Climate denialism uniquely targeted an entire scientific community as fraudulent, unprecedented historically.

Evidence

The science historian Spencer Weart, formerly at the American Institute of Physics, commented on the unprecedented assault on an entire group of scientists and the accusations that they had committed a massive scientific fraud: “We’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance” … However, Myron Ebell, a spokesman in media appearances for skeptics of global warming and climate science, dismissed the investigations as a “whitewash” (Eilperin, 2010). There is no longer serious scientific dispute over the credibility of the evidence. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2739

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is it true that no prior campaign targeted an entire research community as fraudulent? Tobacco denialism prefigured much of the playbook, so worth chasing how the comparison holds.