Godard, Olivier <br/><br/>
Climate Skepticism in France: A Modern Sophistry 

 -  2012.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 100 
<br/><br/> Since 2006, France has known a new wave of climate skepticism in the media, initiated by the geochemist and former minister Claude Allègre. This article identifies its key actors and the common features of their discourse, beyond the multiplicity of their motives. Climate skepticism in the media is neither the expression of a scientific controversy nor a second opinion, but is a sophism borrowing and distorting arguments from scientific debates and serving ideological aims. The article offers an analysis of the drivers for its media success, and highlights the disconcerting convergence of climate skepticism positioning and that of some social scientists who equate scientific statements with social discourse, downplaying scientific findings in favor of the interests of producers and consumers of science.