On Denialism

The Varieties of Denialism 
By Massimo Pigliucci on Scientia Salon, 285/10/2014

“What the large variety of denialisms have in common is a very strong, overwhelming, ideological commitment that helps define the denialist identity in a core manner. (…) That’s why facts and reason can only do so much (or little) to turn the denialist.”

Another important issue to understand is that denialists exploit the inherently tentative nature of scientific or historical findings to seek refuge for their doctrines. (…)

Indeed, Denialism Studies (I’m rather happy to use that term!) is a highly interdisciplinary field, arguably one of the most interdisciplinary I can think of, including history, political science, law, natural science (from physics to biology), psychology, sociology, philosophy (in various forms, from political philosophy to ethics to epistemology), to mention just some of the principal contributors. And for once, this is an academic discipline that first and foremost deals directly with urgent issues that concern us all.

Which brings me to a number of suggestions about what to do in practice. To begin with, we need to understand that the fight is a long term one, which will be characterized by advances and setbacks, as it has always been whenever we want to move society to a better place against inertia, contrarianism, and entrenched interests. And yet, we also have a number of clear victories, or at the least indubitable advances, to point to and keep in mind, so there is a rational basis for hope.
The first thing to realize is that the push back against denialism, in all its varied incarnations, is likely to be more successful if we shift the focus from persuading individual members of the public to making political and media elites accountable. This is a major result coming out of Brendan’s research. He showed data set after data set demonstrating two fundamental things: first, large sections of the general public do not respond to the presentation of even highly compelling facts, indeed — as mentioned above— are actually more likely to entrench further into their positions. (…)

Yet another thing we can do: seek allies. In the case of evolution denial — for which I have the most first-hand experience — it has been increasingly obvious to me that it is utterly counterproductive for a strident atheist like Dawkins (or even a relatively good humored one like yours truly) to engage creationists directly. It is far more effective when we have clergy (Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State [6] comes to mind) and religious scientists (e.g., Ken Miller [7]) getting into the fray. That’s not to suggest that Dawkins or I don’t have contributions to make to public discourse, of course we do. But it matters very much who our audience is, and especially how we address it. (Yes, I’m talking about “tone,” among other things. We are educators, so we ought to know that nobody ever responds positively to being told that they are idiots or ignoramuses.) 

(…) On the other hand, however, individuals, organizations, academics and academic presses ought to be held accountable for their actions, particularly when what they do or say violates the duty toward integrity that should be the flip side of the right to speech. There was much discussion at the conference, for instance, about a systematic denial of the Armenian genocide fostered by a particular editor at the University of Utah Press. How are we to deal with such instances of willful public mischaracterization of facts? Again, successful precedents lead the way. A few years ago a similar controversy engulfed Princeton University [9], and it was dealt with by an onslaught of public, well argued and well researched, reviews and commentaries that effectively shamed Princeton into action. Outside of academe, of course, we have the infamous case of the CEOs of tobacco companies denying the obvious (under oath) in front of Congress. Besides the possible legal action that can be taken in the latter type of case, the most effective response at the time was the ridicule that was heaped on those gentlemen (I use the word with a significant amount of irony) by late night comedians, a ridicule that made abundantly clear to the general public that those individuals had gone way beyond plausible deniability.

Make no mistake about it: denialism in its various forms is a pernicious social phenomenon, with potentially catastrophic consequences for our society. It requires a rallying call for all serious public intellectuals, academic or not, who have the expertise and the stamina to join the fray to make this an even marginally better world for us all. It’s most definitely worth the fight.”