John Cook

Assistant Professor

Climate communication, cognitive science, psychology, misconception-based learning

John Cook is a research assistant professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, researching cognitive science. In 2007, he founded Skeptical Science, a website which won the 2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge and 2016 Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education. John co-authored the college textbooks Climate Change: Examining the Facts with Weber State University professor Daniel Bedford. He was also a coauthor of the textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis and the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. In 2013, he published a paper analyzing the scientific consensus on climate change that has been highlighted by President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. In 2015, he developed a Massive Open Online Course at the University of Queensland on climate science denial, that has received over 40,000 enrollments.

Selected Publications

Cook, J., van der Linden, S., Maibach, E., & Lewandowsky, S. (2018). The Consensus Handbook. DOI:10.13021/G8MM6P.

Cook, J., Ellerton, P., and Kinkead, D. (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 11(2).

Cook, J., Lewandowsky, S., & Ecker, U. (2017). Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence. PLoS ONE, 12(5): e0175799. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175799

Bedford, D., & Cook, J. (2016). Climate Change: Examining the Facts. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P. T., Anderegg, W. R., Verheggen, B., Maibach, E. W., Carlton, J. S., Lewandowsky, S., Skuce, A. G., Green, S. A., & Nuccitelli, D. (2016). Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 048002.

Cook, J. & Lewandowsky, S. (2016). Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8(1), 160-179.

Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S. A., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Way, R., Jacobs, P., & Skuce, A. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 8(2), 024024+.

Expanded Publication List

Cook, J., van der Linden, S., Maibach, E., & Lewandowsky, S. (2018). The Consensus Handbook. DOI:10.13021/G8MM6P.

Cook, J. (2018). Understanding and countering climate science denial. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 150(2), 207–219.

Cook, J., Ellerton, P., and Kinkead, D. (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 11(2).

van der Linden, S., Maibach, E., Cook, J., Leiserowitz, A., Ranney, M., Lewandowsky, S., Árvai, J., & Weber, E. U. (2017). Culture versus cognition is a false dilemma. Nature Climate Change, 7(7), 457-457.

Skuce, A. G., Cook, J., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Rice, K., Green, S. A., ... & Nuccitelli, D. (2017). Does It Matter if the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming Is 97% or 99.99%? Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 0270467617702781.

Cook, J. (2017). How to Effectively Debunk Myths About Aging and Other Misconceptions. Public Policy and Aging Report. 27(1), 13-17. doi: 10.1093/ppar/prw034

Cook, J. (2016). Closing the “consensus gap” by communicating the scientific consensus on climate change and countering misinformation. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Western Australia).

Bedford, D., & Cook, J. (2016). Climate Change: Examining the Facts. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Cook, J. (2016). Countering Climate Science Denial and Communicating Scientific Consensus. Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication. London: Oxford University Press.

Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., & Lloyd, E. (2016). The ‘Alice in Wonderland’mechanics of the rejection of (climate) science: simulating coherence by conspiracism. Synthese, 1-22.

Cook, J. & Lewandowsky, S. (2016). Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8(1), 160-179.

Cook, J., Schuennemann, K., Nuccitelli, D., Jacobs, P., Cowtan, K., Green, S., Way, R., Richardson, M., Cawley, G., Mandia, S., Skuce, A., & Bedford, D. (April 2015). Denial101x: Making Sense of Climate Science Denial. edX. http://edx.org/understanding-climate-denial

Benestad, R. E., Nuccitelli, D., Lewandowsky, S., Hayhoe, K., Hygen, H. O., van Dorland, R., & Cook, J. (2015). Learning from mistakes in climate research. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 1-5.

Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Oberauer, K., Brophy, S., Lloyd, E. A., & Marriott, M. (2015).Recurrent Fury: Conspiratorial Discourse in the Blogosphere Triggered by Research on the Role of Conspiracist Ideation in Climate Denial. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 142-178.

Cook, J., & Cowtan, K. (2015). Reply to Comment on ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature’. Environmental Research Letters, 10(3), 039002.

Cook, J., Ecker, U. & Lewandowsky, S. (2015). Misinformation and how to correct it, Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn (Eds.), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

Cook, J., Bedford, D. & Mandia, S. (2014). Raising Climate Literacy Through Addressing Misinformation: Case Studies in Agnotology-Based Learning. Journal of Geoscience Education, 62(3), 296-306.

Cook, J., Jacobs, P. (2014). Scientists are from Mars, Laypeople are from Venus: An Evidence-Based Rationale for Communicating the Consensus on Climate. Reports of the National Center for Science Education. 34, 6, 3.1-3.10.

Cook, J. (2014). Research on Climate Consensus Provokes Strong Reactions. The Winnower. Available at https://thewinnower.com/discussions/research-on-climate-consensus-provokes-strong-reactions

Verheggen, B., Strengers, B., Cook, J., van Dorland, R., Vringer, K., Peters, J., Visser, H. & Meyer, L. (2014). Scientists’ views about attribution of global warming. Environmental science & technology, 48(16), 8963-8971.

Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Skuce, A., Way, R., Jacobs, P., Painting, R., Honeycutt, R., Green, S.A. (2014). Reply to Comment on ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature: a Reanalysis’. Energy Policy. DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.06.002

Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Skuce, A., Way, R., Jacobs, P., Painting, R., Lewandowsky, S. & Coulter, A. (2014). 24 critical errors in Tol (2014): Reaffirming the 97% consensus on anthropogenic global warming. http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/24_errors.pdf

Cook, J. (2014). How Has the Carbon Tax Affected the Public ‘Debate’ on Climate Change?Quiggin, J., Adamson, D., & Quiggin, D. (Eds.), In Carbon Pricing: Early Experience and Future Prospects (pp. 49-64). Cheltenham Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Abraham, J. P., Cook, J., Fasullo, J. T., Jacobs, P. H., Mandia, S. A. & Nuccitelli, D. A. (2014). Review of the Consensus and Asymmetric Quality of Research on Human-Induced Climate Change, Cosmopolis, 2014-1, 3-18.

Farmer, G. T. & Cook, J. (2013). Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media.

Bedford, D., & Cook, J. (2013). Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change: A Response to Legates, Soon and Briggs. Science & Education, 22(8), 2019-2030.

Nuccitelli, D., Way, R., Painting, R., Church, J., & Cook, J. (2012). Comment on ocean heat content and Earth's radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts. Physics Letters A, 376(45), 3466-3468.

Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. (2012). Misinformation and its correction continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(3), 106-131.

Washington, H., & Cook, J. (2012). Climate change denial: Heads in the sand. Routledge.

Cook, J., & Lewandowsky, S. (2011). The Debunking Handbook. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland. ISBN 978-0-646-56812-6. [available at http://sks.to/debunk].

Education

John earned his PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of Western Australia in 2016.