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Revision as of 01:51, 15 August 2006 by Sln3412 (talk | contribs) (→Science and Society Essay)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Naomi Oreskes is an Associate Professor, History Department and Program in Science Studies at the University of California San Diego. She has been at UC San Diego since 1998.
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 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 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 0813341329
- The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (1999) Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195117336
- Perspectives on Geophysics, Special Issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31B, Oreskes, Naomi and James R. Fleming, eds. 2000.
Science and Society Essay
Dr. Oreskes wrote an essay on science and society BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science Magazine in 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 <corrected> keywords 'global climate change'" . 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.
Her conclusions have been challenged by some, such as Benny Peiser who enumerates the figure at closer to 30% and Richard Lindzen who has written in support of that, although both are known to be skeptical about the consensus on the scientific opinion on climate change. The essay has therefore become part of the global warming controversy, and she has responded to criticisms such as these with an editorial in The Washington Post Undeniable Global Warming.