Book review: Exposing the forces behind anti-science aggression
“Science Under Siege,” by Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez, is a plain-spoken, naming-names, rallying cry for protectors of science to not go quietly into the night.
“Petrostates, polluters, politicians”, or “plutocrats, pros, propagandists” and sometimes also “the press”; there is no lack of aliterations when it comes to Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez new book “Science Under Siege: How To Fight The Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World”.
The dynamic duo of academic heavy hitters are no strangers to sparring with many of the forces of anti-science aggression they outline in their book.
Michael Mann, a destinguished climate scientist most famous for introducing the now iconic Hockey-stick graph into public climate awareness learned first what it meant to become a target in the information age. Ever since hackers stole and misrepresented scientists’ — including Mann´s — emails to cast doubt on climate research right before the 2009 global climate summit in Copenhagen to sabotage international collaboration, Michael Mann has found himself at the center of the public storm over truth in science. Though multiple independent investigations cleared him and his colleagues of any wrongdoing, the “Climategate” smear campaign cast him as an early villain in what we know understand to be the desired manipulative mirrorworld created by coordinated disinformation networks that Science Under Siege describes. Rather than retreating into the safety of academia, Mann turned outward, becoming one of the most visible defenders of climate science and of scientists’ right to speak without fear.
Peter Hotez, a renowned vaccine scientists, has fought a parallel battle on another front: public health. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccine scientist and pediatrician found himself vilified by anti-vaccine activists — most notably, now HHS secretary RFK Jr cast him as the “OG villain” for writing his deeply personal book about how vaccines did not cause the autism of his daughter, but that autism is a complex genetic disease.
Like Mann, Hotez experienced firsthand the personal cost of promoting evidence-based medicine and confronting misinformation — harassment, threats, and the relentless distortion of his work, which just escalated beyond recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet Hotez, too, refused to withdraw. His advocacy for vaccines and global health equity, and his insistence that science must serve humanity rather than ideology, echo throughout this book.
“the most profound impression lingering is the uncharacteristically sharp and plain-speaking tone and tenor the two bring into its pages”
Despite the depths of consideration for the human condition - to preserve human health and a livable planet - and appeals to the better angles of humanity shining throughout the book, the most profound impression lingering is the uncharacteristically sharp and plain-speaking tone and tenor the two bring into its pages.
With scathing commentary and righteous fury, the authors rejected to beat around the bush or the all-too-common academic retreat to euphemisms, rather opting for refreshing — even scorched-earth — clarity of where they stand and who their opponents are. One can not help escape the conclusion that the book is drawing a line in the sand with every chapter; a rebuke to the silent and accomodating institutions that rather surrender academic independence than put up a fight.
There is no appeasement when the fight is existential, the authors remind us; often with some heavy leaning into fictional metaphors, such as The Lord of the Rings:
“The battle for Middle Earth wasn´t won by appeasing the dark lord and his forces. It was won by defeating them”
From fossil fuel magnates and billionaire tech pros to the US congress and a captured SCOTUS, or autocratic petrostates and their agents, to home-grown propagandists and media makers, the authors do not shy away from implicating key players and their malevolent activities that pose a threat to our health, our planet, and more and more, our democracy and freedom.
What malevolant activities? The anti-science ecosystem has long grown beyond shadowy think tanks and closed-door fundraisers to lobby politicians; state-actor sabotage, plutocrat campaigns and dark-money sponsorship has since extended to prop up the “pros” and “propagandists” on social media (or “anti-social media and the bots of war”, one subtitle reads); empowering and amplifying their use of emotional myths and conspiracy theories to dominate online discourse, sway bystanders, and with it indirectly how the “press” covers these events.
“For propagandists, a key feature of the antiscience playbook is its reliance on conspiracy theories and conspiracy-filled rhetoric”
Hotez and Mann do a fantastic job in exposing pay-for-play connections, dirty relationships and how they led to inauthentic outcomes in supposedly democratic real-world events. Much of the book is concerned with the important task of correcting the record on some of the misleading highlights of the last years; which for many people not in the weeds of it, might be as surprising as devastating to learn. From COVID-19 lab leak conspiracies to climate doomism fostered by the mainstream press, from New York Times to Washington Post to the Wall Street Journal and Fox News and most mainstream outlets inbetween, the seasoned authors hold a special grudge to previous bastions of evidence-based reporting and good-willed truth-seeking institutions that seem to be no more, or at least, strongly diminished when it comes to uphold science. Worse, some like the New York Times actively have become powerful allies of aggressors, justifying the rightwing assault on science and scientists:
With both COVID and climate, the mainstream media have helped keep alive a pernicious but misguided narrative that - to the extent there is distrust of the science by some members of the public - it is the scientists´ fault.
The book describes the “collapse” of the fourth estate and the rise of “client journalism” that has been felt society-wide, and unfortunately, scientists have lost a critical ally in the press when expertise gets discarded or subverted in favor of media content serving vested interests. Even worse, our recent shift into a new dark age of myth, manipulation and magical thinking has made scientists canaries in the coalmine of democracy, and when reading this book, one is left with the sinking feeling that the carbon monoxide has already filled the chamber.
“Our list of allies is growing thin”
The authors report, another reference to The Lord of the Rings. And yet, rather than concede, the authors end the book with broad strokes outlining how the war can still be won, offering “battle plan” and urgency for all of us who want to defend science, democracy and an evidence-based worldview.
The “antiscience superstorm packs a one-two-three punch, and each of the threats must be addressed in concert with the other”, they caution, but for all of them, they advise a 3-pronged strategy for scientists. Communicating constructively because the “best defense is indeed a good offense”; proactively addressing the “triple threat” of invisible scientists, missing science journalism and performative press neutrality head-on. Protecting scientists is another key ingredient, institutionally and legally, that become targets of anti-science assault. And lastly, destroying the disinformation machine; which of course is a challenge that extends far beyond science. On that part, “punishing the pros, propagandists and the press”, “pressuring the plutocrats” and “mending the media”, with the force of the law, new regulations, and ultimately, our pocketbooks and democratic organizing might not surprise the avid reader and democratic citizen who likely has asked themselves the same question at least since the 2024 US election.
“We have to be the change we want to see in the world“
the authors credibly advise, given their own personal trajectories and accomplishments, before ending with another The Lord of the Rings rallying cry that it is worth fighting for what is good in the world, for us, our children and future generations.
Even in dark times, my suspicion is that the furious and clear-eyed moral argument advanced by “Science under siege” will age as well as the science it defends — not because the good guys always win, but because truth and integrity never go out of style.