Micransix Crappy film

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

konayoda First let me start off by saying that burning of fossil fuels for energy is stupid. The energy this planet gets from the sun (which causes the wind) is more than we'll ever need. All we need to do is learn to harness and store it economically and efficiently.Every human caused global warming / climate change "scientist" says essentially the same thing, "the last 20 years have been the warmest on record". But the record that they refer to is only the last 150 years. They ignore EVERYTHING we know about the ENTIRE climate history of the planet, as you will find by googling "geologic climate history". Your research will show you that the earth has been unusually cool for the last 35 million years. This is like saying that the last week of March has been the warmest all month, and ignoring all of the other 11 months, the cycle of the seasons etc. Merchants of Doubt starts off with the deception of the tobacco industry, which is irrefutable, throws in a little about the fire retardant industry for good measure, then tries to show a correlation to global warming. REAL science never ignores ANY facts, yet global warming scientists ignore the majority of facts. The fact that the most abundant life in Earth's history was during the Jurassic period, when the average global temperature was 14C higher than it is now, compared to 1C lower pre-industrial level, and CO2 levels were over 4,000ppm, compared to today's 450ppm and the 300ppm pre- industrial levels; that the polar ice caps have melted and reformed many times, and extended as far south as Missouri just 500,000 years ago. That the Antarctic Ice Sheet is 2 miles thick and growing. Merchants of Doubt doesn't get into the science. Instead it tries to get you to discount REAL science, by making you believe that anyone who shares real scientific information is merely doing what the tobacco industry did.

Dung Bui Merchants of Doubt is a tale of how the various industries have slighted the American public by putting out propaganda that is amazingly deceptive and oftentimes just plain false. The film opens up with a magician saying that it is his job to tell people lies – but at least he is honest about telling them lies. In contrast, the documentary goes on to prove that not all is what it seems especially when money and politics are involved. Indeed, the attacks and defense come from all fronts and in various methods, from unproved hypotheses, word-spinning, white lies, and just plain falsities being announced from the ground up to those in positions of power.Tobacco has long been proved to have negative effects on health. There are those that acknowledge it clearly and choose to smoke, others that vehemently deny the research and claim it as heresy, and the vast majority that has yet to come to any decisive conclusion. This was particularly true in the past. Clearly the tobacco manufacturers stand to lose a lot of money if the scientific results were made widespread to the public, so they used the resources at their disposal – the marketing budget and political power of these huge corporations dwarfs those of the scientific journals – to effectively stomp out the idea that tobacco would harm its users.The same goes for global warming. They claimed that most scientists in fact did not agree that global warming was happening, even the preposterous idea that the world was actually getting cooler. Afterwards, there were claims that over 30,000 American scientists did not agree with that finding – these "scientists" were later found to be either dead, made-up, or not truly scientists at all. After that, they admitted that global warming was happening – but that mankind was not the cause. Then they claimed that the effects were caused by man, but that curbing the production whose byproducts harmed the atmosphere would not outweigh the benefits that they output. The purpose of this propaganda and flip- flopping was to buy time to delay the skeptics in order to allow them to keep their profits even longer until the next make-believe story.What is scary is that these battles aren't always waged on the outside. There are methods that companies use in order to get on the inside of their "enemies," many of which are supposed to be neutral. There are such methods as death threats, both public and private, some dispatched by companies while others are victims of fanaticism. Still yet are the moles that hide behind titles and sneak in to the root of their problems. For example, one think tank institute's president ended up being a registered lobbyist for a cause he had a conflict of interest in. To even imagine how this preposterous situation could come up naturally is baffling to say the least, but it is quite difficult to believe that it is a coincidence. This is not the only case – three of the major producers of flame retardants were have found to be the sole supporters of a Citizens for Fire Safety organization. Further lies were found in a doctor's inconsistent testimony that three infant patients of his that never existed died from pillows that weren't flameproof, all for the support of flame retardant products. The same magician that was introduced at the beginning of the movie later says that those in his profession often tell smaller lies just to cover up for larger lies. Even the relationship between global warming and oil is littered with lies told to increase opportunities. While this clearly crosses the lines of morality, it is in a way admirable in terms of the analytical skills and methodical approach taken to effectively persuade their audiences. One must be an effective communicator, like a magician, in order to sway the mind and perspective of your audience. We can take the opportunity to learn from how they apply these methods in argumentation and persuasion. If you have the motivation to make whoever you are addressing to believe something else, to persuade or argue with them towards another opinion, you would have to do some research and change up your methods in order to increase your chances of success. We have learned from Merchants of Doubt that there are many ways to do this. Although you cannot fool everyone, if you have an idea of what doubts are being brought to the table, you can potentially eliminate them from being brought up in the first place. Alternatively, you could just tell a smaller lie in order to cover up the truth. Even furthermore, you could also just bring up the reputation of other "dependable" sources to "prove" your point, regardless if what you claim is true or not. There will always be skeptics, but that doesn't mean that you cannot persuade them. Even if someone doesn't believe what you say, you can always take a step in his or her direction. If someone tells you that eating vegetables is good for you and you argue that they are not, maybe you can make progress by saying something like "well, maybe vegetables aren't bad for you," or "eating vegetables is good for you, but choosing not to eat vegetables will not necessarily adversely affect your health." Going a step further, you could make the argument that the health benefits provided by eating vegetables do not outweigh the taste that you must endure while eating. You might even draw up claims that the researchers for the FDA support your conclusion whether they do or not. The point is that there are many ways to persuade people to believe or offer alternative perspectives regarding what you want them to. Even magic cannot be entirely eliminated as an option. Kenner, Robert (Producer, Director) & Robledo, Melissa (Producer). (2014). Merchants of Doubt (Documentary). United States: Sony Pictures Classics.

CleveMan66 "There are two sides to every story and truth is usually somewhere in the middle." That's my version of the famous quote. No matter how honest the person telling the story, as a human being, he or she will almost inevitably choose to relate and interpret the facts in such a way that supports the speaker's point of view and will leave out or distort facts that might support the other point of view. I've never known a person to be completely honest and unbiased in explaining a controversy or relating an incident in which certain facts are in dispute. No matter who you are, your version of events will also be colored to some degree by your experiences, your memories, your perceptions or even your need to be right. Therefore, the factual, unvarnished, objective truth (assuming such a thing can be determined in a given situation) almost always sits somewhere between opposing points of view. So, the real question is, whether the real truth of the matter is closer to one position or the other. That's the question that needs to be answered by anyone trying to evaluate opposing arguments or differing versions of an event. The same question needs to be answered by anyone viewing a documentary with a clearly defined point of view, especially one on a controversial topic.Take "Merchants of Doubt" (PG-13, 1:36) for example. Based on the acclaimed book of the same name by scientists and historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, this movie tells the story of the scientists who have spoken out in favor of the predominant perspective of big business on whether tobacco smoking, acid rain, the hole in the earth's ozone layer and, especially, climate change, were real and/or harmful. The thesis of the book and the movie is that these scientists were essentially hired guns, blasting away at widely accepted scientific verdicts on each of those issues. The book's authors and the documentary's producers believe that these "contrarians" have been engaged in a deliberate campaign to muddy the waters regarding these issues in the hopes of derailing or, at least, delaying government intervention that would lead to increased regulation of business and a resulting decrease in profits for the companies and industries that would be forced to change their business practices to adhere to new government rules. In short, if these scientists are weighing in on these issues for the purpose of confusing lawmakers and the public, and are doing it for money, then they are Merchants of Doubt."Figures don't lie, but liars figure" is a good quote to summarize what the filmmakers feel these contrarians have been doing for decades. The documentary's descriptions of how scientists publicly denied that tobacco smoking, acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer were harmful are meant to establish a pattern of behavior leading up to more recent controversies over global warming and climate change. It's not that these aren't scientists. They are… or they are, at least, men with science credentials, but not necessarily in the specific areas on which they are opining and commenting. Beyond that, the contrarians are doing little or no actual scientific research themselves. Rather, they are picking over the methods, data and conclusions of others in an attempt to twist the science to fit their own point of view. Or so the movie's theory goes. The film decides that these scientists are doing it for the money they receive (often secretly) from big business and also because these scientists see increased government regulation as a threat to free enterprise. In other words, these are scientists who, in previous decades, took sides in the Cold War, with its threats to the American way of life, and are now fighting an information war against some of those same threats. The irony, claims the movie, is that helping to delay government action to mitigate the harm caused by the aforementioned byproducts of the modern industrial age makes the problems worse and eventually leads to even more government intervention to deal with even more serious problems."Merchants of Doubt" benefits from the meticulous research done by the books' authors and brings their perspective to life by way of damning facts, numerous interviews, slick graphics, and even a magician, along with certain more questionable methods. The reputations of undeniably accomplished scientists are harmed by innuendo, certain facts are assumed to apply to all similar people and similar situations, and the contrarians, although their words do appear in the film, are never given the opportunity to directly refute the claims against them. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Even though the facts and information this documentary presents make a compelling case that the truth is closer to the filmmakers' perspective, it is still not the whole truth. "B"

Don Muvo The infamous book by Oreskes and Conway is put to the test here to see if it can become a reasonable theater experience. "Reasonable", is probably the best word for it. We see video evidence of the amazing claims in their book, it seems watered down, as a matter of fact, they have to take pains to balance screen impressions of true believers with skeptics, which is always a difficulty but it is made important by their very thesis, that the skeptics substitute their unqualified personalities for their lack of science. They try to prove this by presenting several segments with Professor Fred Singer, presenting him as a rocket scientist, implying indirectly that he should be a dunce at climate, perhaps. The only other person in the theater besides my group, said that the film was a sad experience, but that she was going to show it to her university students nevertheless "to teach them the truth". Dr. James Hansen, the original speaker-before-congress of Warming is shown commenting on his four arrests, which he admits was a sorry substitute for "banging on the president's desk". Perhaps President Obama saw this film, and got the message.There is an interview with Marc Morano which uses contrived editing to make it appear that emails with death threats received by scientists were sent by him. This is probably the lowest point of the movie. On the positive side, there is some notion of how large the energy business is, how many people depend on it, and how 'experimental' and far away the alternatives really are.There are two other characters that seem to be only in there to forward the author's point of view, one is a card mechanist/magician who gives the moral point of view of Oreskes, that his own intentions are "honorable", but that those "deceptions" which are not admitted are not. Another is Michael Schirmer, the administrator of the American Skeptics Society, someone who has always given me the creeps, since he doesn't come across as a real scientist, which he again does in this movie, with his pat anecdote about how he had to switch sides in order to agree with Global Warming, and also his shouting match with a doubter in his audience. The other is Bill Nye, who is an actor, but whom the narration represents as a typical scientist being talked over by the "paid professionals" of the skeptical side.You may wonder why I've given the movie less than 5 stars if I said it was above average. Well, that fact that I don't necessarily agree with most of the points or points of view that I heard is the reason, not to mention the major thesis, which is that "consensus" means that anyone who disagrees should be denied a seat at the table. If such a dogma is meant to pass as a kind of, "Communism", then it indeed passes the test.