I’ve been waiting to get some confirmation on this since yesterday , and now that I have it, I can state that the link to the second Lew paper Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation By Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook of “Sceptical Science” has been disconnected from normal public access at the abstract. The abstract remains, but the paper and supplementary info links on the abstract page have been taken out.

Retraction Watch writes:

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That study was published in Frontiers in Personality Science and Individual Differences. But yesterday, that paper — or at least everything but the abstract – disappeared. It turns out this is the second time that’s happened. The paper was first removed on February 6, just days after it was accepted and published, because of complaints from a blogger named Jeff Condon, and since reposted — at least until yesterday.

We asked journal editor Brian Little for some details. Little — whom, we should note, went out of his way to respond to us quickly, despite the impending Easter holiday and a self-imposed “sequester” so that he can finish writing a book — told us:

The article was removed on February 6th because of a complaint about a factual error. We did due diligence, contacted the authors, had it corrected and it was put up again.

Little said he was told yesterday by the Frontiers editorial office that the study had been taken down again, but didn’t know why. There’s a conference call scheduled for just after the Easter break, he said

to find out why it was taken down and to seek a fair and timely resolution.

It doesn’t seem that Frontiers has a policy for taking down articles. When Paul Matthews, of the University of Nottingham, asked the editorial office what had happened the first time the paper was removed, he was told:

Thank you for your message. Please allow me to clarify that the PDF version of the manuscript has been temporarily removed for the purpose of further typesetting. The manuscript is currently in production stage and the full manuscript will be published in the coming weeks. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.

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Hmmm. I doubt seriously they need a conference call for “typesetting”. I wonder if they’ll be able to salvage it from the GIGO macerator this time? Since it was mostly about smearing climate skeptics, and not any actual science, I hope that the people in charge will go with integrity, rather than continue with this ginned up collection of emotional screeds from Lewandowsky and Cook.

Read the full post at Retraction Watch here

See also Steve McIntyre’s dissection of the Cook-Lewandowsky “Lying/deceiving/incompetence” complex

UPDATE: My title and original first paragraph wasn’t fully accurate regarding links. While the paper PDF still exists on the Frontiers in Personality Science website, it has been delinked from the abstract page. Title and first paragraph have been edited for clarity within a few minutes of initial publication. – Anthony

UPDATE2: Geoff Chambers writes in comments:

Barry Woods and I both wrote to the editors independently asking for the article to be retracted. When I didn’t get a reply, I posted the letter on their site, and here http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/lews-talk-costs-libels/ The editorial assistant wrote to me yesterday, saying: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are taking this email very seriously and will temporarily remove the article while we investigate your claims. Please feel free to forward us any further information that will assist us with our investigation”.

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