page_title: Mick West
section_title: Academic work
hierarchical_section_title: Mick West / Career / Academic work
caption_attribution_description: English: Mick West CSICon 2018 Debunking 9-11 Microsphere Myths
context_page_description: Mick West is a British science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. He is the creator of the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, for which he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims such as chemtrails, UFOs, and conspiracy theories. He has appeared in various media as an expert analyst and science communicator. He lives in Sacramento, California.
context_section_description: In August 2016, West co-authored a paper with climate scientists Ken Caldeira, Christine Shearer, and Steven J. Davis published in the journal Environmental Research Letters titled Quantifying expert consensus against the existence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program (SLAP). The objective of the paper was to produce a peer-reviewed expert response to the chemtrail theory. The authors surveyed experts on atmospheric chemistry and deposition to scientifically evaluate the claims of chemtrail conspiracy theorists. Upon publication, it was recognized as the first study by a major science organization on the topic. Its conclusion reported that “76 out of 77 (98.7%) scientists that took part in this study said there was no evidence of a SLAP, and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, such as typical contrail formation and poor data sampling instructions presented on SLAP websites” Data science company Altmetric, rated the paper in the top 5% of all research, in terms of interest generated and it has been cited many times by scientific publications and news outlets. This included the New York Times, where West said the new study should help sway people who might otherwise be convinced by a chemtrails website. “You’re trying to hold back the tide to a certain degree, and hopefully have less people fall into that way of thinking.”
  West has written articles for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's journal Skeptical Inquirer, such as “Curated Crowdsourcing in UFO Investigations” where he discusses the Skydentify forum and “In Defense of Debunkers” in which he talks of the role of skepticism and of debunking and the importance of communication.
  In 2016, West delivered a presentation at CSICon titled “Expert Elicitation vs. Chemtrails” in which he discussed his 2016 scientific paper on climate engineering.
caption: West speaking at CSICon in 2018
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