A conspiracy of one?
By Stephanie Pappas
A study suggesting climate change deniers also tend to hold general beliefs in conspiracy theories has sparked accusations of a conspiracy on climate change-denial blogs.
The research, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, surveyed more than 1,000 readers of science blogs regarding their beliefs regarding global warming. The results revealed that people who tend to believe in a wide array of conspiracy theories are more likely to reject the scientific consensus that the Earth is heating up.
University of Western Australia psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky based the findings on responses from an online survey posted on eight science blogs. According to the paper, Lewandowsky approached five climate-skeptic blogs and asked them to post the survey link, but none did.
Now, climate-skeptic bloggers are striking back with a new conspiracy theory: that the researchers deliberately failed to contact “real skeptics” for the study and then lied about it.
The researcher is accused of malfeasance, not conspiracy. You can’t conspire with yourself. By any polling standards, this poll was a farce, and by any journalism standards Stephanie is a hack.