DENIAL101x FLICC The Techniques of Science Denial Part 1

[Music] if you want to be resilient against misinformation you need to be aware of the different techniques that are used to mislead a good starting point to understanding the techniques of denial is flick-flick stands for fake experts logical fallacies impossible expectations cherry-picking and conspiracies these are the five techniques of science denial and they're seen in every movement that denies a scientific consensus whether it be human caused global warming vaccine safety or the link between smoking and cancer however flick only scratches the surface there are a wide range of fallacies and rhetorical tricks used to distort the science and while this looks complicated this isn't even comprehensive but it does cover the most common denial techniques you're likely to encounter in climate misinformation so understanding these techniques will help you defend against misinformation and not just misinformation about climate change you'll see these fallacies in miss information across all topics before we start exploring flick I should point out that fake experts is actually a logical fallacy cherry-picking is a logical fallacy technically all Afflick our logical fallacies so how does it make sense having logical fallacies as a category the reason that flick is so useful in understanding science denial is it highlights and organizers the most important techniques used to distort science I've looked for better frameworks I even try to develop one myself but haven't had anything that beats flak but if anyone out there thinks there is something better I'd love to hear from you the first technique of denial is fake experts also known as the appeal to false Authority these are people who convey the appearance of expertise but don't actually possess any relevant expertise having a degree in one field of science doesn't automatically convey understanding of complicated science in another discipline we understand that principle in real life when it comes to complicated issues we want the person working on the problem to have relevant expertise especially when it's an important problem that matters to us better scientists or someone from an official sounding organization can often be convincing to the general public and while a single fake expert can be misleading multiple fake experts are even worse one of the most damaging climate myths sites multiple fake experts a technique called bulk fake experts this particular myth comes from the global warming petition project this is a website listing over 31,000 Americans with a science degree who have signed a statement claiming that humans are disrupting climate the problem is the only qualification that be on this list is a science degree that means the list is populated with computer scientists veterinary scientists mechanical engineers but very few climate scientists in fact 99.9% of the 31,000 are not climate experts the global warming petition project is a brazen example of fake experts in bulk but is also a powerfully effective rhetorical argument the global warming petition project is one of the most effective climate myths in reducing acceptance of global warming and support for climate action the petition project also uses another misleading technique to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming magnified minority this involves amplifying the significance of contrarian scientists in order to make it look like there is more scientific disagreement than in reality while 31,000 science graduates sounds like a lot there are millions of Americans with a science degree the petition project amounts to less than 1% of American science graduates another way that people can get confused about a scientific consensus is when the science and pseudoscience are presented together as a debate between two opposing science this is how the media often cover the climate change issue pitting a climate scientist against someone disputing the science while balanced media coverage is appropriate for political issues or matters of opinion it's a misleading way to present issues where there's scientific consensus the very format that the media used to cover climate change can have a misinforming effect giving people the impression of an ongoing scientific debate next let's look at logical fallacies generally speaking logical fallacies appear in arguments where the conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premises this is known as a non sequitur Latin food does not follow we also call this jumping to conclusions let's look at some types of logical fallacies ad hominem is Latin for to the person and involves attacking a person's character instead of addressing their arguments or science one of the most common forms of climate misinformation are at hominem attacks on scientists this often takes a form of exaggerated stereotypes attacking a scientist character is an easy and effective way to avoid dealing with their scientific research another logical fallacy is misrepresentation which involves misrepresenting a situation in order to mislead people sometimes this can be misrepresenting a situation or the science but the most common form of misrepresentation is the straw man argument this is where an opponent's position is misrepresented in order to make it easier to refute for example arguing that environmentalist thing all we have to do to solve climate change is Drive electric cars this oversimplifies the environmentalist position to make it easier to refute this oversimplifies the environmentalist position to make it easier to refute the fallacy of ambiguity involves using ambiguous language in order to lead to a misleading conclusion the most common form of ambiguity is a fallacy of equivocation using words that have multiple meanings as if they mean the same thing for example a common example of ambiguity in science denial is exploiting confusion about the word theory to a scientist a theory is an explanation of the world that's been confirmed by many experiments and empirical evidence to non-scientists a theory is just a hunch or someone's idea difference in meaning can be used to cast doubt on established science in climate misinformation ambiguity around the word uncertainty is often exploited when scientists talk about uncertainty they mean a measurement is accurate within a well-defined range of values for non-scientists and certainly means you're not sure if the measurement is right at all this ambiguity can be exploited by arguing that when scientists express uncertainty they don't know what's going on that ends part one of our series on the techniques of science denial in part 2 we'll continue to look at more logical fallacies such as oversimplification false analogy and red herring [Music]