Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Hardcover) by Naomi Oreskes
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Great historical book detailing the politics and dilution of science as well as shortcomings from scientists, politicians, and journalists post-WWII to the modern day.
This was a well written and detailed historical accounting of events bearing the mark of corporate-funded disinformation and doubt. I was introduced to this book through a colleague who believed the lessons in this book were highly relevant to the field of AI safety (I’m inclined to agree) and led another to publish a paper on the pitfalls of evidence-based policy making.
This book didn’t introduce me to any major topic I wasnt already vaguely familiar with. However, it was interesting to learn the historical details behind these campaigns of doubt. I’m uncertain whether it was a narrative choice to focus on a few key actors — and I hold some skepticism because it might have been — but it was surprising how few loud and paid-off “experts” (that were REUSED across entirely unrelated issues) could stir up decades of political feet dragging by injecting lies and disinformation into the public imagination.
It highlighted various systemic issues:
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The public lacks scientific and data literacy
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Scientists refrain from the public stage, make broad technical statements that no one reads, believe their ideas will win out in the marketplace of ideas, and don’t speak out when they don’t win. I believe this silence is in part caused by the cultural ideal within the scientific community that science is both apolitical and self-justifying. Almost pure and untouched by human interests and should remain that way. To paraphrase what a friend said:
If the science is useful, it’s designed to change the world, so it’s political. Even if the science is not useful, it’s the same as art so it’s political.
- Journalists are incentivized to cover controversy and pressured to platform “both sides”. I’m familiar with this concept under the name of “both-sides-ism” and have a vague recall to the relationship it had to government enforcement of political independence on radio broadcasts (in the US or UK?). Even though these restrictions may have enacted in good faith, they were heavily leveraged to platform extreme minority viewpoints or disinformation, resulting in lending legitimacy to false or misleading information or skewing the public perception on what others believe. In the modern day, I think there’s also a false perception that you can platform anyone in an apolitical way just to “hear them out”. The Joe Rogan and Lex Friedman podcasts come to mind in particular. While the media might have some kind of responsibility to share the opinions, experiences, and values of minority viewpoints, it SHOULD NOT include speaking directly to millions where the burden of fact checking is laid on the audience. Regardless of whichever choice is made, it will never be apolticial.
I feel the mainstream news (the NYT “the daily” podcast comes to mind) takes crazy ideas too seriously and avoids following their own line of reasoning to their logical conclusions, refusing to take ownership for any of their positions (its always “some people are saying”, “allegedly”, etc.) for the fear of being too polarizing while masquerading as institutions that are just providing the facts. The quote from above applies not only to science but to journalism as well — journalism is political and it is deceptive, cowardly, and unproductive to pretend otherwise. This is especially true when the reality you are reporting on is incompatible with the future you and others want.
The notes above remind me of the modern philosopher Zizek and something about how the claim that something isn’t an ideology is itself an ideology — everything is political and the more we realize that, the more control we have over our actions, ideals, and beliefs.
Note: While I don’t believe in apoliticality broadly, I think saying that some field of science isnt political points toward some useful concept, vaguely approximating “whatever the findings of the field are, they’d be ideologically accepted by people across the current Overton window”
Disclaimer: Listened to as an audiobook, this may have affected my ability to fully digest the book.