Chris Mooney reviews a new book about the war on science

Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health by David Michaels (Oxford University Press, 359 pages, $27.95) ...

Tobacco companies perfected the ruse, which was later copycatted by other polluting or health-endangering industries. One tobacco executive was even dumb enough to write it down in 1969. "Doubt is our product," reads the infamous memo, "since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."

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