That viral '97% of scientists agree' stat is garbage math

Saw that stat floating around again on Facebook yesterday. Looked up the original study from 2013. Turns out they surveyed 11,944 people but only 77 of them actually had climate science listed as their main field. That's 0.6%, not 97%. The 97% number came from cherry picking just the people who said 'yes' to one specific question while ignoring everyone else. How does a stat that bad keep getting shared 10 years later?

2 comments

2 Comments

henryt1822h ago

Man, I had a buddy who shared that stat in a group chat last week. I asked him where he got it and he just said "it's everywhere." Took me 10 minutes to show him the actual study numbers and he still shrugged it off. How do people not double check stuff like that before posting?

the_claire13h ago

My cousin shares stuff from "a friend of a friend" like it's peer reviewed.