Selective Appeals to Consensus:

Roger Pielke Jr. catches climate scientist Michael Mann of RealClimate being a bit selective in his reliance upon the scientific consensus on climate change. For those who work on this issue, he offers this advice.

Now that the WMO [World Meteorlogical Organization] has issued a consensus statement on the state of climate science, scientists should be careful in how they characterize the overall state of the science. I have complete respect for scientists who have strong views on what the data, models, and theory shows, and fully expect them to make their case to their colleagues and others. However, scientists also should be careful not to represent their own views as in fact representing a consensus of the community when they do not, especially when making arguments for political action. . . .

For scientists wanting to use the notion of consensus as a tool of political advocacy, they risk being perceived as inconsistent when their actions change when they are the ones on the outside looking in.