Abstract
The scientific community, we hold, often provides society with knowledge—that the HIV virus causes AIDS, that anthropogenic climate change is underway, that the MMR vaccine is safe. Some deny that we have this knowledge, however, and work to undermine it in others. It has been common (but not uncontroversial) to refer to such agents as “denialists”. At first glance, then, denialism appears to be a form of skepticism. But while we know that various denialist strategies for suppressing belief are generally effective, little is known about which strategies are most effective. We see this as an important first step toward their remediation. This paper leverages the approximate comparison to various forms of philosophical skepticism to design an experimental test of the efficacy of four broad strategies of denial at suppressing belief in specific scientific claims. Our results suggest that assertive strategies are more effective at suppressing belief than questioning strategies.
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Notes
Tukey’s HSD was chosen as the appropriate post hoc test because the sample sizes are close to equal with similar variances and Tukey has good power and control over Type 1 error.
The design of Study 2 included multiple levels of sorting that rendered some sample sizes unequal. Hockberg’s GT2 was the appropriate post hoc analysis in this case given the differences in sample sizes between the control group and the Dose 1 and Dose 3 sets.
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Slater, M.H., Huxster, J.K., Bresticker, J.E. et al. Denialism as Applied Skepticism: Philosophical and Empirical Considerations. Erkenn 85, 871–890 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0054-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0054-0