Naomi Oreskes

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Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego. She has been at UC San Diego since 1998.

1 Background
2 Science and Society Essay
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Background

Oreskes received her Bachelor of Science in Mining Geology from The Royal School of Mines Imperial College University of London in 1981, and worked as a Research Assistant in the Geology Department and as a Teaching Assistant in the departments of Geology, Philosophy and Applied Earth Sciences at Stanford University starting in 1984. She received her PhD in the Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science at Stanford in 1990. She was the 1994 recipient of the NSF Young Investigator Award.

She has worked as a consultant for the EPA and NAS, and has also taught at Dartmouth, Harvard and New York University (NYU). She is also a member of the History of Science Society. She is the author or has contributed to a number of essays and technical reports in economic geology and science history [1] in addition to three books:

Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth, Edited with Homer Le Grand) (2003) Westview Press, ISBN 0-8133-4132-9
The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (1999) Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-511733-6
Perspectives on Geophysics, Special Issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31B, Oreskes, Naomi and James R. Fleming, eds. 2000.

[edit] Science and Society Essay

Dr. Oreskes wrote an essay on science and society BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change^[1] in the journal Science in December 2004.

In the essay she reported analyses of “928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and published in the ISI database with the keywords ‘climate change’” [2] [3] [4]. The analysis was reported in the essay as being to test the hypothesis that the drafting of reports and statements by societies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Association for the Advancement of Science and National Academy of Sciences might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions on anthropogenic climate change. After the analysis, she concluded that 75% of the examined abstracts either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. A flaw in the essay was, as Oreskes later conceded, that the keywords she searched weren’t “climate change”, but “global climate change”.

Her conclusions have been challenged by Benny Peiser who initially enumerated the figure at closer to 30% ^[2]. Peiser’s letters to Science[5] were rejected by the editors. Peiser was skeptical about the consensus on the scientific opinion on climate change, thus the essay has become part of the global warming controversy. Oreskes has responded to criticisms with an editorial in The Washington Post^[3]. Peiser claimed that he had repeated Oreskes' search, and found a different number of articles, 35 of which he claimed supported the position that global warming was not caused by human action. However, closer investigation subsequently revealed that Peiser's search criteria were not the same as Oreskes's, explaining the differing number of articles. As Peiser's search included articles which had not been peer reviewed, op-ed articles in journals such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists were in his list of 35 abstracts. However most readers of Peiser's list have claimed that many of the papers he cites to not contest the IPCC's position on Anthopogenic Climate Change. Dr. Peiser has recently conceded in a letter to the australian Media Watch that he no longer maintains parts of his criticisms. ^[4]