When two world-class science heavyweights take the time to warn us about scientific endeavour being under attack by bad actors, it is incumbent upon us to listen. Doctors Michael Mann and Peter Hotez have spent much of their professional lives being targeted by the political and ideological opposition to science at enormous personal cost and this book serves as both a warning and a call to arms to recognise and fight against the orchestrated disinformation efforts of those who would focus on short-term profits over the threats to human life.
Science Under Siege
In this very timely book, the authors identify the five forces that fuel this antiscience narrative. “In Science Under Siege, we seek to provide a succinct yet detailed delineation of the five forces behind the modern-day antiscience movement (the five Ps, we’ll call them – the plutocrats, the petrostates, the pros, the propagandists, and our press).”
Mann and Hotez argue that: “Mistrust in science is now escalating in certain demographics because of a targeted campaign against us – antiscience predation for someone else’s financial or political gain.” Instead of being seen as a significant social wedge issue, the attack on science to seed and sow state-sponsored disinformation becomes a means of destabilising democratic societies around the world.
The authors make the repeated argument that we do not have to be passive receivers of this well-funded campaign of antiscience, but that by ‘knowing our enemy’, we can become armed into neutralising this threat and that metaphorically, sunlight can be the best disinfectant to this highly organised, dangerous ideology.
“While there is urgency – unlike any we’ve ever known – there is still agency. We can still avert disaster if we can understand the nature of the mounting antiscience threat and formulate a strategy to counter it.”
A candle in the dark
The authors then begin to turn the spotlight onto each of the five Ps in turn, those oftentimes defenders of the powerful special interests and political agendas, which actively promote antiscience as their repeated mantra for their own culture wars. They begin with the plutocrats, where power is held and controlled by a small minority of high-net-worth individuals and name them as malevolent players. The point is made that “today’s malevolent plutocrats frequently operate through a complicated web of entities as they wage war against science and scientists” and note that this ‘dark money’ can be difficult to follow. A lack of accountability protects its users.
Who is standing up for science?
In the fight to discredit accurate and robust science communication, plutocrats can merge with another ‘p group’ – that of the petrostate. Some petrostates are more well-known than others, but there are commonalities – one of which is to choose not to lead on any concerted global action on climate, but to remain firmly committed to delaying action for as long as possible.
Mann and Hotez understandably focus on events in the United States and ‘the American petrostate’ and are persuasive in their arguments that politics is not only divisive – it is deadly. “There is unquestionably, a coordinated, concerted attack on science by today’s Republican Party – the American petrostate, if you will – with climate and biomedicine as focal points of the assault.”
With President Trump’s second term as president, the attack on science has become more vitriolic and dangerous on a global scale. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has faced significant cuts, seen by many as a malicious attack on climate science and its partnerships with other leading organisations.
Pros and propagandists
Mann and Hotez next focus on the twins of ‘pros’ and ‘propagandists’ – figures with huge social media presence who regularly appear as ‘experts’ on media platforms touting for the fossil-fuel industry. The dissemination of misinformation now reaches tens of millions of people through the power of social media, with platforms taking little to no responsibility for the toxic content of propagandists.
However, Mann and Hotez highlight that the playbook of antiscience has shifted now that the impact of climate change has become too obvious to deny outright. “Climate denial is untenable today with the vast majority of our population because they are witnessing profound impacts already playing out … They have instead largely turned to other tactics – delay, deflection, division, and so forth.” Online trolls and misinformation impacts all of us, and with algorithms constantly pushing targeted material onto us all, it can be difficult to take the time to sift through the overwhelming quantity of media information.
The partisan press?
There has been a manufactured campaign against the media, with partisan media groups gaining access and those promoting science being side-lined, especially by US politicians, with President Trump famously demonising news outlets as being ‘fake news’. The press undoubtedly has a part to play in good science communication, though as an industry, they appear to be excoriated by Mann and Hotez. They argue that creating the false equivalence between robust science and conspiracy theories and allowing “bothsidesism” has built the illusion of equal weight to competing arguments.
Fellowship of the planet
Mann and Hotez then lay out their ‘battle plan’ to push back against the tide of antiscience, arguing, “We need to restore the rightful role of science in our political and societal discourse if we are to maintain the capacity to address the major challenges we face, including the climate crisis and worsening pandemics”.
They acknowledge that ‘the hour is late’ for a newfound faith in science, but argue that as we can see the actions of the ‘antiscience industry’ in delaying meaningful action, are we just going to allow them to destroy our way of life without putting up a fight?
Mann and Hotez close their book by referring to the powerful story and imagery of The Lord of the Rings. They connect with the repeated analogy of the industrial fossil-fuel furnace rooms of Sauron and Saruman and offer the stark warning that if we don’t act, then we risk losing ‘The Shire’. Science disinformation is a plague which threatens to destabilise us all.
“We fight for a liveable planet, for us, our children, and future generations. Because it’s worth fighting for.”
