Bishop Hill Silly Sally psychoanalyst
Jan 23, 2013 BBC Climate: Sceptics Lots of people are emailing me about the BBC's Thinking Allowed programme (see here from 16 mins) in which a pschoanalyst called Sally Weintrobe waffles uncontrollably about "climate denial". There's some amusing background about Weintrobe here - she seems to be a rather touchy character and litigious to boot. It appears, however, that she doesn't actually think we're mad, although what she does think is a little obscure. As one reader who emailed me said of Weintrobe and her fellow interviewees on Thinking Allowed:
To be honest they're so painfully clever that I, as a mere Cambridge Uni Natural Sciences graduate, couldn't understand most of what they were saying.
No doubt this show was part of the BBC's ongoing commitment to "due impartiality" in the climate debate.
Bishop Hill
A transcript has been posted here.
Reader Comments (181)
I would encourage people to read the following article on a similar theme, and especially the excellent summary in the comments by Kenneth Frisch:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/a-reasoned-rejection-of-science-explaining-the-tragedy-of-data-to-the-experts/
Kenneth Frisch comment:
Geoff, I disagree about Silly Sally. She and her ilk are two a penny, and if she did not exist the BBC would have to invent her. Remember, Goebels Ministry of Propaganda could find any number of hate-filled sociopaths to peddle its message.
In my opinion the BBC is the problem. For as long as Patten is in charge there will be no change.
@Jan 24, 2013 at 11:32 AM | Paul_K
I agree, that is an excellent critique of the Dan Kahan paper and I think it also identifies the common problem of the climate psyche people, i.e. their lack of care of definitions. They always have an "ill defined" part of their analysis that on closer inspection hides a huge swathe of assumptions that makes their life easy.
As I've said before, look at the work sof Daniel Kahneman to see how someone guards against this tempting self-deluding tendency and then you see how lazy the rest of the field is. They are willing to submit to it and so reduce the work to the level of pseudo science.
Sally has been a very silly girl.
What about Susie? She is an Australian psychologist, whose reaction to the deliberate scaring of children about climate by the UK government a few years ago is captured here : http://www.rnw.nl/english/radioshow/kids-and-climate-change-enlightened-or-frightened
She doesn't get angry with that government, she doesn't investigate what they are up to. She doesn't challenge them. No, she looks for other ways to help the medicine go down. I wonder if she might like to join The Pollyanna School of Psychology, whose vision statement includes:
All will be well, we turn off the lights and stop a storm, we sing our songs, we drive more slowly and watch the floods recede, we skip and play, we walk to school and save a bear, we 'change our behaviour', all will be well.
A more detailed checklist can be found here: http://www.psychology.org.au/publications/tip_sheets/climate/
That checklist does need a bit of work though. Some of the terminology is mis-stated. For example, where it says environmental problems , or climate change, it really means climate alarmism. Here is an extract from the revised version:
We can all help such as Sally and Susie. They have been let down badly by society.
It’s not just Sally, is it? The hidden assumptions and ignorance of the nature of the debate revealed by Laurie Taylor in his introduction are breathtaking:
Roger Longstaff
I don’t disagree about the BBC being central to the problem, which is why I said “BBC producers, doctors, university professors..”
In normal intellectual discussion, a prevalent opinion in any one group would be countered by the opinion of another (see the “hard” science types here who rubbish “soft” social sciences). What makes CAGW unique is the way it’s been accepted by every single part of the intellectual / decision-making élite. Hence the many references to it as a religion. If Weintrobe was applying her psychobabble to drug addiction or racism or any other “problematic” behaviour trait, Taylor would be challenging her at every turn. That’s his job. But climate change is different.
The difference between psychologists and psychiatrists is one uses pills the other uses talking (Forget which). So what does a pschoanalyst use? (Even my spell checker doesn’t know what they are). My guess would be using a semester of Stats to prove your point.
Not a helpful post I am afraid. Starts with name calling in the title and sets the tone for the comments. Coud not see much of an attempt at trying to understand. Instead "she is not a scientist haha". Talk about psychological coping mechanisms is so mainstream nowadays that this post looks out of touch with reality. Has Weintraub hit a nerve in this tribe?
"The Question is: "Why is knowledge of climate reality so resisted?""
Because it's a crock? Just a guess, mind.
Reiner:
Would you care to explain what Sally Weintrobe is saying in her video reading of her paper?
@ReinerGrundmann - So I assume you agree with everything she says then? or did you jump straight to the comments without even listening?
Perhaps it is time to update the old joke:
"Neurotics build castles in the air.
Psychotics live in them.
Psychiatrists charge the rent."
Climate changeologists are the estate agents.
@Jan 24, 2013 at 12:56 PM | @ReinerGrundmann
I don’t know, who’s Weintraub? ;)
Your lack of precision at this level of detail together with this passive voiced:
doesn't persuade me that you've spent any time really trying to see anything here.
Lots of things that are mainstream attract charlatans that try to hide within the mainstream, it is best to be aware of this possibility and look out for them I think.
It seems you are one of those who merely accept people who self identify as being part of the “mainstream” and consider any further analysis of their claim as being “out of touch with reality”.
How convenient.
Tell me, which part of the mainstream do you hide in Reiner? ;)
@Reiner Grundmann
'Not a helpful post I am afraid'
Why do you think a post need be 'helpful'? And how do you define 'helpful'?
Forgot to add that discussion of psychological coping mechanisms is so mainstream now that they speak of little else on my bus.
Overheard this morning
'Hi Wayne. How are your psychological coping mechanisms today?
'Hi Darren. Are you taking the p**s coz Chelsea couldn't beat those f....g Taffies last night?'
'Up the Arsenal!'
'And up you your ar** as well, bloody Gooner'
I think that Prof. Grundman perfectly illustrates the gap between academics and reality. Our concepts of 'mainstream' are so far removed as to be totally disjoint.
Reiner
I wondered about the title and decided to leave it. She uses the d-word after all and, let's face it, she does talk a lot of nonsense.
I wonder if she has any idea what sceptics actually believe or on what basis they believe it?
Weiner Grundmann
It’s Weintrobe, not Weintraub. A minor lapsus, but significant, I’m sure you’ll agree.
We’re not all anti-psy here. My own psychoanalyst saw clearly that my obsessive interest in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming was a resistance to treatment. She shrugged off cagw as mass hysteria and recommended I do the same. As you can see, I’m still resisting treatment.
I do recommend that readers here transcribe some of the wonderful audio and video material which His Grace digs up. Not just because it’s unfair to leave it all up to Alex Cull (who will put it up at his excellent mytranscriptbox site), but because the act of transcription gives you such an insight into what’s going on behind the spoken word.
Laurie Taylor is a forceful personality and no fool, and he quickly realises that his two interviewees are a couple of muddled wimps, and he’s going to have to conduct the discussion with a very firm hand. Despite his best efforts to keep the conversation at a reasonable intellectual level, it quickly becomes evident that the professor and the psychoanalyst are a pair of barking mad eco-loons capable only of gibbering incoherently.
Who is the most to be feared in this outburst of mass hysteria?
I’m sure Sally Weintrobe would agree with me that Doctor Ben Santer (who wants to beat his rivals up) and Professor Phil Jones (who wishes them dead) are the most healthy psychologically, since they are the most in touch with their emotions. Hoggart and Weintrobe are clearly fragile, and may be classified as useful idiots, as Roger Longstaff notes. Laurie Taylor is the most worrying case, since he combines a considerable intellect and apparent psychological normality with the ability to share the beliefs of the other two groups - the intelligent psychopaths and the deluded neurotics.
Not Banned yet
"Entropic - you'd have to be in denial to read the climategate emails and not see evidence of conspiracy."
I was thrown off Wattsupwiththat for presenting documentary evidence of a chain of finance leading from Anthony Watts, back through the Heartland Foundation to Exxon Mobil.
Similar chains can be found linking scientists like the Ido family , Senator Inhofe and a variety of other active sceptics to the fossil fuel lobby.
Hacked e-mails are released at politically convenient moments for the sceptics.
The same propoganda memes come from a wide variety of websites, bloggers and media. If there is not a sceptic conspiracy or movement, all these independant activists show a remarkable level of coo-ordination.
Pot and kettke, sir.
Well, I went looking for Sally's email in order to invite her to the next Oxford Pub Meet, where she would be able to help a bunch of people who are not worried by climate change. I counldn't find it, so unless someone can pass it to me via the Bish we must go unfixed.
However, I did find she is closely associated with ecopsychoanalysis, which 'branch of science' has a website. Here is something I found on the about page. It is so precious I thought I just had to share it:
Was I wrong?
Rhoda
ROFL!
"The Question is: "Why is knowledge of climate reality so resisted?"
A clear indication that the writer has no idea what she is talking about. A major issue for many skeptics is that the reality doesn't match the catastrophic models or the "sky is falling " banner headlines.
“I went looking for Sally's email in order to invite her to the next Oxford Pub Meet..”
The Lemmings Famous Last Words.Don’t do it Rhoda. It might be catching.
Sometime I get angry at myself for trying to take these people seriously.
Reiner (sorry I called you Weiner. My lapsus in order to refute those here who believe that Freud was a fraud). Come back and tell us why we should listen to this stuff.
Excellent discovery, rhoda!
As I noted earlier, these people do need help.
An evening at the pub might well make a good start, and enticing them there by inviting them to help 'a bunch of people who are not worried by climate change' is just perfect.
@entropic
'I was thrown off Wattsupwiththat for presenting documentary evidence of a chain of finance leading from Anthony Watts, back through the Heartland Foundation to Exxon Mobil'
So where else did you publish it? Let us all have a look and judge.
@entropic
'The same propoganda memes come from a wide variety of websites, bloggers and media'
Evidence surely that the holes in the CAGW case are so obvious that they occur simultaneously to a lot of independent thinking people? And that people read each others postings.
Why do you need to invoke a 'conspiracy'?
Ever hear of Ockham's razor?
@Rhoda
Re 'Ecopsychoanalysis'
Does Private Eye still publish Pseuds Corner? Surely a shoo-in for that.
Not an encouraging welcome to my Nottingham colleague Reiner for what I think is his first venture to BH.
Having said that, the irony is that the real 'psychological coping mechanism' is that employed by Sally Weintrobe and many other blinkered activists. They can only rationalise the fact that some people don't share their views by supposing that such people must be suffering from psychological disorder. I think she's the one out of touch with reality.
Rhoda, your example is good but in fact almost everything she said in the programme was in that style.
If Reiner or anyone else can translate what she was saying into english, that would be helpful.
@paul matthews
I think we ought to be able to assume that a full Professor at one of the UK's leading universities should be more than capable of vigorously arguing his corner with a bunch of interested amateurs
If he cannot do even that, then he's not worthy of the title.
Email found, invitation sent.
Latimer
"Pseuds Corner"
My thought exactly - I will forward to Lord Gnome directly.
Interesting flurry of excited comments. Please make up your mind: either Weintrobe is obscure or wrong. You can't have it both ways.
You seem to hear the following message: there is climate denial, and those who are denying need mental treatment. I don't think this is her message. Could it be that she has something to say? You do not even consider the possibility. Speaking of groupthink...
Having said that, I do not agree with everything she says. I posted on Klimazwiebel about it and could do so in more detail but at present I doubt there is much interest on this blog.
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/coming-out-about-climate-change.html
Latimer Adler
'I was thrown off Wattsupwiththat for presenting documentary evidence of a chain of finance leading from Anthony Watts, back through the Heartland Foundation to Exxon Mobil'
So where else did you publish it? Let us all have a look and judge."
Better not. Look what happened last time.
Better not.
jamesp
Ian Hislop, Editor of Private Eye, famously told Eye founder Chris Booker that global warming was real, because he’d talked to George Monbiot about it, “..and he know a lot more about it than you.”
So if Pseuds Corner publishes it, it would be a major step forward, equivalent to getting social scientist Laurie Taylor to admit that he has absolutely no grounds for saying that “the earth which sustains us is undergoing changes in which we’re all implicated”.
Reiner
Weintrobe is muddled, that is to say obscure and wrong at the same time. She’s not alone. Many, possibly the majority, of people in her social milieu are just as muddled as she is. The don’t disagree with each other. They can’t even conceive of the possibility of disagreeing with the underlying preconceptions of CAGW.
Compare that with what happens here, where we disagree continually, about the role of marxism, conspiracy, groupthink, psychoanalysis, scientific ignorance, lack of sense of humour, to name just a few of the subjects which have come up on this thread alone.
CAGW is groupthink. Throwing the accusation back is not a good debating tactic. Explain why you think our criticism of Sally and Laurie and Paul is invalid.
@reiner grundmann
Forgive me saying so but your remarks so far are nothing but a failed attempt at an Ivory Tower Academic cop out.
You say
'You seem to hear the following message: there is climate denial, and those who are denying need mental treatment. I don't think this is her message.'
I note that you claim to have an idea what her message is, but have not felt able to share it with us.
Then you refer us to your post at Klimazwiebel.. I have read this too, and - apart from a short quote from Ms Weintrobe - it leads us no further forward in our quest for understanding just what on earth she does mean.
As another commentator has already asked, please therefore translate her remarks into English so that we can all understand them.
Otherwise I'm beginning to wonder whether the unpleasant odour in my study is indeed Le Pong from Rouen but might instead be the BS from the school of ecopsychoanalysis.
Have a look at Reiner's article at klimazwiebel, particularly for the interesting exchange in the comments with Jonathan Jones.
Reiner, if you know Mrs Weintrobe plase pass on the invitation to the pub meet. Perhaps you'd like to come too, and meet Jonathan Jones, if he is there?
@geoff chambers
'Compare that with what happens here, where we disagree continually, about the role of marxism, conspiracy, groupthink, psychoanalysis, scientific ignorance, lack of sense of humour, to name just a few of the subjects which have come up on this thread alone. '
Oh no we don't!
Laurie Taylor's into:
"... the editor of this new book Sally Weintrobe argues in her introduction, it’s increasingly clear that understanding human responses to climate change is just as important, if not more important, than understanding climate change itself. The question is: why is knowledge of climate reality so resisted?"
There are differing opinions of what psychoanalysis is for - how do we know when it has worked and enabled a person to get on with a better life? And, of course, what constitutes a 'better life'.
One description suggests that separating an experienced reality from an 'as if' one allows a person to more fully participate with what life has to offer. That is to say, responding to something 'as' real, rather than responding to something 'as if' it were real, is to distinguish between the fact of an object and the fantasy we imbue it with - and, by doing so, we are able to have more meaningful and fulfilling relationships with our surroundings (or environment).
If this description has any value, we can see from the introduction to Sally Weintrobe's book that she is, in fact, positing exactly the opposite. Sally wonders how she might undo this separation and get humans to act 'as if' climate change is a 'reality'. From clinical experience, she will know that people acting 'as if' something is real (in the absence of any usable evidence that it is) are the people most open to manipulation, control, fear and confusion (that is, the people whose life is so incapacitated that they might seek psychoanalytic help).
Sally goes to great lengths inverting all the psychoanalytic knowledge she has acquired - both to invert what constitutes psychic health, as well as to clothe her effort in doing so with some semblance of academic credibility.
Ultimately, she is raiding and abusing her field of study in order to seek justification for the abuse of human beings.
"It might be catching"
OMG I've caught it! Now I REALLY want to know what this means:
"Ecopsychoanalysis should not be seen as a theory, more a concept or toolbox which falls into streams of thought, folding and unfolding on a plane of immanent becomings, a set of circumstances at a volatile juncture, a point of application of force moving through space, an energetic location which fuels the act of understanding helping us to take lines of flight. Dreaming at the precipice, we have the opportunity to develop a more open vision of ourselves, as subjects, as societies, and as a species among the interconnected life systems of the earth"
If I could understand this maybe I could understand what all the warmists are banging on about. Please help, anybody....
Jan 24, 2013 at 3:15 PM | @ReinerGrundmann
Interesting lack of engagement with specifics there. Who is the "you" who is contradicting itself? And what is that "you" contradicting itself upon?
It seems you find it easy to aggregate every one here into a "you" in order to deal with in a supercilious way. Clearly a coping technique.
Making up a subject is a coping technique. See Weintrobe in the Guardian article
Etc, Of course there is no evidence that this anxiety is prevalent enough to make it worthy of study, but testing that point would obviously take away the support from this whole pillar of pseudo analysis so lets not check that too deeply eh? Let's go straight to pontificating about all the disavowal you see going on because that can be the only explanation for the existence of all the people don't behave and speak exactly like you do.
Speaking of groupthink... ;)
An incredible realm of solipsism and projection that will obviously happily keep trundling along in its subsidised background. Knowing of its existence I can't help despising the pretensions, self deluded or not, of the whole practice but the rest of the time I can forget about it and not care. ;)
In short I can see there is no obvious practical use of this field except self sustain pseud academic posturing. Unless Grundmann could answer one of "you"s who has asked to explicate what exactly Weintrope is saying and say what he think she offers?
Who's anxiety is in need of this crappy therapy?
Or are you just going to tell us that we don't know we are anxious - it manifests itself in strange ways? ;)
Latimer Adler
'I was thrown off Wattsupwiththat for presenting documentary evidence of a chain of finance leading from Anthony Watts, back through the Heartland Foundation to Exxon Mobil'
So where else did you publish it? Let us all have a look and judge."
---------------------------------
Better not. Look what happened last time.
Better not.
Jan 24, 2013 at 3:19 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic Man
---------------------------
Entropic Man, Tallbloke has previously offered you a guest post on his blog to present evidence of experimental results you claimed. How is that going?
@entropic man
Let's see if I understand this correctly.
You claim to have direct evidence of some misdeeds by popular WUWT blogista Anthony Watts.
You clam that you tried to present it at WUWT but were rebuffed. So far nothing too implausible about your story..
But now, despite there being a cornucopia of obscure alarmist websites that would give their eye teeth for such a scoop, and having already summoned the cojones to confront the Big Beast himself you've suddenly gone all bashful on us?
In case your natural modesty has overwhelmed you, try the Gavin and Mikey show. Or John the Oz cartoonist. And Greg Laden certainly ain't a Watts-o-Phile right now. Or even our obscurest blogger ever - Martin Lack - single handed demolisher of every sceptic (or not). He might be civil to you for at least half an hour for such juicy copy.
Action this day Entropy old boy - Publish and be Damned!
Reiner
I gather you're a professor of sociology - and therefore presumably proficient in the application of both language and logic, but I can't see any sense in this statement.
People who are wrong are very often obscure as well - usually because they have arrived at their ideas by muddled thinking. Sometimes they're deliberately obscure because they have a notion that their ideas might not stand up to the cold light of clarity.
Whilst you're here, can you explain exactly what a Professor of Science & Technology Studies in a Faculty of Social Sciences does?
Many of us here spent our careers as scientists and engineers doing actual science & engineering - and I'm sure there must be others as well as I who would like to understand your role in the field.
Reiner:
You say: "Please make up your mind: either Weintrobe is obscure or wrong. You can't have it both ways."
Are you suggesting that someone cannot both be obscure and wrong? The colloquial expression, "baffling them with bs" suggests that one could even be obscure so as to avoid being shown to be wrong.
Can you point to a relevant Weintrobe article that is not behind a paywall or in a very expensive book? I found listening to her extremely hardwork.
Geoff
I'm not going to tell him it has anything to do with GW - he'll have to work that out by himself, and I doubt he comes here very often.. :-)
It's a shame he has such warmist blinkers (aided and abetted by Mrs H, I believe) as it's subject that PE would tear to pieces normally. They do have a 'keeping the lights on' column, though, so maybe there's some hope.
Bernie
"one could even be obscure so as to avoid being shown to be wrong"
Indeed. I imagine that being wrong is a regular path to obscurity.. :-)
I just finished reading "berlin diary 1934 - 1941" by a interesting broadcaster Shirer (1942). The propaganda war described on a day to day basis ( he has apparently been there) reminds me of the positions currently taken by the "Global Warmistas". It is amazing to see how facts or in "scientific" terms data are being squeezed into arguments to counter act other arguments. As I said before often in total "denial" of the obvious facts. Humanity despite all its wriggling has stayed the same.
Bernie, following the klimazwiebel link, you can find the Weintrobe book on Amazon and read 6 pages of her introduction. The two pages on climate science cite top climate scientist Bill McKibben three times, interspersed with remarks about daffodils and an unfortunate gentleman who was eaten by a tiger.
You can also see from the list of chapter contributors what a wide spectrum of expert views she has chosen for her book, from Clive Hamilton to Bob Ward.
@Jan 24, 2013 at 5:07 PM | Paul Matthews
LOL. That reminds me of the famous Dorothy Parker review of Katharine Hepburn: "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B" :)