TY - JOUR
T1 - A blind expert test of contrarian claims about climate data
AU - Lewandowsky, Stephan
AU - Ballard, T.
AU - Oberauer, K.
AU - Benestad, R.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Although virtually all experts agree that CO2 emissions are causing anthropogenic global warming, public discourse is replete with contrarian claims that either deny that global warming is happening or dispute a human influence. Although the rejection of climate science is known to be driven by ideological, psychological, and political factors rather than scientific disagreement, contrarian views have considerable prominence in the media. A better understanding of contrarian discourse is therefore called for. We report a blind expert test of contrarian claims about climatological variables. Expert economists and statisticians were presented with representative contrarian statements (e.g., "Arctic ice is recovering") translated into an economic or demographic context. In that blind test, contrarian claims were found to be misleading. By contrast, mainstream scientific interpretations of the data were judged to be accurate and policy relevant. The results imply that media inclusion of contrarian statements may increase bias rather than balance.
AB - © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Although virtually all experts agree that CO2 emissions are causing anthropogenic global warming, public discourse is replete with contrarian claims that either deny that global warming is happening or dispute a human influence. Although the rejection of climate science is known to be driven by ideological, psychological, and political factors rather than scientific disagreement, contrarian views have considerable prominence in the media. A better understanding of contrarian discourse is therefore called for. We report a blind expert test of contrarian claims about climatological variables. Expert economists and statisticians were presented with representative contrarian statements (e.g., "Arctic ice is recovering") translated into an economic or demographic context. In that blind test, contrarian claims were found to be misleading. By contrast, mainstream scientific interpretations of the data were judged to be accurate and policy relevant. The results imply that media inclusion of contrarian statements may increase bias rather than balance.
U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.04.013
DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.04.013
M3 - Article
VL - 39
SP - 91
EP - 97
JO - Global Environmental Change
JF - Global Environmental Change
SN - 0959-3780
ER -