Denialism blog

The latest science blog on the Seed platform is called Denialism. It is run by two people who, I deduce from their surname, are related: "Mark Hoofnagle is a MD/PhD Candidate in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge. Chris Hoofnagle is an attorney with experience in consumer protection advocacy in Washington and Sacramento. His interest in denialism concerns the use of rhetorical tactics by various industries in thwarting responsible public policy. He is the author of The Denialists' Deck of Cards."

Here's a link to one of their first Seed posts: denialism blog : Unified theory of the crank. The post begins with a quote from Nature (the journal for which I work):

A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned.
- Nature, 8 Nov 1906

It goes on: "Here at denialism blog, we're very interested in what makes people cranks. Not only how one defines crankish behavior, but literally how people develop unreasonable attitudes about the world in the face of evidence to the contrary. Our definition of a crank, loosely, is a person who has unreasonable ideas about established science or facts that will not relent in defending their own, often laughable, version of the truth. Central to the crank is the "overvalued idea". That is some idea they've incorporated into their world view that they will not relinquish for any reason."

I can see we are going to have some sparks in future here, with AIDS denialists (as they are already called), climate sceptics, creationists and ID-ers, "anti-theory of relativity-ers", creators of perpetual motion machines, and all the others among the convinced. I look forward to it (I think). Clare will probably like it, too.

Comments

[Susan]

And Susan! I loved the wry humour in your deduction regarding the kinship of the Hoofnagles, Maxine! Isn't that a wonderful name? Really.

[Clare]

Ooooh yes, thanks Maxine - would never have spotted this one!

[Frank Wilson]

I think the problem is in the metaphor: equating skepticism regarding something as equivalent to Holocaust denial. Now the Holocaust is a demonstrable, historical fact. The climate conditions 100 years from now, however,are not, and will not be until, well, 100 years from now. If I am skeptical of next week's weather forecast, am I some sort weather-forecasting denialist? Or have I simply heard enough inaccurate forecasts in my time? Should Galileo have been accused of being a Tychonic System denialist (the Tychonic System was the consensus view among astronomers at the time)?
Thorough, open discussion of an issue, without rancor, is good. Labelling and suppression of dissent are bad, and not just because they do not advance the cause of knowledge.

[Maxine]

Thanks, Susan;-)
Frank, you are not the kind of climate sceptic I meant. I mean the kind of people who, like the AIDS denialists before them, cling on to one obscure piece of micro evidence in the face of an overwhelming body of data and rational thought, invoking conspiracies, politics and anythign else they can think of to shore up their positions. (So, to take the AIDS analogy, the kind of person who would take one report and cite it out of any context of the rest of the field, to say that Vitamin C is a better treatment for AIDS than AZT.)
So by "climate sceptic" I mean the kind of person who refuses to believe what the data reported in the vast mass of scientific work in the discipline is showing.
See www.realclimate.org for a reasoned view of what's what.

[Frank Wilson]

I have what I think is a slightly better term for AIDS denialists: nuts. There's more such than I has suspected, such as the person who recently declared that 9/11 was the first time ever that fire has melted steel. I guess they have to addressed, but boy.