That damnable doubt machine.

• ABC Radio National

Cecilia Tomori (John Hopkins University)

Scientists: don’t feed the doubt machine.

On the ABC Radio National – The Science Show with Robyn Williams

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Download Scientists: don’t feed the doubt machine (21.32 MB)

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Cecilia Tomori grew tired of lies and distortions which too often swirl around as scientists seek the truth. The doubt machine has been around for years. The strategies and patterns have been documented and recur across industries such as tobacco, fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, food and more. Tomori has come up against the doubt machine in her own work in false claims that undermine breastfeeding to increase sales of formula milk. Recently we’ve all seen the doubt machine in full light, cranking out falsehoods in climate science, and now with the COVID pandemic, including assertions about ‘herd immunity’. Cecilia Tomori thinks scientists can do more, taking more care with how they present certain arguments in public. So she wrote a plea to scientists, published in Nature.

Scientists: don’t feed the doubt machine – Nature 2nd November 2021

Guest
Cecilia Tomori
Associate Professor
John Hopkins School of Nursing
Director of Global Public Health and Community Health
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland USA

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