The 97% Myth.

Serious issues deserve better than this.

In the last several weeks, three letter-to-the-editor writers in my local newspaper used this claim to support their certainity about the scientific consensus supporting warming. Who can blame them when high ranking politicians and the media use it? The bedrock for this grossly overstated claim is a survey conducted by a University of Illinois student and her advisor in 2009. Her two-question survey of scientists found that “97 percent of climate scientists agree” that global temperatures have risen and that humans are a significant contributing factor. Conveniently, it did not include solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists or astronomers, who are the scientists most relevantly knowledgeable. Their survey was sent to a group of 3,146 scientists with only 76 (out of 79 respondents) agreeing with this assertion. Coincidently, 97.5% of the survey receivers didn’t respond. This intentionally exaggerated zombie statistic accomplished its objective of getting the school and her advisor into the headlines. I’ll let you judge why this has evolved into an “established scientific fact” when it clearly isn’t. Arguably, this disingenuous and often used two question survey’s findings have contributed to the polarity of the America public opinion on this subject.