Talk:Naomi Oreskes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]

Contents 1 Corrected 2 Global Warming link paragraph and link 3 Science and Society section 4 Warming skeptics/ Consensus opposers 5 Editorial in response to criticism

[edit] Corrected

Cleaned a bit, excessive red and removed a bunch of the controversy stuff - covered elsewhere (linked), and this is about the scientist - she is more than the controversy raised by skeptics. Removed cleanup tag - hopefully not premature on that. Hey, articles always can use more, and that tag was ugly :-) Vsmith 03:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Much better. --Sln3412 23:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Global Warming link paragraph and link

• Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. [1]

Wouldn't it be better if that were from the essay? I don't see the point of linking to forums, either.--Sln3412 22:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes - I overlooked that link, removed it and reworded a bit - need to check for accuracy now. Vsmith 00:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, the source of her search she mentions in the essay is the "ISI database" This is now all contained at http://scientific.thomson.com/isilinks/ and seems to have become considerably more difficult to correlate. --Sln3412 02:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In the essay,[2], she reported her analyses of 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 that were contained in an ISI database, and then concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view while none directly dissented from it.

This is the original paragraph for reference:

• "The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9)."

[edit] Science and Society section

Yes, I'm having a hard time rewriting it. Just saying "global warming skeptics" isn't really correct, they're more skeptical about the consensus part of it from what I've seen. The essay does show that peer-reviewed journal abstracts considered as being about climate change (note 9) agree with the statements of the organizations that use them. Which is perfectly true. I believe they are more challenging the study and the conclusions. It's become part of the controversy on the subject as a whole. And she has responded to criticisms such as these in an editorial in a major paper.

• Her conclusions have been challenged by some, such as Benny Peiser and Richard Lindzen, who are known to be skeptical about the scientific consensus on global warming. The essay has become part of the global warming controversy, and she has responded to criticisms with an editorial in The Washington Post Undeniable Global Warming.

Taking a version of that and inserting it to more accurately describe the role of the essay in the controversy, which is why it's noteworthy about the person herself. Please edit appropriately to correct, or discuss why it's not neutral or factual here please. Sln3412 01:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, only global warming skeptics have challenged her study's conclusions. The only two critics cited are vocal GW skeptics. The article needs to reflect this. Also, the way her study is folded into language about the controversy makes it a case of teaching the controversy. Most of the controversy is contrived to further a political, ideological agenda; I don't see any reason we should help them by perpetuating it. FeloniousMonk 02:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this is a biographical article - the focus should be on the person, the controversy details are well covered elsewhere and needn't be repeated in detail here. Vsmith 02:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with that last except it seems likely that one of the reasons, if not the reason, that there is a Wikipedia article on Oreskes is because of the AAAS essay. From the standpoint of the general public interest, my guess is this is the most interesting thing in the article. So I think there certainly should be a section on the essay in this article. And once we have that, unfortunately the controversy associated with that essay seeps in. I do agree that there is no need to rehash every detail of the controversy here, as there is similar language on Benny Peiser and Richard Lindzen. Instead of repeating the same text on all three pages (and I'm sure it is also elsewhere), what about moving the details of this particular controversy from all three pages into a section at global warming controversy? -- Deville (Talk) 04:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems notable about the people in the controversy over the essay and the responses. So to me, any bio of people involved should mention it at least in enough detail to know what role they have. I attempted to gather as many scources as possible, and most of what I found on the Internet was mostly from her faculty page and the citations from the Science article and Washington Post op-ed about the responses to it and blog posts on the subject. I was not familiar about her (nor Peiser) until I came here and started researching. I then decided to write a bio so there'd be one that people could come and look her name up, and see the references to what everyone is involved with. The one on Peiser, (which I did not start but later tried to clean up as best I could), is mostly from his faculty page, CCNet, and his letter about his confrontation with an associate editor from Science. The only place I found the correction from the body of the essay as published ('climate change' versus 'global climate change' as the search term) being mentioned is on his letter page (as a reply from Science to the issue it's corrected in, Jan. 14 2005) and on the blogs. I hope I haven't given anyone the impression I agree or disagree with either or both of them. I have no opinion, but what I think is not important anyway.

I have seen the essay by Oreskes quoted in many places here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and thought it might be insightful to mention it all in the context of the disagreement, just for information. Things might be far better served to mention all this in the controversy page, yes. An opinion essay on science and society published in Science and followed by a Washington Post editorial on criticisms. I'm just trying to accurately, fairly and neutrally discuss what we're talking about. She made statements in her published work, followed by more statements in another published work in response to citicism of the first, both of which were involving the findings and reporting of a lack of disagreement in the abstracts of peer-reviewed published work.

The links to the statements by others that disagree should explain the rest of the story for those so inclined. That's the neutrality (and balance that I think neutrality means, even if the text is dry or controversial) part of the section. None of this is meant to be negative, and should be stated as what is happening as flatly and matter of factly as possible.Sln3412 05:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warming skeptics/ Consensus opposers

Two different things. Lindzen is a scientist and Peiser is also, he writes science books, is on the faculty of science, and is an anthropologist; on the subject of anthropogenic climate change, that sounds like qualifying as a scientist. Regardless, their opposition is to the idea of a consensus as well as to her not proving that in the essay. And her essay is quoted upon numerous pages here in encyclopedia articles and on the Internet and in major newspaper editorials as proof of a scientific consensus. Peiser even agrees the bulk do show a consensus, just not all, which is the disagreement with the analysis itself; "Despite this manifest scepticism, I do not wish to deny that a majority of publications goes along with the notion of anthropogenic global warming by applying models based on its basic assumptions."

Global warming skeptic is rather negative sounding and not really correct. According to what I see the problem is the consensus itself. It for sure doesn't fit with 'scientific opinion on climate change', because that's not what it's really been challenged on. So why not call him one of the 'scientists opposing the consensus' for purpose of explaining the response (by her) to criticisms on the consensus? Seems the most neutral and factual choice to give an overview of it all. Is that an acceptable viewpoint? Sln3412 21:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editorial in response to criticism

She has publicly stated herself that she is aware of this general dispute on the subject, which she herself reports in the editorial, and also that it is larger than just two people. She has been in contact with at least members of Deltoid, and there and elsewhere have quoted emails from her responding to questions about the issue, in regards to clarifying the research.

But more so, she wrote that very public editorial in the The Washington Post[3] that she is aware of the dispute (including the fact the arguments are "...not to be found in scientific literature..." and says "...a few noisy skeptics..." who are ..."not even scientists..." Which is more than two. The Post editorial isn't specific with names usually, although she does specifially name Lindzen, otherwise the points are generalized. But it uses these terms, and I quote:

"Despite recent allegations to the contrary..." "There have been arguments to the contrary, but they are not to be found in scientific literature..." "...A handful of scientists have raised questions... But this is quibbling about the details." "Because of a few noisy skeptics -- most of whom are not even scientitsts..." "...professor Richard Lindzen dismissed..." "You can always find someone, somewhere to disagree.." "The chatter of skeptics..."

And the editorial is about the consensus, although she does not seem to differentiate in the editorial between "scientific consensus" and "uncertainty of global warming": "There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it." The editorial in paragraph 4 also restates the research she did for the original essay, so the review of abstracts and the conclusion is given in both the essay as well as the editorial.

On that basis, I believe her writing publicly in response to criticisms makes the conclusions (in the essay and editorial,) the criticisms, and the response to the criticisms all part of her biographical information. Sln3412 19:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)