{"id":42213,"date":"2021-07-07T11:57:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T15:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=42213"},"modified":"2021-07-20T09:56:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T13:56:52","slug":"the-merchants-of-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-merchants-of-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Merchants of Doubt: Who Are They?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who are the merchants of doubt? How do they impact public scientific knowledge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first merchants of doubt on the scene were members of the tobacco industry<\/a>. They fought to discredit the science behind policies that threatened their agenda. This was only the beginning of modern-day doubt-mongering. This story, and the stories that followed, are told by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their book Merchants of Doubt<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read on to learn who the merchants of doubt are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Types of Merchants of Doubt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By nature, science challenges the status quo and ruling class<\/a> because its purpose is to change our understanding of the world around us.<\/strong> Science often reveals market failures and suggests regulation as a solution, so the merchants of doubt (MODs) tend to be defenders of the free market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOD Type #1: Free Market Fundamentalists<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Free market fundamentalists believe that free markets are the only <\/em>economic system that allows for freedom. These MODs are opposed to regulation, particularly international treaties because global governance reduces an individual nation\u2019s powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, free-market fundamentalism is unsound<\/strong>\u2014there are plenty of examples of market failure throughout history, such as the Great Depression<\/a>. Free market fundamentalism is particularly fallible in the case of the environment because it produces \u201cnegative externalities,\u201d which are consequences and costs that aren\u2019t reflected in the market system, so the market has no motivation to solve them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform example: If a company has a problem\u2014for instance, mine explosions are killing people and slowing down work\u2014and the problem affects the bottom line, the company has to figure out a way to solve it or else go bankrupt. If the problem doesn\u2019t<\/em> have any effect on profit\u2014for instance, the explosions are in remote areas\u2014then the company can survive just fine. The remote explosions may be killing animals, but the company doesn\u2019t have to pay for this, so it\u2019s not motivated to stop the explosions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOD Type #2: Cornucopians or Technophiles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Cornucopians or technophiles believe that technology will fix every one of humanity\u2019s problems as long as markets stay free (so inventors will be motivated to innovate by huge rewards).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This belief isn\u2019t completely wrong\u2014in many ways, modern life is better than medieval life, and there have been historical instances of governments oppressing their citizens with regulations. However, cornucopianism includes two potentially flawed assumptions<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Technology is guaranteed to advance fast and well enough.<\/strong> Technology has advanced in the past, but things are different today. In the past, human-caused environmental problems were small and regional. Today, they\u2019re global and have a time limit, and technology is not developing quickly enough to meet it.<\/li>
  2. All advances were entirely generated by the free market. <\/strong>This claim originates from Milton Friedman\u2014he wrote that no<\/em> technological advances had ever been generated by centralized government\u2014but that\u2019s untrue. (It only wasn\u2019t dismissed as nonsense because he was an influential economist.) For example, the communist Soviet Union was a technological powerhouse\u2014it launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Individual Merchants of Doubt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Four notable merchants of doubt were involved in doubt-mongering multiple scientific questions from the 1960s-2000s. <\/strong>All of them media-savvy, well-connected, politically powerful, fiercely anti-Communist physicists (though none of them did much original science after 1970\u2014they wrote reviews or editorials, but didn\u2019t publish much in peer-reviewed journals).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Fred Seitz<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Fred Seitz<\/strong> was a solid-state physicist. He contributed to building the atomic bomb and throughout his career held various high positions such as NATO science advisor, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and president of Rockefeller University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Some of the following likely contributed to his becoming one of the merchants of doubt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. He loved science and technology and thought they were the only way forward. <\/strong>He thought the public was anti-science<\/a> and technology, and that environmentalists were anti-progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. He disagreed with the mainstream scientific community:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n