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Naomi Oreskes
Oreskes at the 2015 2nd European TA conference in BerlinOreskes at the 2015 2nd European TA conference in Berlin
Born (1958-11-25) November 25, 1958 (age 66)
EducationStuyvesant High School
Imperial College London (BS)
Stanford University (PhD)
RelativesDaniel Oreskes (brother)
Michael Oreskes (brother)
Scientific career
FieldsHistory of science, Economic geology
InstitutionsStanford University
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dartmouth College
Harvard University
New York University
University of California, San Diego

Naomi Oreskes (/əˈrɛskəs/; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmental issues such as global warming, and the history of science. In 2010, Oreskes co-authored Merchants of Doubt, which identified some parallels between the climate change debate and earlier public controversies, notably the tobacco industry's campaign to obscure the link between smoking and serious disease.

Early life and education

Oreskes is the daughter of Susan Eileen (née Nagin), a teacher, and Irwin Oreskes, a professor of medical laboratory sciences and former dean of the School of Health Sciences at Hunter College in New York. She has three siblings: Michael Oreskes, a journalist; Daniel Oreskes, an actor; and Rebecca Oreskes, a writer and former U.S. Forest Service ranger. She is Jewish.

She studied at Stuyvesant High School, New York, received her Bachelor of Science in mining geology from the Royal School of Mines of Imperial College, University of London in 1981. She later received her PhD degree in the Stanford University Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science.

Career

Oreskes has worked as a consultant for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and US National Academy of Sciences, and has also taught at Dartmouth College, New York University, UCSD and Harvard University. She is the author of or has contributed to a number of essays and technical reports in economic geology and history of science in addition to several books.

Academics

Oreskes' academic career started in geology, then broadened into history and philosophy of science. Her work was concerned with scientific methods, model validation, consensus, dissent, as in 2 books on the often-misunderstood history of continental drift and plate tectonics. She later focused on climate change science and studied the doubt-creation industry opposing it.

She worked as a mining geologist for WMC (Western Mining Company) in outback South Australia, based in Adelaide.

Starting in 1984, she returned to academe 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.

The 1992 Hitzman-Oreskes-Einaudi paper on Cu-U-Au-REE ("Olympic Dam") deposits has been cited more than 700 times, according to Google Scholar. She received a National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award in 1994.

During 1991–1996, she was assistant professor of Earth Sciences and Adjunct Asst. Professor of History Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. She spent 1996–1998 as associate professor, History and Philosophy of Science, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University.

As an example of studying scientific methods, she wrote on model validation in the Earth sciences, cited more than 3200 times according to Google Scholar.

She moved to University of California, San Diego in 1998 as associate professor in the Department of History and Program in Science Studies, then as professor in that department 2005–2013, as well as adjunct professor of Geosciences (since 2007). She was named provost of the Sixth College 2008–2011.

In 1999, she participated as a consultant to the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board for developing a repository safety strategy for the Yucca Mountain project, with special attention to model validation.

Since 2013, Oreskes has served as a professor at Harvard University in the Department of the History of Science and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (by courtesy).

Since 2017, she has been listed on the board of directors of the National Center for Science Education.

Oreskes is on the board of directors of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.

Science and society essay

Oreskes wrote an essay "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change", published in the science and society section of the journal Science in December 2004.

In the essay she reported an analysis of "928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and published in the ISI database with the keywords 'global climate change'". The essay stated the analysis was 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 percent of the examined abstracts either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. The essay received a great deal of media attention from around the world and has been cited by many prominent persons such as Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth.

In 2007, Oreskes expanded her analysis, stating that approximately 20 percent of abstracts explicitly endorsed the consensus on climate change that: "Earth's climate is being affected by human activities". In addition, 55 percent of abstracts "implicitly" endorsed the consensus by engaging in research to characterize the ongoing and/or future impact of climate change (50 percent of abstracts) or to mitigate predicted changes (5 percent). The remaining 25 percent focused on either paleoclimate (10%) or developing measurement techniques (15%); Oreskes did not classify these as taking a position on contemporary global climate change.

Merchants of Doubt

Main articles: Merchants of Doubt and Merchants of Doubt (film)

Merchants of Doubt is a 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Oreskes and Conway, both American historians of science, identify some remarkable parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer. They argue that spreading doubt and confusion was the basic strategy of those opposing action in each case. In particular, Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tanks and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.

Most reviewers received it "enthusiastically". One reviewer said that Merchants of Doubt is exhaustively researched and documented and may be one of the most important books of 2010. Another reviewer saw the book as his choice for best science book of the year.

A film with the same name, inspired by the book, was released in 2015.

Other film released in 2020 was The Campaign Against the Climate, a documentary directed by the Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Ellesøe.

Controversies

Together with Erik Conway and Matthew Shindell, in 2008, Oreskes wrote the paper "From Chicken Little to Dr. Pangloss: William Nierenberg, Global Warming, and the Social Deconstruction of Scientific Knowledge" which argued that William Nierenberg as chairman reframed a National Academy of Sciences committee report on climate change in 1983 into economic terms to avoid action on the topic. Nierenberg died in 2000 but a rebuttal was published in 2010 in the same journal which said the paper contradicted the historical report and there was no evidence that any committee members disagreed with the report; the evidence was that the report reflected the consensus at the time.

In 2015, Oreskes published an opinion piece in The Guardian, titled "There is a New Form of Climate Denialism to Look Out For – So Don't Celebrate Yet", in which she said scientists who call for a continued use of nuclear energy are renewable-energy "deniers" and "myth" makers. She cited an article by four prominent climate scientists (James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Wigley) saying nuclear power must be used to combat climate change. An opinion piece by Michael Specter in The New Yorker asserted that she had branded these four scientists as "climate deniers", and that her characterization was absurd, as they were among those who had done the most to push people to combat climate change.

In 2015, news outlets reported that ExxonMobil scientists had found evidence for climate change, but had nonetheless continued to raise doubts about it, a charge that Oreskes also reported. The company criticized Oreskes and invited her and the public to read approximately 187 documents written between 1977 and 2014. She and Geoffrey Supran did so, and reported their findings, which supported the original accounts, in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters in 2017.

Writings

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (May 2022)
This section contains a list that has not been properly sorted. Specifically, it does not follow the Manual of Style for lists of works (often, though not always, due to being in reverse-chronological order). See MOS:LISTSORT for more information. Please improve this section if you can. (May 2023)

Books

Papers

This section contains a list that has not been properly sorted. Specifically, it does not follow the Manual of Style for lists of works (often, though not always, due to being in reverse-chronological order). See MOS:LISTSORT for more information. Please improve this section if you can. (May 2023)

Editorials and opinion articles

This section contains a list that has not been properly sorted. Specifically, it does not follow the Manual of Style for lists of works (often, though not always, due to being in reverse-chronological order). See MOS:LISTSORT for more information. Please improve this section if you can. (May 2023)

Selected awards, honors, and fellowships

This section contains a list that has not been properly sorted. Specifically, it does not follow the Manual of Style for lists of works (often, though not always, due to being in reverse-chronological order). See MOS:LISTSORT for more information. Please improve this section if you can. (June 2023)

See also

References

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  6. Who's who in the West: A Biographical Dictionary of Noteworthy Men and Women. A.N. Marquis Company. 2004. ISBN 978-0-8379-0935-6. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  7. ^ City University of New York: "Irwin Oreskes, Professor Emeritus at NYC’s Hunter College who Taught Lab Science Dies at 86" March 4, 2013 |"Besides Michael Oreskes, Irwin Oreskes also is survived by his wife, Susan Oreskes; his other children, Naomi Oreskes, a science historian, Daniel Oreskes, an actor, and Rebecca Oreskes, a writer and former ranger with the U.S. Forest Service, and five grandchildren. His funeral will be held on Sunday at Jewish Community Chapel"
  8. New York Times Obituary: "NAGIN—Morris, age 73, died after brief Illness on June 2, 1964" June 4, 1964 | "... devoted father of Susan Oreskes and the late Richard Nagin, loving grandfather of Iris Nagin, Michael, Daniel, Naomi and Rebecca Oreskes...Services at Riverside Memorial Chapel..."
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  25. Pielke, R. A.; Oreskes, N. (May 13, 2005). "Exchange of letters to Science" (PDF). Science. 308 (5724): 952–954. doi:10.1126/science.308.5724.952. PMID 15890861. S2CID 39221238. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 27, 2009. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
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  40. Levy, Adam (May 30, 2023). "Scientists warned about climate change in 1965. Nothing was done". Knowable Magazine. doi:10.1146/knowable-052523-1 (inactive November 1, 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  41. Supran, G.; Oreskes, N. (2020). "Addendum to 'Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977–2014)' Supran and Oreskes (2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 084019)". Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (11): 119401. Bibcode:2020ERL....15k9401S. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab89d5. S2CID 228960702.
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  43. Coakley, Bernard (August 2002). "Review: Upheaval from the Abyss by David M. Lawrence and Plate Tectonics edited by Naomi Oreskes and Homer Le Grand". American Scientist.
  44. Online version is titled "Jeffrey Epstein's Harvard connections show how money can distort research".
  45. Online version is titled "Unlimited information is transforming society".
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  48. Ehrenrätinnen und Ehrenräte, Ehrendoktorinnen und Ehrendoktoren
  49. "The British Academy Medal". British Academy. Retrieved August 6, 2019.
  50. "Mary C. Rabbit Award (History and Philosophy of Geology Division)". Geological Society of America. Retrieved August 6, 2019.
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  56. "Johnson, Lozier, Meltzer, and Oreskes Receive 2016 Ambassador Awards". American Geophysical Union. December 30, 2016. Retrieved August 6, 2019.
  57. "Dr. Naomi Oreskes Receives 2016 Frederick Anderson Climate Change Award". Center for International Environmental Law. Retrieved August 6, 2019.
  58. "Convocation and Guest Speaker". The Evergreen State College. February 10, 2017. Retrieved August 6, 2019.
  59. "2015 Public Service Award Presented to Naomi Oreskes". Geological Society of America. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
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  61. "Historian of science Naomi Oreskes to present Patten Lectures at IU Bloomington". Indiana University. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  62. "AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES THE 2014 PRIZE WINNERS". American Historical Association. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  63. "Why I Am a Presentist" (PDF). History of Science Society. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
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  65. "Seven Commencement Ceremonies at UC Riverside; Our Students Tell the Story". University of California, Riverside. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
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  68. "Annual UCSD Chancellor's Associates event fetes outstanding faculty members". University of California, San Diego. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
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  70. "Historian Of Science, Naomi Oreskes, Presents AAAS Award Lecture on Topic of Proof and Consensus in Science" (Press release). University of California. February 11, 2004. Archived from the original on October 22, 2011. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
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  72. "Award Abstract #9357888 NSF Young Investigator". National Science Foundation. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
  73. "Ritter Memorial Fellowship". Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Archived from the original on March 26, 2012. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
  74. "Waldemar Lindgren Award". Society of Economic Geologists. Retrieved March 14, 2012.

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