Scientific Inquiry concludes: Inhofe List “Not credible …”

 

 

Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon) has misused the power of his chairmanship and, now, Ranking Minority status on the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee to expend taxpayer resources on distorting, misleading, and outright deceiving when it comes to scientific issues, most notably in relation to questions of Global Warming. One of the most infamous examples of this are the various incarnations of a "report" cobbling together statements from scientists that supposedly dissent from the scientific consensus on humanity's role in driving accelerating global warming. This is a quite favorite 'denier' citation, the supposed 400 or 600 or 700 (depending on which version) number of scientists who have, supposedly, gone on record against the Theory of Global Warming. And, they like to cite this as from the "Senate Environment and Public Works Committee", without mentioning that this is a Minority Report from global-warming denier, fossil fool James Inhofe's staff.

Well, today the Center for Inquiry (CFI), "an organization committed to defending scientific integrity,

has today dealt a body blow to global warming skeptics by releasing findings exposing the lack of credibility of dissenting scientists challenging man-made global warming

CFI's Office of Public Policy undertook an assessment of the 687 people listed as "dissenting scientists" in the January 2009 version of the 'Inhofe list'. Their conclusions:

• Slightly fewer than 10 percent could be identified as climate scientists.
• Approximately 15 percent published in the recognizable refereed literature on subjects related to climate science.
• Approximately 80 percent clearly had no refereed publication record on climate science at all.
• Approximately 4 percent appeared to favor the current IPCC-2007 consensus and should not have been on the list.

Here (pdf) is a spreadsheet providing a first-order analysis of the 687 alledged "dissenting scientists" in the 2009 version.

http://getenergysmartnow.com/2009/07/17/scientific-inquiry-concludes-inhofe-list-not-credible/