Book description
The U. S. scientific community has long led the world in research
on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues
affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark
studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global
warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this
community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.
Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit
group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep
connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to
mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over
four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some
of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global
warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking
smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone
hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive.
These "experts" supplied it.
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back
the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community,
showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant
media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing
issues of our era.
Excellent, important
Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and
Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her essay
"Beyond the Ivory Tower" was a milestone in the fight
against global warming denial. Erik Conway is the resident historian
at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. Fighting Facts is their first book together.
