Skip to content

Chapter 14: Scientific Literacy - References

  1. Scientific Method - Wikipedia - Comprehensive overview of the principles and processes of scientific inquiry, including hypothesis formation, experimentation, peer review, and the self-correcting nature of science.

  2. Scientific Consensus - Wikipedia - Explains how the collective judgment of the scientific community forms through accumulated evidence, peer review, and replication, with examples from climate science and medicine.

  3. List of Fallacies - Wikipedia - Extensive catalog of formal and informal logical fallacies including false dichotomy, appeal to nature, cherry-picking, and correlation-causation confusion relevant to environmental debates.

  4. Why Trust Science? - Naomi Oreskes - Princeton University Press - Explores why scientific consensus deserves public trust by examining the social processes of peer review, replication, and expert evaluation that make science reliable.

  5. Environmental Science (16th ed.) - Miller & Spoolman - Cengage - Provides foundational coverage of scientific methodology applied to environmental research, including experimental design, statistical reasoning, and evidence evaluation.

  6. Understanding Science: How Science Really Works - UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology - Interactive resource explaining the scientific process as a nonlinear, iterative endeavor, debunking the myth of a single rigid scientific method.

  7. SIFT Method for Evaluating Information - Mike Caulfield / Hapgood - The original description of the Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace method for rapid source evaluation, developed by a leading digital literacy researcher.

  8. Skeptical Science - Skeptical Science - Peer-reviewed resource addressing common climate myths with evidence-based rebuttals, demonstrating how scientific literacy tools apply to real-world environmental claims.

  9. Correlation or Causation: Science-Based Medicine - Science-Based Medicine - Clear explanation of why correlation does not imply causation, with medical and environmental examples showing how confounding variables mislead interpretation.

  10. Statistical Literacy for Citizens - Stat Trek - Accessible introduction to statistical concepts including sample size, confidence intervals, margin of error, and p-values for non-specialists evaluating scientific claims.