CANR
WORK TITLE: WHY TRUST SCIENCE?
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Cambridge
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COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CA 347
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsdept/bios/oreskes.html http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16954-7/the-collapse-of-western-civilization
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born November 25, 1958; daughter of Irwin and Susan Eileen Oreskes.
EDUCATION:Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, University of London, B.S. (with first-class honors), 1981; Stanford University, Ph.D., 1990.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, departments of geology, philosophy, and applied earth sciences, teaching assistant, and department of geology, research assistant, 1984-89; Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, visiting assistant professor of earth sciences and visiting assistant professor of history, 1990-91, assistant professor of earth sciences and adjunct assistant professor of history, 1991-96; New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York, NY, associate professor, history and philosophy of science, 1996-98; University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, history department and program in science studies, associate professor, 1998-2005, professor, beginning 2005, director of program in science studies, 2003-06, provost of Sixth College, 2008-11; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, adjunct professor of geosciences; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, department of history of science, visiting associate professor, 2001, professor, 2012—, director of graduate studies; University of Western Perth, Australia, professor at large, 2005-13. Has served as consultant to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1996-97, U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, 1999, and U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2001; member of boards of directors for organizations, including the National Center for Science Education and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
AWARDS:Lindgren Prize for outstanding work by a young scientist, Society of Economic Geologists, 1993; Fellowship for University Teachers, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1993-94; Ritter Memorial Fellowship in History of Marine Sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1994; Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation, 1994-99; Sabbatical Fellowship, American Philosophical Society, 2001-02; Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth named by Library Journal as one of the best science and technology books of 2002 and by Choice as an outstanding academic title of 2003; George Sarton Award Lecture, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004; award excellence in teaching, research and community service, University of California, San Diego, 2008; Watson-David Prize, History of Science Society, 2011, for Merchants of Doubt.
WRITINGS
Contributor to newspapers, magazines, and journals, including Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, London Times, Nature, Frankfurter Allgemeine, New Statesman, and Science.
SIDELIGHTS
Naomi Oreskes is a prominent historian of science. She has written on topics including geological theories and the denial of scientific claims about environmental and health hazards. Her essay “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” published in Science in 2004, was a key early work on this topic and was cited in many media outlets, including An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 documentary film about former vice president Al Gore’s campaign for awareness of climate change. Her book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, written with Erik M. Conway, provides another look at this subject, as it deals in part with the motivations behind efforts to disprove widely accepted ideas about climate change.
Oreskes focuses on skepticism about an earlier scientific theory in her first book, The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science. German meteorologist Alfred Wegener had put forth his hypothesis of continental drift in 1912. He noted similarities in the coastlines of the continents—one could imagine them fitting together like puzzle pieces—and he theorized that they all may have originally been one land mass. As further evidence to support his theory, he cited research that had found the same fossilized plants and animals on continents now separated by oceans. Also, he noted striae left by glaciers on different continents.
Many scientists, especially in the United States, displayed resistance, even hostility, to Wegener’s theory, Oreskes reports. One obstacle to acceptance of the hypothesis was the long-held belief that the continents and oceans were essentially static. In addition, U.S. researchers “favored the large-scale collection and mathematical analysis of data,” as David Oldroyd put it in a Science review of Oreskes’s book, over “(relatively) lone creative thinkers” like Wegener. Another problem was that Wegener was unable to fully explain what caused continental drift. Scientist Arthur Holmes thought the cause was periodic heating and cooling of the earth’s mantle, but it took the declassification of World War II-era research and further scientific inquiry to provide evidence for this. These findings gave rise to the theory of plate tectonics to account for drift and finally won wide endorsement for continental drift in the 1960s.
Oldroyd was one of the critics who found Oreskes’s work well-written and convincing. She “provides an admirable analysis of the ‘great failure’ of American geological theorizing in the 20th century,” he observed, adding that she does so “without recourse to esoteric detail.” American Scientist contributor Daniel Stein, though, questioned her assertion “that the theoretical vistas of North American geologists were constrained by pervasive cultural and social factors.” The author, he remarked, “has seized upon an interpretation of the record that is all too obviously bound to … today’s trendiest critical theories in the humanities.” In Oldroyd’s opinion, on the other hand, “her admirably clear and well-illustrated account is scientifically, philosophically, historically, and sociologically well-informed.”
Scientists involved in the research on plate tectonics share their memories of the process in Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth, edited by Oreskes and Homer Le Grand. The volume collects essays in which seventeen scientists detail how findings about geological patterns on the ocean floor eventually erased any doubts about continental drift and made a convincing case that plate tectonics was the means by which it happened. These concepts, according to the essayists, seem obvious in retrospect, but in the 1960s they were groundbreaking. Oreskes introduces each essay and also contributes a preface and a lead chapter.
Several reviewers deemed the book valuable for both scholars and general readers. “Oreskes gathers testimony from some important participants,” including Ron Mason, Frederick Vine, Neil Opdyke, and David Sandwell, noted a Kirkus Reviews critic, adding that they and other contributors display “enthusiasm for the study of the earth,” and their essays are “accessible to nonspecialist readers.” Gilbert Taylor, writing in Booklist, related that they “impart the excitement, contention, and competition of overturning accepted but erroneous science.” A Publishers Weekly commentator termed their accounts “well-written and generally jargon-free,” making the material understandable to a broad audience, although “the book will appeal most to hard-core science buffs and budding geophysicists.” In American Scientist, Bernard Coakley noted that Oreskes “sets the stage” for the scientists’ narratives with a “clearly written, well-documented chapter” and then appropriately “stays out of the way of the authors.” The result, he wrote, “is as much like sitting down and hearing the stories straight from their mouths as one could hope.”
Oreskes and Conway’s Merchants of Doubt focuses on scientists who performed research to provide support for dissenting views on a variety of matters. They sought to downplay the dangers of tobacco use and pesticides, made a case for the necessity and practicality of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and questioned the existence of human-caused climate change. With research funded by major U.S. corporations that stood to benefit, these “merchants of doubt,” the authors say, created “junk science” that convinced the media that there was actually a legitimate scientific debate over these issues, when there was actually a broad consensus that smoking caused cancer and heart disease, pesticides and other chemicals damaged the environment, the SDI was neither workable nor needed, and climate change was a reality.
Oreskes and Conway note that four scientists stand out for their involvement in multiple efforts of this type: Fred Singer, Frederick Seitz, William Nierenberg, and Robert Jastrow. They and their allies, according to the authors, were driven by conservative ideology—a resistance to government regulation of industry and an exaggerated perception of the threat of socialism and the former Soviet Union. Along the way, the authors relate, they demonized respected environmental advocates such as Silent Spring author Rachel Carson and astronomer Carl Sagan.
Merchants of Doubt received positive reactions from numerous critics. “Exhaustively researched and documented, it explains how over the past several decades mercenary scientists have partnered with tobacco companies and chemical corporations to help them convince the public that their products are safe—even when solid science proves otherwise,” remarked Will Buchanan in the Christian Science Monitor. James P. Lenfestey, writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, observed that the authors’ “rigorous scholarship” provides “irrefutable” evidence about “the shameful practices of a few esteemed scientists serving ideological ends.”
A reviewer for the Economist expressed some reservations, saying: “The authors rightly decry the degree to which scientists have sometimes manufactured and exaggerated environmental uncertainties. But they fail fully to explain how, despite this and other countervailing factors, environmental action has still often proved possible.” Still, the reviewer called the work a “powerful book” that “is good on drawing out the politics involved, and pointing out the contradictions.” Further praise came from a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who deemed the volume “a well-documented, pulls-no-punches account of how science works and how political motives can hijack the process,” and Library Journal critic David R. Conn, who termed it “an important study … that informed citizens need to read.” Buchanan added that Merchants of Doubt “might be one of the most important books of the year” and that “what it has to say needs to be heard.”
Oreskes again collaborated with Conway on the 2014 book The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future. Differing from her previous works, this volume is fictional and is written from the perspective of a historian living in the year 2393. The historian is a citizen of the Second People’s Republic of China. He writes about the destruction of the climate that occurred between the years 1988 and 2093. The period of time is called the “Penumbral Age.” The scientist chronicles the harrowing events that accompanied the damaging of the climate. The West Antarctica Ice Sheet collapsed due to global warming, deadly weather events began occurring, and a plague killed many people.
In an interview with Claudia Dreifus, a contributor to the New York Times, Oreskes commented on the structure of the book and her experiments in a new genre: “Erik is a big science fiction fan. As historians, both of us have spent a lot of time looking back. That made us wonder how a historian of the future might view the decisions being made today. Writing in this genre gave us the freedom to extrapolate and show what’s at stake. Our narrator concludes that in the 21st century, the forces of climate denial prevailed.” A writer in Publishers Weekly gave The Collapse of Western Civilization a lukewarm review, stating: “Accurately researched and logically persuasive, this is nevertheless a political manifesto.”
Oreskes has discussed the reasons one should trust scientific research and theories in various venues, including the Princeton University Tanner Lectures on Human Values and at a TED Talk. In 2019, she released a book on the topic called Why Trust Science?. In an interview with Guy Raz, a transcript of which appeared on the National Public Radio website, an excerpt from Oreskes’s TED Talk was included. In it, she stated: “The fact is many of us actually don’t believe the science. Public opinion polls consistently show that significant proportions of the American people don’t believe the climate is warming due to human activities, don’t think that there’s evolution by natural selection and aren’t persuaded by the safety of vaccines. So why should we believe the science? Well, scientists don’t like talking about science as a matter of belief. In fact, they would contrast science with faith. And they would say belief is the domain of faith.” Oreskes continued: “Now, the fact is though for most of us, most scientific claims are a leap of faith. We can’t really judge scientific claims for ourselves in most cases. And indeed, this is actually true for most scientists as well outside of their own specialties.” Oreskes told Raz that “consensus,” or the endorsement of a theory by a scientists’ peers, is the reason science should be trusted. She opined: “This is really, I think, the most important part of science that many people don’t understand and that isn’t in the high school textbook.” Oreskes added: “Sometimes, critics of science will point to papers in the journal that were subsequently disproven and say—oh, see, look. You can’t trust science because that paper—you know, that got published, but then we realized that that was nonsense. Well, that’s not evidence of what’s wrong with science. That’s actually evidence of what’s right with science.”
A critic in Kirkus Reviews offered a favorable assessment of Why Trust Science?. The critic suggested: “In this convincing yet often dense argument, Oreskes clearly reminds readers that science has consistently brought home the bacon.” The same critic also noted that the book was “not for general readers but interesting debate fodder for the scientifically inclined.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
American Scientist, September, 1999, Daniel Stein, “Continental Rift,” review of The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science, p. 467; July 1, 2002, Bernard Coakley, “The Plate Tectonic Revolution,” review of Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth, p. 385.
BJHS: The British Journal for the History of Science, December, 2003, Brian C. Shipley, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 487.
Booklist, January 1, 2002, Gilbert Taylor, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 786.
California Bookwatch, August, 2010, review of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
Choice, April, 2000, Y. Dilek, review of The Rejection of Continental Drift, p. 1499; September, 2003, E.R. Swanson, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 181.
Christian Science Monitor, June 22, 2010, Will Buchanan, review of Merchants of Doubt.
Economist, June 19, 2010, “All Guns Blazing; the Misuse of Science,” review of Merchants of Doubt, p. 86.
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, fall, 2003, Norriss S. Hetherington, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 203.
Independent (London, England), October 18, 2010, Manjit Kumar, “A Lot of Hot Air from the Sceptics.”
Isis, December, 2002, Ursula B. Marvin, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 754; March, 2003, A.M.C. Sengor, review of The Rejection of Continental Drift, p. 186.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2001, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 1668; March 1, 2010, review of Merchants of Doubt; August 15, 2019, review of Why Trust Science?.
Library Journal, February 1, 2002, Amy Brunvand, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 126; March 1, 2003, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 51; September 1, 2010, David R. Conn, review of Merchants of Doubt, p. 131.
Nature, July 29, 2010, David Orr, review of Merchants of Doubt, p. 565.
New Scientist, March 22, 2003, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 52.
New York Times, October 28, 2014, Claudia Dreifus, “A Chronicler of Warnings Denied,” author interview, p. D6.
OnEarth, summer, 2010, Kevin Krajick, review of Merchants of Doubt, p. 54.
Publishers Weekly, January 14, 2002, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 52; April 26, 2010, review of Merchants of Doubt, p. 97; May 5, 2014, review of The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, p. 47.
Science, April 16, 1999, David Oldroyd, review of The Rejection of Continental Drift, p. 440.
SciTech Book News, June, 2003, review of Plate Tectonics, p. 66.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), June 20, 2010, James P. Lenfestey, “Snuffing out Science.”
Times Higher Education Supplement, June 23, 2000, Nick Petford, review of The Rejection of Continental Drift, p. 24.
ONLINE
Climate Progress, http://climateprogress.org/ (March 7, 2010), video, “Must See: Naomi Oreskes Talk on Merchants of Doubt.”
Collapse of Western Civilization, http://www.collapseofwesternciv.org/ (December 15, 2014), author biography.
Desmog Blog, http://www.desmogblog.com/ (September 12, 2007), Chris Mooney, “Who ‘Framed’ Naomi Oreskes?”
Harvard University Climate Change, https://climatechange.environment.harvard.edu/ (September 13, 2019), author faculty profile.
Harvard University Department of the History of Science, https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/ (September 13, 2019), author faculty profile.
Harvard University Faculty of Arts & Sciences, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/ (December 15, 2014), author faculty profile.
Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (June 17, 2010), Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, “‘Shadow Elite: Merchants of Doubt’—Do Scientific Denialists Have No Shame?”
Inter Press Service News Agency, http://ipsnews.net/ (March 24, 2010), “Debunking the Deniers: Stephen Leahy Interviews Science Historian Naomi Oreskes.”
Macmillan, http://us.macmillan.com/ (December 8, 2010), brief biography.
Merchants of Doubt, http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org (December 8, 2010), brief biography.
National Public Radio, https://www.npr.org/ (February 24, 2017), Guy Raz, author interview.
Point of Inquiry, http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ (June 4, 2010), Chris Mooney, audio interview with Naomi Oreskes.
Resilience Science, http://rs.resalliance.org/ (March 5, 2010), video, “Naomi Oreskes on Merchants of Doubt.”
University of California, San Diego, History Department, http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/ (December 8, 2010), brief biography.
University of California, San Diego, Science Studies Program, http://sciencestudies.ucsd.edu/ (December 8, 2010), brief biography.
M2 Presswire, October 11, 2010, “Science Historian Naomi Oreskes to Lecture, Discuss New Book.”
States News Service, October 12, 2010, “Guest Speaker to Clear the Air about Global Warming.”
QUOTED: "The fact is many of us actually don't believe the science. Public opinion polls consistently show that significant proportions of the American people don't believe the climate is warming due to human activities, don't think that there's evolution by natural selection and aren't persuaded by the safety of vaccines. So why should we believe the science? Well, scientists don't like talking about science as a matter of belief. In fact, they would contrast science with faith. And they would say belief is the domain of faith."
"Now, the fact is though for most of us, most scientific claims are a leap of faith. We can't really judge scientific claims for ourselves in most cases. And indeed, this is actually true for most scientists as well outside of their own specialties."
"consensus"
"This is really, I think, the most important part of science that many people don't understand and that isn't in the high school textbook."
"Sometimes, critics of science will point to papers in the journal that were subsequently disproven and say—oh, see, look. You can't trust science because that paper—you know, that got published, but then we realized that that was nonsense. Well, that's not evidence of what's wrong with science. That's actually evidence of what's right with science."
< Naomi Oreskes: Why Should We Believe In Science? February 24, 20178:57 AM ET Listen· 13:05 13:05 Playlist Download Embed Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email GUY RAZ, HOST: Hey, Naomi, can you just quickly introduce yourself? NAOMI ORESKES: I am Naomi Oreskes. I'm the professor of the history of science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. RAZ: So it's fair to say that you study pretty big questions, I guess. ORESKES: Right. The history of science is the history of the development of knowledge about the natural world. I study scientists. I study the processes by which they collect evidence. RAZ: Which means Naomi gets to ask the metaquestions about how we know what we know. ORESKES: Say science is evidence based, but what's evidence? How do we judge whether some evidence is good or bad? RAZ: And lately, Naomi's been trying to answer one very big question, which is - why should we trust in science at all? (SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK) ORESKES: Scientists tell us that the world is warming. Scientists tell us that vaccines are safe. But how do we know if they're right? Why should we believe the science? RAZ: Here's Naomi Oreskes on the TED stage. (SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK) ORESKES: The fact is many of us actually don't believe the science. Public opinion polls consistently show that significant proportions of the American people don't believe the climate is warming due to human activities, don't think that there's evolution by natural selection and aren't persuaded by the safety of vaccines. So why should we believe the science? Well, scientists don't like talking about science as a matter of belief. In fact, they would contrast science with faith. And they would say belief is the domain of faith. Now, the fact is though for most of us, most scientific claims are a leap of faith. We can't really judge scientific claims for ourselves in most cases. And indeed, this is actually true for most scientists as well outside of their own specialties. So if you think about it, a geologist can't tell you whether a vaccine is safe. Most chemists are not experts in evolutionary theory. A physicist cannot tell you whether or not tobacco causes cancer. So if even scientists themselves have to make a leap of faith outside their own fields, then why do they accept the claims of other scientists? And should we believe those claims? So what I'd like to argue is yes, we should - but not for the reason that most of us think. Most of us were taught in school that the reason we should believe in science is because of the scientific method. We were taught that scientists follow a method and that this method guarantees the truth of their claims. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) RAZ: So the scientific method - right? - You have a hypothesis. You do some experiments. You make some observations. And... ORESKES: If the observations work or the experiment works, you say your hypothesis is confirmed, and you go on and do the next thing. RAZ: But, Naomi says, the scientific method is just a starting point. ORESKES: The scientist can't just say - OK, I confirmed my hypothesis. Now I go do the next thing. That by itself is not sufficient. RAZ: So if that's not sufficient, what is? How do scientists decide what's right and wrong? ORESKES: Consensus. RAZ: Consensus. ORESKES: And this is really, I think, the most important part of science that many people don't understand and that isn't in the high school textbook. RAZ: Consensus is the key, and building consensus takes a long time. Somebody comes up with a scientific conclusion. Those conclusions are then vetted by other scientists. If they check out, they're published. And then even more scientists review those results and ask their own questions. ORESKES: If it turns out that when they try to use my data or my idea and it doesn't work, then they will publish a paper saying - well, hold on a second. So my claim could end up being discredited. Sometimes, critics of science will point to papers in the journal that were subsequently disproven and say - oh, see, look. You can't trust science because that paper - you know, that got published, but then we realized that that was nonsense. Well, that's not evidence of what's wrong with science. That's actually evidence of what's right with science because the claim got disproved and then we know, OK, you know, Naomi's an honest person. It was a good idea. We tried it, but it didn't work. So we now reject it and we move on. RAZ: So how do you know when you've reached consensus? ORESKES: So imagine now I've published my paper. My colleagues have picked up on my idea and my data, and they've used and they've worked with it. And they say yes, our data are consistent with this. And now other people do the same. And eventually, we all conclude that my claim was right, and that's what scientific knowledge is. It's that moment when we all say, yeah, this appears to be right, and then we stop discussing it. The whole reason why science can progress is because there are points at which we all agree the data is secure. The data is sufficient. It's settled. We have a consensus, and we move on to the next question. RAZ: In just a moment, when we come back, Naomi Oreskes on why scientists revisit old questions, even ones you thought were settled. Today on the show, Ideas About The Spirit Of Inquiry. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) RAZ: It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. And on the show today the Spirit of Inquiry, how questions lead to new ones and unexpected answers. And we were just hearing from science historian Naomi Oreskes. In recent years, she's been talking a lot about science and trust, and she argues it's the very process of inquiry that should make us trust science. Here's Naomi on the TED stage. (SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK) ORESKES: Scientists judge by judging evidence, and they have to subject it to scrutiny. And this led the sociologist Robert Merton to focus on this question of how scientists scrutinize data and evidence. And he said they do it in a way he called organized skepticism. And by that, he meant it's organized because they do it collectively. They do it as a group - and skepticism because they do it from a position of distrust. That is to say the burden of proof is on the person with a novel claim. And in this sense, science is intrinsically conservative. It's quite hard to persuade the scientific community to say, yes, we know something, this is true. What we find is that actually really major changes in scientific thinking are relatively rare in the history of science. At the end of the day, what science is - what scientific knowledge is is the consensus of the scientific experts who through this process of organized scrutiny, collective scrutiny have judged the evidence and come to a conclusion about it either yea or nay. So we can think of scientific knowledge as a consensus of experts. We can also think of science as being a kind of a jury, except it's a very special kind of jury. It's not a jury of your peers. It's a jury of geeks. It's a jury of men and women with Ph.Ds. But this leads us to one final problem. If science is what scientists say it is, then isn't that just an appeal to authority? And weren't we all taught in school that the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy? Well, here's the paradox of modern science that actually scientist is the appeal to authority. But it's not the authority of the individual no matter how smart that individual is like Plato or Socrates or Einstein. It's the authority of the collective community. You can think of it as a kind of wisdom of the crowd, but a very special kind of crowd. The collective knowledge, the collective work of all of the scientists who have worked on a particular problem. RAZ: Is there an example of when the consensus change - like something that we pretty much believed was true, like an article of faith that we - like we had to later rethink? ORESKES: Well, nothing in science is an article of faith because we're always aware of the possibility that there could be new information that could make us rethink a question and reopen an old issue. And that's what scientific discovery is all about. So take gravity. It may be a pretty stupid thing to jump out of window thinking, well, maybe the idea of gravity will be revisited in the future, right? (Laughter) I mean that would be a pretty dumb move, right? RAZ: Unless you land into a pool filled with marshmallow fluff. ORESKES: Right, exactly. You can come up with some extremely implausible scenarios for how our understanding might somehow not apply in this particular case, but here's the interesting thing about gravity. Our understanding of gravity today is different than our understanding of what it was in the late 19th century. So in the late 19th century, we had a vision of gravity that we had been passed down since Newton. We thought of gravity as a force that prevailed in the presence of a massive body, and the mathematics of that was correct. People could use Newton's laws of motions to predict how an object would fall through space. But then in the early 20th century, Albert Einstein comes along, and he says, well, there's a different way to look at this thing that we call gravity. And I think that gravity is actually the bending of space time in the presence of mass of bodies. RAZ: Yeah. ORESKES: So now we have a different conceptual understanding of gravity, and it's radically different. There's no downplaying the fact that this is a radically different vision of the world and how it operates. But if you jump out of a window from a 10-story building, you will still get killed because that - the outcomes, the empirical outcomes actually for most purposes are the same. There's a certain kind of mathematical structure to the universe that both Newton and Einstein correctly perceived. They gave different accounts of it, but if you had to calculate what the impact would be of jumping out of a window in terms of whether you would live or die, it doesn't actually change even though the conceptualization of the universe is very different. RAZ: But, I mean - if as you say, you know, nothing in science is an article of faith, I mean - I'm assuming that most scientists do what they do. They ask big questions with the goal of seeking out a truth. ORESKES: Well, we are seeking the truth. I think any scientist will tell you that that's our goal. But we also know that truth is a kind of receding idea. We can never be sure we're there because we have no independent means of knowing that we're there. Like, we don't know when we've arrived is the problem. So, yes, we seek the truth, but we're also mindful. And I would say a good scientist is humble that we understand that it is a receding goal. The purposes of all these processes of interrogation is to transform claims from an individual's subjective claim that, I, Naomi thinks is true to a claim that has been sufficiently examined and scrutinized by enough different people that we can say this isn't just Naomi's opinion anymore. This is a claim that we all agree is supported by the evidence and appears to be true. (SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK) ORESKES: OK. So it brings me to my final point. Most of us trust our cars. So why is that? Why do cars work so well? It's not because of the genius of Henry Ford or Karl Benz or even Elon Musk. It's because the modern automobile is the product of more than 100 of years of war by hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of people. The modern automobile is the product of the collected work and wisdom and experience of every man and woman who has ever worked on a car. And the reliability of the technology is the result of that accumulated effort. We benefit not just from the genius of Benz and Ford and Musk, but from the collective intelligence and hard work of all of the people who have worked on the modern car. And the same is true of science, only science is even older. Our basis for trust in science is actually the same as our basis in trust in technology and the same as the - our basis for trust in anything namely experience. But it shouldn't be blind trust anymore than we would have blind trust in anything. Our trust in science like science itself should be based on evidence, and that means that scientists have to become better communicators. They have to explain to us not just what they know, but how they know it. And it means that we have to become better listeners. Thank you very much. (APPLAUSE) RAZ: Naomi Oreskes is a professor at Harvard. Her work focuses on the history of science. You can see her entire talk at ted.com. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Her books include The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future and Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Twitter @NaomiOreskes
Naomi Oreskes
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Naomi Oreskes
Born
November 25, 1958 (age 60)
Alma mater
Imperial College, University of London
Stanford University
Scientific career
Fields
History of science, Economic geology
Institutions
Stanford University
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dartmouth College
Harvard University
New York University
University of California, San Diego
Naomi Oreskes (born November 25, 1958)[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
Contents
1
Background
2
Academic career
3
Science and society essay
4
Merchants of Doubt
5
Controversies
6
Bibliography
6.1
Books
6.2
Important papers
6.3
Selected editorials and opinion articles
7
Selected awards, honors, and fellowships
8
Notes and references
9
External links
Background[edit]
Oreskes is the daughter of Susan Eileen (née Nagin), a teacher,[4] and Irwin Oreskes, a professor of medical laboratory sciences and former dean of the School of Health Sciences at Hunter College in New York.[5][6][7][8][9] She has three siblings: Michael Oreskes, a journalist; Daniel Oreskes, an actor; and Rebecca Oreskes, a writer and former U.S. Forest Service ranger.[7]
She has worked as a consultant for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and US National Academy of Sciences, and has also taught at Dartmouth, NYU, UCSD and Harvard. She is the author of or has contributed to a number of essays and technical reports in economic geology and history of science[10] in addition to several books.
Since 2017, Oreskes has been listed on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Science Education.[11]
Oreskes is on the Board of Directors of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.[12]
Academic career[edit]
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 received her Bachelor of Science in mining geology from the Royal School of Mines of Imperial College, University of London in 1981. She then worked as a mining geologist for WMC (Western Mining Company) in outback South Australia, based in Adelaide, SA.[13]
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. She received her PhD degree in the Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science at Stanford in 1990.
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 [14].
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.[15]
As an example of studying scientific methods, she wrote on model validation in the Earth sciences,[16], cited more than 3200 times according to Google Scholar.
She moved to University of California, San Diego in 1998 as Associate Professor, Department of History and Program in Science Studies [17], then as Professor in that department 2005-2013, as well as Adjunct Professor of Geosciences (from 2007). She was named Provost of the Sixth College 2008-2011.[18]
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.[19]
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).[20]
Science and society essay[edit]
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.[21][22][23]
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 'climate change'".[21] 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.[24]
Merchants of Doubt[edit]
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.[3] 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.[25]
Most reviewers received it "enthusiastically".[26] 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.[27]
A film with the same name, inspired by the book, was released in 2015.[28]
Controversies[edit]
Oreskes' 2004 "Beyond the Ivory Tower" essay was challenged by British social anthropologist Benny Peiser, who eventually retracted his challenge, admitting he had only found one paper rejecting anthropogenic climate change, published by American Association of Petroleum Geologists, covered in Objections to Oreskes Essay
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[29] 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[30] 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.[31]
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,[32] where 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 saying nuclear power must be used to combat climate change.[33] An opinion piece in The New Yorker said she branded these four scientists as "climate deniers", and that her characterization was absurd, as they were amongst those who had done the most to push people to combat climate change.[34]
In 2015 news outlets published stories about ExxonMobil's early work on climate change followed by casting doubt on it, a conclusion echoed by Oreskes. They criticized her and invited her to read the (187) documents. She and Geoffrey Supran did so and supported the original stories in the peer-reviewed 2017 Environmental Research Letters, as described in Washington Post article.[35]
Bibliography[edit]
Books[edit]
The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-511733-6[36]
Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth, Edited with Homer Le Grand, Westview Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8133-4132-9[37]
Perspectives on Geophysics, Special Issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31B, Oreskes, Naomi and James R. Fleming, eds., 2000.
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Bloomsbury Press, 2010
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Columbia University Press, 2014
Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis, introduction by Naomi Oreskes, (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2015) ISBN 978-1-612-19528-5
Discerning Experts: The Practices of Scientific Assessment for Environmental Policy. Michael Oppenheimer, N. Oreskes, D. Jamieson, K. Brysse, J. O’Reilly & M. Shindell, University of Chicago Press, 2019, ISBN 978-0-226-60201-1
Important papers[edit]
Lewandowsky, Stephan; Cowtan; Risbey, James S.; Mann, Michael E.; Steinman, Byron E.; Oreskes, Naomi; Rahmstorf, Stefan (2018). "The 'pause' in global warming in historical context: (II) Comparing models to observations". . Environmental Research Letters . 13 (12): 123007. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaf372.
Lloyd, Elisabeth A.; Oreskes, Naomi (2018). "Climate Change Attribution: When is it Appropriate to Accept New Methods?". Earth's Future. 5 (3): 311–325. doi:10.1002/2017EF000665.
Oreskes, Naomi (2017). "Response by Oreskes to "Beyond Counting Climate Consensus,"". Environmental Communication. 11 (6): 731–732. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377094.
Zalasiewicz, J.; Oreskes, Naomi (21st of 26 authors) (2017). "The Working Group on the Anthropocene: Summary of Evidence and Interim Recommendations". Anthropocene. 19: 55–60. doi:10.1016/j.ancene.2017.09.001.
Supran, Geoffrey; Oreskes, Naomi (2017). "Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977–2014)". Environmental Research Letters. 12 (8): 084019. Bibcode:2017ERL....12h4019S. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f.
Waters, Colin N.; et al. (2016). "The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene". Science. 351 (6269): 6269. doi:10.1126/science.aad2622. PMID 26744408.
Zalasiewicz, Jan; et al. (2015). "When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal" (PDF). Quaternary International. 383: 196–203. Bibcode:2015QuInt.383..196Z. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045. hdl:11250/2485908.
Lewandowsky, Stephan; et al. (2016). "The "Pause" in Global Warming: Turning a Routine Fluctuation into a Problem for Science". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 97 (5): 723–733. Bibcode:2016BAMS...97..723L. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00106.1. hdl:1983/9a81f4b9-c049-411b-a8fd-11acfbbc2211.
Lewandowsky, Stephan; Oreskes, Naomi; Risbey, James S.; Newell, Ben R.; Smithson, Michael (2015). "Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community". Global Environmental Change. 33: 1–13. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.02.013.
Risbey; et al. (2014). "Well-estimated global surface warming in climate projections selected for ENSO phase". Nature Climate Change. 4 (9): 835–840. Bibcode:2014NatCC...4..835R. doi:10.1038/nclimate2310.
Brysse, Keynyn; Oreskes, Naomi; O'Reilly, Jessica; Oppenheimer, Michael (2013). "Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?". Global Environmental Change. 23 (1): 327–337. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008.
Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik M. (2010). "Defeating the merchants of doubt". Nature. 465 (7299): 686–687. Bibcode:2010Natur.465..686O. doi:10.1038/465686a. PMID 20535183.
Oreskes, Naomi (2004). "Science and public policy: what's proof got to do with it?" (PDF). Environmental Science & Policy. 7 (5): 369–383. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2004.06.002.
Oreskes, Naomi (December 2004). "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". Science. 306 (5702): 1686. doi:10.1126/science.1103618. PMID 15576594.
Oreskes, Naomi; Shrader-Frechette, Kristin; Belitz, Kenneth (1994). "Verification, Validation, and Confirmation of Numerical Models in the Earth Sciences" (PDF). Science. 263 (5147): 641–646. doi:10.1126/science.263.5147.641. PMID 17747657.
Hitzman, Murray W.; Oreskes, Naomi; Einaudi, Marco T. (1992). "Geological characteristics and tectonic setting of Proterozoic iron oxide (Cu-U-Au-LREE) deposits". Precambrian Research. 58 (1–4): 241–287. Bibcode:1992PreR...58..241H. doi:10.1016/0301-9268(92)90121-4.
Selected editorials and opinion articles[edit]
Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik M. (October 16, 2018). "Fixing the Climate Requires More Than Technology". New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi; Supran, Geoffrey (September 1, 2017). "Yes, ExxonMobil misled the public". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Supran, Geoffrey; Oreskes, Naomi (August 22, 2017). "What Exxon Mobil Didn't Say About Climate Change". New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi (October 10, 2015). "Exxon's Climate Concealment". New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik (July 25, 2014). "14 concepts that will be obsolete after catastrophic climate change". Washington Post. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi (January 17, 2013). "Put government labs to work on climate change". Washington Post. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi (February 1, 2007). "The Long Consensus On Climate Change". Washington Post. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi (July 24, 2006). "Global warming -- signed, sealed and delivered". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Oreskes, Naomi (December 26, 2004). "Undeniable Global Warming". Washington Post. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
Selected awards, honors, and fellowships[edit]
The British Academy Medal, 2019[38]
Mary C. Rabbit Award (History and Philosophy of Geology Division), Geological Society of America, 2019 [39]
Elected Member of the American Philosophical Society, 2019[40]
Guggenheim Fellow, 2018-2019, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,[41]
Elected Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017[42]
Plenary Speaker, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2017[43]
Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication, Climate One, 2016[44]
Ambassador and Fellow, American Geophysical Union, 2016[45]
Frederick Anderson Climate Change Award, Center for International Environmental Law, 2016[46]
Convocation Speaker, The Evergreen State College, Olympia and Tacoma, Washington, 2016[47]
Public Service Award, Geological Society of America, 2015[48]
Elected a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, 2015[49]
William T. Patten Visiting Lectureship, Indiana University, March 2015[50]
Herbert Feis Prize for Public History, American Historical Association 2014[51]
Forum for the History of Science in America Distinguished Lecture History of Science Society 2014[52]
Presidential Citation for Science and Society American Geophysical Union 2014[53]
Commencement Speaker University of California, Riverside 2012[54]
Climate Change Communicator of the Year, George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 2011[55]
Francis Bacon Award in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Caltech 2008[56]
Chancellors Associates’ Faculty Excellence Award for Community Service UCSD 2008[57]
Listed, Who's Who in American Science and Engineering, Who's Who in the West[58]
George Sarton Award Lecture, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004[59]
American Philosophical Society Sabbatical Fellowship, 2001-2002[60]
National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, 1994-1999[61]
Ritter Memorial Fellowship in History of Marine Sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1994[62]
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 1993-94[58]
Society of Economic Geologists Lindgren Prize for outstanding work by a young scientist, 1993[63]
Naomi Oreskes
Professor of the History of Science
Areas of Research: History of Environmental Sciences, Science Policy, Philosophy of Science, Science and Religion, STS, Technology and Society, Women and Gender StudiesNaomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A world-renowned geologist, historian and public speaker, she is a leading voice on the role of science in society and the reality of anthropogenic climate change.
Oreskes is author or co-author of 7 books, and over 150 articles, essays and opinion pieces, including Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury, 2010), The Collapse of Western Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2014), Discerning Experts (University Chicago Press, 2019), Why Trust Science? (Princeton University Press, 2019), and Science on a Mission: American Oceanography from the Cold War to Climate Change, (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming). Merchants of Doubt, co-authored with Erik Conway, was the subject of a documentary film of the same name produced by participant Media and distributed by SONY Pictures Classics, and has been translated into nine languages. A new edition of Merchants of Doubt, with an introduction by Al Gore, will be published in 2010.
Oreskes wrote the Introduction to the Melville House edition of the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, Laudato Si, and her essays and opinion pieces on climate change have appeared in leading newspapers around the globe, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Times (London), and Frankfurter Allegemeine. Her numerous awards and prizes include the 2019 Geological Society of American Mary C. Rabbitt Award, the British Academy Medal 2019, the 2016 Stephen Schneider Award for outstanding Climate Science Communication, the 2015 Public Service Award of the Geological Society of America, the 2015 Herbert Feis Prize of the American Historical Association for her contributions to public history, and the 2014 American Geophysical Union Presidential Citation for Science and Society. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
In 2018 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow for a new book project with Erik Conway, “The Magic of the Marketplace: The True History of a False Idea,” which will be published by Bloomsbury Press as soon as it is finished.
Select Publications
Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, 2014 (MIT Press)
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, 2014 (Columbia University Press)
Collapse of Western Civilization Home Page
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, 2010. (New York: Bloomsbury Press.)
Merchants of Doubt Home Page
Merchants of Doubt at the 52nd New York Film Festival, October 8, 2014
Models in Environmental Regulatory Decision Making, Whipple, Chris et al. (fourteen additional authors), 2007. (Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences National Research Council, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology), 287 pp.
The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science, 1999. (New York: Oxford University Press)
In the Media
Escaping Extinction, World Economic Forum, January 2019
Yes, ExxonMobil Misled the Public, LA Times, September 2017
What Exxon Mobil Didn't Say About Climate Change, The New York Times, August 2017
Assessing ExxonMobil's Climate Change Communications (177-2014), Environment Research Letters, August 2017
Scientists Dive Into the Political Fray, PBS Newshour, April 2017
How to Break the Climate Deadlock, Scientific American, November 2015
What Did Exxon Know?, On The Media, November 2015
The Pope and the Planet, The Open Mind, November 2015
Exxon's Climate Concealment, New York Times, October 2015
Naomi Oreskes, a Lightning Rod in a Changing Climate, New York Times, June 2015
A Chronicler of Warnings Denied, New York Times, October 2014
Merchants of Doubt, Documentary from Sony Pictures Classics, 2014
"Why We Should Trust Scientists," TED Talk, June 2014
The 2014 Vatican Environmental Summit:
Can a Pope Help Sustain Humanity and Ecology?, New York Times
Interview for Cosmologics Magazine
Prof. Oreskes discusses her book, "The Collapse of Western Civilization..."
Naomi Oreskes - The Collapse of Western Civilization, Inquiring Minds Podcast
"A View From the Climate Change Future," National Public Radio via Boston's WBUR
Edited Volumes
Oreskes, Naomi, ed., with Homer E. Le Grand, 2001. Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (Boulder: Westview Press), paperback edition February 2003.
Edited Journal Volumes
Oreskes, Naomi and James R. Fleming, eds. 2000. “Perspectives on Geophysics,” Special Issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31B, September 2000.
Photo Credit Kayana Szymczak
Contact Information
oreskes@fas.harvard.edu
Websites
Faculty Assistant: Emily Bowman
People
Faculty
Faculty Areas of Research
Science & Technology Studies
Women & Gender Studies
Naomi Oreskes is a professor of the History of Science.
Oreskes is an internationally renowned geologist, science historian, and author of both scholarly and popular books and articles on the history of earth and environmental science, including The Rejection of Continental Drift (Oxford, 1999), Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (Westview, 2003), and in recent decades has been a leading voice on the issue of anthropogenic climate change.
Her 2004 essay, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change" (Science 306: 1686) has been widely cited, both in the United States and abroad, and she has written nearly fifty opinion pieces, which have appeared in The Times (London), The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Nature, Science, The New Statesman, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and other venues. Her 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming, co-authored with Erik M. Conway, was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, won the Watson-Davis Prize from the History of Science Society, and has been translated into eight languages. The film version, by the same name and produced by Robby Kenner and Participant Media, was released by SONY Classics Pictures in 2015. Oreskes and Conway have also written The Collapse of Western Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2014), which has been a best seller in France, and has been translated into nine languages. In 2014, Oreskes had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis at a special meeting at the Vatican on climate change and sustainability, and in 2015 wrote the introduction to the Melville House edition of the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, Laudato Si’.
Professor Oreskes’ current research projects include completion of a scholarly book on the history of Cold War Oceanography, “Science on a Mission: American Oceanography from the Cold War to Climate Change” (Chicago, forthcoming), and “Assessing Assessments: A Historical and Philosophical Study of Scientific Assessments for Environmental Policy in the Late 20th Century.”
Naomi Oreskes is a professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her essay "Beyond the Ivory Tower" was a milestone in the fight against global warming denial.
QUOTED: "In this convincing yet often dense argument, Oreskes clearly reminds readers that science has consistently brought home the bacon."
"not for general readers but interesting debate fodder for the scientifically inclined."
Oreskes, Naomi WHY TRUST SCIENCE? Princeton Univ. (Adult Nonfiction) $24.95 10, 1 ISBN: 978-0-691-17900-1
A scholarly evaluation of arguments in favor of science.
Although she has not written a polemic but rather a philosophical examination of ideas, Oreskes (History of Science, Earth and Planetary Sciences/Harvard Univ.; co-author: The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future, 2014) addresses a topic. In his introduction to this book, based on the 2016 Princeton University Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Princeton professor of politics Stephen Macedo writes that she "defends the role of values in science, discusses the relationship between science and religion, and sets out her own credo as a scientist and defender of science." Following the introduction, the text contains commentaries from four colleagues and concludes with Oreskes' replies. Proofs are limited to mathematics. No scientific statement can be proven, and even Nobel Prize winners have changed their minds, so Oreskes joins a distinguished line of thinkers who explain why we should trust the findings of the scientific community, many of which people reject if they "clash with their economic or cherished beliefs." After ruling out the major philosophical approaches to its authority--empiricism, induction, fallibilism, etc.--Oreskes concludes that good science is a collective enterprise whose objectivity arises from the social practices of peer review, criticism, and correction. She emphasizes that on most hot-button science-denial issues--e.g., evolution, vaccine safety, climate change--"there is a scientific consensus. What is lacking is cultural acceptance by parties who have found a way to challenge the science." Thus, reversing climate change will require government regulation and interference in the free market, which is anathema to conservatives, who respond by questioning the science. Unfortunately, it also means that additional scientific evidence is unlikely to win them over. In this convincing yet often dense argument, Oreskes clearly reminds readers that science has consistently brought home the bacon.
Not for general readers but interesting debate fodder for the scientifically inclined.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Oreskes, Naomi: WHY TRUST SCIENCE?" Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2019. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A596269755/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ae9f1857. Accessed 9 Sept. 2019.
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