Summary of The War on Science
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Journalist Shawn Otto persuasively argues that special interests, media personalities, corporate lobbyists and politicians with no respect for science and the scientific method have taken an uninformed populace hostage by discrediting and undermining science and facts. He believes that if science loses today’s “war on science,” it’s the end of knowing what is happening around you and to you. He traces the evolution of today’s mistrust of science to the beginning of the atomic age and then to the early 1960s, when a virus of doubt appeared under the bravura of the moon mission. The concept of objectivity further lost credibility in the face of postmodernism and the New Age. Thus began the undoing of science now seen in debates over climate change, health care and immigration, and in the marginalizing of scientists by US president Donald Trump’s administration. While always politically neutral, getAbstract recommends Otto’s well-researched, well-written, timely report.
In this summary, you will learn
- How special interests wage “war on science”;
- How they exploit an uninformed public unaware of the impact of policy decisions;
- How postmodernism weakened objectivity by claiming scientific truths are speculative;
- Why re-establishing science requires broad, society-wide initiatives; and
- Why defending science is a fight for democracy.
About the Author
Journalist Shawn Otto also wrote Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America and the novel Sins of Our Fathers. A film producer (House of Sand and Fog), he co-founded ScienceDebate.org and produced its US presidential science debates. He won the IEEE-USA National Distinguished Public Service Award for elevating science in the US public dialogue.
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2 years agoUseful
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2 years agoInteresting read and agree that today's journalism lacks credibility with the public when it comes to important issues such as this. Lobbying interests need to take a back seat by politicians when it comes to the greater good of the public interest.
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2 years agoVery useful!
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2 years agoA helpful analysis but slightly flawed as it presents this as a 'recent' problem. Galileo Galilei surfaced the same issue in the 16th and 17th century.
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2 years agoA helpful analysis but slightly flawed as it presents this as a 'recent' problem. Galileo Galilei surfaced the same issue in the 16th and 17th century.
