Mann: I published the hockey stick curve that implicated fossil fuel burning as the cause of climate change. Some powerful vested interests focused a whole lot of firepower on me to try to discredit me, to intimidate me. I'll tell you, it was like PTSD for me five years ago when public health scientists found themselves under attack in precisely the same way, the same tactics, and even some of the same players, and that's where Peter and I started to interact.
WATCH: Authors of 'Science Under Siege' warn of concerted effort to discredit science- PBS News hour Oct 7 transcript below:
RE Book:
Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World published September 9, 2025
"New book chronicles a concerted war on science. A group of global actors- billionaires, leaders of nation states, and credentialed experts- work to confuse and mislead the public about basic scientific principles, particularly around the twin crises of climate change and pandemic threats."
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
TRANSCRIPT: From its embrace of
0:03
dubious research about autism,
0:05
its skepticism over vaccines,
0:08
and its wholesale rejection of
0:10
the consensus about climate
0:11
change, the trump administration
0:13
continues to raise alarm within
0:15
the scientific community.
0:17
William brangham spoke with two
0:18
prominent researchers about
0:18
their new book chronicling what
0:19
they argue is a concerted war on
0:20
science.
0:26
William: Our guests argue we are
0:30
living through an antiscience
0:32
superstorm where a concerted
0:32
group of global actors,
0:33
billionaires, leaders of nation
0:34
states and credentialed experts
0:36
work to confuse and mislead the
0:38
public about basic scientific
0:40
principles, particularly around
0:41
the twin crises of climate
0:42
change and pandemic threats.
0:48
Their book is called "Science
0:51
under siege," and its authors
0:52
are familiar to newshour
0:52
viewers.
0:54
Dr. Peter hotez is the Dean of
0:55
the national school of tropical
0:56
medicine and professor of
0:57
virology and microbiology at
0:57
Baylor college of medicine.
1:03
And Michael Mann is presidential
1:05
distinguished professor in the
1:05
department of Earth and
1:06
environmental science at the
1:07
university of Pennsylvania.
1:10
Gentlemen, so nice to have you
1:11
both here in person at the
1:12
newshour.
1:14
I want to ask you both come in
1:16
this book, you detail this,
1:19
that, that, I mean, as far back
1:20
as galileo, there have been
1:20
attacks on scientists and
1:21
scientific understanding.
1:26
Both of you, even with that
1:29
knowledge, describe how you came
1:29
into these, your respective
1:31
fields and still we're in some
1:32
ways shocked at the level of
1:33
vitriol directed against you.
1:35
And I wonder if you could just
1:36
tell me a little bit about when
1:37
you first recognized that that
1:38
was coming at you.
1:41
Prof. Mann: Yes, thanks,
1:43
William.
1:44
It's great to be with you and,
1:46
it goes back 2.5 decades for me.
1:49
Back in the late 1990s, my
1:50
co-authors and I published the
1:51
now well-known hockey stick
1:52
curve that demonstrated how
1:53
unprecedented the warming of the
1:55
past century is, and it
1:56
implicated human caused climate
1:58
Chan, the increase in the
2:00
concentration of carbon
2:01
pollution due to fossil fuel
2:02
burning.
2:04
That was a threat to some
2:09
powerful vested interests, so
2:09
they focused a whole lot of
2:11
firepower on me to try to
2:11
discredit me, to intimidate me,
2:12
to get me fired from my job.
2:15
And I'll tell you, it was sort
2:17
of like PTSD for me five years
2:22
ago when public health
2:24
scientists like Peter and Tony
2:25
Fauci found themselves under
2:27
attack in precisely the same
2:30
way, the same tactics, and even
2:33
some of the same players, and
2:33
that's where Peter and I sort of
2:34
started to interact.
2:35
We became friends.
2:36
Ultimately that led to this
2:37
collaboration.
2:39
William: Do you remember the
2:42
first time you got a glimpse of
2:43
this?
2:44
Dr. Hotez: I did my MD and phd
2:49
combined in the 1980s and worked
2:50
on a hookworm vaccine for my MD
2:51
phd thesis, which now 40 years
2:51
later showing high levels of
2:52
protection.
2:53
That's what I wanted to do, make
2:55
low-cost vaccines for the world
2:56
in the laboratory, as a
2:58
laboratory investigator,
2:59
pediatric scientist.
3:01
I met my wife Ann in medical
3:02
school and graduate school.
3:05
Now we have 4 kids, including
3:07
Rachel has autism and
3:10
intellectual disabilities, and
3:11
if you remember, that was the
3:11
first assertion that false
3:13
claims of vaccines cause autism,
3:14
and I thought it was nonsense,
3:17
and I said something, ultimately
3:17
write a wrote a book.
3:20
And that made me public enemy
3:22
number 1 or 2 with anti-vaccine
3:24
groups.
3:24
William: The bulk of your book
3:26
points fingers very explicitly
3:27
at these different actors.
3:29
You lump them in, you call them
3:31
the different P's, plutocrats,
3:34
petrostates, propagandists, and
3:35
the press.
3:36
And you argue and demonstrate
3:39
how they are aligned against
3:40
very basic principles of science
3:42
-- that carbon pollution is
3:43
warming the planet to a
3:45
dangerous degree, that vaccines
3:48
can and have saved millions of
3:49
lives.
3:50
Collectively though, what do all
3:51
of those different actors have
3:52
in common?
3:54
Prof. Mann: There's an
3:59
underlying agenda, whether it's
3:59
the plutocrats who fund dark
4:00
money organizations that have
4:01
been attacking climate science
4:03
that have actually been behind
4:05
the assault on vaccines, which
4:06
is interesting.
4:10
As well as petrostates.
4:11
Russia and Saudi Arabia in
4:12
particular they don't want a
4:13
clean energy transition, and
4:14
they've done everything they can
4:17
to block any global green energy
4:19
transition, the United States
4:24
right now, unfortunately, has to
4:25
be classified under the current
4:28
administration as a petrostate
4:29
as well.
4:30
Its policies on energy and the
4:30
environment are fundamentally
4:31
driven by fossil fuel interests
4:32
as well.
4:35
And then there are the
4:35
conservative media, the Rupert
4:37
Murdoch's media empire Fox News,
4:38
Wall Street journal that have
4:39
promoted a lot of the
4:40
anti-science in both of these
4:42
areas.
4:44
But also some of the legacy
4:46
media outlets, Washington post,
4:50
New York Times, that often fall
4:51
victim to false framing, what we
4:56
call performative neutrality,
4:57
where anti-science will be
4:58
placed on equal footing with the
5:00
consensus of the world
5:01
scientists.
5:05
Prof. Mann: I think, you know, a
5:09
point of the book is, you know,
5:09
too often we call it
5:10
misinformation or infodemic,
5:11
like it's random junk out there
5:11
on the internet.
5:12
It's deliberate, it's
5:13
politically motivated, and it's
5:15
financially motivated.
5:18
On the vaccine side and the
5:20
biomedical sciences, in addition
5:22
to all the things Michael just
5:23
said, you also have uh the very
5:23
aggressive health wellness
5:27
influencer industry.
5:27
The problem is people like like
5:28
us are are bad for business
5:30
because we say wait a minute,
5:31
ivermectin doesn't do anything
5:37
for covid and neither does
5:38
hydroxychloroquine.
5:39
And here's why you should get
5:41
vaccinated and for that business
5:45
model to be successful, you've
5:46
got to attack vaccines, and you
5:47
have to attack people like
5:50
Michael or myself and portray us
5:52
as cartoon villains or public
5:53
enemies.
5:54
William: The subtitle of your
5:57
book is "How to fight the five
6:00
most powerful forces that
6:00
threaten our world."
6:02
One of the things that you argue
6:02
is tt you all, the members of
6:03
the scientific community need to
6:04
speak out more overtly.
6:05
And you, in this book, name
6:06
names and point fingers very
6:07
overtly.
6:10
Do you worry though that that
6:12
only further exacerbates the
6:14
sense that people think, oh,
6:16
science is partisan, that you
6:17
guys have an ax to grind.
6:19
Prof. Mann: Back in the late
6:24
1990s I love crunching numbers,
6:25
looking for patterns in data,
6:26
writing computer code to solve
6:26
problems.
6:28
I would have been very happy if
6:32
they had just left me alone, but
6:32
they didn't because the hockey
6:36
stick did become this symbol of
6:36
the climate crisis.
6:38
They came after it and they they
6:38
came after me.
6:39
As I like to say, I didn't come
6:40
to politics.
6:44
Politics came to me, and so we
6:44
do think scientists need to step
6:45
up to the table, and it doesn't
6:48
mean getting into political
6:50
bates and name-calling.
6:51
But it does mean a demanding
6:54
that any sort of policy-based
6:58
discussions be premised on an
7:00
objective and accurate
7:01
understanding of what the
7:05
science actually has to say.
7:06
Unfortunately, just having that
7:07
position, just being an advocate
7:09
for objective science now makes
7:10
you a public enemy in the
7:12
climate sphere or in the public
7:12
health arena.
7:14
Dr. Hotez: Look, I mean, we made
7:20
a low-cost covid vaccine,
7:20
recombinant protein covid
7:21
vaccine that reached 100 million
7:24
people in India and Indonesia.
7:26
As wonderful as that
7:27
accomplishment was, I now
7:29
realize it's not sufficient.
7:31
It's necessary but not
7:34
sufficient because unless we do
7:36
something for this very
7:36
aggressive anti-vaccine movement
7:41
that is basically tearing the
7:41
whole infrastructure for
7:42
vaccinating the world's children
7:43
down.
7:44
That's its goal.
7:45
We're not going to be
7:46
successful.
7:47
So really driven to it by
7:48
necessity.
7:49
William: The book is science
7:51
under siege.
7:52
Peter hotez, Michael Mann, so
7:53
great to see you.
7:54
Thank you.
7:58
Prof. Mann: Thank you.
8:00
Dr. Hotez: Appreciate it.
8:02
♪♪
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