In 1998, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) released a list of 31,000 people with science degrees who had signed a petition rejecting the theory of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. This proves that the so-called ‘scientific consensus’ is actually no such thing.
Fact:
In 2006, Scientific American published a study which found that the list compiled the OISM contained flaws so glaring as to render it all but meaningless.
In the first place, no verification was done by OISM to check that the names on the list were real, or that the people really had science degrees. [In fact, pranksters managed to get Charles Darwin, a member of the Spice Girls and characters from the movie Star Wars included on the list.]
Secondly, the journal contacted people on the list and found that a majority either no longer supported the petition, couldn’t remember signing it or were dead.
Thirdly, while 31,000 sounds like a lot of people, it is actually only about 0.3 percent of the total number in the US who gained a science degree over the previous 40 years.
Finally, and most importantly, only 39 of the 31,000 people on the list were actually working in climate science. The rest were working in fields unrelated to climate and could therefore be expected to have little real knowledge on the subject.
It should also be noted that the petition did not just declare climate change to be a myth, but also that “there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” In other words, it actively encouraged the use of fossil fuels, as does the OISM.