Professor Discredits Paper Saying Exxon Knew About Hotcoldwetdry Danger, Misled Public

And the professor was willing to do this in court

(Forbes) Harvard professors who claim their analysis proves ExxonMobil misled the public about climate change were obviously biased, a colleague says, and the company says their data shouldn’t be used to help a “corrupt enterprise” of private lawyers and California officials suing the energy sector.

In papers filed by the company March 1 in a Texas state court, Cleveland State University communications professor Kimberly Neuendorf discredited a 2017 study that accuses Exxon of misleading the public about climate change in its statements from 1977-2014. In fact, its authors had already made up their minds about the issue years earlier, with one of them even announcing it on Twitter in 2015.

“Content analysis coding ought to be conducted with coders who are at arm’s-length with regard to the research, in order to maximize objectivity,” Neuendorf wrote. “Optimally, coders should be blind to the research questions or goals.

“In the S&O study, the coders were not blind. In fact, they were as non-blind as could be imagined. They were the investigators themselves, as well as an affiliated graduate student. In this particular case, the problematic nature of informed coders is magnified by the coders’ longtime and intensive involvement in the popular communication of climate change.”

Authors Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes claimed to have found “a discrepancy between what ExxonMobil’s scientists and executives discussed about climate change privately and in academic circles and what it presented to the general public,” but Neuendorf takes issue with those results.

“I have concluded that S&O’s content analysis does not support the study’s conclusion because of a variety of fundamental errors in their analysis,” Neuendorf wrote. “S&O’s content analysis lacks reliability, validity, objectivity, generalizability and replicability.

Basically, it comes down to the notion that the scientists had a biased, political viewpoint, and generated a paper designed to reinforce that viewpoint. And they, and all the Warmists assaulting Exxon and the other fossil fuels companies, including government officials, probably thought that Exxon would roll over and comply. Instead, Exxon, which keeps really good, highly educated lawyers on staff, is fighting back against the unhinged Cult of Climastrology. This court filing by Neuendorf (who will surely be assaulted by the CoC as a “denier”, hounded by the CoC, and the CoC will attempt to have Neuendorf terminated) identified 7 fundamental flaws in the original study, which is not unusual with Warmist papers.

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3 Responses to “Professor Discredits Paper Saying Exxon Knew About Hotcoldwetdry Danger, Misled Public”

  1. drowningpuppies says:

    “I have concluded that S&O’s content analysis does not support the study’s conclusion because of a variety of fundamental errors in their analysis,” Neuendorf wrote. “S&O’s content analysis lacks reliability, validity, objectivity, generalizability and replicability.”

    Kinda like the whole AGW scam in a nutshell.

  2. Jeffery says:

    This was not an academic paper but was a court declaration paid for by Exxon.

    From the declaration:

    Kimberly A. Neuendorf was retained by Exxon Mobil Corporation to provide an evaluation of the Supran and Oreskes (2017) study, relying on her research expertise, especially with regard to the methods of content analysis. She was compensated for this review.

    http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/global/files/energy-and-environment/Neuendorf-Report.pdf

    We can’t tell if the document was published in an academic journal, unlikely with the Feb 22, 2018 date.

    Just because she was paid by Exxon and that the declaration was NOT published in an academic journal (which allows academic criticism from other experts AND a rebuttal from Drs. Oreskes and Supran – but these are academic requirements which are not required in the courts) DOES NOT prove that her conclusions are invalid. Now that her critique is public it will be interesting to see the potential rebuttal.

    • drowningpuppies says:

      Geez, the obvious never gets past the ignorant angry little black fella.

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