Anderegg, Prall & Harold, PNAS 107 (2010), Reply to Aarstad: Risk management versus “truth”

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(47) E177 (published online before print November 8, 2010); doi: 10.1073/pnas.1012742107

Reply to Aarstad: Risk management versus “truth”

 William R. L. Anderegg* (Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, U.S.A), James W. Prall (Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G4) and Jacob Harold (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Palo Alto, CA 94025, U.S.A. 

Abstract

In his letter about our study (1), Aarstad (2) claims that the dominant perspective of climate scientists captured in our recent study (1) may not necessarily reflect objective truth judged by history. We present three responses to Aarstad's comments. First, risk management presents a more relevant and explicit framework for assessing scientific confidence around anthropogenic climate change (ACC) than does waiting for history's judgment of truth. Second, such claims of group-think or conspiracy-driven patterns in climate science fundamentally lack data and, therefore, credibility. Third, such unsubstantiated points contribute no substance to the discourse regarding climate science. We stand by the analysis presented in our …

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*Correspondence e-mail: anderegg@stanford.edu.

Link:  http://www.pnas.org/content/107/47/E177.extract