A denialism taxonomy

FLICC (fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, conspiracy theories).

The science denial industry has deep roots — tobacco-cancer denial, lead paint/gas denial and other ancestral forms of commercial denial gave birth to modern forms of denial: anti-vax, anti-mask, “stop the steal” and, of course, climate denial.

https://doctorow.medium.com/i-quit-9ae7b6010c99

The denial industry has a well-developed and constantly evolving playbook. Wealthy interest seeking to sow doubt about reality — about whether reality can even be known — can pay for skilled denialists to plan and execute denial on their behalf.

Inspired by a call for a fleshed-out denial taxonomy, GMU Climate Change Communications prof John Cook expanded on Hoofnagle’s work, creating the FLICC model: Fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry-picking & conspiracies.

https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/19/1/2/463780

In a fascinating blog post, Cook enumerates all of the FLICC subtechniques, describing their relationship to the Big Five FLICC tactics, along with great, vector-based icons licensed CC BY-SA.

https://crankyuncle.com/a-history-of-flicc-the-5-techniques-of-science-denial/

Here’s the full taxonomy:

• Ad Hominem: Attacking a person/group instead of addressing their arguments.

“Climate science can’t be trusted because climate scientists are biased.”

• Ambiguity: Using ambiguous…