Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors
Cook, J., Ellerton, P., & Kinkead, D. (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 13(2), 024018. Link to PDF & Link to Supplement
The table below is inspired by the simplified supplement and may differ slightly from what is shown in the GIF. This is mostly due to make the text fit into the available space which made it necessary to reword some of it. In the paper's supplement, this myth was identified as using ambiguous wording requiring a fairly complex deconstruction. Because this turned out to be difficult to clearly show in an animated GIF, the deconstruction was simplified.
| 1 | Identify claim | Scientists can’t even predict the weather next week, so how can they predict the climate years from now? |
| 2 | Argument structure | Premise 1: Weathercasters get weather predictions wrong. Premise 2: Weather and climate predictions are comparable. Conclusion: Climate predictions are unreliable. |
| 3 | Inferential Intent |
Deduction |
| 4 | Validity | LOGICALLY VALID |
| 4a | Hidden premises | NONE |
| 5 | Check premises | Premise 1 is true. Premise 2 is false and a false equivalence. This claim conflates weather and climate, which is weather averaged over time and space. The success of short-term predictions has little relevance to long-term climate predictions. |
| 6 | Status of claim |
FALSE |
| 7 | Summary of fallacies | False equivalence: This claim conflates weather and climate, which is weather averaged over time and space. The success of short-term predictions has little relevance to long-term climate predictions. |
The difference between weather and climate
Blog post with background information about the myth deconstructions: Myth deconstructions as animated gifs
To learn more about the fallacies used in the myth deconstructions: A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial
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