Oreskes, 2004
A 2004 essay for the journal Science
was written by science historian
Naomi Oreskes, who is not a scientist.
Oreskes reported
examining abstracts
from 928 scientific papers,
reported by the Institute
for Scientific Information database,
published in scientific journals
from 1993 and 2003,
using the key search words
“global climate change.”
She concluded 75%
of the abstracts
either implicitly or explicitly
supported IPCC’s view
that human activities
were responsible for
most of the observed warming
over the previous 50 years,
while NO ONE dissented.
It is now widely agreed
Oreskes did not distinguish
between articles that assumed
some human impact on climate,
however small, and articles that
supported IPCC’s specific claim
that human emissions are
responsible for most of the
global warming observed
during the past 50 years.
Oreskes’ deliberately overlooked
hundreds of articles by prominent
global warming skeptics, including
John Christy, Sherwood Idso,
Richard Lindzen, and Patrick Michaels.
Oreskes’ methodology
assumed a nonscientist like her
could determine the findings
of scientific research
by quickly reading abstracts
of the published papers.
Even trained climate scientists
are unable to do that,
because abstracts routinely
do not accurately reflect
their articles’ actual findings.
Abstracts routinely overstate
or exaggerate research findings,
and contain claims that are irrelevant
to the underlying research.
Most articles simply
assume IPCC claims
are true and then
go on to address
a different topic,
such as correlations
between the temperature
and outbreaks of influenza.
Oreskes’ use of the search term
“global climate change”
instead of “climate change,”
resulted in her finding
fewer than one-thirteenth
of the estimated total count
of scientific papers
on "climate change"
over the stated period.
Medical researcher
Klaus-Martin Schulte
used the same database
and search terms as Oreskes,
to examine papers published
from 2004 to February 2007
and found fewer than half
endorsed the “IPCC consensus”,
and only 7% did so explicitly.