Denialism
Encyclopedia
Denialism is choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth: "[it] is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event".
In science, denialism has been defined as the rejection of basic concepts that are undisputed and well-supported parts of the scientific consensus
on a topic in favor of ideas that are both radical and controversial. It has been proposed that the various forms of denialism have the common feature of the rejection of overwhelming evidence and the generation of a controversy through attempts to deny that a consensus exists. The terms Holocaust denialism and AIDS denialism have been used, and the term climate change denial
ists has been applied to those who argue against the scientific consensus
that global warming
is occurring and that human activity is its primary cause. Several motivations for denialism have been proposed, including religious beliefs and self-interest, or as a psychological defense mechanism against disturbing ideas.
Use of the word denialism has been criticised, for example as a polemical propaganda tool to suppress non-mainstream views. Similarly, in an essay discussing the general importance of skepticism, Clive James
objected to the use of the word denialist to describe climate change skeptics, stating that it "calls up the spectacle of a fanatic denying the Holocaust." Celia Farber
has objected to the term AIDS denialists arguing that it is unjustifiable to place this belief on the same moral level with the Nazi crimes against humanity. However, Robert Gallo
et al. defended this latter comparison, stating that AIDS denialism is similar to Holocaust denial as it is a form of pseudoscience
that "contradicts an immense body of research."
, defined as "the empirical observation that reality and truth are being denied", and denialism, which he defines as "an ideological position whereby one systematically reacts by refusing reality and truth".
Individuals or groups who reject propositions on which a scientific
or scholarly consensus
exists can engage in denialism when they use rhetoric
al tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. Rick Stoff quotes Chris Hoofnagle, a senior staff attorney at the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic and senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, at the University of California-Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law:
In a newspaper article in 2003 Edwin Cameron
, a senior South African judge who had AIDS, described the tactics used by those who deny the Holocaust and those who deny that the AIDS pandemic is predominantly due to infection with HIV. He states that "For denialists, the facts are unacceptable. They engage in radical controversion, for ideological purposes, of facts that, by and large, are accepted by almost all experts and lay persons as having been established on the basis of overwhelming evidence". To do this they employ "distortions, half-truths, misrepresentation of their opponents' positions and expedient shifts of premises and logic." Edwin Cameron notes that a common tactic used by denialists is to "make great play of the inescapable indeterminacy of figures and statistics", as scientific studies of many areas rely on probability analysis of sets of data, and in historical studies the precise numbers of victims and other facts may not be available in the primary sources.
Such "recourse to data debates and pseudo-scientific 'evidence'" has also been noted as a common feature of several types of denialism in a 2009 article published in the journal Globalization and Health. This is an area which British historian Richard J. Evans
mentioned as part of his analysis of the David Irving's
work which he presented for the defence when Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt
for libel:
Mark Hoofnagle
has described denialism as "the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none." It is a process that operates by employing one or more of the following five tactics in order to maintain the appearance of legitimate controversy:
Tara Smith of the University of Iowa
also stated that moving goalposts, conspiracy theories and cherry-picking evidence are general characteristics of denialist arguments, but went on to note that these groups spend "majority of their efforts critiquing the mainstream theory" in an apparent belief that if they manage to discredit the mainstream view, their own "unproven ideas will fill the void".
because the accuser usually goes on to explain how the other party is denying the asserted truth and as such the other party is in the wrong, which leads to an implied accusation that if the accused party persist with the denial despite the evidence their motives must be base.
Edward Skidelsky, a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University, has suggested that this is a new use for the word denial and it may have its origins in an old sense of "deny", akin to "disown", (as in the Apostle Peter denying Christ), but that its more immediate antecedence is from the Freudian sense of deny as a refusal to accept a painful or humiliating truth, and that it is from this form of denial the abstract noun "denialism", has recently been coined. He writes that "An accusation of 'denial[ism]' is serious, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or self-deception. The thing being denied is, by implication, so obviously true that the denier must be driven by perversity, malice or wilful blindness." He suggests that by introducing the use of denialism to more and more areas of historical and scientific debate that "One of the great achievements of the Enlightenment—the liberation of historical and scientific enquiry from dogma—is quietly being reversed" and that this should worry liberal-minded people.
) is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS
). AIDS denialism has been described as being "among the most vocal anti-science denial movements". Some denialists reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that the virus exists but say that it is a harmless passenger virus
and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as denialists acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of recreational drug use, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and side effects of antiretroviral medication
, rather than infection with HIV. However, the evidence that HIV causes AIDS is scientifically conclusive and the scientific community
rejects and ignores AIDS-denialist claims as based on faulty reasoning, cherry picking, and misrepresentation of mainly outdated scientific data. With the rejection of these arguments by the scientific community, AIDS-denialist material is now spread mainly through the Internet
.
have been criticized for contributing to scientists and scientific experimentation questioning the scientific consensus
on global climate change
. ExxonMobil did not deny making the financial contributions, but its spokesman stated that the company's financial support for scientific reports did not mean it influenced the outcome of those studies. "The recycling of this type of discredited conspiracy theory
diverts attention from the real challenge at hand: how to provide the energy needed to improve global living standards while also reducing
greenhouse gas
emissions." Newsweek
and Mother Jones
have published articles stating corporations are funding the "denial industry"
.
In the context of consumer protection
, denialism has been defined as "the use of rhetorical techniques and predictable tactics to erect barriers to debate and consideration of any type of reform, regardless of the facts."
verifiable reality. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event."
for ratification due to uncertainties they asserted were present in the climate change issue, have been cited as examples of politically motivated denialism by the press. The general class of genocide denial
, of which holocaust denial
is a subset, is another form of political denialism.
In science, denialism has been defined as the rejection of basic concepts that are undisputed and well-supported parts of the scientific consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
on a topic in favor of ideas that are both radical and controversial. It has been proposed that the various forms of denialism have the common feature of the rejection of overwhelming evidence and the generation of a controversy through attempts to deny that a consensus exists. The terms Holocaust denialism and AIDS denialism have been used, and the term climate change denial
Climate change denial
Climate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons...
ists has been applied to those who argue against the scientific consensus
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
that global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
is occurring and that human activity is its primary cause. Several motivations for denialism have been proposed, including religious beliefs and self-interest, or as a psychological defense mechanism against disturbing ideas.
Use of the word denialism has been criticised, for example as a polemical propaganda tool to suppress non-mainstream views. Similarly, in an essay discussing the general importance of skepticism, Clive James
Clive James
Clive James, AM is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism...
objected to the use of the word denialist to describe climate change skeptics, stating that it "calls up the spectacle of a fanatic denying the Holocaust." Celia Farber
Celia Farber
Celia Ingrid Farber is an American print journalist and author, best known for her part in the campaign which denies that AIDS is an infectious disease...
has objected to the term AIDS denialists arguing that it is unjustifiable to place this belief on the same moral level with the Nazi crimes against humanity. However, Robert Gallo
Robert Gallo
Robert Charles Gallo is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his role in the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus , the infectious agent responsible for the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome , and he has been a major contributor to subsequent HIV research.Gallo is the...
et al. defended this latter comparison, stating that AIDS denialism is similar to Holocaust denial as it is a form of pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
that "contradicts an immense body of research."
Orthodoxy and heterodoxy
Anthropologist Didier Fassin distinguishes between denialDenial
Denial is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.The subject may use:* simple denial: deny the reality of the...
, defined as "the empirical observation that reality and truth are being denied", and denialism, which he defines as "an ideological position whereby one systematically reacts by refusing reality and truth".
Individuals or groups who reject propositions on which a scientific
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
or scholarly consensus
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
exists can engage in denialism when they use rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
al tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. Rick Stoff quotes Chris Hoofnagle, a senior staff attorney at the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic and senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, at the University of California-Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law:
In a newspaper article in 2003 Edwin Cameron
Edwin Cameron
Edwin Cameron is a South African Rhodes scholar and current Constitutional Court justice. Cameron served as a Supreme Court of Appeal judge from 2000 to 2008. He was the first senior South African official to state publicly that he was living with HIV/AIDS...
, a senior South African judge who had AIDS, described the tactics used by those who deny the Holocaust and those who deny that the AIDS pandemic is predominantly due to infection with HIV. He states that "For denialists, the facts are unacceptable. They engage in radical controversion, for ideological purposes, of facts that, by and large, are accepted by almost all experts and lay persons as having been established on the basis of overwhelming evidence". To do this they employ "distortions, half-truths, misrepresentation of their opponents' positions and expedient shifts of premises and logic." Edwin Cameron notes that a common tactic used by denialists is to "make great play of the inescapable indeterminacy of figures and statistics", as scientific studies of many areas rely on probability analysis of sets of data, and in historical studies the precise numbers of victims and other facts may not be available in the primary sources.
Such "recourse to data debates and pseudo-scientific 'evidence'" has also been noted as a common feature of several types of denialism in a 2009 article published in the journal Globalization and Health. This is an area which British historian Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.-Life:Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College...
mentioned as part of his analysis of the David Irving's
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
work which he presented for the defence when Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Esther Lipstadt, Ph.D. is an American historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust and The Eichmann Trial. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University...
for libel:
Mark Hoofnagle
Mark Hoofnagle
Mark Hoofnagle is an American medical doctor, physiologist and blogger. He was one of the originators of the concept of "denialism", especially in relation to global warming. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge...
has described denialism as "the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none." It is a process that operates by employing one or more of the following five tactics in order to maintain the appearance of legitimate controversy:
- Conspiracy theories — Dismissing the event by suggesting opponents have an ulterior motive for their position or are conspiracy theorists.
- Cherry picking — Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers in order to make their opponents look like they base their ideas on weak research.
- False expertsFalse attributionThe fallacy of a false attribution occurs when an advocate appeals to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or fabricated source in support of an argument...
— Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility. - Moving the goalpostMoving the goalpostMoving the goalposts is a metaphor meaning changing the target of a process or competition by one side in order to gain advantage.-Etymology:...
— Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence. - Other logical fallacies — Usually one or more of false analogyFalse analogy-The Argument from Analogy:The process of analogical inference involves noting the shared properties of two or more things, and from this basis infering that they also share some further property...
, appeal to consequencesAppeal to consequencesAppeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam , is an argument that concludes a premise to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences...
, straw manStraw manA straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions...
, or red herringRed herringA red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
.
Tara Smith of the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
also stated that moving goalposts, conspiracy theories and cherry-picking evidence are general characteristics of denialist arguments, but went on to note that these groups spend "majority of their efforts critiquing the mainstream theory" in an apparent belief that if they manage to discredit the mainstream view, their own "unproven ideas will fill the void".
Prescriptive and polemic
If one party to a debate accuses the other of denialism they are framing the debate, because denialism is prescriptive: it carries implications that there is a truth that the other side denies, and polemicPolemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
because the accuser usually goes on to explain how the other party is denying the asserted truth and as such the other party is in the wrong, which leads to an implied accusation that if the accused party persist with the denial despite the evidence their motives must be base.
Edward Skidelsky, a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University, has suggested that this is a new use for the word denial and it may have its origins in an old sense of "deny", akin to "disown", (as in the Apostle Peter denying Christ), but that its more immediate antecedence is from the Freudian sense of deny as a refusal to accept a painful or humiliating truth, and that it is from this form of denial the abstract noun "denialism", has recently been coined. He writes that "An accusation of 'denial[ism]' is serious, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or self-deception. The thing being denied is, by implication, so obviously true that the denier must be driven by perversity, malice or wilful blindness." He suggests that by introducing the use of denialism to more and more areas of historical and scientific debate that "One of the great achievements of the Enlightenment—the liberation of historical and scientific enquiry from dogma—is quietly being reversed" and that this should worry liberal-minded people.
AIDS denialism
AIDS denialism is the denial that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIVHIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
) is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
). AIDS denialism has been described as being "among the most vocal anti-science denial movements". Some denialists reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that the virus exists but say that it is a harmless passenger virus
Passenger virus
A passenger virus is a virus that is frequently found in samples from diseased tissue, such as tumours, but does not contribute to causing the disease.-Experimental demonstration of passenger status:Proving that a virus has no causative role can be difficult...
and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as denialists acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of recreational drug use, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and side effects of antiretroviral medication
Antiretroviral drug
Antiretroviral drugs are medications for the treatment of infection by retroviruses, primarily HIV. When several such drugs, typically three or four, are taken in combination, the approach is known as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy, or HAART...
, rather than infection with HIV. However, the evidence that HIV causes AIDS is scientifically conclusive and the scientific community
Scientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
rejects and ignores AIDS-denialist claims as based on faulty reasoning, cherry picking, and misrepresentation of mainly outdated scientific data. With the rejection of these arguments by the scientific community, AIDS-denialist material is now spread mainly through the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Corporate denialism
International corporations such as ExxonMobilExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
have been criticized for contributing to scientists and scientific experimentation questioning the scientific consensus
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
on global climate change
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. ExxonMobil did not deny making the financial contributions, but its spokesman stated that the company's financial support for scientific reports did not mean it influenced the outcome of those studies. "The recycling of this type of discredited conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
diverts attention from the real challenge at hand: how to provide the energy needed to improve global living standards while also reducing
Mitigation of global warming
Climate change mitigation is action to decrease the intensity of radiative forcing in order to reduce the potential effects of global warming. Mitigation is distinguished from adaptation to global warming, which involves acting to tolerate the effects of global warming...
greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
emissions." Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
and Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
have published articles stating corporations are funding the "denial industry"
Climate change denial
Climate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons...
.
In the context of consumer protection
Consumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...
, denialism has been defined as "the use of rhetorical techniques and predictable tactics to erect barriers to debate and consideration of any type of reform, regardless of the facts."
Holocaust denialism
The term has been used with "Holocaust denialism" as "the refusal to accept an empiricallyEmpiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
verifiable reality. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event."
Political denialism
The Bush Administration's replacement of previous science advisers with industry experts or scientists tied to industry, and its refusal to submit the Kyoto ProtocolKyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
for ratification due to uncertainties they asserted were present in the climate change issue, have been cited as examples of politically motivated denialism by the press. The general class of genocide denial
Genocide denial
Genocide denial occurs when an act of genocide is met with attempts to deny the occurrence and minimize the scale or death toll. The most well-known type is Holocaust denial, but its definition can extend to any genocide that has been minimized or met with excessive skepticism.Where there is near...
, of which holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
is a subset, is another form of political denialism.
See also
- AgnotologyAgnotologyAgnotology is the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The neologism was coined by Robert N...
- Creation–evolution controversy
- Historical revisionism (negationism)Historical revisionism (negationism)Historical revisionism is either the legitimate scholastic re-examination of existing knowledge about a historical event, or the illegitimate distortion of the historical record such that certain events appear in a more or less favourable light. For the former, i.e. the academic pursuit, see...
- ObscurantismObscurantismObscurantism is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two, common, historical and intellectual, denotations: 1) restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the...
- Philosophy of SciencePhilosophy of scienceThe philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
- Flat Earth SocietyFlat Earth SocietyThe Flat Earth Society is an organization that seeks to further the belief that the Earth is flat instead of an oblate spheroid. The modern organization was founded by Englishman Samuel Shenton in 1956 and was later led by Charles K...
- DenialDenialDenial is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.The subject may use:* simple denial: deny the reality of the...
External links
- Denialism Blog
- "Refusing Flu Shots? Maybe You're A 'Denialist'" National Public Radio