Intellectual dishonesty is dishonesty

Dishonesty

Dishonesty is a word which, in common usage, may be defined as the act or to act without honesty. It is used to describe a lack of probity, cheating, lying or being deliberately deceptive or a lack in integrity, knavishness, perfidiosity, corruption or treacherousness...

 in performing intellectual activities like thought or communication. Examples are:

• the advocacy of a position which the advocate knows or believes to be false or misleading
• the advocacy of a position which the advocate does not know to be true, and has not performed rigorous due diligence to ensure the truthfulness of the position
• the conscious omission of aspects of the truth known or believed to be relevant in the particular context.

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...

 is used to advance an agenda or to reinforce one's deeply held belief

Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.-Belief, knowledge and epistemology:The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy....

s in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence

Evidence

Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...

. If a person is aware of the evidence and agrees with the conclusion it portends, yet advocates a contradictory view, they commit intellectual dishonesty. If the person is unaware of the evidence, their position is ignorance

Ignorance

Ignorance is a state of being uninformed . The word ignorant is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware and is often used as an insult...

, even if in agreement with the scientific conclusion. If the person is knowingly aware that there may be additional evidence but purposefully fails to check, and then acts as though the position is confirmed, this is also intellectual dishonesty.

The terms intellectually dishonest and intellectual dishonesty are often used as rhetorical device

Rhetorical device

In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective. While rhetorical devices may be used to evoke an...

s in a debate; the label invariably frames an opponent in a negative light.

The phrase is also frequently used by orators when a debate foe or audience reaches a conclusion varying from the speaker's on a given subject. This appears mostly in debates or discussions of speculative, non-scientific issues, such as morality

Morality

Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 or policy

Policy

A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...

.

In specific fields

• Academic dishonesty
  Academic dishonesty
  Academic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. It can include* Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author without due acknowledgment.* Fabrication: The...
  
  
• Journalism scandals
  Journalism scandals
  Journalism scandals are high-profile incidents or acts, whether intentional or accidental, that run contrary to the generally accepted ethics and standards of journalism, or otherwise violate the 'ideal' mission of journalism: to report news events and issues accurately and fairly.-Journalistic...
  
  
• Scientific misconduct
  Scientific misconduct
  Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in professional scientific research. A Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries provides the following sample definitions: *Danish definition: "Intention or...
  
  

Other

• Anti-intellectualism
  Anti-intellectualism
  Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible...
  
  
• Ethics
  Ethics
  Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
  
  
• Self-deception
  Self-deception
  Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument...
  
  
• Devil's advocate
  Devil's advocate
  In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with, just for the sake of argument. In taking such position, the individual taking on the devil's advocate role seeks to engage others in an argumentative...