Science on a Mission

Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science at Harvard University. She is the author of many books, including Merchants of Doubt and, most recently, Why Trust Science?

• Introduction1 The Personal, the Political, and the Scientific2 Seeing the Ocean through Operational Eyes: The Stommel-Arons Model of Abyssal Circulation3 Whose Science Is It Anyway? The Woods Hole Palace Revolt4 Stymied by Secrecy: Harry Hess and Seafloor Spreading5 The Iron Curtain of Classification: What Difference Did It Make?6 Why the Navy Built Alvin7 Painting Projects White: The Discovery of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents8 From Expertise to Advocacy: The Seabed Disposal of Radioactive Waste9 Changing the Mission: From the Cold War to Climate ChangeConclusion: The Context of MotivationAcknowledgmentsSources and AbbreviationsNotesBibliographyIndex

"Impressive and authoritative. . . . Over the past two decades, Oreskes has helped transform how scholars understand the history of scientific and political debates over continental drift and anthropogenic climate change. Her latest work weaves together insights from these and other intellectual spheres to deliver a crucial message: Patronage of knowledge production—that is, who pays for science—matters deeply. . . . Oreskes uses fascinating historical episodes to reveal serious, underappreciated consequences of oceanographers' prolonged reliance on secret, mission-driven navy projects. . . . We need more historical scholarship on how powerful entities produce ignorance as well as knowledge, and Oreskes provides a model for doing so. . . . As an exposé of how navy-sponsored oceanographers wound up constraining their own research agendas and believing their own myths, the book should give pause to all scientists who consider themselves immune to the potential influence of their funders, or who romanticize the golden age of military scientific patronage."