PUBLIC TALK: Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming

In this lecture, Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego, will discuss her book Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury 2010, co-authored by Erik M. Conway).

In Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on the 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.

The book 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.

The lecture is free and open to the public, no RSVP required. Merchants of Doubt will be available for sale from outside the lecture theatre before and after the event from 5.30pm.