Corporate attacks on science started with tobacco
industry efforts to undermine studies on the health
effects of smoking and second-hand smoke. The pattern laid down by
the tobacco industry has been consistently followed since:
the terms “sound science” and “junk science”, meaningless in
any scientific sense, originated with tobacco lawsuits and have
been parlayed by conservatives into codewords for science
that respectively supports or threatens “conservative” ideology.

Mooney categorizes the attacks on science as falling into
two main categories. The first of these is an undermining of
the processes of science by suppression of information, targeting
individual scientists (many of whom work for the government or rely
on government grants), or rigging review and advisory committees.
The second form these right-wing attacks take is through the communication
process to the public after reports are released. This includes
“spinning” the science through misrepresentations or distortions,
magnifying uncertainty, relying on and promoting fringe scientists
and “contrarians”, and putting scientific clothing on “values”
and ideology.

“Manufacturing uncertainty” was a key to the tobacco industry
strategy that has been repeated again and again on issues from
global warming to evolution. Finding a token scientist to
magnify “contrarian” claims isn’t hard: science’s health
comes from the weathering of constant attacks by
those who choose to think differently. But sadly there are also
too many scientists willing to distort their own research to conform
to the ideologies of funding sources, and a disturbing number
of government scientists working for regulatory agencies have
been encouraged to alter conclusions of their reports. Mooney notes the sharp
distinction in conclusions on the effects of second-hand smoke between
industry-funded and independent scientists.

It is one thing to argue and make political decisions based on all the
best facts available. That’s what we expect our leaders to do.
But the right wing attack on science is not satisifed with the facts
as they are on the environemnt, biology or medicine. Rather they seek
to distort those facts, imposing ideology at an earlier stage, so
that decision makers and the public don’t even have the truth available
to them to make good decisions.

Many of the “contrarian” scientists who have been selected
by the Bush administration to sit on major oversight
and advisory panels have very little research background at all.
Unfortunately, science’s ivory tower makes it far too easy to
“play scientist” for the public – there are no external credentialing
mechanisms that effectively separate real experts from impostors.
Tellingly, for these political hacks the arguments change
with time as the facts on the ground become increasingly
inconvenient to their ideology. Denial of global warming
becomes denial of human causation, now morphing into assertion that
global warming will be good for us. Creationism becomes “intelligent
design”.

The broad range of regulatory and scientific areas where the same
anti-science tactics have been used forces the conclusion that this
is more than separate isolated incidents. Similar issues with
failed intelligence on 9-11 and Iraq’s WMD, and other apparent efforts
to conceal the facts on the ground by the administration imply
this pattern of ideological decision making extends far beyond
the areas where science is the central source of facts.

There are examples of liberal science abuse too, where
individuals are tempted to spin the facts to fit their ideology.
Mooney cites a few cases, but the only systematic pattern seems to be
one of exaggeration of direct effects and perhaps denial of uncertainty.
Of the examples in question, almost all show liberal statements to be
much closer to the scientific facts than the right-wing spin on the
same issues. Even so, neither side should try to twist science to
their benefit, and to his credit Mooney does criticize both.

The book has a few flaws: there are occasional jarring repetitions
of previous arguments that suggest chapters were rewritten several
times in mid-stream, without reconsidering the book as a whole. Mooney
also seems reluctant to state as baldly as possible what’s going
on here: some people are lying about the facts, and as a result,
other people are dying needlessly. Isn’t there legal recourse for such
fraud, as happened in the case of tobacco?

Mooney makes a number of sensible suggestions beyond legal action:
reinstate the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, pass
legislation to bar political litmus tests for committees, roll back the
“sound science” regulatory reform that has done so much harm.
More skepticism and understanding of the processes of science from
journalists would be a big help, as would some reforms in the
science community itself. But as he also points out, significant change
will be impossible in our democracy as long as the current ideologues
hold all the strings of power. Getting the information out
somehow and persuading the public to vote for moderates instead
of ideologues is the most important thing we can do – will it be enough?