Industry disinformation demanded impossible certainty regardless of accumulated evidence

Evidence

The problem was that the industry continued to call for more research, and for delayed action, irrespective of how much evidence came in. As late as March 1988, after the BAS findings showed the presence of the ozone hole, after Stolarski’s review of the NASA satellite data confirmed the BAS data, and after the 1986 and 1987 Antarctic expeditions provided direct detections of by-products of CFC interactions with ozone, the CEO of DuPont wrote to the US Senate to declare that there was no need for drastic reductions. By this point, it was hard to imagine what further evidence you could ask for. And yet the industry kept asking for more—for certainty. — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 94

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Skepticism about certainty does not justify refusing to act on evidence — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 101; A scientist’s bias does not invalidate the evidence produced — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 122; Corporate misinformation can be refuted; hoax conspiracism cannot — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 243 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Bare-assertion conspiracism demands no errant facts to explain #expands (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 63
• Corporate misinformation can be refuted; hoax conspiracism cannot #expands (0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 243