User:Graemem56/sandbox

A Comparison of Flat-Earthers, 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Climate Change Denial and the Anti-Nuclear Movement as denialist movements

 * 1) Conspiracy theories — Dismissing the data or observation by suggesting opponents are involved in "a conspiracy to suppress the truth". The United Nations and its agencies are often considered to be part of the conspiracy.


 * 1) Flat-Earthers "Flight restrictions originating from none other than the United Nations, the same United Nations which haughtily uses a flat-Earth map as its official logo and flag!"

"The World Health Organization is now part of the conspiracy and the cover-up, the greatest conspiratorial cover-up in the history of medicine." "In 1959 the World Health Organisation entered into an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency which gave the unequivocally pro-nuclear IAEA a veto over WHO research into the effects of radiation." False experts include doctors: - Medical Professionals Question the 9/11 Commission Report. Religious beliefs may prompt an i
 * 1) Cherry picking — Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers in order to make their opponents look as though they base their ideas on weak research.
 * 2) False experts — Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility.
 * 1) Moving the goalpost — Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence.
 * 2) Other logical fallacies — Usually one or more of false analogy, appeal to consequences, straw man, or red herring.

In human behavior, denialism is exhibited by individuals choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid dealing with an uncomfortable truth. Author Paul O'Shea remarks, "[It] is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event".

The Anti-Nuclear Movement as a denialist movement
In science, denialism has been defined as the rejection of basic concepts that are undisputed and well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a topic in favor of ideas that are both radical and controversial. It has been proposed that the various forms of denialism have the common feature of the rejection of overwhelming evidence and the generation of a controversy through attempts to deny that a consensus exists.

The Anti-nuclear Movement is arguably the most successful of the denialist movements. Notwithstanding, the possibility that Climate Change will be potentially catastrophic, and that there exists a substantial body of opinion that nuclear energy is the only or, best answer to Climate Change, there exists a substantial population who continue to believe in far-fetched ideas about radioactivity and radionuclides, that would make the use of this technology problematic.

There are a number of patterns of behaviour which are common amongst denialist groups. Mark Hoofnagle has described denialism as "the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none." }} It is a process that operates by employing one or more of the following five tactics in order to maintain the appearance of legitimate controversy.
 * 1) Conspiracy theories — Dismissing the data or observation by suggesting opponents are involved in "a conspiracy to suppress the truth".
 * 2) Flat-earth advocate Eric Dubay says " Flight restrictions originating from none other than the United Nations, the same United Nations which haughtily uses a flat-Earth map as its official logo and flag!" "The greatest cover-up of all time, NASA and Freemasonry’s biggest secret, is that we are living on a plane, not a planet, that Earth is the flat, stationary center of the universe."
 * 3) Climate Change denialist Christopher Monckton states "climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a leftwing conspiracy coordinated by the United Nations. "Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama and the United Nations are engaged in a communist conspiracy to destroy the global economy and seize world power."
 * 4) Cherry picking — Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers in order to make their opponents look as though they base their ideas on weak research.
 * 5) False experts — Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility.
 * 6) Moving the goalpost — Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence.
 * 7) Other logical fallacies —