About Denialism
In What is Denialism? (2007), we explained denialism as rhetoric that gave the appearance of a debate but was actually a charade. Denialism is effectuated with a series of rhetorical techniques—conspiracy theories, cherry-picking data, fake experts, moving goalposts, and logical fallacies. These techniques work and nowadays, denialism would be recognized as a technique of disinformation.
Mark and Chris Hoofnagle are broadly credited with developing the fundamental contours of denialism. The key is not to engage denialist arguments, but to teach others how to recognize misleading forms of argumentation. This approach, sometimes called “technique rebuttal,” has been tested in the literature.
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