Industries dispute harm by fabricating controversy and manipulating evidence thresholds

Evidence

Disputes about empirical evidence of harmful effects take a variety of forms. They include engaging in straightforward denial, distortion, or minimization of adverse health effects; creating questionable exposure thresholds below which the exposure is claimed to be harmless; fabricating controversies to confuse the general public about the overall evidence; denying access to industry data showing harm; and exaggerating the adverse consequences of regulating or eliminating the product. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1620

Major battles continue to be fought over evidence of harmful health effects of products and production processes. If they can be shown to cause no harm, there is no moral predicament or any reason for moral qualms about one’s work life. Disputes about empirical evidence of harmful effects take a variety of forms. They include engaging in straightforward denial, distortion, or minimization of adverse health effects; creating questionable exposure thresholds below which the exposure is claimed to be harmless; fabricating controversies to confuse the general public about the overall evidence; denying access to industry data showing harm; and exaggerating the adverse consequences of regulating or eliminating the product. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1620

Categorization

• XREF: This enumerated taxonomy of harm-dispute tactics parallels Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s ‘Merchants of Doubt’ account of manufactured scientific controversy. — connects to: Rhetorical unmasking of euphemism is central to exposing industrial harm — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 8
• DEFINE: Catalogues the specific tactic forms of evidence-dispute moral disengagement, giving the reader a precise taxonomy of the mechanism’s steps.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1620