method of inviting people was designed to introduce bias.

Precisely what the FOI will show. The University have advised that a decision will be made on 18 October 2012.

Lewandowsky, Rose and Oreskes

Yet more on the ‘moon landing denier’ paper from the buddy of John Cook at Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, who has a long history of smearing sceptics, and who devises a survey which conveniently shows that those who question the climate consensus are conspiracy theory kooks. Colour me surprised. Not.

The latest twist, according to Lewandowsky, is that the mere fact of querying the manner in which sceptic blogs were asked to participate in the survey is itself a “conspiracy theory” …

WUWT:

So explain to me professor Lewandowsky, how failure to receive or be able to find emails supposedly sent, without any other mode of contact or attempts at communication is somehow conspiracy theory.

If Lewandowsky sent an email, it likely ended up in SPAM. Lots of “take our quick survey” emails are spam these days. He should know better than to trust email as the only contact medium for something he deems important. Instead, he accuses us of being conspiracy theorists when we ask for proof.

Lucia:

I have absolutely no idea where anyone would get it into his wool-filled brain cavity that giving him permission to release information he claims to wish to release is evidence that I or anyone else harbor a conspiracy theory. I also don’t know why he thinks anyone would have egg on our faces if it turns out we are on the list. We are asking precisely because we want to know. Moreover, we are asking the information be shared because we want others to know.

I would also like to respond to his insinuation that we haven’t some how looked hard enough for the emails. I can only speak for myself, but I am happy to reveal why I am not going to look harder.

Conducting his survey may have been important to him at the time but it’s really nothing to me. I do not think its importance to him compels me to maintain records of our email exchanges for his sake. I does not compel me to burn email exchanges with perfect strangers into my memory nor to resurrect the hard drive which died in 2011 so that I can search for any emails he might have sent me in 2010.

As for me, I have searched all of my emails from 2010 with various search criteria, including old backups, and found nothing. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t sent, but it may have ended up in the spam filter, or in the trash. And for a time, my ACM mail trash was emptying every week for some unknown reason. So if it went in there at that time it’s gone for good.

Even if Lewandowsky does eventually release the names of the bloggers who were contacted, it won’t show the history of communication between the eight chosen sites and the five “sceptic” sites, or indeed any other sites that were contacted as part of the survey process.

However, the FoI certainly will, and will shows what steps were taken to secure the participation of any blog contacted as part of the research.

N.B. You can sense the contempt Lewandowsky holds for those who dare question his methods in the tone employed here. I guess he thought he could brand all sceptics as conspiratorial nut-nut jobs and we’d just quietly slink away and say, “Yeah, you’re right, we are nut-jobs”. And his defence mechanism to this criticism is to resort to childish sarcasm in his responses – as one commenter puts it, how “professorial” is that, professor?