Merchants of Doubt : : how a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues From Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

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Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / General / Oreskes, Naomi
On Shelf At: Malletts Creek Branch

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Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / General / Oreskes, Naomi	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Doubt is our product -- Strategic defense, phony facts and the creation of the George C. Marshall Institute -- Sowing the seeds of doubt : acid rain -- Constructing a counternarrative : the fight over the ozone hole -- What's bad science? Who decides? The fight over secondhand smoke -- The denial of global warming -- Denial rides again : the revisionist attack on Rachel Carson -- Conclusion : of free speech and free markets -- Epilogue : a new view of science.
"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 that link smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole.

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My book club gave it unanimous thumbs up submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 27, 2016, 3:58pm This is an outstanding book that lays out, clearly, readably, and with great documentation, what science is, what science knows, and how a small handful of people have subverted that in order to further either their own agenda, that of some for-profit companies, or a combination of the two when it worked for them.

The book lays out how this is categorically different than a difference of opinion on matters of belief, or matters of opinion or policy or choices about what actions to take. These scientists deliberately created misinformation and doubt about known, accepted, peer reviewed science in the popular media in order to further their agenda. They did it on tobacco, acid rain, second hand smoke, global warming and climate change, and are doing it again on DDT. And society, and policy makers, have listened. It has mattered. The costs in lives and harm to people and the planet are huge.

I thought the writing was dense. It's written for non-scientists, but definitely for a literate, slightly sophisticated audience. There are a lot of facts and not a lot of character-driven story-telling. But what is in here is critical. It's easy to read... it just made my brain full. Four of us at book club (small meeting this month) had read it, and all gave it definitely thumbs-up.

Highly recommended.