Manufactured doubt, not genuine debate, explains public confusion over climate science consensus

Evidence

In 2004, researchers published a literature review of the then-current 928 scientific papers on climate change and found that exactly zero of them disputed the idea that anthropogenic climate change was real. In a 2012 update to these findings, other researchers found that the number of dissenters was 0.17 percent out of 13,950 papers. A 2013 survey of 4,000 peer-reviewed papers that took a position on climate change found that 97 percent agreed with the position that global warming was caused by human activity. Meanwhile, according to the latest public opinion poll, only 27 percent of American adults think that “almost all climate scientists agree that human behavior is mostly responsible for climate change.” Why would there be such widespread public confusion not simply over whether climate change is real, but over whether scientists have reached consensus on it? Because such doubt has been shamelessly manufactured over the last twenty years, by those with a financial interest in promoting it. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 75

Categorization

• XREF: Direct echo of the ‘Doubt is their product’ industry strategy documented in Merchants of Doubt regarding tobacco and acid rain. — connects to: Seeding doubt about settled science effectively confuses the public — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 64; Climate denial trades on manufactured doubt, not persuasion of scientists — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927; Fossil fuel funding manufactured doubt that made climate change a partisan media issue — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 160 (+7 more)
• SEED: Angle: the 97% vs 27% gap as the cleanest quantifiable measure of manufactured ignorance — how consensus-vs-perception gaps track deliberate disinformation spending.

Broader Connections

• Climate denial trades on manufactured doubt, not persuasion of scientists #corroborates (0.92) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927
• Think tanks deliberately manufacture public doubt about settled science to shape policy #expands (0.92) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 626
• Fossil fuel funding manufactured doubt that made climate change a partisan media issue #expands (0.85) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 160
• Industry denial persists even after authoritative scientific consensus #corroborates (0.82) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1675
• Climate denial functions as a symbol-laden conservative culture war, not reasoned science debate #corroborates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2538
• Uncertainty about whether public discussion is legitimate outweighs uncertainty about facts #expands (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1232
• Scientific uncertainty reflects political context, not deficient understanding #expands (0.72) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 684