Preface -- Part one: Inventors. The message -- The hustler -- The promise -- The electrician -- The jubilee -- Part two: Scientists. The wayward wind -- The soda machine -- The tire prints and the smoke menace -- The geophysical experiment -- The overwhelming desire -- The fine noses -- The moles -- The brakes and the Indian -- The Yamal and the fence -- The global computer model -- The wood chips and the malaise -- The frog -- The unwarranted and alarmist report -- The undoing of Thomas Midgley -- The undoing II--red days -- The home of Donna Reed -- The pirate -- The pilot lights and somebody's wind -- Mark Mills -- Part three: Deniers. Old judge, or tobacco killed a cat -- Stocking and chairs -- Genetics -- A scientific gymnastic feat -- Wall of flesh -- Simple annihilation -- >First class -- Philosophers and priests -- Counterblaste -- A czarina enjoys the corporate Christmas party -- S. -- Emperor of the universe -- Who digested the scientists? -- Millions of guinea pigs -- Dinosaurs -- Committee on the care of children -- An exceptional case -- "Arthur Robinson is a good scientist"--Arthur Robinson -- Arthur and the world -- Jason Bourne's crestfallen itinerary -- Editing turns the mild into weather gods -- ASS and chair -- Glengarry Glen Monckton -- The business cards and the straight noodle -- Epilogue: The parrot and the igloo.

Explores how "anti-science" became so virulent in American life through a history of climate denial and its consequences.