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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.134.53.103 (talk) at 13:24, 24 September 2021 (she is an activist this should be added to the list of her titles.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.






how is this relevant? Benny Peiser is defacto a blogger and lobbyist


"Oreskes' 2004 "Beyond the Ivory Tower" essay was challenged by British social anthropologist Benny Peiser,"



Terminological note


The term "science historian" (as used in this article's first line and in the first sentence of the Merchants of Doubt section) is not one with which anyone in the history of science community self-identifies. It would accord better with usage if someone would change it to "historian of science."



Her growing controversy/anti-consensus on GMOs and nuclear energy


Dec 06, 2017 Denialism and the ‘Scientific Consensus’: Naomi Oreskes’ Attacks on Nuclear Energy and GMOs Expose Deep Divide Among Environmentalists
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-entine/post_10952_b_9111688.html

"Is Naomi Oreskes, science historian at Harvard University and ardent supporter of the science of climate change, a visionary as her supporters claim?"

"Or, as a growing number of critics maintain, is she a populist Luddite, the intellectual Rottweiler of in-your-face, environmentalism, unduly wary of modern technology, and whose activist policies are crippling environmental reforms?"

This is actually a decent article summarizing her political views, curious use of wording and controversies, most notable her rather concerning "attacks" on James Hansen.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-not-to-debate-nuclear-energy-and-climate-change

"Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, took a different approach: in an article published on Wednesday in the Guardian, she said that “four climate scientists”—she didn’t name them, but linked to a piece by James Hansen, the former NASA chief scientist; Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at M.I.T.; Tom Wigley, perhaps the most distinguished climate scientist in Australia; and Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution, who contributed to the team from the International Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize—had adopted a new form of “denialism.”

"It was an interesting choice. There is perhaps nobody who has done more to alert the world to the dangers of climate change than Hansen or Caldeira. But the article that the four men wrote, published in the Guardian as the Paris summit got underway, argued that “To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not on prejudice. The climate system cares about greenhouse gas emissions—not about whether energy comes from renewable power or abundant nuclear power.”

"According to Oreskes, suggesting that nuclear power play some role in limiting carbon emissions and solving global warming is not just wrong but “a strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late, one that says renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.”

"It is one thing to wonder about the value of nuclear energy—I was mostly opposed, too, until I saw Robert Stone’s compelling documentary, “Pandora’s Promise.’’ But to label Hansen (whom my colleague Elizabeth Kolbert has Profiled for this magazine) or Caldeira as denialists is absurd"

All this is notable, is it not?

I'd really rather someone else wrote the summarization of this material, for inclusion into the article. Any takers?
Boundarylayer (talk) 05:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]



I agree that it would probably be best to leave it to others. --Ronz (talk) 17:41, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Difficult to see all this as anything other than an attack against Oreskes


Regarding my revert [1]: At best, it looks like cherry-picking information then giving it undue weight as an attempt to undermine her. This article is under ArbCom enforcement. Editors need to be far more careful with their edits. I'm not arguing that some of the information might be due some mention in the article, and am happy to help identify such information and determine what weight is due. --Ronz (talk) 17:36, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]



I think a controversies section would be good and stick the various things into that. That section was just obscurely written, on Wikipedia we should try and make things plain and straightforward and not so much quotes. The William Nierenberg stuff hasn't made much waves and personally I think she was about right in the basic thesis though she went a bit over the top about it, but we should have a paragraph about it. The latest business though does look like a major controversy brewing. Dmcq (talk) 19:30, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Controversy sections, as the alternative? Fair enough Dmcq, will we allow you to take the lead on penning that?


"Thinly veiled attack"? Ronz it appears that you are emotionally invested in this person somehow and therefore you over-react when any suggestion of material summarizing or critizing their work appears. Could you clarify,  How summarizing the two papers, theirs and the response, is "an effort to undermine her" or is "cherry-picking", precisely? It's just WP:SUMMARY as far as I can see. I didn't put any quotes that exist outside the 2 papers in, but if you wish here are two below, inclusive of the counter-response.Though these are not really essential for a summary. I'm including them just to show that this is a well known issue amongst her peers.


One other thing I should probably mention, it seems like I add anything and it gets vanished pretty fast here. Plus I may be at the 3R limit right. Correct? Or was this setup intentional? Setting up a trap and hoping I'll fall into it? Then you'd claim I'm edit warring, at which point all of the political/sacrilege-herd will spring out of the woodwork and the cycle begins again? The article goes un-touched, everything gets made about the editors instead, is that not your ultimate game-plan? This has been my experience of editing of late, owing to how the article has not included any additions of mine, yet 2 other editors agree it's valuable info, so I've grown wiser to learn to be a little suspicious of those who react with this sort of sacrilege/defensive posturing, in their responses. I hope you can understand.


https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/science/naomi-oreskes-a-lightning-rod-in-a-changing-climate.html


The themes in “Merchants of Doubt” have hardly gone unchallenged, though, and the protests have not always originated on the far right. A vigorous objection has come from the family of William A. Nierenberg, one of the scientists singled out for criticism in the book. Dr. Oreskes and Dr. Conway accused Dr. Nierenberg of weakening two major scientific reports that he led in the early 1980s, one on acid rain and one on global warming.


Dr. Nierenberg died in 2000, but his son, daughter and son-in-law have compiled a detailed critique contending that the historians misrepresented Dr. Nierenberg’s activities. “If you read her writing on the subjects I am familiar with, you know less about the topic than before you started,” Nicolas Nierenberg said in an interview.


A former staff officer at the National Research Council who helped oversee the preparation of the global warming report, John S. Perry, also said he felt that Dr. Oreskes had been unfair to Dr. Nierenberg. “That sort of bothers me, because her book ‘Merchants of Doubt’ is otherwise so good,’” he said in an interview, adding that in his view the 1983 climate report stands up to scrutiny even in hindsight.


Dr. Oreskes has disputed the specific complaints raised by the Nierenberg siblings, but she did say in an interview that she somewhat regretted the tone of one article on Dr. Nierenberg — a paper that compared him to Dr. Pangloss, the character in Voltaire’s “Candide” who is optimistic about the future to the point of delusion.


“I concede that the tone was somewhat aggressive,” Dr. Oreskes said. “We were still working out the argument at the time. But we stand by every fact in that paper.”


Another environmentalist and wikipedia editor William Connolley, as discussed above, concluded that Oreskes is "wrong" and "silly" to have written this particular paper. He concluded, as have others, that factually it is also completely without substance.


Similarly, now with Professor James Hansen and 4 others receiving the strange label of  a "new form of denier" from Oreskes, when Oreskes ironically uses Hansen extensively in her book and film...It really is a bit wild, and frankly a trend has emerged that may influence their writings. A political leaning, that interestingly, or sadly enough. Singer, ever one to be politically discerning, pointed out way back in 2011.


http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/06/science_and_smear_merchants.html


"now we know at least where Oreskes stands in the political spectrum."


I hate to say Singer was accurate or right about anything, but there you go. He was also generally accurate over the effects of the Kuwait oil fires, when debating with Carl Sagan, who instead argued mass famine/"nuclear winter" would come about. In any event, broken clocks can be right twice a day. On Oreskes, there appears to be a common trend of Policy based evidence making. Though we can't say this out-right, that is however the general consensus amongst other scientists, reporters, lay readers etc. Oreskes' use of the "denier" label, namely putting it on Hansen, after everything, is literally the epitome of a somewhat troubling irony. The consensus is with Hansen on this one too.


Boundarylayer (talk) 13:20, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Set up you own blog for all this sort of stuff. See WP:NOTAFORUM. We don't need walls of text which have no constructive content. We are not here to discuss Oreskes but to write an article. Dmcq (talk) 14:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Controversy nuclear power deniers


I think something needs to be in about Naomi Oreskes piece in the Guuardian saying that advocating nuclear power was a new form of denialism. I had





In 2015 she published an opinion piece There is a new form of climate denialism to look out for – so don't celebrate yet[1] which branded as climate deniers four climate scientists who advocated the use of nuclear power to mitigate climate change.[2]





    

  1. ^ "There is a new form of climate denialism to look out for – so don't celebrate yet". The Guardian. 16 December 2015.

    2. 

  2. ^ Specter, Michael (December 18, 2015). "How Not to Debate Nuclear Energy and Climate Change". New York Times.

    3. 





in the article. The New Yorker made the connection to the climate change scientists clear from what she wrote though she didn't write the actual names herself but just what they wrote. My addition was amended to stick in one of the four specially, I see no good justificaion for this. It was then removed wholescale by another editor. The removal says ' that article did not "brand four scientists as deniers" -- it didn't even name them, as the subsequent critique makes clear. Enough with the WP:OR...' That is simply wrong. That she didn'tt spell their names in her article does not mean she did not name or brand them, the aricle twice identified their work right near the beginning and the New Yorker confirmed this obvious fact. Her links were "Oddly, some of these voices include climate scientists, "four climate scientists held an off-site session", and "coupled climate/energy problem is with a massive and immediate expansion of nuclear power". I just used the 'four climate-scientists' part. Dmcq (talk) 11:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]



I'm okay with adding something -- but the text has to be accurate, especially in regard to named individuals.  If she didn't name them, we can't say she did. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:42, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We most certainly can if a reliable secondary source says so and identifies a pretty obvious identification in what she said, and they did. However I see no good reason in this case to identify a particular one of the four. The New Yorker identified all four  and said "There is perhaps nobody who has done more to alert the world to the dangers of climate change than Hansen or Caldeira" but did not go on about particular ones any more than that. So there is no good reason to identify Hansen by himself. Dmcq (talk) 12:02, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The latest expansion [2] seems rather undue given that these sources are opinion pieces. --Ronz (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The opinions of experts and journalists are can still be reliable sources. Michael Specter at the New Yorker is a staff writer who has won awards for his writing on science. I see nothing undue about these widely read sources. Dmcq (talk) 18:41, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say they weren't reliable, only that the expansion seems undue. It's been two years. If there hasn't been any better analysis of the back-and-forth, then why is it encyclopedic? --Ronz (talk) 22:01, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There was lots at the time, and I see two new books came out this year citing her piece, one The Retro Future: Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future saying how wrong she was and the other The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival saying how right she was. Dmcq (talk) 23:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Oreskes cites Mark Z. Jacobson as her rationale, now if you could take a look at his article, you would see that this has blown up recently with Jacobson taking a highly publicized legal action to remove a critique of his publications, in PNAS Nov 2017. I am an editor on that page and that's why this is fairly relevant. Dmcq & Ronz.


While I have entered it twice now, each time the link to Jacobson has been removed. Could one of you include it?


Boundarylayer (talk) 00:16, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the books, Dmcq!


Also, is the last sentence a bit awkward/confusing, "An opinion piece in the New Yorker said she branded these four scientists as "climate deniers", and that was absurd as they were amongst those who had done the most to push people to combat climate change."? --Ronz (talk) 00:19, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it if you like Dmcq (talk) 00:29, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Has anyone else noted that her piece used Mark Z. Jacobson as her rationale? That's the sort of evidence that should determine whether we should say something or not. I believe it would still be okay though to mention her piece in the Guardian in the article about Mark Z. Jacobson even without any secondary assessment like that that. Dmcq (talk) 00:29, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


So if I am to understand you correctly, you're of the view that including Oreskes Guardian piece, on the wiki-page for Jacobson is preferred, just not here on Oreskes page?
Boundarylayer (talk) 00:42, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]



No that is not what I said. I said that referring to Mark Z. Jacobson here as her rationale is not justified in the context  of the controversy but that however it can be mentioned in the Mark Z. Jacobson article as it mentions him. Dmcq (talk) 00:58, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]




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Need to add activist to the list of titles she has


She has stated that she is an activist. “ExxonMobil also accuses us of being ‘activists,’ as though that is something to be ashamed of,” they wrote in a statement. “But we are proud to be activists. As scientists before us have shown, speaking truth to power is a civic duty.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/08/24/exxonmobil-asked-people-to-read-the-documents-it-produced-on-climate-change-so-these-harvard-researchers-did/









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