Doing Research Intelligently
Even the UN scientists and researchers are using information indiscriminately and in the most unintelligent way.
The Straits Times
Feb 1, 2010
UN claim 'based on student essay'
LONDON: The United Nations climate change panel based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain peaks on a student essay and an article in a mountaineering magazine, a British newspaper reported yesterday.
The claims could cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had apologised recently over inaccurate forecasts about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
In a recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa were caused by global warming, and it referred to two papers as its sources of information.
But The Sunday Telegraph said one source quoted was an article published in a magazine for mountaineers, which was based on anecdotal evidence about changes witnessed during climbs. The other source was a dissertation by a master's candidate in geography at Switzerland's University of Bern, which quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
The IPCC rejected as 'baseless and misleading' a different report last month, by British newspaper The Sunday Times, which raised doubts about the evidence behind its claim that global warming is linked to worsening natural disasters.
Scientists have defended the IPCC since it admitted to errors over the Himalayan glacier claim, insisting its work is balanced and conclusions sound.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
This proves that we should always analyze the information that we read before consuming it by asking ourselves these questions:
WHO wrote this article?
WHICH sources did they refer to to substantiate their claims?
WHAT agenda did the writers have?
WHO funded this research?
WHAT aims did ALL these parties have?
HOW big is the sample group of the test in order to come up with the results/ statistics?
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