TY - JOUR
T1 - How to beat science and influence people
T2 - Policymakers and propaganda in epistemic networks
AU - Weatherall, James Owen
AU - O'Connor, Cailin
AU - Bruner, Justin P.
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number 1535139 (O'Connor). The majority of the work on this project was completed while O'Connor and Weatherall were Visiting Fellows at the Australian National University; we are grateful to the Research School for Social Science and the School of Philosophy for support. We are also grateful to audiences at the ANU, University of Groningen, UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC San Diego, and the 2018 PPE Society Meeting for helpful feedback on talks related to this work, and to Jeff Barrett, Craig Callender, Bennett Holman, David Manheim, Aydin Mohseni, Mike Schneider, and Chris Smeenk for helpful discussions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - In their recent book, Oreskes and Conway ([2010]) describe the 'tobacco strategy', which was used by the tobacco industry to influence policymakers regarding the health risks of tobacco products. The strategy involved two parts, consisting of (i) promoting and sharing independent research supporting the industry's preferred position and (ii) funding additional research, but selectively publishing the results. We introduce a model of the tobacco strategy, and use it to argue that both prongs of the strategy can be extremely effective - even when policymakers rationally update on all evidence available to them. As we elaborate, this model helps illustrate the conditions under which the tobacco strategy is particularly successful. In addition, we show how journalists engaged in 'fair' reporting can inadvertently mimic the effects of industry on public belief.
AB - In their recent book, Oreskes and Conway ([2010]) describe the 'tobacco strategy', which was used by the tobacco industry to influence policymakers regarding the health risks of tobacco products. The strategy involved two parts, consisting of (i) promoting and sharing independent research supporting the industry's preferred position and (ii) funding additional research, but selectively publishing the results. We introduce a model of the tobacco strategy, and use it to argue that both prongs of the strategy can be extremely effective - even when policymakers rationally update on all evidence available to them. As we elaborate, this model helps illustrate the conditions under which the tobacco strategy is particularly successful. In addition, we show how journalists engaged in 'fair' reporting can inadvertently mimic the effects of industry on public belief.
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U2 - 10.1093/bjps/axy062
DO - 10.1093/bjps/axy062
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85099372636
VL - 71
SP - 1157
EP - 1186
JO - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
JF - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
SN - 0007-0882
IS - 4
ER -