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

“Seitz was part of the generation of bright young men whose lives were transformed by the Manhattan Project, catapulted into positions of power and influence on the basis of brainpower. Before World War II, physics was a fairly obscure discipline; nobody expected to become rich, famous, or powerful through a career in physics. But the atomic bomb changed all that, as hundreds of physicists were recruited by the US government to build the most powerful weapon ever created. After the war, many of these physicists were recruited to build major academic departments at elite universities, where they frequently also served as consultants to the US government on all kinds of issues—not just weapons.”

Here, the audience recognizes the integral role that World War II played in promoting the authority of many of these merchants of doubt, especially Fred Seitz. World War II and nuclear power created the military industrial complex, linking science to the perpetuation of pro-military and industrial concerns. In place of its academic nature and relative lack of fame, these men became public icons, highly respected for their intellect as well as their nationalism. This gave them the authority that they would later use to advance industrial aims by taking staunch stances against the growing environmental academia. In effect, World War II placed these men effectively outside of the realm of academia as they became more and more involved in political matters.

“In scientific research, there is always doubt. In a lawsuit we ask, Is it reasonable doubt? Ultimately, juries began to say no, but it took a long time, in large part because of witnesses like Martin Cline, witnesses that the industry had cultivated by supporting their research. Reynolds supported scientists, and when the need arose they were available to support Reynolds.” 

This quotation demonstrates the power of the reciprocal nature of scientific funding. To attain funding for their research, many scientists aligned their research with the aims of the industries that funded them. This contextualizes the nature of their research, generating bias towards the industries who had given the scientists money. In this way, the science is not free from historical or social context; although many scientists would like to claim that science is free of the failures of human nature, it is in fact a product of human nature, and therefore subject to the same whims and forces that humans are subject to. Context is therefore crucial to understanding aspects of scientific reports—why various things were studied and why others are disregarded—rendering the objectivity of science a moot point. 

“The problem was that public had no way to know that this ‘evidence’ was part of an industry campaign designed to confuse. It was, in fact, part of a criminal conspiracy to commit fraud.” 

Although in hindsight, the public can understand the industry goals that motivated scientific research, at the time this knowledge was not made public. In fact, the industry purposefully obfuscated the reason behind this research, instead touting the objectivity of science in place of its social context. As such, the public thought that this research was objective, and it became difficult to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information. Of course, this was the industry’s goal in the first place: to create the appearance of scientific support through the rampant dissemination of doubt. In legal terms, this act constituted fraud, for which the industry was eventually penalized although charges were not filed until decades later. 

“While the idea of equal time for opposing opinions makes sense in a two-party political system, it does not work for science, because science is not about opinion. It is about evidence.” 

The authors demonstrate the difference between politics and science, which are inherently divergent. Politics usually boil down to a matter of opinion; however, science concerns the evidence in question. Although ideas based on the evidence may differ, science is, in and of itself, about the accumulation of knowledge via evidence. Because many journalists are not scientifically trained and are often encouraged to discuss dissent, they often misrepresent science as more of a debate than it actually is. The so-called debates in question were largely regarded as issues solved by the accumulation of scientific knowledge; each added study served to reiterate what the scientific mainstream already believed to be true. But in upholding the Fairness Doctrine, the media placed preference on the contrarian views of a few conservative scientists over the accumulation of scientific evidence by mainstream academic research. Therefore, part of the confusion and doubt sown by these men was due to their ability to manipulate the public’s ignorance concerning science.

“Doubt is crucial to science—in the version we call curiosity or healthy skepticism, it drives science forward—but it also makes it vulnerable to misrepresentation, because it is easy to take uncertainties out of context and create the impression that everything is unresolved.” 

A portion of the public’s ignorance concerning science consisted of ignorance concerning the nature of science itself. The authors acknowledge that doubt is crucial to scientific discovery, presenting skepticism as the birth of the discipline of science. However, it was this aspect of science that the merchants of doubt capitalized on for their own gains, emphasizing that this natural aspect of scientific discipline meant that nothing should be done, as further research was already needed. However, the true depths of these issues, in particular global warming, can never really be known until they happen, at which point it is assuredly too late to fix them. Rather than being definitive proof, science should work together to present areas in which politics can be ameliorated; science should provide guidelines for political changes, not be looked at as a kind of divine prophecy. 

“Détente was about finding ways to coexist peacefully with the Soviet Union; Seitz found that morally repugnant, believing that the Soviets would use disarmament to achieve military superiority and conquer the West.” 

Part of the impetus behind the conservative viewpoints of many of these scientists came from their feelings concerning communism and the Soviet Union. In truth, they were afraid of both, convinced that communism and its embodiment in the Soviet Union were hell-bent upon the destruction of the United States and the American way of capitalism. Of course, this point of view was courtesy of American politicians, like Senator McCarthy, who convinced many in the American public that the success of the Soviet Union meant the death of American society as we know it. Of course, this fearmongering was reiterated in and disseminated by the media. In this way, one can witness the cyclical implications of fear within American society, as the science that Seitz and his comrades worked to perpetuate reaffirmed politicians’ fear in the military superiority of the Soviet Union. 

“It was a small step from strategic superiority to world dominance. The Cold War would be over. The West would have lost.” 

Through very few words, the authors depict just how real (and how ridiculous) the fear of Soviet superiority was during the Cold War. Communists were labeled as America’s enemy in every way; it was believed that if they achieved military superiority in any way, America would die, presumably with all Americans as well. Obviously, this leap in logic seems absurd to people who no longer live under the reign of fear imposed by the Cold War. However, this was a widespread belief among the American public. It was an us-vs.-them battle over the morality of humanity. America believed itself—and by extension, capitalism—to be the force of good within the world, whereas communism and the Soviet Union were represented as the force of evil in some sort of epic (and heavily Christianized) struggle for humanity’s soul. Of course, modern history now knows that the Soviet Union was nowhere close to military dominance, but the fear elicited by this idea was all too real for the American public, especially this group of conservative scientists. 

“‘The very lack of evidence is thus treated as evidence; the absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden.’ Such arguments are effectively impossible to refute, as [C.S.] Lewis noted. ‘A belief in invisible cats cannot be logically disproved,’ although it does ‘tell us a good deal about those who hold it.’” 

This quotation demonstrates the ridiculous (and highly unscientific) kind of beliefs held by these merchants of doubt, who seem at various points within the narrative to be suffering from some variety of senility. Of course, this is the authors’ point of view, which is aided by quotations such as these which demonstrate the sheer absurdity of these arguments. It is in fact, true: scientifically, someone could not say in absolute certainty that invisible cats do not exist, as science can never be absolutely certain about anything. There are, however, scores of evidence that lead one to believe that the assertion of invisible cats is ridiculous, but of course, none of these are absolutely conclusive, because science cannot absolutely conclude anything. Rather, science prefers the reasonable argument: it is reasonable, given the evidence, that invisible cats do not exist, just as it is reasonable, given the evidence, that global warming, acid rain, and other horrible environmental problems do exist as a result of human action.

“Team B., Jastrow, and Moynihan had all overestimated Soviet capabilities, and greatly exaggerated the certainty of their claims. But their alarming arguments had the desired effect, providing ‘evidence’ that the United States needed to act, and fast. It also demonstrated that you could get what you wanted if you argued with enough conviction, even if you didn’t have the facts on your side.” 

The irony here, of course, is that it was not the environmentalists who were being alarmists most of the time, especially in the case of SDI. Rather, even though SDI lobbyists painted the arguers of nuclear winter as alarmists, in reality they were tapping into the fear of Soviet military hegemony that was so prevalent within the Cold War. This fearmongering on the part of scientists was both only possible and also resultant from earlier political scare tactics via the aptly named Red Scare—the fear that Soviets lurked in our midst, everywhere, just waiting for common Americans to make one mistake that would mean the end of American civilization. To anyone who did not live through or does not remember the Cold War, this sounds ridiculous; however, it is important to note that this was a true and widespread fear for many decades in America. In fact, the Cold War was plagued by the United States vastly overemphasizing Soviet military technology, which was only learned after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. The scientists understood the political climate of the Cold War; they were at once at its mercy but also its propagators. Because they were able to tap into a public fear—no matter how real or imagined it may have been—they were able to convince politicians that SDI was necessary for the continuation of the American way of life despite a dearth of evidence to support this claim. 

“In this sense, there was a crucial difference between the debate over SDI and nuclear winter and the earlier debates over tobacco: while there was enormous evidence of tobacco links to cancer and other health problems—people had been smoking cigarettes for decades—there were no facts to be had over strategic defense or nuclear winter. Strategic defense and nuclear winter were hypotheticals—logical constructs from a theory.”

Although a similar strategy was employed in both debates, and similar scientists argued for the contrarian views, the debates were different, mostly because the scientists were trying to convince politicians and the public that government intervention via SDI was necessary versus the tobacco debate which focused on the idea that government regulation of tobacco was not necessary, as tobacco was allegedly not harmful. However, the SDI debate was constructed entirely from theory; there was no evidence to be had, as any evidence would have destroyed the planet. There was no way to set up an experiment that mimicked the outcome of nuclear winter without actually causing nuclear winter, and so the entire so-called debate concerning SDI was subject to various people’s opinions about the likelihood of nuclear winter versus the alleged protection that SDI could afford. In this way, SDI was in fact different from the other debates within the narrative, as it was entirely constructed upon theory versus evidence. 

“Pollution was not simply a matter of evil industries dumping toxic sludge in the night: people with good intentions might unintentionally do harm.” 

One of the authors’ main points concerning the narrative of doubt stresses public ignorance, specifically public ignorance concerning science. Too often, people, even those with good intentions, are the cause of environmental problems, as much human action is to blame for the environment’s current state. Whereas environmentalism previously had focused upon corporations attempting to dump toxic waste without the public’s knowledge, the public had become aware of this, and so the restrictions on industrial dumping were much higher. Regardless, human activity always has an environmental consequence, which mainstream scientists wanted to prove. However, this allowed for the merchants of doubt to create even further misinformation, as they could claim that the science had changed, and so prove that science is uncertain. Of course, they failed to mention that this is the nature of science as this piece of information would have detracted from their pro-industrial aims. 

“The White House version would not begin by stressing the problem—massive sulfur emissions that caused acid rain—but by stressing that pollution was already partially controlled, and then moving straight on to the uncertainties that might be taken to suggest that further controls were not justified.” 

This quotation demonstrates the importance in the order of information, especially in a fairly long-winded scientific document, for an argument to be understood. When information is reordered, the intended meaning can be obscured. This is exactly what happened when the White House edited the scientific report, which the White House quite frankly had no scientific authority to do. In this way, the presidential administration controlled information, concentrating its power as the disseminator of scientific knowledge, even if the scientific knowledge was inaccurate. Ironically, in attempt to prevent government regulation of corporations and therefore to prevent the alleged slippery slope of socialism, the government was culpable of misinformation, the very same aspects of socialism it felt were so monstrous.

“But in a pattern that was becoming familiar, the scientific facts were published in a place where few ordinary people would see them, whereas the unscientific claims—that acid rain was not a problem that it would cost hundreds of billions to fix—were published in mass circulation outlets. It was not a level playing field.” 

This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of understanding this narrative. Part of the problem revolved around the fact that mainstream scientists had sequestered themselves—as was the case with many academic fields. In academia, knowledge is not democratic; it is not usually disseminated to the public but rather is understood and criticized by members within the same field, completely outside of the purview of laypeople. Of course, this means that those individuals who do decide to disseminate information to the public have a more or less intellectual monopoly on the ideas that are present: because fairly few experts communicate with the public, those who do are usually widely believed and rarely questioned. Again, the authors depict that part of the strategy was to capitalize on the relative ignorance of the public, which has been a way for rulers to maintain power for as long as governance has existed. This in turn limits the capacity of democracy, as the citizens are not considered informed and so cannot make informed decisions since they only have partial knowledge, if any, of complicated topics. 

“The energy industry had often accused environmentalists of scaremongering, yet this is what they had done with their claims of economic devastation. Protecting the environment didn’t produce economic devastation. It didn’t lead to massive job losses. It didn’t cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It didn’t even cause the price of electricity to rise.” 

The authors repeatedly demonstrate the hypocrisy evident within the claims of both the industries and the scientists who supported them. The industries used fear to try to prevent regulation, maintaining that any action of environmentalism would produce economic devastation. Of course, this never happened; they were merely trying to protect their own vested interests. In essence, the industries looked at their own tactics, and then accused mainstream scientists of exactly what they were doing, despite a lack of scientific evidence. This does not merely present an attack on science, therefore, but an attack on rational behavior. In fact, the industries regularly appealed to the animal nature of the public by purposefully creating an atmosphere of fear, in which the public would not react rationally. Scientists failed to understand this political game, as they were only concerned with the science, which they found was on their side, and not with public opinion. 

“Only the next time around, they would not merely deny the gravity of the problem; they would deny that there was any problem at all. In the future, they wouldn’t just tamper with the peer review process; they would reject the science itself.” 

This quotation demonstrates the escalating strategies of the conservative scientists and the industries who supported them and who were protected by their claims. In essence, because the scientists were easily able to obfuscate the truth, they gradually moved on to more and more brazen displays of power, eventually rejecting science entirely. The more support they received, the more ridiculous their claims became, to the shock of many scientists. 

“The ‘real’ agenda of environmentalists—and the scientists who provided the data on which they relied—was to destroy capitalism and replace it with some sort of worldwide utopian Socialism—or perhaps Communism. That echoed a common right-wing refrain in the early 1990s: that environmental regulation was the slippery slope to Socialism.” 

This quotation demonstrates the beliefs of the conservative scientists, helping the audience understand why these merchants of doubt were so vehemently opposed to environmental concerns and subsequent regulation. As many of these so-called debates took place during the Cold War, the conservative scientists believed that environmentalists were secret supporters of communism, or at the very least socialism. This presents the idea of the slippery slope trope regarding communism: the belief that one action of government regulation could eventually lead to the success of a communist government and the death of capitalism in America. Of course, this belief conflates socialism and communism, refusing to allow for governmental nuances between the two. This constitutes an act of fear-mongering, using the illusion of hidden motives in opponents to detract from the actual hidden motives of the conservative scientists and demonstrating the hypocrisy evident within these arguments. These ideas are still very much existent in America today, as much of the public believes socialism and communism to be interchangeable. 

“This was the Bad Science strategy in a nutshell: plant complaints in op-ed pieces, in letters to the editor, and in articles in mainstream journals to whom you’d supplied the ‘facts,’ and then quote them as if they really were facts. Quote, in fact, yourself. A perfect rhetorical circle. A mass media echo chamber of your own construction.” 

This quotation demonstrates the importance of understanding where scientific evidence comes from in order to truly comprehend a scientific debate. Whereas environmentalists had myriad scientific studies on their side, the conservative scientists essentially created their own evidence by quoting themselves via a rhetorical circle. This presents the logical fallacy inherent within the conservative scientists’ argument: they could quote only themselves because there was no scientific evidence to support their claims. They disseminated this misinformation in the mainstream media as opposed to scientific outlets because they had mostly stopped completing scientific research. The line is then drawn between political opinion and scientific evidence: the conservative scientists held many political opinions with little scientific evidence, whereas the environmentalists held little political opinions concerning the abundance of evidence they saw as a result of their scientific research.

“‘Possibly PM [Phillip Morris] could provide funding, through Federal Focus, to the George C Marshall Institute…they could address the ETS conclusion…I think the Marshall Institute will have considerable credibility since it does not take funding from private companies nor the government. It is funded solely through foundations such as Federal Focus.’” 

This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence the authors present as definitive proof that the tobacco industry used pseudoscience to disseminate misinformation. Tobacco company Phillip Morris indirectly funded the Marshall Institute’s research, as it knew that any information that came from inside the company would be tainted with industry bias. Therefore, the industry created the appearance of scientific objectivity, all the while funding research that would satisfy the industry’s aims. This action represented a calculated political step to ensure a lack of government regulation, eventually earning the attention of the law via the RICO Act. However, it is important to note that such actions by corporations are still at work within the current American political system: corporations use organizations as fronts to funnel money to politicians who will support their aims via legislature. 

“I don’t have the right to yell fire in a crowded theater; your right to throw a punch ends at my nose. All freedoms have their limits, and none more obviously than the freedom to kill other people, either directly with guns and knives, or indirectly with dangerous goods. Secondhand smoke was an indirect danger that killed people.” 

The idea of limitations to freedoms is inherent within a democracy, or really any kind of government; it is part of a social contract. American society cannot exist in absolute freedom. It cannot set a higher priority on liberty than on the safety of its citizens. If it did, it would be anarchy, as the absence of government represents the truest form of liberty. Unfortunately, an absence of government is also incredibly unsafe for its citizens. Part of the social contract of government includes giving up some of your freedoms—like those of harming other individuals—in order to be able to live safely with other people. However, the tobacco industry worked as hard as it could to challenge this idea, and were helped, on all fronts, by conservative scientists who failed to understand this most basic aspect of human governance. 

“The result, Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, was really two reports—five chapters detailing the likelihood of anthropogenic climate change by written by natural scientists, and two chapters on emissions and climate impacts by economists—which presented very different impressions of the problem. The synthesis sided with the economists, not the natural scientists.” 

This quotation demonstrates the distinct divide between politics and science that happened in the government throughout these debates. Although science had evidence on its side and the economic ideas were based solely on theory, and in fact the scientific chapters outweighed the economic ones in sheer number, the synthesis sides with the economists, who presented the idea that government regulation was not necessary. Again, the audience sees that the people who are making these claims are not scientists; they do not have the expertise to be able to make these assertions. They are disregarding the science in favor of the economy, essentially maintaining that the environment is not an economic resource: you cannot put a price tag on a lake, therefore it is worthless, they claim. Importantly, this is the tone that is taken in the synthesis, even though it does not represent the report itself. However, many politicians and the media do not have time to read the entire report; therefore, they rely on the synthesis to explain the opinions held within the report. Of course, this is problematic when the synthesis does not reflect the ideas of the scientists, but only concerns the beliefs of economists, which may not have a place in a scientific report. Regardless, this leads to the spread of misinformation by the government agency itself, rendering the government culpable in the public’s ignorance concerning global warming.  

“In Silent Spring…Carson explained how pesticides were accumulating in the food chain, damaging the environment, and threatening even the symbol of American freedom: the bald eagle. Although the pesticide industry tried to paint her as a hysterical female, her work was affirmed by the President’s Science Advisory Committee, and in 1972, the EPA concluded that scientific evidence was sufficient to warrant the banning of the pesticide DDT in America.” 

The conservative scientists, media, and pesticide industry used every method at their disposal to attack Rachel Carson’s findings on pesticides. Specifically, they used sexist name-calling, labeling her and her scientific research as hysterical, implying the age-old belief that women are too emotional to conduct scientific research. The industry played into the sexism of many conservatives who believed that women did not belong in academia, or anywhere outside of the home for that matter, even though this flew in the face of Carson’s support by fairly conservative scientific organizations. In order to render Carson an extremist, the industry and its cronies became extremists in and of themselves, attempting to rewrite history to make it seem as though pesticides were safe despite conclusive scientific evidence that proved the opposite.

“As an independent source of authority and knowledge, science has always had the capacity to challenge ruling powers’ ability to control people by controlling their beliefs. Indeed, it has the power to challenge anyone who wishes to preserve, protect, or defend the status quo.” 

The authors routinely paint science as an independent source of power; however, as they have demonstrated, science (or perhaps, pseudoscience) can be entirely dependent upon the powers that be and used to their advantage. In and of itself, science can be used to challenge the status quo and remove those who would seek to dictatorially consolidate power. However, fake science can also be used specifically for this purpose.

“When the Cold War ended, these men looked for a new great threat. They found it in environmentalists. Environmentalists, they implied, were ‘watermelons’: green on the outside, red on the inside.” 

This image demonstrates the hidden agenda that these conservative scientists feared environmentalists had: that they were truly communists. This presents the greatest motivating factor for these merchants of doubt—fear—which they then used to disseminate misinformation. Although they might have been looking for personal gain when they sided with the industries, the authors present a more nuanced understanding of these men’s minds. Despite the fact that the Cold War had ended, essentially meaning the success of capitalism and the American way in the face of communism, these men were unable to move past their fear of communism. They still believed that communists lurked in every corner, secretly plotting the overthrow of the American government. Although this is perhaps a silly image (and almost entirely inaccurate), this fear was real to these scientists as well as to many Americans in ways that people who did not live through the Cold War cannot understand. In this way, the debate was not over science, but over political ideology, which these conservative scientists saw mainstream science (and especially environmentalists) as corrupting. While the scientists wanted to argue science, the merchants of doubt were attempting to argue political ideology, resulting in a great misunderstanding of intentions which had dire social consequences. These merchants of doubt, therefore, maybe were not evil geniuses, but rather old men still scared of the communist boogeyman in the closet that politicians had convinced them of more than half a century ago.