NAOMI ORESKE’S MERCHANTS OF DOUBT

NAOMI ORESKE’S MERCHANTS OF DOUBT

We went to the second of Naomi Oreske’s Patten lectures at Indiana University.  She discussed her book Merchants of Doubt.  In the 1970s a coalition formed between two political economists, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hajek and four physicists Robert Jastrow, Frederick Seitz,  William Nierenberg, and Frederick Singer.  The economists were Ayn Rand type libertarians who believed that government regulation led to government control led to socialism led to communism and loss of freedom. They favored laissez faire capitalism, a powerful military, and a fear of liberals, environmentalists, and critics of government (especially of the conservative government they favored). As Cold Warriors they joined and formed think tanks with the financial backing of millionaires and billionaires who shared their outlook.  One of these was the George Marshall Institute.  Its members included the four physicists, two of whom (Seitz and Singer) had been consultants to the tobacco industry.  The tobacco industry funded research which favored the tobacco industry’s position that tobacco had no bad health effects on the respiratory or circulatory systems or the induction of cancers. They came up with the strategy of casting doubt on the critics, especially in the medical field, who claimed tobacco was the major cause of these diseases in smokers or in persons exposed to second hand smoke exhaled at home or in the work place.  These four scientists used the same strategy and their institutes to deny that coal heavy in sulfur caused acid rain, that fluoridated hydrocarbons used as refrigerants and propellants were the cause of the ozone hole widening in Antarctica, and that human produced carbon dioxide was the cause of global warming leading to dramatic climate change.  They did so not because they were financially dependent on the industries causing the pollution but because of their ideology as cold warriors and libertarians favoring the interests of industry and the military.  

Even earlier the chemical industry used the strategy of casting doubt on the role of DDT in the disappearance of birds from widespread spraying of insecticides.  During the Vietnam war the same strategy of doubt was used to deny any ecological or health problems associated with the spraying of herbicides (Agent Orange, especially) to destroy crops sand to clear areas used by the Viet Cong.  Even earlier, my mentor, Hermann Muller, was assailed by those using radiation in the military, industry, or health for suggesting low doses of radiation were cumulative and that that society needed protection from avoidable exposure of radiation and excessive release of radiation.  Even earlier than that, if you read Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People, you will see that Norwegian policy in the 1800s was against those who raised fears of contagious diseases from the slovenly habits and neglect that was tolerated during the infancy of the public health movement.   I would not be surprised it can be traced even further back to classic Greek drama where messengers with bad news were neither welcome nor tolerated (think of Oedipus or think of the way prophets were ignored in the Old Testament).  Wishful thinking goes with ideology of the left or right.   Those with power are not willing to give up their privileges when criticized by findings that bad outcomes can arise from the activities of the powerful. It is not just dictators but anyone who lives by wishful thinking that favors denial to regulation in the public interest. We may no longer kill the messengers, but we sure like to cast doubt, scorn, or denial on their concerns and warnings. 

Is there a role for the uses of science besides crying wolf or fiddling while Rome burns?

Nedra and I enjoyed the presentation of Naomi Oreske at Indiana University’s Patten lecture.  She discussed why scientists become controversial over certain issues regardless of whether they endorse, reject, or ignore the applications of science to society.  She argued that from 1865 to 1945 science was largely regarded as championing reason, responding to social needs such as public health or helping farmers and manufacturers and promoting the idea of progress and civilization.  She calls his the Aspirational Era. It ended in 1945 because science, for the first time, had developed weapons of mass destruction that entered a worldwide arms race.  She called this the Existential Era of science. It led to efforts by scientists to speak out, Einstein and Nils Bohr were its major advocates.  By 1950 a third effort emerged that she calls the Select Committee Era in which presidential science advisors, and agencies of government were used to advise Congress on legislation.  It was the era that banned DDT, enabled legislation on acid rain, and pitted “truth to power.”  The present era, which began in 1973, she calls the Assessment Era,  It began with President Nixon abolishing the Presidential science advisor position because he resented the scientific criticisms of the use of napalm , carpet bombing, and Agent Orange spraying in the Vietnam War.  It has forced science to criticize government individually or through its own science organizations.

The distancing of government from science advising creates a tension between “crying wolf” and “fiddling while Rome burns” among scientists.  If they fail to advise they are blamed for their cowardice.  If they do advise and their fears do not come to pass, they are accused of being extremists or hysterical.  In her discussion of climate change, she showed why the ban on fluoridated carbon  compounds used as refrigerants and in can sprays worked to lessen the ozone hole at the south pole that was associated with these compounds in the stratosphere.  It was relatively minor in its economic impact to ban these compounds.  The manufacture was almost entirely done by one company (DuPont).  There were alternative chemicals that could be used.  And DuPont made hundreds of other products that were profitable.  But climate change is largely directed at fossil fuels and the companies that extract them only do that and most of the world feels economically tied to fossil fuels for its cars, utilities, airplanes, and a substantial part of the economy.  That is why these companies hire scientists to present their views as legitimate science.  They have the money to hire many scientists to publish papers that are contradictory and they will keep submitting peer review rejected papers until they find a journal that will publish that work. 

Scientists in general try to avoid going public with the implications of their work because they feel they lack expertise in politics, they fear loss of credibility,, and they prefer to be in their laboratories.  Oreske feels scientists need to add a moral dimension to their science. If their work can lead to harm and they see this, they should speak out.  She feels they should enlist the support of moral leaders, like the Pope or the leaders of most of the world’s religious community who favor a stewardship role of mankind for nature.  She argues that a major role of science is to improve out lot and this includes being a whistle blower when bad outcomes are recognized by scientists through their work.  

WHY DO WE AGE? HERE ARE EIGHT REASONS WHY EXTENDED LIFE IS STILL A PIPE DREAM

I had a discussion with a colleague at a forum I attended.  He claimed it will be possible to extend human life expectancy so that we die at 120 or even 150.  Length of life is tricky because there are several life expectancies.  Our present mean life expectancy in the US for a newborn is about 85 years.  When I was born in 1931 it was about 65 years.  When my father was born in 1901 it was about 55 years.  For a baby born in 1776 it was about 35 years.  Most of that gain came from a reduction in infant mortality.  In 1776 about half of all babies died in their first year of life.  Pneumonia, gastrointestinal infections, and tuberculosis were the most common.  By 1860 public health measures were becoming standard.  After the germ theory of 1880 became widespread, pasteurization of milk, chlorination of water, and vaccinations became common.  Infants and children lived.   If we excluded infant mortality the differences in survival to old age are not profoundly different from biblical times (about 70 years) for most of human history until the twentieth century.  In that century antibiotics, antiseptic surgery, and numerous medical processes (hormones, blood transfusions, prescription medications for high blood pressure) could extend length of life. That is why a baby today can live to about 85 years. The maximum length of a human life, based on birth certificate evidence, is about 122 years. 

We have no problem on the causes of aging of the cars we drive. Every part of a car experiences wear and tear with usage, no matter how often we bring our cars in for servicing.  If we are foolish and don’t routinely service our cars they break down much faster. It could be problems with the engine, the transmission, the radiator, the electrical system, the body frame, or a rusting through or crystallizing of the metal components. No one would look for a single cause of what makes an old car on its last years of usefulness.  Yet many people like to seek a single cause of aging in all of cellular life.  At least eight major reasons have been identified on why we get old and die.  First, our DNA in our chromosomes undergoes breakage from background radiation, chemical agents we consume or inhale, or the by-products of our metabolism in our cells.  Chromosome breakage in dividing cells often causes cell death. Second in importance, our DNA is vulnerable to gene mutations arising from the same type of agents when they alter chemical components of the DNA in our genes.  We have repair enzymes to stop most of this damage which occurs every day of our lives, but as we age cells get less efficient and the damage accelerates.  Third the tips of our chromosomes are capped by telomeres.  Each time a cell divides the telomeres shorten. Human cells in tissue cell cultures can only divide about 30 times and they stop.  The one major exception to this is certain cancer cells which can keep on growing decades after the death of the person whose cells are in tissue culture.  Fourth, genes are temporarily turned on or off by coating with proteins or attachments of methyl groups.  This is called epigenetics. As we age different chromosomes get coated (methylated) and thus functions can shut down in those cells.  Fifth, our mitochondria are found in all our cells and they do the real breathing, taking oxygen brought from our lungs to our cells and they convert digested food into carbon dioxide and water and produce abundant energy molecules for other activities and generate the heat of our bodies.  They have their own DNA and the oxidative processes can severely damage their genes.  As we age our mitochondria are fewer in number and less efficient, which is one reason old people feel colder and have icy hands and feet.   Sixth our proteins as they are synthesized by our genes undergo folding.  In older people that process of folding becomes less efficient and the impaired folded proteins form tangles and this can lead to Alzheimer syndrome in some and diabetes in others as important proteins in the brain neurons or the pancreas are misfolded.  Seventh stem cells are used to regenerate red blood cells, white blood cells, the lining of our intestines, and several other issues that are subject to mechanical wear and tear.  As we age stem cells lose that capacity and become fewer in number so we wrinkle and our bones deform with aging.  The eighth reason why we age involves the communications from cell to cell throughout our bodies.  There is “cross-talk” locally by diffusion and cross talk at greater distances, especially by hormones.  These communications break down and become unreliable as our bodies age.

While some have argued that we are programmed to die, I favor the interpretation that , like old cars, we just wear out from these eight known processes of aging.  I am skeptical we can extend life to 120 years for the majority of adults without considerable years of ill health.  All eight of these processes need to be addressed and just having the right diet and the right exercise and right attitude is no guarantee for indefinite life extension anymore than the well pampered car can last forever if driven to work every day.  So far, I am 83.  The oldest person on my father’s side lived to be 93.  None of my maternal grandparents descendants has lived to be 90.  I’m not complaining.  Those 83 years have been filled with adventure, love, learning, and creativity.  I have also been lucky.  I have never been hospitalized as an inpatient for a major illness. But I know I am old.