As governments and corporations scramble to pull the plug on research that proves that they are poisoning our planet and rush to muzzle the scientists who dare to share their disturbing data, it seems the powerful have declared a war on science.

Michael Riordon asks deep questions of bold scientists who defy the status quo including: an Indigenous biologist who integrates traditional knowledge and a trickster’s wit; an engineering professor who exposes the myths and dangers of fracking; a forensic geneticist who traces children stolen by the military in El Salvador; a sociologist who investigates the lure and threat of mass surveillance; a radical psychologist who confronts psychiatry’s dangerous power; and a young marine biologist who risks her career to defend science and democracy.

Who controls science and at what cost to the earth and its inhabitants? Can we change? This is unspun science for dangerous times.

A Canadian writer and documentary-maker for almost four decades, Michael Riordon generates books and articles, audio, video and film documentaries, and plays for radio and stage. A primary goal of his work is to recover voices of people who have been silenced in the mainstream, written out of the official version.

Michael Riordon teaches writing, and has written four books of oral history: Our Way to Fight: Peace-Work Under Siege in Israel-Palestine, Eating Fire: Family Life on the Queer Side, An Unauthorized Biography of the World, and Out Our Way: Gay and Lesbian Life in Rural Canada. He lives near Picton, Ontario.

Michael Riordon's profile page

“A gripping tale of heroic scientists working in the public interest despite powerful opposition. At once, both tremendously hopeful and profoundly disturbing. The world needs more bold authors like Michael Riordon.”

Thomas Duck, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University

“Silence is consent, my fellow scientists. Riordon’s profiles in courage encourage us to take our data and our voices into the gladiator’s arena and engage in the great moral and political battles of our time. As Bold Scientists so clearly shows, it’s where we belong.”

Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment; co-founder, Concerned Health Professionals of New York