Merchants of Doubt

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. New Download Merchants of Doubt author Naomi Oreskes For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr About a week ago, Not and I were browsing in a Melbourne bookstore when I noticed Merchants of Doubt Should we buy it I asked, after glancing at the back cover Not was unenthusiastic It ll be one of those books, she said by which, as I immediately understood, she meant that it would be another partisan book about a hot topic, which dishonestly reported one side of a complicated and unclear debate while ignoring the other side So what kind of book would you buy I asked The kind I About a week ago, Not and I were browsing in a Melbourne bookstore when I noticed Merchants of Doubt Should we buy it I asked, after glancing at the back cover Not was unenthusiastic It ll be one of those books, she said by which, as I immediately understood, she meant that it would be another partisan book about a hot topic, which dishonestly reported one side of a complicated and unclear debate while ignoring the other side So what kind of book would you buy I asked The kind I d write, said Not promptly this time, meaning a book that was carefully researched, fact based, unbiased, and written primarily from a historical perspective It was a perfectly reasonable reply, and I considered putting the book back on the shelf But I d heard good things about it and thought I d leaf though it bitfirst You know, I said after a while, I think this is the kind of book you d write One author is a professor of history and the other is a climate scientist It...I am a scientist I have a PhD in biological sciences and spent the vast majority of my 20 s studying the impacts of a marine invasives species and how climate change facilitates the spread of these non native species I hold research scientists in high regard even though my career path has ventured down a different path For a few years I worked on The Hill where science was p...Impossible to recommend this one too highly A testament to the power of cognitive dissonance, is my reading of this This is the story of a group of physicists who helped to build the atomic bomb to help defend free enterprise Unlike many of those who worked with them on this project that later went on to see the bomb as the world s greatest threat to our continued existence and therefore who tr...This is a truly impressive book The subtitle really says it all How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming The authors did an immense amount of research, revealing how and why a small group of scientists had such a powerful, and negative impact on important issues The issues were the danger of cigarette smoke, strategic defense, acid rain, secondhand smoke, the ozone hole, global warming, and the recent vilification of Rachel Carson The This is a truly impressive book The subtitle really says it all How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming The authors did an immense amount of research, revealing how and why a small group of scientists had such a powerful, and negative impact on important issues The issues were the danger of cigarette smoke, strategic defense, acid rain, secondhand smoke, the ozone hole, global warming, and the recent vilification of Rachel Carson The authors present a very comprehensive and persuasive case Several scientists who established their excellent reputations during the Cold War had very strong views about Capitalism, the importance of the free market, and that all regulation is bad Therefore, in their views, the EPA Environmental Protection Agency had to be stopped they believed that the EPA issues regulations that take the country tow...I would first like to comment on the idea that a small group of people caused all of this I think that is misleading, and the subtitle of the book is misleading Here is a list of just some people and groups that I think help all of these attacks on science and reason to happen 1 Corporations like Phillip Morris, Exxon, Monsanto, Dow Chemical The list can go on I say those names and I am stunned by what appears to me the total greed and lack of morality they can exhibit I belong to a Viet I would first like to comment on the idea that a small group of people caused all of this I think that is misleading, and the subtitle of the book is misleading Here is a list of just some people and groups that I think help all of these attacks on science and reason to happen 1 Corporations like Phillip Morris, Exxon, Monsanto, Dow Chemical The list can go on I say those names and I am stunned by what appears to me the total greed and lack of morality they can exhibit I belong to a Vietnam veterans group, and I have heard grown men cry about agent orange Yet the companies responsible still claim there is no connection between agent orange and cancer.2 Powerful individuals like the Koch brothers, the ...I used to believe that selling one s soul to the devil was something that only happened in fictional stories This book makes it clear that it s a real life option for credentialed scientists who accept salaries and research grants from businesses with interests in obfuscating the truth by covering it with questions The book provides a history o...The story begins, where else, with smoking that ur science denial project which spawned many of the weapons of modern day sowing of doubt Amazingly denying the dangers of smoking is a project which still lumbers on in dark corners of the developing world hiding from the scrutiny of western media.The story moves on to acid rain, then passive smoking, ozone depletion and one I wasn t expecting a born again denialist program praising the long forgotten benefits to human wellbeing of DDT.But The story begins, where else, with smoking that ur science denial project which spawned many of the weapons of modern day sowing of doubt Amazingly denying the dangers of smoking is a project which still lumbers on in dark corners of the developing world hiding from the scrutiny of western media.The story moves on to acid rain, then passive smoking, ozone depletion and one I wasn t expecting a born again denialist program praising the long forgotten benefits to human wellbeing of DDT.But this is all just warm up for the mother of science denial projects, climate change, which the authors remind us..strikes at the very root of economic activity the use of energy and which might be the last battle for scientific truth ever fought.While good fights evil in the climate change debate new science denial projects, the toxic fusion of vested interests and shady PR companies, ooze their pollution into the scientific world as swiftly and penetratingly as the run off from a Koch brothers...Lawyer Doug thinks What s the big deal As much as the authors try to spin it, the science on a lot of these issues were not definitively settled at the time These people that the book villify and this book is pretty venomous in its portrayal of some of the characters are advocating a position and are using facts to frame their argument This book make is seem like the global warming advocates are innocent and blameless, but they use the same tactics of massaging science to get their messa L...This immensely important and timely book demands attention from anyone determined to think critically and intelligently about the current interface of politics, economics, and science, which one might describe as the three gods of our time The book is not flawless, to be sure As a complete layman in such issues, I can detect certain ideological flaws, which I shall come to in due course, and it is hard not to think that the authors present a somewhat one sided perspective on a highly contentio This immensely important and timely book demands attention from anyone determined to think critically and intelligently about the current interface of politics, economics, and science, which one might describe as the three gods of our time The book is not flawless, to be sure As a complete layman in such issues, I can detect certain ideological flaws, which I shall come to in due course, and it is hard not to think that the authors present a somewhat one sided perspective on a highly contentious issue, and that their opponents would have ratherto say for themselves than Conway and Oreskes imply Indeed, in such matters, it is always essential to keep Proverbs 18 17 in mind The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him Nonetheless, from what I know of the world, and from the compellingness of the narrative set forth in this book, I am for now provisionally convinced that ...I m giving this book an extra half star because I know one of the authors and I can read between the lines and see that her contributions arecircumspect and better thought out than the compromised version that ended up in this book Merchants of Doubt is about the misuse of science by politicians It s a very good, methodically researched introduction to how science gets twisted in the political process Where this book loses credibility, however, is that it shows only one side of the stor I m giving this book an extra half star because I know one of the authors and ...

• English
• 04 May 2018
Naomi Oreskes
• Hardcover
• 357 pages
• 1596916109
• Naomi Oreskes
• Merchants of Doubt