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posted: October 15, 2026
tl;dr: Politics Under Siege would be a much more accurate title...
I find it useful to occasionally read books written by authors with whom I vigorously disagree (e.g. see my review of Francis Collins’s The Road to Wisdom). This is a way of challenging myself and the conclusions I have reached beforehand. Rarely, however, do I find any compelling evidence to cause me to change my thoughts. Such is the case with Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World, by Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez. This book is nothing more than a political diatribe written by two midwits who have, unfortunately, done a fantastic job of promoting themselves into the public sphere.
I should mention that both Hotez and Mann long ago blocked me on X for challenging statements they made on that platform. There are others who have blocked me, and they collectively form quite the rogues gallery. Hotez and Mann do not take criticism well, as is clearly demonstrated in Science Under Siege. Anyone who disagrees with them in the scientific or political realms is quickly labeled “anti-science” and portrayed as an enemy of humanity.
The term “anti-science” is never defined in this book, but it is clear what Hotez’s and Mann’s working definition is: anyone who holds any position that conflicts with the leftwing political views of these two scientists and their fellow leftwingers. Hotez and Mann fundamentally believe that humankind faces two existential threats: zoonotic pandemics and climate change. The only answer to pandemics is vaccines (not therapeutics or ending gain of function research!), and the only answer to climate change is an immediate transition to wind and solar power (not geoengineering or nuclear power!). The “Republican Party now represents a very real threat to human civilization itself,” they say, and they quote Noam Chomsky saying that the GOP is “the most dangerous organization in human history.”
This book is 90% politics and only 10% science. On the science side, since the origin of COVID-19 is a passion of mine, I read carefully to capture the evidence Hotez presents for his strongly held (and widely publicized) belief against any sort of lab origin. There is nothing new. He cites the “generally accepted” two-spillover theory at Huanan Seafood Market in December 2019 as part of the “overwhelming” scientific evidence for natural origin. He says the SARS-CoV-2 intermediate host was either raccoon dogs or pangolins. Hotez defends Peter Daszak and the “alleged collaborative gain of function research EcoHealth had done with the Chinese, working with coronaviruses in bats.” Note Hotez’s inclusion of the word “alleged”. But even if there was gain of function research happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, it “played no role in COVID-19 origins”.
On the politics side, the arguments are equally weak and derivative. The enemy is called various names: far right, ultra right, extreme right, alt right, radical right. The Wall Street Journal editorial page is “ultra-conservative”. Russia was successful in getting Trump elected in 2016 and 2024, but failed for some unspecified reason in 2020. Males are awful, especially techno bros, crypto bros, “petro-masculinity” (this term is the one new contribution they make), and the manosphere.
Even though I have a STEM degree and have spent my entire professional career in technology, I would be labeled by Hotez and Mann as “anti-science” because I do not agree with all their political views. That’s okay, I have plenty of company. Elon Musk is somehow anti-science even though he has developed the world‘s best EV technology and is figuring out how to dramatically reduce the cost of traveling to space. How is Musk anti-science? According to Hotez and Mann, Musk was fine until he bought Twitter. Similarly, the authors praise Bill Gates for his support of vaccines, but hate his geoengineering solution to climate change.
The solutions Hotez and Mann offer to fight anti-science are straight from the DNC playbook. Of course voters should vote for a straight Democratic ticket. The Senate filibuster should be ended once Democrats take over after the 2026 mid-term election. Once a Democratic Congress and President are in place in 2029, the Supreme Court should be packed. The government should censor all media and social media: “it is clear that voluntary compliance has failed, and greater government regulation of media companies is critical.” They don’t use the hot-button term “censor”, instead saying that the government should tell media companies what disinformation to remove. Regardless of the term used, this puts the government in the role of George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth”.
And if all this fails, then other nations, including China, should rise up and fight the United States. This is the exact call-to-action that Hotez and Mann make, after stating that we need the same urgency as during the rise of Nazi Germany:
“The United States is now itself, for the time being, a petrostate and a bad actor in this space. It is therefore incumbent upon other democratic nations, such as the European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, to band together, perhaps even joined by the authoritarian nation of China were it to recognize it is being in their long-term interest, to take whatever punitive actions are necessary against bad state actors, the United States sadly now included, to reign them in.”
“Whatever punitive actions are necessary” excludes nothing. China has nuclear weapons and an active bioweapons program.
So much for what Hotez and Mann discuss in Science Under Siege. But what topics do they leave out? Here’s my partial list:
The bottom line: whether you will love or hate Science Under Siege depends on your views on politics, not science.