Merchants of Doubt | The Health Culture

It’s easy to understand – if not condone – the behavior of politicians who are financed by tobacco and oil companies. They oppose the regulation of smoking or pollution because they benefit from the financial contributions of those industries.

But what motivates certain scientists to relentlessly cast doubt on peer-reviewed scientific evidence that’s inconveniently contrary to financial interests? A new book, Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, attempts to answer this question.

To some extent, the motivation for certain scientists is the same as that of politicians. Those who opposed the issues covered by this book – nuclear winter (could we survive a nuclear war), Star Wars, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, DDT, cigarette smoking and second-hand smoke – are frequently members of “institutes” or think tanks heavily funded by tobacco and “dirty” energy donations.

The answer is much more complex than money, however. And much more interesting.

Kill the messenger

It turns out that a handful of scientists – mostly physicists — are behind all of these issues. Their names – except for Dixy Lee Ray and Robert Jastrow – are not overly familiar: Frederick Seitz, Fred Singer, Bill Simon, Bill Nierenberg. This in itself is somewhat surprising and is a major contribution uncovered by the extensive research of the authors.

The scientists who led all of these campaigns of doubt are primarily of a certain age. Many of them were involved in secret research projects during World War II, such as the Manhattan project. They were all vehemently anti-Communist and anti-Soviet. They thrived on Cold War rhetoric. In their eyes, regulation of the free market economy was equivalent to socialism, which was the same as the archenemy, Communism.

When the Cold War ended and the Soviets were no longer a threat, these scientists sought a new target – a new enemy — for their philosophical beliefs. These beliefs were informed by the neoliberal economics of Milton Friedman: Free markets must be defended as vigorously as the freedoms of speech, religion, or assembly. Anything that threatens free markets is an enemy of Liberty.

The new enemy that received the wrath of these scientists was the environmental movement and the science that supported its claims. If the destruction of the environment calls for regulation of the free market, then the scientific research supporting those claims must be discredited.

As we now know, the industrial revolution has had side-effects that are damaging to the planet and to human health. Science was the messenger that brought the bad news. These Cold War scientists attacked science because they didn’t want to hear this message. To accept the findings of science would mean accepting the truth that there were limits to industrial capitalism and that the free market system was a failure.

Surviving the end of the Cold War

As George Soros wrote in a 1997 article in the Atlantic,

The Cold War was an extremely stable arrangement. Two power blocs, representing opposing concepts of social organization, were struggling for supremacy, but they had to respect each other’s vital interests, because each side was capable of destroying the other in an all-out war. This put a firm limit on the extent of the conflict; all local conflicts were, in turn, contained by the larger conflict. This extremely stable world order has come to an end as the result of the internal disintegration of one superpower. No new world order has taken its place. We have entered a period of disorder.

Laissez-faire ideology does not prepare us to cope with this challenge. It does not recognize the need for a world order. An order is supposed to emerge from states’ pursuit of their self-interest. But, guided by the principle of the survival of the fittest, states are increasingly preoccupied with their competitiveness and unwilling to make any sacrifices for the common good.

The scientists who sought to discredit science believed that free market/laissez-faire capitalism is best served by the uninhibited pursuit of self-interest. The damage they have done to the common good is enormous.

Long after the tobacco industry privately acknowledged the link between smoking and lung cancer, the truth was withheld, resulting in millions of deaths. The doubts cast on the scientific evidence for climate change have delayed taking action. The consequences of this delay will not be known until the scientists who instilled doubt are no longer alive.

The structure of scientific revolutions and all that

Merchants of Doubt makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of how and why this happened. The damage has already been done. The one suggestion the author’s offer for improving the situation will be difficult to implement. It involves educating the public on the nature of science.

Science is a process of arriving at a consensus. Along its leading edge, science does not claim to provide absolute certainty. As long as we view science as a source of certainty, there will be an opening for those with financial or ideological interests in creating doubt. They will claim that scientific findings are wrong whenever there is the slightest uncertainly.

It is the nature of science to be in flux. To wait for absolute certainty is to invite disaster.

Update 10/21/10:
Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith (The New York Times)

Speaking of climate change, the founder of the Corydon Tea Party said:

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.” …

For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. …

“Carbon regulation, cap and trade, it’s all just a money-control avenue,” Ms. Khuri added. “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.” …

“They’re trying to use global warming against the people,” Ms. Deaton said. “It takes way our liberty.”

“Being a strong Christian,” she added, “I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.”

The article goes on to discuss funding for climate change opposition from the oil, coal and utility industries.

In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Cleaner Energy (The New York Times)

But there’s hope. People are willing to reduce energy use to save money, even if they deny the threat of climate change.

Residents of this deeply conservative city do not put much stock in scientific predictions of climate change.

“Don’t mention global warming,” warned Nancy Jackson, chairwoman of the Climate and Energy Project, a small nonprofit group that aims to get people to rein in the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to climate change. “And don’t mention Al Gore. People out here just hate him.”

Saving energy, though, is another matter.

Resources:

Image source: Books-a-million

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

George Soros, The Capitalist Threat, The Atlantic, February 1997