Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.97 (561 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1585421391 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-02-02 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"Science is becoming our enemy instead of our friend" (Dr. Robert Becker) Robert Proctor understood the situation perfectly well when he stated : "Science has a face, a house, and a price; it is important to ask who is doing science, in what institutional context, and at what cost."In 1960 we had 63 scientific reports on asbestosis. The 11 studies founded by the asbestos industry found no link whatsoeve. "I Am Happily Aghast -- My 18-Yr-Old Loves It -- Great Gift!" according to JesusGeek. You might call me the "aging hippie mom" wondering when and if my teenaged son would *ever* get passionate about, and see, some important truths of what is happening in the world today. He's a great kid, but frankly he's pushing eighteen and I had given up hope of his ever "seeing the light" if he didn't by now -- the "light" in t. "Welcome to reality!" according to Adam F. Jewell. You probably take most print and broadcast news at face value; you put a certain degree of trust in media outlets. In "Trust Us, We're Experts" John and Sheldon explore behind the scenes factors that influence the news and scientific reports we are exposed to every day.PR "spin" can, and often does occur on both sides of many issu
We watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, read their opinions in magazine and newspaper articles and letters to the editor. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen cited the study in a Washington Times column and advocated for changes in federal law to make it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy relief. We trust them to tell us what to think, because there’s too much information out there and not enough hours in a day to sort it all out.We should stop trusting them right this second.In their new book Trust Us, We’re Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, offer a chilling exposé on the manufacturing of "independent experts."Public relations firms and corporations know well how to exploit your trust to get you to buy what they have to sell: Let you hear it from a neutral third party, like a professor or a pediatrician or a soccer mom or a watchdog group. What Bentsen failed to mention was that the Credit Research Center is funded in its entirety by credit card companies, banks, retailers, and others in the credit industry; that the study itself was produced with a $100,000 grant from VISA USA, Inc. It turned out that the group’s spokesperson, Alana Maloney, was in truth a woman named Janet Rundle,
Rampton and Stauber introduce the movers and shakers of the PR industry, from the "risk communicators" (whose job is to downplay all risks) and "outrage managers" (with their four strategies--deflect, defer, dismiss, or defeat) to those who specialize in "public policy intelligence" (spying on opponents). Needless to say, Rampton and Stauber find these views rather antidemocratic and intend to pull back the curtain to reveal the real wizard in Oz. By financing and publicizing views that support the goals of corporate sponsors, PR campaigns have, over the course of the century, managed to suppress the dangers of lead poisoning for decades, silence the scientist who discovered that rats fed on