The 2025 book, Science Under Siege by Michael Mann and Peter Hotez, leaves readers in no doubt that scientists – particularly in the United States – have become the target for anti-science rhetoric from both anonymous online trolls and some highly influential public figures.
In their book, Mann, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University and Hotez, Professor of Paediatrics, Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, describe in detail what they call the five predatory forces of anti-science.
These, they write, are “politically and ideologically motivated opposition to science by powerful interests”.
Mann and Hotez – who have both received death threats in the course of their work – identify individuals who fit into one of five categories of people expounding the anti-science agenda.
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The five categories include plutocrats – billionaires who finance their anti-science messages through conservative policy think tanks and lobbying groups – and professionals, who use their credentials to deceive or promote unsupported contrarian views.
Then there are the petrostates, propped up by extractive industries and politicians who enable them, and the propagandists who promote their views with blogs, podcasts and social media accounts.
Finally, there is the press who, according to Mann and Hotez, undermine science by seeking balance when none is due by allowing contrarians to express their views.
So far, so depressing for those who remember how, for years, the tobacco industry undermined scientific evidence that tobacco caused lung cancer and more recently, how climate change deniers refused to accept human-caused global warming even when 97 per cent of scientists agreed on these causes.
Mann and Hotez acknowledge that the Covid-19 pandemic inadvertently fuelled conspiracy theories as people felt social isolation, a loss of control and other forms of stress.
“Once conspiracy beliefs take hold and critical thinking skills decline, individuals become easily weaponised as vectors of misinformation,” they write. They suggest that key ways to counter such an anti-science agenda are for scientists to communicate constructively, defeat disinformation and support scientists.
The problem is that misinformation, disinformation and fake news are often more prominent in people’s social media feeds than remarks by the scientists who set out to counter it. Yet, some experts are reaching people in the exact same space where established scientific studies are disputed or downright ignored.
Take Dr Gary McGowan, a medical doctor at Cork University Hospital who has 55,000 followers on Instagram. McGowan actively counters inaccurate information he sees about dietary advice on his social media channel.
At a recent Food Safety Authority of Ireland event in Dublin, he spoke about the dangers of dietary misinformation promoted by social influencers. For example, the carnivore diet, which promotes eating lots of red meat, butter and bacon, goes against 50 years of research on the links between saturated fats and heart disease.
“It is very easy for the public to be misled by social influencers on nutritional advice. This carnivore diet can dramatically increase LDL cholesterol to three to five times the normal range for a healthy adult,” says McGowan, who has a master’s degree in preventive cardiology.
This approach of an expert tackling misinformation (the dilution or distortion of facts unintentionally) and disinformation (intentional denial of facts or spread of inaccurate information) on social media platforms where they are spread has been called algorithmic hijacking by Sander van der Linden.
Van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology in Society at Cambridge University, has developed an international reputation for tackling misinformation and disinformation.
The author of Foolproof, why we fall for misinformation and how to build immunity, he and his team worked with governments and social media giants to “inoculate” people against fake news, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Van der Linden defines new strategies to counter misinformation and disinformation. These include pre-bunking, followed by real-time fact-checking and then debunking.
Pre-bunking, according to van der Linden, is sending people accurate information in advance of misinformation. So, when the misinformation or disinformation lands, they are forewarned or prepared to deal with it more critically.
“Once exposed, misinformation is difficult to correct because it takes root in our memories and continues to influence our judgments even when we are aware of a correction,” he writes in Foolproof.
However, he adds that a timely correction that provides a credible alternative without repeating the myth might have some chance of reducing people’s continued reliance on misinformation.
Meanwhile, the new all-Ireland Science Media Centre has been set up to give scientific experts the opportunity to respond quickly to controversies that arise in the media.
Funded by universities and research institutes, the centre, which had been running on a pilot basis in Airfield Estate in Dundrum for the last two years, holds a database of experts who volunteer to provide rapid reaction, in-depth analysis or previews of upcoming issues.
Sinéad Waters of the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at University of Galway, told a gathering to mark its launch that scientists were often reluctant to talk to the media and feared being misquoted by non-expert journalists, but the Science Media Centre removed those concerns.
Shane Bergin, associate professor of science education at University College Dublin, says that international survey organisations such as Washington-based Pew Research Center point to high levels of trust in science among the general public. Yet, he contends that the Covid pandemic showed that the foundation of trust in science was shaky.
“People thought of science as a bunch of settled facts, but when the public health advice during Covid was changing, people didn’t know who to trust. Covid exposed the public relationship with science is more complicated than we realise,” says Bergin.
Bergin says that scientists, academic institutions and the media are under pressure from “political actors and anti-elite [agents] who drum up antagonistic crowds” against them. He says that scientists need to work hard to create better forms of public engagement to build trust.
“Scientists in publicly funded institutions need to hold power and money to account and that includes questioning experts and establishing their trustworthiness,” says Bergin.
Universities are now increasingly encouraging scientists to engage with the public about their research outside of the laboratory. And while they need to preserve objectivity within the scientific methodology, they also need to use everyday language that people can understand while additionally providing the context for their work.
Van der Linden says that conspiracy theories fulfil at least three basic psychological needs. First, they offer simple causal explanations for what might otherwise seem to be chaotic or random events.
Second, they offer existential relief – giving people a sense of control or agency over the narrative or world event. And third, they give people who feel marginalised in society an opportunity to affiliate and belong to a community with a common cause.
If scientists want to “win over” proponents of the anti-science movement, perhaps they should start by considering how they can fulfil these three basic psychological needs while holding firm on what scientific research has proven to date and what remains to be proven.
