Trust Us, We're Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future [Paperback]

The book seems to be well researched, and you can find a reference for every claim made, which adds credibility. Many cases are documented in detail, and contain dollar amounts, lists of corporation names, and names of individuals. Obviously, stuff that you need to write down exactly in order to survive the potential legal harassment that authors of this kind of book might face. But, from a casual reader's point of view, this can be also discouraging. The authors have crammed the book full of case studies that might have benefited from a more verbose discussion.

However, if you are accustomed to reading straight facts, this book will surely give you a couple of new issues to be paranoid about. It's got all the stuff what nightmares are made of: frankenfood and other food scares, DDT and PCB, global warming, and bribed magazine editors. To someone who works with company press releases (editors, PR people), the book can function as a field guide on how one can be mislead - or, if you are sinister enough, how you can lead people astray and save your, and your company's, butt.

Of course - what kind of experts are these authors, anyway? Should I trust them? Well, I would be tempted to believe them and their claims. The book is not company-bashing all the way.

The point that the authors try to drive home is that the more people are aware of these issues, the harder it is for spinmeisters of either side (the corporates or the activists) to mislead anyone. This book does a good job on educating people.

Activism may sound unwelcome to conservative people, but what it really means is to be informed and aware of the world around you. Or, as the authors put it: "Activism [being informed and aware] enriches our lives [...] is not a civic duty. It's a path to enlightenment."

Most people assume that when a third party endorses something, they can rely more on that third party's opinion than on their own knowledge and thinking. Wrong! In our system of law, there is no obligation for the third party to disclose connections to the interests being reported on. In many cases, the third party organization was created simply to advance a parochial view of a subject . . . sometimes even one at odds with scientific facts.

The book contains many examples of such a manipulative approach, beginning with efforts by Edward Bernays, the founder of public relations, to recruit doctors to describe the health benefits of smoking. Case histories show this kind of practice with regard to trying to stop the antitrust suit against Microsoft, and diffusing apparently-valid conerns about the potential dangers of bio-engineered foods, dioxin, lead, silicon dust, asbestos, cotton dust, chlorine, tobacco, and global warming.

There are two kinds of "experts" involved in this process. The unseen ones are public relations practitioners who devise strategies for influencing perceptions in ways that favor their clients. The book has many quotes from these practitioners that will leave you wondering why ethics are not centered in this practice. The reason seems to be that people see this business as being an "amoral" one (where the decisions have no moral content). "The practitioners of public relations do not falsify the truth, because they do not believe that it even exists."

The second kind of "expert" is one who testifies at a trial, appears on television, or is quoted in the newspapers. The book cites a number of studies that show that between 15-40% of the experts who appear "unconnected" receive the bulk of their funding from someone who benefits from their findings. And these findings are usually not subjected to the scientific process we all learned in school. They are simply bought and paid-for opinions. The strategy in this case of the public relations maestros is simply, "Put your words in someone else's mouth."

After you are appalled by the cases cited in chapters 1-10, the heart of the book comes in chapter 11. There the authors describe how easily swayed we are by experts and how to overcome that bias with good thinking. The famous research from 1974 by Stanley Milgran is described. In this research, actors pretended to be researchers and subjects. The real subjects were hired to use electric shocks to help the pretend subjects "learn." Although no shocks were given, the actors pretended to receive shocks that were painful and potentially lethal. Most real subjects were willing to follow orders and shock someone to death, just because someone in a lab coat pretending to be a researcher told them to do so.

The book emphasizes ways to spot propaganda, the challenges presented by statistics, and urges precaution when the facts are unclear. This chapter should be required reading for everyone before they leave high school. If you find this area interesting, Robert Cialdini's classic book, Influence, expands on this subject, as well. Edward Bernays also wrote about his work in public relations, and you can read about his methods for yourself.

The authors also point out that these methods are used in political issues as well. Being conned by "experts" threatens a democratic form of government. One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was to realize how many billions are spent by government in just these kinds of ways.

After you finish reading this book, I suggest that you reevaluate what products you use and what information you get about them. The time for full disclosure is here. We need laws that require that these financial ties should be disclosed. We also need disclosure about the presence of potentially harmful substances (including bio-engineered food). Apparently, we are all eating bio-engineered food every day without knowing it.

Be more skeptical of "experts" than of your own instincts, especially the experts that appear in trials, on television, and in the printed media. They are probably planted by people who want to make a buck from you, and who do not have your best interests foremost in their hearts and minds.

Be careful, and think for yourself!