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

“Every project Reynolds funded could potentially produce such a witness who could testify to causes of illness other than smoking….Many of the studies explored other causes of the disease—stress, genetic inheritance, and the like—an entirely legitimate topic, but one that could also help distract attention from the industry’s central problem: the overwhelming evidence that tobacco killed people.” 

From the beginning of the book, the authors present the idea that where funding comes from is an integral question one must ask regarding scientific studies. Although science itself is often categorized as being unbiased or outside the realm of human nature (fallibility, whims, etc.), the authors maintain that it is important to contextualize science, as scientific evidence is merely the production of humans, some of whom have less-than-noble goals. In the case of tobacco company RJ Reynolds, they deliberately funded scientific pursuits that would obfuscate the scientific claim that smoking cigarettes poses myriad health risks. They were using scientific inquiry and research to flood the scientific community with data, citing other possible sources of these health risks. Of course, this methodology presents a logical fallacy: just because one aspect, such as stress, increases the risk of a disease does not mean that smoking also does not increase an individual’s risk. This policy of distraction became integral to the Tobacco Strategy and subsequently was used to generate confusion on several topics. 

“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