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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Myth Deconstruction - OISM (EN)

Reference

Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors
Cook, J., Ellerton, P., & Kinkead, D. (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 13(2), 024018. Link to PDF & Link to Supplement

Step-by-step deconstruction

The table below is inspired by the simplified supplement and may differ slightly from what is shown in the GIF. This is mostly due to make the text fit into the available space which made it necessary to reword some of it.

1 Identify claim 31,000 dissenting scientists show there’s no expert consensus on climate change.
2 Argument structure Premise 1: A large proportion of people with science degrees dissent against human-caused global warming.
Premise 2: People with science degrees are experts on climate change.
Conclusion: There is no expert agreement on human-caused global warming.
3 Inferential Intent

Deduction

4 Validity VALID
4a Hidden premises NONE
5 Check premises Premise 1 is false: magnified minority. 31,000 are 0.3% of the 10,000,000+ people with science degrees in the U.S.
Premise 2 is false: fake experts. The term "scientists" covers a range of disciplines, many of which don't include expertise in climate science. 99.9% of the signatories in the Global Warming Petition Project have no expertise in climate science.
6 Status of claim FALSE
Both premises are false.
7 Summary of fallacies

Magnified minority: While 31,000 science graduates sounds like a lot, it is only 0.3% of the over 10 million people with science degrees in the United States.

Fake experts: 99.9% of the signatories in the Global Warming Petition Project have no expertise in climate science.

Related material

How the OISM Petition Project casts doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change

Blog post with background information about the myth deconstructions: Myth deconstructions as animated gifs

To learn more about the fallacies used in the myth deconstructions: A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial


Other versions

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