Merchants Of Doubt
How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway 2010 Beaverton Library 174.ORE
Smoking, Climate, Acid Rain, Strategic Defense, Ozone Hole, DDT/Rachel Carlson, Dixie Lee Ray
This book is preaching to the choir; I sing many of the same songs, but I am motivated by hope, not fear.
I agree that "conservatives" (AKA heirs of monetary/political/social wealth) defend what they've got, more vociferously if they did not earn that wealth themselves and don't know how to create more. Why defend smoking when vaping is less harmful, and meditation is less harmful still? Because change risks inherited wealth and frightens rigid minds. The authors certainly aren't fearless.
260-1 "Moreover, the Soviet Union, for all it's failures, was a technologically innovative society. Most famously, they launched an artificial satellite into space -- Sputnik -- before the United States did."
The authors' ideology (and lack of historical research and technology savvy) is showing. The Soviet Union built much larger nuclear warheads, because their aim was poor; the US deployed smaller warheads and smaller strategic missiles because accurate aim of a smaller weapon could destroy a hardened target at lower cost with less unnecessary damage and fallout. That meant the US did not have giant rockets to launch heavy, unsophisticated battery-powered satellites like the modified 280 metric ton R-7 ICBM that launched the battery powered, 22 day, 184 kilogram Sputnik 1.
The US was public about its program and progress, and developed a separate non-military Vanguard launch vehicle to launch the tiny solar-cell-powered Vanguard 1 satellite. The Vanguard rocket failed on the first and second attempts (as did many of the Soviet R-7 ICBMs).
Politics first hindered, then pushed von Braun's team to kludge and launch Explorer 1 ... which did important space science. Just as well; the US reacted to Sputnik and Gagarin with Apollo and the Space Shuttle.
261 Cornucopians hold to a blind faith in technology that isn’t borne out by the historical evidence. We call it "technofideism."
- It is amusing to be accused of a belief by ideologues, without an opportunity to state one's actual beliefs, and more importantly, the observations that lead to working hypotheses, ... which belief-driven ideologues may not bother with on their quick trip to a conclusion, preferably perjorative. Fire, ready, aim.
261 Interchangeable parts - attributed by the authors to the US Army Ordnance department.
- Actually appearing many times in history, Carthagenian standardized warships, and Qin dynasty crossbow mechanisms in the third century BC. Interchangeable type (China, then Gutenberg). French standardized-bore cannons in the late 18th century, inspiring Eli Whitney's guns, Brunel's sailing pulley blocks, Henry Maudslay's locks and standardized threads ...
- What made these innovations possible was social and economic stability AND mobility. You don't build tooling for one-off tasks, if your shop can be burned in an invasion or seized by the "nobility" (3rd+ generation bandits). Without mobility, first rate minds cannot displace second rate minds.
That said, you need a mix. Minds vary, motivations vary, environments vary, and outcomes vary a LOT. Idea space is best explored with widely distributed explorers, not ideologically-regimented parades.