Exposed: Harvard Study Omitted Evidence to Allege ExxonMobil ‘Misled’ Public on Climate
A recent report from Harvard researchers accusing ExxonMobil of misleading the public on climate change was based on an incomplete sampling of data collected by Greenpeace, according to a review by Energy In Depth. The Harvard report accused the company of producing research that affirmed human contributions to climate change, and then using newspaper advertorials to deny or sow doubt around climate-related science.
The study’s authors, Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, announced the findings of their study in a column in the New York Times, in which they claimed that “81 percent of [ExxonMobil’s] climate change advertorials in one way or another expressed doubt.” The advertorials were taken from a database compiled and maintained by Greenpeace, an anti-fossil fuel group with its own anti-Exxon campaign. Critically, we found that this database omits dozens of climate-related advertorials run by the company that, had they been counted by Oreskes and Supran, would have severely weakened their case.
EID’s own review of the company’s New York Times advertorials reveals a dramatically different picture than what the Harvard authors claim to have found. EID’s random sample of the company’s relevant advertorials shows that the overwhelming majority – greater than 90 percent – affirm or otherwise strongly point to the fact that global warming is happening and humans are contributing to it.
EID’s review further shows that the researchers mischaracterized several advertorials as sowing doubt on climate science, even though the spots themselves described how the company planned to manage risks associated with climate change.
…
Biases Confirmed
The Supran/Oreskes study concluded that ExxonMobil’s internal documents and research on climate change, “published from 1977 to 2014, were in line with the scientific thinking of the time.” Where they fault the company is in its communications to the public, which they claim sought to sow doubt about the existence of climate change 80 percent of the time.
But their sample of public documents is small – 36 “advertorials” published in the New York Times between 1989 and 2004. According to Supran, “These are op-ed styled advertisements that the company took out for 29 years, every Thursday in the bottom right corner of the op-ed page of the New York Times.”
But there are a number of problems with this. The first and most obvious: ExxonMobil was formed in late 1999, 10 years after the earliest of the advertorials referenced by the study was published. In fact, of the 36 advertorials rated by Supran and Oreskes, only 11 belonged to ExxonMobil – the other 25 were published by Mobil (a different company from Exxon, remember) before the merger. Remove the Mobil submissions from the mix, and the universe of applicable advertorials is reduced by a 70 percent.
Indeed, study author Geoffrey Supran even misled reporters when he said a 1997 Mobil advertorial, one that strongly questioned the certainty of climate change, was written by Exxon – even though the advertorial prominently features Mobil’s logo and makes no mention of Exxon.
Read the entire article by Spencer Walrath at Energy in Depth, it’s quite a detailed analysis and well worth your time.
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I wonder how many participants of COP23 boarded incomplete aircraft to attend the summit.
Simpler. I am a 3x Harvard grad, whom the major gifts office has been persuing for years. (Indicia include my buying them lunch when they flew down every year to importune me. They finnaly got it shrn I made clear would be zero contrib to any school until Noremski was fired, and until Harvard position was adjusted toward objective reality.
Well, am saving much money even before the tax reforms.
Exxon. Mobil. Exxon-Mobil. Who cares? Is that the best you’ve got? The Supran paper is completely damning.
Scientist: a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.
Pathological science, as defined by Langmuir, is a psychological process in which a scientist, originally conforming to the scientific method, unconsciously veers from that method, and begins a pathological process of wishful data interpretation (see the observer-expectancy effect and cognitive bias). Some characteristics of pathological science are:
The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
There are claims of great accuracy.
Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.
Langmuir never intended the term to be rigorously defined; it was simply the title of his talk on some examples of “weird science”. As with any attempt to define the scientific endeavor, examples and counterexamples can always be found.
Confirmation bias can lead to the experimenter interpreting results incorrectly because of the tendency to look for information that conforms to their hypothesis, and overlook information that argues against it. (*Goldstein, Bruce. “Cognitive Psychology”. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011, p. 374)
In research, experimenter bias occurs when experimenter expectancies regarding study results bias the research outcome.
(Sackett, D. L. (1979). “Bias in analytic research”. Journal of Chronic Diseases. 32 (1–2): 51–63. PMID 447779. doi:10.1016/0021-9681(79)90012-2.)
A cognitive bias refers to the systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion.
Bias arises from various processes that are sometimes difficult to distinguish. These include:
information-processing shortcuts (heuristics)
noisy information processing (distortions in the process of storage in and retrieval from memory)
the brain’s limited information processing capacity
emotional and moral motivations
social influence
Many people in government and politics studied political science:
Political Science:is a social science which deals with systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts and political behaviour.
There is no real science here… just the history of war and theft… any truths are just a matter of opinion and bias!!
Ethical dilemmas seem to run in the family.
Her brother Michael Oreskes placed on leave after sex harassment accusations from NPR…..
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/npr-chief-michael-oreskes-placed-on-leave-after-sex-harassment-accusations/
Golly! A greenie fiddling the data. Well I never!
No “ooops” at all.
Naomi & gang are in a huge money hunt.
Facts counter to their narrative are unimportant.
It seems as if Groteskes is in denial of her manipuations. Is she a Denierette, a Manipulatrice or both?
It’s a hermaphrodata.
I get so tired of all the negative comments about these committed researchers and scientists. If you would just take the time to read their papers you would quickly realize that they carefully follow the long established protocols for the “Prunus avium” research and data retention methods. I would be surprised if you were unable to agree with me after reading even a small number of the plethora of papers that has been published by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes following these protocols.
Prunus avium? I’d rather call it Atropa belladonna without taking belladonna literally.
Maybe it’s black cherry we see on Atropa belladonna?
I do see certain similarities…