To continue to explain how terribly misguided Mooney and Nisbet are about ignoring denialist campaigns I think it's time to go over the history of one of the most effective denialist campaigns ever. That is the concerted effort by the major tobacco companies (RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, Phillip Morris, and British American Tobacco) to spread misinformation about the health risks associated with smoking.
Fortunately for those who study denialism, one of the results of the Tobacco Master Settlement all the internal memos of four of the largest tobacco companies have been released to the public and exist as free searchable databases.
Within these documents one can find some true gems of denialist strategy second only to Wedge Document for their unintentional disclosure of their dishonest tactics. For instance from "NEW DIRECTIONS" A presentation of the tobacco institute staff June 25th, 1981:
And:
And this gem from Brown and Williamson "Smoking and Health Proposal" from 1969:
Throughout these documents you see a similar theme every time. Science comes out that is harmful to their profits, such as the 1964 Surgeon General's report on tobacco and health was to be opposed no matter what the results. The writing is schizophrenic, while they seem to be convinced of their righteousness and the safety of smoking, they write about actively pursuing and eliminating the carcinogens in tobacco smoke, making filters that will be safer, and consider strategies of admitting to the danger of cigarette smoke. As the science becomes more damning they just shift the message to one of righteousness of personal liberty while their own research confirmed the risks to nonsmokers from environmental tobacco smoke.
What does this have to do with Mooney and Nisbet telling us to ignore the cranks like the DI or the Heartland Institute? It shows that even when the majority of people understand and believe the science - for instance the evidence showing cigarettes cause cancer has been believed by around 90% of Americans for decades - well-funded denialist campaigns can still be highly effective in disrupting appropriate regulation, legislation, and dissemination of accurate public health information.
Global warming denialists using some of the same think tanks the tobacco companies used, and even some of the same shills such as Steven Milloy and Fred Singer (now working for the Heartland Institute) are capable of waging the same kind of war on legitimate science as they did for the tobacco companies. Only after years of work from public health authorities, scientists and interest groups, as well as vicious fighting over legislation, civil litigation and the actions of whistleblowers were the tobacco companies largely declawed in their campaign against scientific truth. It certainly wasn't by ignoring them, and letting them act unopposed, or letting the polls dictate a non-existent victory that they were finally defeated. And that is the danger of the message we're currently getting from the framers. It's the worst possible strategy for opposing denialism, it's dangerous, historically-ignorant, and will lead to disaster.
Despite the fact that the majority of Americans believed in the link between cigarettes and cancer the the tobacco companies' denialist campaign worked for a long time, and here's how they did it...
