The tobacco industry manufactured public doubt as its primary defense strategy

Evidence

The strategies took several forms, initially straightforward denial or minimization of adverse health effects. With mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, the strategy turned to sowing doubt and controversy about research findings. This was succinctly expressed by a Brown & Williamson executive in a company speech he gave on smoking and health. “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy” (Anonymous, 1969). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1658

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the manufactured-doubt playbook later used by climate change denial and opioid manufacturers; echoes the ‘merchants of doubt’ thesis of Oreskes and Conway. — connects to: Think tanks deliberately manufacture public doubt about settled science to shape policy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 626; Tobacco firms funded quality research to distract from smoking’s causal role — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 631; Tobacco executives publicly claimed no proof existed while privately knowing otherwise — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 323 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The explicit corporate articulation that doubt itself is the product — a startlingly candid confession of epistemic manipulation as a business model.