Merchants of Doubt

Merchants of Doubt (2014) is Robert Kenner's documentary, well worth watching online on iFILM. It's about people whose job isn't to prove anything — it's to manufacture doubt and run out the clock.

Drawn from the book by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, the film traces one tactic across decades. Tobacco firms spent years denying that cigarettes harmed anyone; later the same playbook was aimed at the science on acid rain, the ozone hole, and a warming climate. Kenner frames the hired "experts" as magicians, misdirecting the crowd while the real point slips away.

The target here isn't any single issue but the machinery of spin, which is why it lands far beyond environmental debates. It's for viewers curious about how a convenient "it's not settled yet" gets built to order. Stream Merchants of Doubt (2014) online on iFILM.