Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes is a world-renowned authority on the relations between science, technology, and society, and also in the field of political economy of scientific knowledge and agnotology, or the study of deliberately induced ignorance which, throughout history, has habitually been employed by the economic and political powers to spread disinformation. After studying Mining Geology at Imperial College, University of London, she received a PhD in Geological Research and History of Science at Stanford University, after which she taught at the University of California, San Diego. Since 2023, she has been Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science; Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She has been a consultant on environmental questions to numerous scientific institutions as well as teaching in several universities. In 2010, she co-authored, with Erik M. Conway, historian of science and technology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the bestseller Merchants of Doubt (in Spanish, Mercaderes de la duda, Capitán Swing, 2018), which unmasks plots to spread doubt and confusion about scientific issues of public interest, among them climate change, the harmful effects of tobacco, acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer. The book, translated into nine languages, premiered as a documentary film of the same name in 2015. Also notable among her works are Why Trust Science? (Princeton University Press, 2019) and, also co-authored with Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth (in Spanish, El gran mito, Capitán Swing, 2024), an exhaustive study that examines the construction of the neoliberal story. Moreover, she writes for popular science publications like Scientific American as well as publishing opinion pieces in such prestigious press outlets as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Times (London), and Frankfurter Allgemeine.