The Lippard Blog: Key characteristics of denialism

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Key characteristics of denialism

Pharyngula summarizes and augments a list of characteristics from the Give Up Blog common to those who deny the existence of various things, whether that be the Holocaust, global warming, HIV causing AIDS, the actions of Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001, or other well-established phenomena.

Key features:
1. Conspiracy
2. Selectivity
3. The fake expert
4. Impossible expectations
5. The metaphor
6. The quote mine
7. Appeal to consequences

I recommend reading both the Give Up Blog's original list and descriptions and Pharyngula's extended list.

2 comments:

Wakefield Tolbert said...: All too true.

Sorta like the "ecosophers" who praised crocodilians as superior to humans (John Muir) and the latter day apostles (Stephen Schneider) who proclaim (speaking of selective speaking extracts and media missives) that "we" (the environmental movement) need to make simple statements, propose wild and scary scenarios for (global warming) and decide how best to calculate the overall effect and weigh this against the hard evidences about AGW?; February 25, 2009 at 5:06 PM
Lippard said...: See "Lomborg, global warming, and opportunity costs" and "Taxonomy of questions about global warming" at this blog.; February 26, 2009 at 11:28 AM