Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes (born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science.

She studied at Stuyvesant High School, New York, received her Bachelor of Science in mining geology from the Royal School of Mines of Imperial College, University of London in 1981.

She later received her PhD degree in the Stanford University Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science.

Oreskes has worked as a consultant for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and US National Academy of Sciences, and has also taught at Dartmouth College, New York University, UCSD and Harvard University.

She is the author of or has contributed to a number of essays and technical reports in economic geology and history of science in addition to several books.

Oreskes' academic career started in geology, then broadened into history and philosophy of science.

Her work was concerned with scientific methods, model validation, consensus, dissent, as in 2 books on the often-misunderstood history of continental drift and plate tectonics.

She later focused on climate change science and studied the doubt-creation industry opposing it.

She worked as a mining geologist for WMC (Western Mining Company) in outback South Australia, based in Adelaide.

Starting in 1984, she returned to academe as a research assistant in the Geology Department and as a teaching assistant in the departments of Geology, Philosophy and Applied Earth Sciences at Stanford University.

During 1991–1996 she was assistant professor of Earth Sciences and Adjunct Asst. Professor of History Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

The 1992 Hitzman-Oreskes-Einaudi paper on Cu-U-Au-REE ("Olympic Dam") deposits has been cited more than 700 times, according to Google Scholar.

In the essay she reported an analysis of "928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and published in the ISI database with the keywords 'global climate change'".

The essay stated the analysis was to test the hypothesis that the drafting of reports and statements by societies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Association for the Advancement of Science and National Academy of Sciences might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions on anthropogenic climate change.

After the analysis, she concluded that 75 percent of the examined abstracts either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

The essay received a great deal of media attention from around the world and has been cited by many prominent persons such as Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth.

She received a National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award in 1994.

She spent 1996–1998 as associate professor, History and Philosophy of Science, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University.

As an example of studying scientific methods, she wrote on model validation in the Earth sciences, cited more than 3200 times according to Google Scholar.

She moved to University of California, San Diego in 1998 as associate professor in the Department of History and Program in Science Studies, then as professor in that department 2005–2013, as well as adjunct professor of Geosciences (since 2007).

In 1999 she participated as a consultant to the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board for developing a repository safety strategy for the Yucca Mountain project, with special attention to model validation.

Oreskes wrote an essay "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change", published in the science and society section of the journal Science in December 2004.

In 2007, Oreskes expanded her analysis, stating that approximately 20 percent of abstracts explicitly endorsed the consensus on climate change that: "Earth's climate is being affected by human activities".

In addition, 55 percent of abstracts "implicitly" endorsed the consensus by engaging in research to characterize the ongoing and/or future impact of climate change (50 percent of abstracts) or to mitigate predicted changes (5 percent).

The remaining 25 percent focused on either paleoclimate (10%) or developing measurement techniques (15%); Oreskes did not classify these as taking a position on contemporary global climate change.

She was named provost of the Sixth College 2008–2011.

In 2010, Oreskes co-authored Merchants of Doubt, which identified some parallels between the climate change debate and earlier public controversies, notably the tobacco industry's campaign to obscure the link between smoking and serious disease.

Oreskes is the daughter of Susan Eileen (née Nagin), a teacher, and Irwin Oreskes, a professor of medical laboratory sciences and former dean of the School of Health Sciences at Hunter College in New York.

She has three siblings: Michael Oreskes, a journalist; Daniel Oreskes, an actor; and Rebecca Oreskes, a writer and former U.S. Forest Service ranger.

She is Jewish.

Merchants of Doubt is a 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.

Oreskes and Conway, both American historians of science, identify some remarkable parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer.

They argue that spreading doubt and confusion was the basic strategy of those opposing action in each case.

In particular, Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tanks and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.

Most reviewers received it "enthusiastically".

She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmental issues such as global warming, and the history of science.

Since 2013, Oreskes has served as a professor at Harvard University in the Department of the History of Science and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (by courtesy).

Since 2017, she has been listed on the board of directors of the National Center for Science Education.

Oreskes is on the board of directors of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.