Chris Mooney Spins Himself Dizzy Over Nisbet
What world is Chris Mooney living in?
In his latest attempt to spin the Matthew Nisbet report into something it’s not, Mooney is pleased to announce that this Miller-McCune “story came out quite well,” which extensively quotes him.
Well, I think the story on Nisbet’s report was fair and turned out quite well, too. How about that! We agree. Here’s an essential passage from the Miller-McCune article that perhaps Mooney should reread (my emphasis):
Nisbet’s underlying argument is not really new: that groups passionate about climate change should reconsider their own communications and strategy flaws before moving forward. What’s new is that no one has made the case quite this way before, with such a thorough debunking of the primary bogeymen “” and with such shocking data (albeit data Nisbet’s critics contest).
I thought that Emily Badger, the Miller-McCune writer, did a nice job balancing the criticisms of the report by Mooney and others, with reaction from Nisbet on what he considers the larger context of that criticism.
But don’t take my word for it. Read the story yourself.
Some folks have actually read the study and have presented their own opinions, rather than just blindly supporting Breakthrough.
Some folks have actually read the study and still manage to twist the results. Imagine that.
On what basis are you making your claim that I twisted the results?
On the basis of your selective discussion of the study here and at your site.
That’s not a reasonable basis for your claim. To reasonably claim that I twisted the results you would have to know what those results are, but you haven’t read the study. All you seem to do is make knee jerk attacks on its critics.
This my response to Nisbet at Chris Mooney’s blog:
Matt, it is disappointing that you chose to use an ad hominem argument rather trying to find out why your results differed from mine. It may be that we have different notions of what constitutes false balance in reporting, but that surley is of interest to folks interested in the issue “” seeing some of the articles that we classified differently would help everybody decide whether there was significant false balance there.
Boykoff (2007) covered a different set of years, so while it is consistent with your results, it’s also consistent with my results.
You say that you “control for the subjective bias of the researcher or the judgments of a single reader”, but all you did was have three students classify articles and test their agreement on a set of 45 articles. Their agreement on those articles was just 72%. But the agreement between my classification and yours could be as much as 83%.
How about you provide a list of the WaPo articles you classified so we can sort this out?
Tim,
You’re a partisan climate blogger who shares the same criticism Of Nisbet’s with a handful of partisan climate bloggers.
If I thought that you, Mooney and Romm et al were acting in good faith, then I would have read something along the lines of what Kate Sheppard wrote here at Mother Jones.
Like I told Mooney at that same thread, step out of your echo chamber. You might learn something, too.
Keith,
It seems to me that you’re being pretty hypocritical in this instance and simply trying to stifle debate by those you label ‘partisans’. In an earlier thread you said:
“Personally, I’d rather a person’s action, or blog post, newspaper article, or academic study be judged for itself and not on the basis of an inferred motivation.”
Well said, and I think we can all agree. However, above you say to Tim that you’re effectlively ignoring the criticisms that he and others are making of the Nisbet study because you question their motives:
“If I thought that you, Mooney and Romm et al were acting in good faith”
Has it occured to you that there are legitimate and substantive criticisms of the Nisbet report that aren’t simply the result of ‘partisan’ ‘bias’ or ‘twisting’?
“Like I told Mooney at that same thread, step out of your echo chamber. You might learn something, too.”
What’s good for the goose….
@8: “If I thought that you, Mooney and Romm et al were acting in good faith”
That comment is made in an informal back and forth with Lambert in this thread, and based on his zero acknowledgment that their might also be legitimate, substantive criticisms of the climate and env communities in the Nisbet report.
“Has it occured to you that there are legitimate and substantive criticisms of the Nisbet report that aren’t simply the result of “˜partisan’ “˜bias’ or “˜twisting’?”
Of course it has, and those have been made elsewhere in a fair and balanced manner–people acting in good faith. That has not been the case with Mooney, Romm, Lambert, or Roberts.
well Keith we’ll just have to agree to disagree then. I think you’re being hypocritical, while you obviously do not.
Abusing and insulting the folks offering criticism doesn’t prove them wrong, Keith. So far that is all you’ve done. I think we can conclude that you have no substantive arguments.
I find it bizarre that you would claim that comments here are part of my “echo chamber”.