Fox News claims 94% suspect scientists of faking climate data

Something about this story doesn't add up.

During a Dec. 4 Fox & Friends segment about the so-called "climategate" e-mails, an on-screen graphic proclaimed that 94 percent of Americans suspect scientists falsified climate data.

Problem is, the network's figures add up to 120 percent -- which is supposedly the portion of Americans who have now allegedly formed some kind of opinion on "climategate."

One hundred and twenty percent?

The data came from a Rasmussen Reports poll that found 46 percent of adults surveyed consider global warming a serious problem.

As Media Matters explained, more than a little fuzzy math was employed in the creation of the Fox graphic.

"Fox News' graphics department added together the 'very likely' and 'somewhat likely' numbers to reach 59 percent, and called that new group 'somewhat likely,'" noted Simon Maloy. "Then, for some reason, they threw in the 35 percent 'very likely' as their own group, even though they already added that number to the 'somewhat likely' percentage. Then they mashed together the 'not very likely' and 'not likely at all' groups, and threw the 15 percent who were unsure into the waste bin. Voila -- 120 percent."

The White House has dismissed as "silly" allegations that an internal dispute between scientists exemplified in a batch of hacked emails can somehow refute the reality of climate change.

This video was broadcast by Fox News on Friday, Dec. 4, 2009.