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Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego. She has been at UC San Diego since 1998. Recently, she has been appointed the next Provost of Sixth College at UC San Diego.

Background

Oreskes received her Bachelor of Science in Mining Geology from the Royal School of Mines of 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 received a National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award in 1994.

She has worked as a consultant for the EPA and NAS, and has also taught at Dartmouth, Harvard and New York University (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 0-8133-4132-9
• The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (1999) Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-511733-6
• Perspectives on Geophysics, Special Issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31B, Oreskes, Naomi and James R. Fleming, eds. 2000.

Sixth College

On February 5th, it was announced that Naomi Oreskes would become the second Sixth College Provost effective July 1, 2008.

Science and society essay

Oreskes wrote an essay on science and society BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change in the journal Science in December 2004.

In the essay she reported analysis of “928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and published in the ISI database with the keywords ‘climate change’”. . The essay stated the analysis was 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. The keywords Oreskes used in the ISI database search were 'global climate change' in order to remove articles about local climactic fluctuations. The database was limited to articles which had appeared in peer-reviewed scientific journals, i.e., journals where articles are cleared for publication by an expert or panel of experts. Her study did not specify that she had limited her search to "articles" rather than "all document types." This omission led to much subsequent confusion.

Oreskes' conclusions were directly challenged by Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist who repeated her search, but specifying "all document types." This led to a different result than obtained by Oreskes, and one that discredited her finding. . Peiser found that numerous articles -- as many as 34 articles, depending on the standard met -- rejected Oreskes claims. When he later discovered that Oreskes had made her claims based on a subset of articles, Peiser repeated the search and found other problems with Oreskes study. Chiefly, he found that Oreskes has no basis whatever for her findings as the entire ISI data set includes just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) that explicity endorse what she has called the 'consensus view.' Moreover, he found that the vast majority of abstracts do not mention anthropogenic climate change.

Oreskes has not directly refuted Peiser's critiques, aside from pointing out that she had employed a narrower search than he initially had. Nevertheless, Peiser's letters to Science on the subject were rejected by the editors without explanation.

Peiser has recently explained in a letter to the Australian Media Watch that his fundamental findings remain intact, although he no longer maintains parts of his criticisms.

Oreskes has responded to criticisms, including those from Richard Lindzen, with a later editorial in The Washington Post.

References

1. Naomi Oreskes (December 3, 2004). "Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". Science. 306 (5702): 1686. doi:10.1126/science.1103618. (see also for an exchange of letters to Science)
2. Benny Peiser’s critique of Oreske’s essay on climate change consensus
3. Peiser, Benny (October 12, 2006). "Email RE: Media Watch enquiry" (PDF). Media Watch: 1.
4. Oreskes, Naomi (December 26, 2004). "Undeniable Global Warming". Washington Post: B07.

External links

• Oreskes page at UCSD
• Naomi Oreskes, 2007, The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong? Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren, edited by Joseph F. C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman, MIT Press, pp. 65-99.

• Women earth scientists
• Living people