Doubt is Their Product

What Hacker News says

1. ojbyrneDec 2010
   Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health

   Not really the audience here (it has a very anti-libertarian message), but I found this book to be eye-opening. Basically it's about how companies create uncertainty, delay, litigate, whatever it takes to keep extremely harmful products from being made illegal (most of the methods were pioneered by the tobacco industry). I found it eye-opening.

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2. evgenDec 2010
   Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand.

   Yeah, because no field has jargon and standard methods that require a small amount of prior knowledge to understand... We use a ton of confusing and sometimes overlapping jargon in the computer industry, simplify complex systems using metaphors that are not really correct (e.g. the internet is a series of tubes...), and will often give vague answers to people who are not in the industry. It is not because we have anything to hide, but because we do not have the time or energy to give someone an introductory course on how computers work just to answer a simple question. If you had the time to learn and the necessary educational background you could in fact learn when they are working on and understand what they are saying without too much effort. Most of the public is too busy, too lazy, or too stupid to do this.

   As far as scientists being "chased" from the republican party, start with The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, move on to Unscientific America by the same author, The Great Derangement by Matt Tiabbi, or Idiot America by Charles Pierce. Skim through Merchants of Doubt or Doubt is their Product to see some of the links to various corporate think tanks. The evidence is clear, maybe you should check some of it out.

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3. SideburnsOfDoomOct 2021
   I'll add that it's not necessary for a "shill campaign" to "win" the argument, merely to add enough doubt that a consensus is not reached. Manufacturing doubt is a standard tactic (1)

   Or failing that, one could make the comments such a shit-show that HN decides to flag the whole story off the front page, as is their right.

   You'll have to make up your own mind as to if that's happening today and on other days, as specific accusations are frowned upon in the site terms (2)

   1)

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubt_Is_Their_Product

   https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/

   2)

   https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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4. SideburnsOfDoomOct 2021
   > It's hard to discern where the truth lies. Who's wrong?

   If that's how you feel, then it's likely that a common and successful kind of propaganda has done its job. You don't necessarily have to be persuaded, you just have to doubt the normal conclusion:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubt_Is_Their_Product

   https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/

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