The Anti-Science Campaign Nakedly Exposed
Image by National Cancer Institute.
“Unless we find a way to overcome anti-science, humankind will face its gravest threat yet — the collapse of civilization as we know it… There is a highly organized well-funded campaign of antiscience, and it has now emerged as its own deadly force that not only makes it nearly impossible to combat future pandemics or the climate crisis but also touches on many other aspects of our daily lives.” (Michael E. Mann & Peter J. Hotez, Science Under Siege, Hachette Book Group, NY, 2025)
An Associated Press investigation found that more than 420 “anti-science” bills were introduced in statehouses last year, more are expected in 2026. .The world’s anti-science campaign has never been bolder, intentionally clobbering the credibility of climate change and biomedical science with bold-faced lies, and it is winning.
In the preface to their new book, Science Under Siege, Mann and Hotez explain in some gory detail their experience of 20 years of personal warfare against an invisible enemy that, at times, threatened their lives and intimidated their families, now fully exposed in the limelight of a very special extremely well-researched book that illuminates the five principal sources of antiscience (1) the plutocrats (2) the petrostates (3) the pros (4) the propagandists (5) our press.
It’s a resourceful book filled with factual data, naming names, identifying collaborators, heavily footnoted and written by leading scientists at the top of the profession known for solid scientific analysis. Mann and Hotez are accomplished well-respected in academia. Ironically, they are repeatedly attacked with falsehoods for telling the truth.
Their book is a roadmap that exposes this enemy of the truth: “We provide a road map for dismantling the antiscience machine… This book is a warning. But it is also a call to arms… When we first embarked on our doctoral training decades ago, we never thought we were signing up to be combatants in a war on science and scientists.” Their remarkable professional life story follows in the footsteps of a timeline of the epitome of science’s impact as a foundation of the health of society as the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s marked a golden era of public health in the United States, characterized by massive strides in controlling, preventing, and eliminating infectious diseases through vaccines, antibiotics, and improved sanitation, but sorrowfully, today’s insane rejection of that glorious golden era by anti-science collaborators is now an overwhelming destructive force of ‘the establishment.’ Along the way, “public assault by the GOP has diminished the public trust of science among conservatives.” (pg.6)
The Republican Party plays a feature role in the book by beating the anti-science drum purely for political purposes, e.g., “At the 2021 CPAC in Dallas, party faithful were warned that public health scientists will first vaccinate you and then take away your guns and Bibles.” (pg. 96) And that’s not all, climate advocates will “take away your hamburgers,” strip away your liberty and freedom, forcing vaccines on your children, dictating a socialist lifestyle, as the GOP targets low hanging political fruit to “weaponize the Republican base.” The GOP is one of the most far-reaching protagonists in Science Under Siege.
Threats to America’s scientists have become regular features of everyday working life: “Now every week, sometimes daily, we each receive online threats or harassing phone calls to our offices. On multiple occasions, we have faced actual physical confrontations and stalking. We are not alone, as many scientists working in the areas of biomedicine and climate science now encounter similar threats. You might assume that the aggressors are lone actors… but in many cases the attacks are government sanctioned, organized at the highest levels of the US Congress, with senators and members of the House of Representatives boasting of their efforts to intimidate prominent scientists.” (pg.5)
A far-right ‘creed of action’ targets scientists “making it easier to diminish the veracity of just about everything else. This makes science and scientists both prime targets.” (pg. 21) The political implications of demeaning science are profoundly rewarding for candidates that are willing to stoop low enough to reject acceptable, normalized moral values. In a 2021 speech at the National Conservatism Convention titled “The Universities Are the Enemy,” J.D. Vance (Yale, Law) said universities are the source of “deceit and lies, not… the truth.” and at the 2024 Republican National Convention, “professors are the enemy” (pg. 22).
Authoritarian/populist regimes throughout history have always relied upon convincing a citizenry that it is “aggrieved” as it remains docile and ignorant, easy targets; whereas a college education works against acceptance of widely broadcast phony claims used to accumulate political capital. A college education is the antithesis of successful far-right politics.
The overriding thesis of Mann/Hotez’s book, mentioned at the start of this article: “Unless we find a way to overcome anti-science, humankind will face its gravest threat yet — the collapse of civilization as we know it.” (pg.27)
The authors lay down the gauntlet, put up your dukes and fight back against this attack on the legacy of What Originally Made American Great, discoveries in science such as Jonas Salk’s discovery of the polio vaccine (1955), plus, study after study proves that federal funding for science is a primary fuel for economic growth, but cutting science ends discovery, aborting growth. Science is key to a strong economy but nowadays it’s subject to ridicule and cuts. Where does this leave America’s future?
Mann/Hotez devote several pages to ‘benevolent plutocrats’ people like Michael Bloomberg, who financially support major health and climate initiatives. On the other hand, “a small group of malevolent plutocrats… have collectively impeded efforts to act on the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, or both.” (pg. 57) Several pages of the book are devoted to named/identified plutocrats who use underhanded methods to defy the truth of science as it interferes with their business interests or simply because they abhor centralized authority. Along those lines, dark money is at the core of disinformation. To fix this problem, the authors advocate nationwide legislation for total transparency of dark money sources, ‘name the names.’ Good luck with that!
The misinformation campaign has deep roots and a widespread reach. The plutocrat funders, some linked to the fossil fuel industry, and others in support of a far-right deregulatory agenda, support misinformation broadcasts by a core of “pros,” individuals with scientific credentials, doctoral degrees, certificates, etc. that are “lured by polluters and plutocrats and weaponized into a force to attack mainstream science and scientists (ed. money talks)… These pros often have a big platform, appearing as expert talking heads on Fox News or other conservative media… There are also the paid propagandists with no scientific credentials but plenty of media savvy and access to wide platforms.” (pg. 109)
Of special mention: “Several (pros) have been tapped for leadership positions in the second Trump administration. They are known for an aggressive offense, as they spearhead attacks against scientists, working overtime to dehumanize and discredit them. They are our most aggressive and unrelenting detractors and are typically well renumerated for their efforts. In some cases, they are worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.” (pgs. 109-10)
Readers get a peek at what the authors refer to as ‘The Deniers Club,” starting on page 110, inclusive of cartoonish images of named climate deniers going back to the 1990s with analyses of their disruptive work to upset the climate change applecart with innuendo and phony institutional-sounding titles to appear scientifically official, denigrating real climate science. One favorite cartoonish image says: “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. On the contrary, it makes crops and forest grow faster.” As a long-time researcher/writer, I’ve personally had that thrown at me several times. Evidently, it’s a well-accepted misdirection tool.
To counter the mischief of anti-science fabrications, there is a hub of information that scrutinizes disinformation called Center for Countering Digital Hate established in the U.S. and UK. They research groups spreading hate and disinformation. They specifically focus on climate and vaccine misinformation. According to CCDH, antivaccine organized groups have learned to monetize their misinformation to the tune of $1.2 billion with tens of millions of followers across platforms. It therefore has become a thriving business to misinform the public. Big name anti-vaxxers are prominently named and covered in this section of the book.
It’s Metastasizing
A haunting, important message appears on page 223: “We have seen this cancer begin to metastasize across the Western Hemisphere, spreading from the United States and Canada into Europe, Australia and beyond. It now pervades low- and middle-income countries on the African continent and in Asia.” Wow!
The Path Forward, pgs. 219-262 offers solutions, one example: “As we argued earlier, we (scientists) can join with our fellow scientists and organize and pressure academic and scientific institutions to take a more proactive stance against antiscientific disinformation and to provide support and defense for scientists subject to concerted right-wing attacks.”
Science Under Siege is an eye-opener of the breadth and depth of the anti-science behemoth not only in America but around the world, like a virus, it creeps along consuming standards of society that have been set for decades; distorting world order by undermining ‘establishment’ society, squirming far and wide, a sliminess seldom encountered within elongated jumbles of innuendo and lies, thriving on a mindless public, and it works! Anti-science is a successful enterprise. It pockets tons of money by denigrating and dismissing the most valuable science in all of human history.
Facing the future, for believers in the deep values of science, Science Under Siege may be the most important book of this decade. It is wonderfully annotated, almost every page jam-packed with important factual data, and by all standards a work of academic artisans. If only the world reads it, comprehends it, reacts to it, civilized society, at the very least, will have a fighting chance.
The Battle Plan (pgs. 252-62) concludes this remarkable one-of-a-kind book with a four-part approach to squelching the most hideous attack on science since the year 1600 when Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher and cosmologist, stripped naked, leather strap sealing his mouth, burned at the stake at the hands of The Inquisition/Rome for preaching existence of a heliocentric universe and rejecting the Trinity and the divinity of Christ.
1. Penalize the Pros, Propagandists, and Petrostates, pg.252
2. Pressure the Plutocrats, pg. 254
3. Mend the Media, pg. 255
4. Be the Change, pg. 256
For a final note, one small victory in this battle for truth: Eight States Are Banning Book Bans. Will It Work? Education Week d/d January 2, 2026.
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