Consensus versus Unanimity: Which Carries More Weight (original) (raw)
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Scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change exists and is caused by human activity. It has been argued that communicating the consensus can counter climate scepticism, given that perceived scientific consensus is a major factor predicting public belief that climate change is anthropogenic. However, individuals may hold different models of science, potentially affecting their interpretation of scientific consensus. Using representative surveys in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Norway, we assessed whether the relationship between perceived scientific consensus and belief in anthropogenic climate change is conditioned by a person’s viewing science as ‘the search for truth’ or as ‘debate’. Results show that perceived scientific consensus is higher among climate change believers and moreover, significantly predicts belief in anthropogenic climate change. This relationship is stronger among people holding a model of science as the ‘search for truth’. These results help to...
The Not So Clear Consensus on Climate Change
2008
One of the most heavily and most publicly contested scientific consensus in the last decade has been in the debate concerning climate change, namely if it is the result of natural causes or of anthropogenic activity. ). Using evidence from survey questionnaires distributed among climate scientists, the following suggests that consensus among climate scientists might not be as clear as sometimes depicted. ============================================= 11/27/2008 7:59 PM
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010
Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC. A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.
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Although virtually all domain 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 driven by ideological, psychological, and political variables rather than scientific disagreement, contrarian views have considerable prominence in the media. A better understanding of contrarian discourse is therefore called for. We report two studies in which experts evaluated representative public contrarian statements about climate variables in light of the data. In Study 1, climate experts found the statements to be misleading, and affirmed that the interpretative techniques (e.g., "cherry-picking") are common among contrarians. In Study 2, expert economists and statisticians were presented with the same statements translated into an economic or demographic context. In that blind expert test, contrarian statements were again 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 reliance on contrarian statements increases bias rather than balance.
Public Affairs Quarterly, 2017
Several empirical studies purportedly demonstrate the existence of a scientific consensus on climate change. Such studies have been pursued as a response to concerns that private industries and think tanks have "manufactured" public doubt and derailed regulatory policies. While there is overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming, studies aiming to empirically establish the existence of consensus rely on several problematic assumptions about the nature of consensus and the role of consensus in policy making. Even more worrisome, reinforcing such assumptions in public may actually undermine, rather than increase, trust in climate science.
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