Open AccessFurther Comment on “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”
Author(s) -
Helsdon John
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2009eo270009
Subject(s) - polling , scientific consensus , phrase , sentence , global warming , climate change , interpretation (philosophy) , state (computer science) , political science , psychology , sociology , epistemology , positive economics , linguistics , computer science , economics , philosophy , ecology , algorithm , biology , operating system
The feature article “Examining the scientific consensus on climate change,” by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman (see Eos , 90(3), 20 January 2009), while interesting, has a primary flaw that calls their interpretation into question. In their opening sentence, the authors state that on the basis of polling data, “47% [of Americans] think climate scientists agree… that human activities are a major cause of that [global] warming….” They then described the two‐question survey they had posed to a large group of Earth scientists and scientifically literate (I presume) people in related fields. While the polled group is important, in any poll the questions are critical. My point revolves around their question 2, to wit, “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” Note that the opening sentence of their article uses the phrase “major cause” in reporting the results of the polling, while the poll itself used the phrase “significant contributing factor.” There is a large difference between these two phrases.