| MERCHANTS OF DOUBT How a Handul of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming Naomi Oreskes Erik M. Conway New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-59691-610-4 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-59691-610-9 | 355pp. | HC | $27.00 | |
| Page 16: | "At the end of the day, Hill concluded, 'scientific doubts must remain.' It would be his job to insure it." |
| Wording: I would write "to ensure that they did". |
| Page 67: | "Yet its rain had a measured pH or 4 or less (neutral pH is 6, ordinary rain is around 5); one sample measured 2.85..." |
| Neutral pH is 7. |
| Page 82: | "Scientists working with the navy and air force had been trying to determine..." |
| Capitalization: S/B "Navy and Air Force". |
| Page 88: | "Institutionally, the Clean Air Act, and successive amendments, have (sic) wrestled with the problem..." |
| Grammatically, this looks OK to me. So why insert the "(sic)"? |
| Page 90: | "A few weeks later, Singer sent a set of materials to John Robertson, a major at the West Point..." |
| Extra word: S/B "West Point". (Perhaps the authors meant "the West Point military academy.") |
| Page 116: | "As Anderson was making his measurements, Sherry Roland realized..." |
| Stop calling him "Sherry." (Surely you're joking, Mr. Winter...) |
| Page 148: | "...a group called Federal Focus, Inc. run by James Tozzi..." |
| Is Tozzi the guy who mixed a drink for Chris Mooney in "The Republican War on Science? |
| Page 150: | "...and to use a man named Bonnor Cohen..." |
| Index error: I'm sure Cohen is mentioned previously, but he's indexed only on pp. 150, 217. |
| Page 151: | "Richard Lindzen, a distinguished meteorologist at MIT..." |
| Index error: Lindzen is indexed only on page 211. |
| Page 187 | "There was an even larger problem with the Marshall analysis that climate modeler Steven Schneider had pointed out." |
| Spelling: S/B "Stephen Schneider". |
| Page 189: | "...and in October 1992 Bill Nierenberg took it on the road to the World Petroleum Congress in Buenos Aires,where he launched a full frontal attack on the IPCC." |
| Full frontal crudity? (Crude in the sense of ignoring the nuances of the issue.) |
| Page 190: | "It would also embarrass Gore, who was running his 1992 presidential campaign on environmental themes." |
| Factual error: S/B "his 1992 vice-presidential campaign". |
| Page 216: | "Most historians, we included, consider this a success story." |
| Usage: S/B "ourselves included" or similar. |
| Page 219: | "Because it was so long lasting, it continued..." |
| Missing hyphen: S/B "long-lasting". |
| Page 244: | "They do not normally organize petitions [...] 'refuting' global warming. He did this in concert with a chemist named Arthur Robinson..." |
| Missing sentence: S/B Something about Frederick Seitz. |
| Page 270: | "...published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists..." |
| Usage: S/B "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists". |
| Page 349: | "Heartland Institute, 217, 233-34, 238, 247-48" |
| Index error: Heartland Institute also mentioned on p. 210. |
| Page 350: | "Limbaugh, Rush, 232, 245" |
| Index error: Limbaugh probably mentioned earlier in the text. |
| Page 352: | "Rohrabacher, Dana, 133" |
| Index error: Congressman Dana Rohrabacher also appears on p. 213. (Inhofe and Cheney, also mentioned on p. 213, are not indexed at all.) |
| Page 353: | "Schneider, Steven, 187-88, 204-5, 263" |
| Index error: Schneider also appears on pp. 51 and 186. (And, as noted, his first name S/B "Stephen".) |
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