How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

This book illustrates how some of the best features of science and newswriting are used by special interests to undermine good public policy. Science encourages maintaining doubt. This doubt is exploited by small groups of scientists acting from personal views or outright corruption. News media like to cover 2 sides of a story, but often don't adequately explain that one of the sides is really an outlier.

"Merchants of Doubt" is to the 21st Century what Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was to the 20th. Based on meticulously footnoted scholarly research, historians Oreskes and Conway dispassionately expose a loosely knit group of folks – several with dated but otherwise sterling scientific credentials – and document how, for the sake of political expediency, they have gone about undermining public confidence in science itself. Pandering to wishful thinking and taking advantage of contemporary 15-second attention spans, this cabal has baldly manufactured scientific controversy where none exists, and then demanded that equal time be given to their "side" of the "controversy". In one issue after another, from Cigarette Smoking to Acid Rain, to the Ozone Hole, to Second Hand Smoke, to Climate Change, and, most recently, to Rachel Carson, herself, a handful of one-time scientists – often the same one-time scientists – have shamelessly hoodwinked the public into doubting consensus findings of scientific specialists.
If you believe reason has a place in public discourse, you need to read this book. If you do read it, I recommend skipping over Chapter 2 and coming back to it after finishing the rest of the book: By interrupting a compelling narrative for the sake of fairness – not wanting to be seen drawing conclusions about the motives of these merchants of doubt – the authors muddy the waters by introducing the genuine (however biased) controversy that erupted over Ronald Reagan's Star Wars strategic defense initiative.

This outstanding book exposes the underhanded tactics used by industry groups and right wing politicians to promote their causes. Whether it was the tobacco industry undermining public health through its lies about cigarette smoking, the chemical industry denying the hole in the ozone layer, the effort to stop the elimination of acid rain, or the pseudoscientific attacks on the science behind the connection between burning fossil fuels, CO2 production, and global warming, the same unscrupulous "experts" have used the same tactics to undermine scientific facts and substitute false controversy to prevent corrective actions. This well-researched and footnoted book explains the connection between these efforts and details the general attack on science coming from the far right because science brings "inconvenient truths" to light. When you see the consistency in their tactics, current opposition to reducing CO2 production to slow climate change fits right into the same pattern. Their effort to oppose climate science and substitute confusion and trumped up controversy has now become a fundamental plank in the Republican and Tea Party agendas. Reading this book will help you understand what underlies this baffling denial of the developing climate disaster.

MUST READ !!!
As a retired scientist I find this extraordinarily unsettling. In an ideal world all scientist would stick to the scientific evidence, the empirical data, remaining unbiased and making interpretations of that data based upon the entire data set. Mentioning outliers and or statistical anomalies. It is unfortunate that not all scientist are driven by a set of high ethics and principals. What is so incredibly mind blowing is that this small cadre of scientist with their extremely bias views were believed while literally thousands of other scientist who participated in these studies who practiced "good" science were dismissed as irrelevant. Of Course then there is the 'Point' that this small cadre seems to discount completely and that is, 'when the Globe is in shambles thanks to the inaction which MAY have prevented the effects of this crisis what good will all that money do them then ??????? '

Science is humanity's greatest tool for drawing conclusions from observations, and in some ways it holds the greatest promise of understanding and describing reality. But what happens when the reality that science describes comes into conflict with people's political or religious biases?

Merchants of Doubt perfectly describes how people with political biases have gone out of their way to deliberately manipulate public opinion. The ways in which this organized effort have done so are three fold:

1) Create a false impression of uncertainty (creating an impression of a scientific debate where there is none)
2) Build in the public a distrust of science
3) Attack the messenger

Corporations and powerful wealthy individuals have funneled vast sums of money into Public Relations efforts, in order to undermine science that they find inconvenient. Indeed, when science implies that these interests are causing harm to the public or the environment, the natural response by the public and by our elected officials is to consider ways to minimize that harm. When that happens, the PR machine quickly goes into high gear.

This book chronicles how these efforts work. Beginning with Big Tobacco, Merchants of Doubt shows how many of the same players and institutions have continued to deliberately sow doubt against a number of other scientific concerns.

I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to better understand why "debates" seem to arise quickly whenever science and policy intersects, and why certain motives and biases foment an inherently anti-science attitude.

The book really is just the tip of the iceberg, though. A full description of how these same interests have effectively mobilized to adversely influence our political and judicial systems, as well as our media institutions, would amount to several volumes of information. I'm hoping that Naomi Oreskes continues her investigation in future books. Well done!

This is a magnificent work that reveals the sinister backstory on environmental issues such as Global Warming, Acid Rain, Tobacco smoke and second-hand tobacco smoke, the Ozone hole, etc.

The huge revelation of this book is that a tiny cadre of disinformation mongers have been successfully injecting doubt into these issues for decades--harming all of us in the process for their private gain.

I really enjoyed reading about how the opposing views to DDT, global warming, acid rain, ozone hole were engineered by conservative politicians and vested interests like the oil companies. The idea that the jury is still out is laughable. It is a shame that people are so gullible so as to doubt scientific research. But yet, they still believe in witches and zombies! More people need to read this book.

A very interesting and scary book. The author describes how not only are the tactics used by the climate change deniers the same as those that were used by those who for so long denied that tobacco caused cancer, but the many of the people are the same ones! If this doesn't convince you that it's a sinister plot, I don't know what will.

This book is a real eye opener. It illustrates just how the public perception of issues is warped by misinformation from "experts". It is a very critical report considering the current anti-science sentiments that seem to be prevailing. Even if your background is not in science, you should read this book. There are implications of these strategies that we see every day.

This is an important book to read providing a chronology of resistance to scientific research. Sadly their is a clear and strong resistencia to the results of the scientific method whether it is acid rain, ozone hoe, second hand smoke, global warming or attacking Rachel Carson for revealing the impacts of DDT. It is a sad story that repeats itself when industry decides to deny the negative impacts of products that out way any benefits.

My only issue with the book is that it is redundant. Sadly the story itself is redundant down to the cast of characters who give 'scientific' statements and appear before congress to deny negative side effects and state more research is needed. Industry continues to use tactics they find successful lying to the public and the government. This redundant and predictable behavior does not lend itself for a good read, but one that is important to know and be aware of?

The science on global warming is well established. For an excellent book and accounting of global warming science and political story read James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren.

Merchant of doubt is a good book, sadly the story is redundant.

Very thorough investigation. Too bad it didn't include meat and dairy. That industry gets away with externalities such as global warming and human health costs off the charts. The book reviews tobacco, acid rain, second-hand smoke, etc., but not meat and dairy? It would have been a perfect fit. See Meatonimics, or The Meat Racket.

Very thorough investigation. Too bad it didn't include meat and dairy. That industry gets away with externalities such as global warming and human health costs off the charts. The book reviews tobacco, acid rain, second-hand smoke, etc., but not meat and dairy? It would have been a perfect fit. See Meatonimics, or The Meat Racket.

We already know the science; it proves Climate Change and, yes, anthropogenic global warming in all but the finest of detail. "Merchants of Doubts" chronicles the bought and paid for Bulls*** artists, the manure they spread, how and who is paying them to do it.

Add to Merchants a copy of the seminal book on mass persuasion by the Father of Public Relations and Manufactured Consent, Edward Bernay's "Propaganda" and you will have an understanding of the 'Merchants' mechanism for global disaster. <http://www.the store.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598>

When, not if anymore; it's now too late to stop warming at two degrees Celsius, you have no one to blame but yourself. In the end, the laws of God and Nature don't care whether you believe or not, you will still cook in the heat but at least you will know why.

Every thinking U.S. citizen should read this. All others should learn to think. The author, Naomi Oreskes, is a credible authority. So much so, that the the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (just google HHMI), a mammoth contributor to scientific understanding, Asked her to join two well-respected scientists in presenting the 2012 annual Holiday Lectures to gifted high-school students last December. I have followed these lectures for many years and find them to be consistently excellent presentations of cutting-edge research presented to really bright young people. 2012 was the first time I have seen a non-scientist present among the presenters, Dr. Oreskes has a PhD in Library Science, specializing in the History of Science. During her introduction, I learned about this book. It is well written, well documented, and suitable for any intelligent reader.

Oreskes and Conway provide a factual, exhaustively researched account of a small, ideologically-motivated cadre of scientists who worked to deny science on a number of important, primarily environmental issues. While the authors occasionally stray into the fuzzier field of judging the extent to which laissez-faire capitalism contributed to these problems, their account is well-grounded in reality and a captivating read.

Oreskes build a very powerful case for listening to scientists who actually work in a given field, as opposed to those with a political ax to grind. I found her final chapter particularly forceful in this regard, given how it provides an explanation of the anti-science bias of the right wing commentariat

The Merchants of Doubt is an important book because it explains, in detail, how a small group of well funded, Conservative scientists and think tanks have spent years using the principle of "fairness" to distort and discredit scientific consensus about the subjects their industry backers paid them to.

This book is a very well written narrative that weaves together the characters and events involved in several different (seemingly unrelated) organized denial/contrarian/skeptic/misrepresentation campaigns (regarding the hazards of smoking, secondhand smoke, acid rain, the "Star Wars"/SDI project, "nuclear winter," the ozone hole, and global warming), and one revisionist historical campaign attacking Rachel Carson, the American biologist/ecologist who wrote Silent Spring, which criticized the agricultural overuse of pesticides, and especially DDT.

The authors point out how the same handful of scientists (all of whom happened to be free-market fundamentalists well connected to powerful political and/or business interests) repeatedly attacked mainstream scientific research related to diverse issues in which they had no special expertise and had done no original research of their own, the sole common theme among all the issues being that the scientific consensus was inconvenient to private enterprise.

My only misgiving about the book is not related to the quality of its contents, but rather what it did NOT include - I would have liked to see at least an entire chapter or two about conservatives/Republicans/free-market libertarians who did NOT deny the scientific consensus in each of the mini-sagas. Make no mistake, the book is not an indictment against everyone on the "Right" or the virtues of conservative/free-market principles or individual liberties; rather it only criticizes a small group of scientists, who were so fanatical about these principles that it compromised their objectivity, trying to disguise ideological fundamentalism as "scientific" skepticism. However, I could see political conservatives with chips on their shoulders nonetheless misreading the book as a direct attack on their core ideals, or its thesis as a confirmation of their suspicion that "liberal" scientists have a grand conspiracy to bring down capitalism. To counteract that, and perhaps make the message of the book more powerful, it would have been nice to deliberately focus on the stories of some people who generally identify with the same ideologies as the books "protagonists," but not so fanatically as to turn science on its head. Now, it may be that there were some scattered references here and there; I don't remember. But that's kind of the point - if there were a whole chapter devoted to counterexamples of non-science-denying conservatives, it would be impossible to miss or forget, and the important message of the book might be less likely to be tuned out by people who might misunderstand the book as attacking their core beliefs.

This book documents how a very small minority can influence the decision making policies within the United States' political system and not out of principle but out of pure greed. It shows how one must always consider the source when weighing information presented in an argument and how that this is not always possible when entities hide behind attorney-client protection.

A must read for the voting public and should be required reading for any politician.

Excellent book. I hate to be conspiratorial, but the research that appears to have went into this books makes it plain that the same people keep popping up over and over whenever an environmental problem affects a large and hungry industry. At the same time, the writers were not vitriolic in their condemnation. They treated the "enemies" of the piece with a steady hand and a cool head, trying to present the Facts while at the same time presenting a thesis with a point of view. Well worth a look!

A well/researched story of corruption: sowing doubt to prevent the real facts from customers to prevent loss of sales and to delay government intervention. The same strategies and some of the same "scientific sources they used to create doubt about global warming. An insight-filled explanation on who does it, why they do it and how. We all should understand what is really going on in the global warming debate.

This is a powerful book that everyone should read. Investigative reporting at its finest and leads to logical and reasonable conclusions in revealing the playbook for the grossly-wealthy and transnational corporations. Among the conclusions is the observation of anti-communism gone crazy and how we're still conflating unfettered capitalism as democracy.

Merchants of Doubt does a great job summarizing the history of and illustrating the connections between recent mass-media environmental and health science controversies. The book adds depth to common public perception of scientific activity, and subtly builds a narrative of sympathy for the people who must make decisions based on the lop-sided handling of scientific topics in mass media formats.

The book can be heavy handed in targeting specific people, and some of the impassioned arguments are blatantly fallacious, often using the same rhetorical strategies that the book attempts to criticize, but these quibbles do not detract from the general appeal and quality of the book as a source for encouraging development of healthy skepticism of popular science, and highlighting the importance for being able to have trustworthy sources of scientific consensus and authority.

It's unfortunate that there are many political references, albeit many of those necessitated by the factual history of events. Without these political overtones, the generally good information in this book might appeal to many Republicans and other right-aligned people whose egotistical, cultural, social, or other influences might prevent them from allowing the great amount of data and facts to inform their decisions.

I highly recommend this book in general, but especially for any of those right-leaning individuals who are adventurousness enough to venture outside the echo chamber of mass media support groups. I'm a pretty independent person, politically, but have a fair amount of respect for many Libertarian ideals, and I can say that this book isn't going to insult your intelligence, though it may provide an alternative perspective that has quite a bit of scientific and historical research to support itself.

I found this book very interesting and well written. The authors were very knowledgeable and did their research. It is a bit scary in that a very small minority of extremely conservative scientists (often in the employ of business or government)can influence policy relative to maintaining our environment or doing something about health hazards such as smoking. Even though science and the majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, or acid rain is real, or cigarettes can cause cancer, there are those who believe only in the free market and have an interest in protecting the status quo, to the benefit of those who profit from the status quo, regardless of its actual effect on individuals, the environment or mankind's future.

The book does a good job of laying out something we always thought was the case but were never sure. Interesting how so few can sow so much doubt in the face of so much good science.

This is a shocking and well documented story of how the American public has been deceived and lied to by corporate interests, who stand to make a profit by delaying any action on items for which they should be responsible. The authors document the denial for decades by cigarette companies that cigarets were responsible for lung cancer even though their own private research showed otherwise. They continued these efforts again in the issue of second-hand smoke. Their strategy was to deliberately plant misinformation in the media, to pay some scientists to act in their behalf, and to distort scientifically-valid research. The same strategies have been used over-and-over again in the controversies about climate change, acid rain, and other environmental issues. As a retired scientist, I particularly deplored the strategy of having well-known scientists make statements on issues that were far from their expertise, but were accepted as gospel truth by a uninformed public. I think that the current public distrust of scientists has resulted from misinformation strategies as outlined convincingly by the authors. The book is a real eyeopener that I hope is widely read and discussed.

A very important book. It follows the trail of the professional "deniers." It turns out that there are a small handful of scientists who made their reputations during the cold war and are fanatical capitalists. They are dedicated to the notion that government should not step in to correct the problems caused by the side-effects of commercial endeavors. There should be no regulations. This set of folks have denied the existence of any problem connected with (1) tobacco. (2) acid rain. (3) ozone hole (4) star wars (SDI) (5) DDT (6) and, now, climate change. Because they have scientific credibility and political connections they have considerable influence even though their scientific arguments are bogus. They are able to profit handsomely by hiring out to the appropriate commercial interests. Well worth reading to learn the PR tricks that they use to deceive the public, the media, and congress.