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In this episode of Miles to Go, Miles O'Brien speaks with climate scientist Michael Mann and vaccine researcher Peter Hotez — two scientists who have endured personal attacks, threats, and political smears for standing up for evidence-based truth. Their new book, Science Under Siege, exposes the powerful alliance of plutocrats, petrostates, propagandists, and politicians working to dismantle trust in science — and, increasingly, the institutions that sustain it.
Mann, creator of the famed "hockey stick" graph, recounts how fossil fuel interests and their media allies targeted him for revealing the reality of human-driven climate change. Hotez, co-developer of low-cost vaccines and a leading public-health voice during the pandemic, shares his experiences of online harassment and political intimidation.
Together, they draw a chilling parallel between the denial of climate science and the anti-vaccine movement, revealing how both are fueled by ideology, greed, and misinformation — and now emboldened by government efforts to defund and demoralize the nation's scientific agencies, from the NIH to NASA.
Miles explores the broader stakes of this "war on truth": what happens to democracy when science itself becomes a partisan target — and how, despite it all, urgency still comes with agency.
By Miles O'Brien4.9
7272 ratings
In this episode of Miles to Go, Miles O'Brien speaks with climate scientist Michael Mann and vaccine researcher Peter Hotez — two scientists who have endured personal attacks, threats, and political smears for standing up for evidence-based truth. Their new book, Science Under Siege, exposes the powerful alliance of plutocrats, petrostates, propagandists, and politicians working to dismantle trust in science — and, increasingly, the institutions that sustain it.
Mann, creator of the famed "hockey stick" graph, recounts how fossil fuel interests and their media allies targeted him for revealing the reality of human-driven climate change. Hotez, co-developer of low-cost vaccines and a leading public-health voice during the pandemic, shares his experiences of online harassment and political intimidation.
Together, they draw a chilling parallel between the denial of climate science and the anti-vaccine movement, revealing how both are fueled by ideology, greed, and misinformation — and now emboldened by government efforts to defund and demoralize the nation's scientific agencies, from the NIH to NASA.
Miles explores the broader stakes of this "war on truth": what happens to democracy when science itself becomes a partisan target — and how, despite it all, urgency still comes with agency.

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