Merchants of Doubt a documented history of the strategic attack on science

The book by Naomi Oreskes has been referred to in some comments recently. I also read it years ago, eye opening and shocking it was.
For all the attacks made on her, the evidence speaks for itself. It’s their own documents - they are what they are.
But if you want to understand the short version, Naomi has given a number of talks over the years, which I’d like to recommend.
Happy learning.

Answering Climate Change Skeptics, Naomi Oreskes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0 Uploaded on Mar 3, 2010 | 1:14 min A presentation based off of her recent book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscure the Truth about Climate Change. Naomi Oreskes, author and professor of history and science studies, University of California, San Diego. From the University of Rhode Island's Spring 2010 Vetlesen Lecture Series, People and Planet Global Environmental Change. March 2, 2010.
UQx DENIAL101x 1.7.1.2 Full interview with Naomi Oreskes Published on Apr 27, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suz_13pXgEw Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial in Denial101x, a MOOC from UQx and edX. Denial101x isn’t just a climate MOOC; it’s a MOOC about how people think about climate change. http://edx.org/understanding-climate-denial
Naomi Oreskes: Why we should trust scientists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0 Published on Jun 25, 2014 | 20 min | TED Talk Many of the world's biggest problems require asking questions of scientists — but why should we believe what they say? Historian of science Naomi Oreskes thinks deeply about our relationship to belief and draws out three problems with common attitudes toward scientific inquiry — and gives her own reasoning for why we ought to trust science.
The book by Naomi Oreskes has been referred to in some comments recently. I also read it years ago, eye opening and shocking it was. For all the attacks made on her, the evidence speaks for itself. It's their own documents - they are what they are. But if you want to understand the short version, Naomi has given a number of talks over the years, which I'd like to recommend. Happy learning.
Answering Climate Change Skeptics, Naomi Oreskes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0 Uploaded on Mar 3, 2010 | 1:14 min A presentation based off of her recent book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscure the Truth about Climate Change. Naomi Oreskes, author and professor of history and science studies, University of California, San Diego. From the University of Rhode Island's Spring 2010 Vetlesen Lecture Series, People and Planet Global Environmental Change. March 2, 2010.
UQx DENIAL101x 1.7.1.2 Full interview with Naomi Oreskes Published on Apr 27, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suz_13pXgEw Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial in Denial101x, a MOOC from UQx and edX. Denial101x isn’t just a climate MOOC; it’s a MOOC about how people think about climate change. http://edx.org/understanding-climate-denial
Naomi Oreskes: Why we should trust scientists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0 Published on Jun 25, 2014 | 20 min | TED Talk Many of the world's biggest problems require asking questions of scientists — but why should we believe what they say? Historian of science Naomi Oreskes thinks deeply about our relationship to belief and draws out three problems with common attitudes toward scientific inquiry — and gives her own reasoning for why we ought to trust science.
Looks good. i will look into those sites. In the meantime, though, do you know if she has a theory as to what drives people to deny the overwhelming evidence of climate change? Does anyone here have a theory? It seems very close to conspiracy theory and I suspect that climate change deniers are often also conspiracy nuts. There is something very similar in their "thinking". Lois
Looks good. i will look into those sites. In the meantime, though, do you know if she has a theory as to what drives people to deny the overwhelming evidence of climate change? Does anyone here have a theory? It seems very close to conspiracy theory and I suspect that climate change deniers are often also conspiracy nuts. There is something very similar in their "thinking". Lois
Well if conspiracy is a bunch of powerful people getting together in secrecy, hatching and carrying out a plot to misinform the public and leaders - then I guess this is a conspiracy story… WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF EVIDENCE This one doesn't answer your question, but it's another important piece of the puzzle of how people can so willfully delude themselves - or should I say one way they have been very successful.
By Stephan Lewandowsky Professor, School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol Posted on 7 May 2015 The article “Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community" just appeared in Global Environmental Change. The article is authored by me and Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell, and Michael Smithson. It is open access and can be found http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015000515 Seepage: The Executive Summary We initiate our argument with the known fact that vested interests and political agents have long opposed political or regulatory action in response to climate change by appealing to scientific uncertainty. We know from earlier work that uncertainty is no cause for inaction—on the contrary, greater scientific uncertainty should make us worry more, not less, about the potential consequences of climate change. Alas, those actual scientific implications are often inverted in public discourse where uncertainty often invites wishful thinking and hence inaction. In this new article, we examine the effect of contrarian talking points that arise out of uncertainty on the scientific community itself. We show that although scientists are trained in dealing with uncertainty, there are several psychological and cognitive reasons why scientists may nevertheless be susceptible to uncertainty-based argumentation, even when scientists recognize those arguments as false and are actively rebutting them. Climate scientists have done an admirable job pursuing their science under great political pressure, and they have tirelessly rebutted pseudoscientific arguments against their work. Nonetheless, being human, scientists’ operate with the same cognitive apparatus and limitations as every other person. In consequence, it is important to be aware of the factors that may cause scientists to take positions that they would be less likely to take in the absence of outspoken public opposition. We refer to this phenomenon as seepage. ... We highlight three well-known psychological mechanisms that may facilitate the seepage of contrarian memes into scientific discourse and thinking: ‘stereotype threat’, ‘pluralistic ignorance’ and the ‘third-person effect’. ...
Seepage: Some FAQs There are a few questions one might reasonably ask about our article, and we start by addressing some of those below. We may follow up with additional posts as the discussion evolves: 1. What is seepage? The inadvertent intrusion of memes that arose outside the scientific community into scientific discourse and thinking. There are two criteria for the detection of seepage: First, the scientific community has adopted assumptions or language that originated outside the scientific community or in a small set of dissenting scientific voices. Second, these assumptions depart from earlier norms and scientific conventions. Although scientific conventions may occasionally change as theorizing evolves, in the case of seepage explicit conceptual rationale or empirical support for a departure from previous norms is lacking or weak. 2. How does seepage work? There are a number of known psychological and cognitive variables that provide the opportunity for seepage. We focus on three: Stereotype threat, pluralistic ignorance, and the third-person effect. 3. What effects does seepage have? ... 4. Is the research on the “pause" wrong? ... 5. Who is responsible for seepage? ... 6. How do we eliminate seepage? ...
Looks good. i will look into those sites. In the meantime, though, do you know if she has a theory as to what drives people to deny the overwhelming evidence of climate change? Does anyone here have a theory? It seems very close to conspiracy theory and I suspect that climate change deniers are often also conspiracy nuts. There is something very similar in their "thinking". Lois
I think answering that requires it's own thread. :cheese: