Overshadowing the contrarians via expert credibility

Below is an excerpt from a 2010 research paper published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA) by Anderegg, Prall, Harold and Schneider. This article in its entirety is available for free here: "Expert credibility in climate change"

"[A] large-scale quantitative assessment of the relative level of agreement, expertise, and prominence in the climate researcher community [shows] that the expertise and prominence ... of climate researchers convinced by the evidence of [anthropogenic climate change] vastly overshadows that of the climate change skeptics and contrarians.... Despite media tendencies to present both sides ... which can contribute to continued public misunderstanding ... not all climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise.... This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums...."