Merchants of Doubt

Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, 2010

Two historians trace how a handful of prominent scientists, working with think tanks and industry, cast doubt on the science of tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole and global warming.

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10 parts, about 29 minutes to read.

Why read it

Traces how a few well connected physicists ran one playbook, manufacturing doubt, against the science on smoking, acid rain, ozone and climate
Teaches you to spot the tactics: endless demands for proof, false balance, unreviewed reports and hidden industry funding
Quotes the industry's own internal memos and ties the campaigns to a free market fear of regulation

Who it is for

Readers told that scientists still disagree on climate
Journalists deciding how to balance contested science
Policy staff who depend on expert advice

What the summary covers

Introduction2 min
Doubt Is Our Product3 min
Strategic Defense and the Marshall Institute3 min
Acid Rain3 min
The Fight over the Ozone Hole3 min
The Fight over Secondhand Smoke3 min
The Denial of Global Warming5 min
Denial Rides Again3 min
Of Free Speech and Free Markets3 min
A New View of Science1 min

Recommended by

Al GoreFormer US Vice President
Anyone concerned about the state of democracy in America should read this book.
Peter GalisonJoseph Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard
This book about the politics of doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway explores the long, connected, and intentional obfuscation of science by manufactured controversy.
Stephen H. SchneiderLate Stanford professor of environmental biology and global change
With the carefulness of historians and the skills of master storytellers, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway lay out the sordid history of tobacco industry protectionists, who framed the debate as scientifically ‘unproven,’ gaining decades of market share for those merchants of death—who knew all along the risks of their products.
Bill McKibbenAmerican environmentalist and author
As the science of global warming has grown more certain over the last two decades, the attack on that science has grown more shrill; this volume helps explain that paradox, and not only for climate change.
Elizabeth KolbertNew Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize winning author
Merchants of Doubt should finally put to rest the question of whether the science of climate change is settled. It is, and we ignore this message at our peril.

About the authors

Naomi OreskesAmerican historian of science and professor at Harvard University
- Earned a degree in mining geology from the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College, University of London, in 1981.
- Took a PhD in the Stanford University program in geological research and the history of science.
- Worked as a mining geologist for Western Mining Company in outback South Australia before returning to academia.
- Joined Harvard in 2013 after fifteen years as a professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego.
- Her research focuses on the earth and environmental sciences, with a particular interest in scientific consensus and dissent.
- Her 2004 essay in Science, The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, has been widely cited in the United States and abroad.
- Became a Guggenheim fellow in 2018 and received the British Academy Medal in 2019.
Erik M. ConwayProfessor of the history of technology at Purdue University
- Served four years as a US Navy officer before graduate school.
- Took a PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1998 with a dissertation on the development of aircraft landing aids.
- Spent years as the historian at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving to Purdue University in 2025.
- His research focuses on aerospace history and the history of technology in the twentieth century.
- Later wrote The Big Myth with Naomi Oreskes, on how American business taught people to loathe government and love the free market.