The tobacco industry’s manufactured-doubt playbook became a template for all later science denial.
Evidence
As far as science denial was concerned, however, the issue was far from over, for there was now a blueprint that could be followed by others who wished to fight scientists to a standstill. In Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes and Conway explain this blueprint in more detail. Indeed, the authors provide evidence not only that other science deniers followed the “tobacco strategy,” but also that some of the same people were involved. Ever since the infamous internal memo written by a tobacco executive in 1969 which said that “doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public,” it has been clear what needs to be done. Find and fund your own experts, use this to suggest to the media that there are two sides to the story, push your side through public relations and governmental lobbying, and capitalize on the resulting public confusion to question whatever scientific result you wish to dispute. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 67
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The 1969 memo ‘doubt is our product’ plus the full five-step recipe is the single cleanest articulation of how science denial spreads: a complete causal formula for manufacturing epistemic confusion, dense enough to guide analysis of any later campaign.
- XREF: connects to: The tobacco industry invented science denial as public-relations strategy — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 63; Tobacco’s manufactured doubt predated and enabled climate denial playbooks — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive: The Complete…, 788; Science denial pioneered tactics now applied across all factual reality (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Tobacco’s manufactured doubt predated and enabled climate denial playbooks
#corroborates(0.95) — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive, 788 - The tobacco industry manufactured public doubt as its primary defense strategy
#exemplifies(0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1658 - Science denial pioneered tactics now applied across all factual reality
#expands(0.85) - The fossil fuel industry replicated the tobacco denial playbook
#exemplifies(0.85) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 246 - Manufactured doubt is the replicable engine of science denial.
#expands(0.85) - Tobacco firms ridiculed science showing tobacco harms to discredit it
#exemplifies(0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1685 - Corporate science denial was born when tobacco firms funded fake research.
#expands(0.80) - Tobacco firms rebutted passive-smoking claims by attacking the science
#exemplifies(0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1669 - The tobacco industry’s PR strategy manufactured doubt about EPA science
#exemplifies(0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1670 - Climate-change denial organizations were directly funded by tobacco and fossil-fuel interests
#complicates(0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 71