Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Science Denial
  • Cited by 2
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      14 November 2025
      20 November 2025
      ISBN:
      9781009625326
      9781009625272
      9781009625296
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009625326
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.259kg, 84 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.135kg, 84 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Philosophy: General Interest, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy
      Series:
      Elements in the Philosophy of Science
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Philosophy: General Interest, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy
    Series:
    Elements in the Philosophy of Science
    Information

    Book description

    Over the last couple of decades, there has been increasing concern about the alleged rise of various forms of science denial. But what exactly is science denial? Is it really on the rise? If so, what explains its rise? And what is so concerning about it? This Element argues that the notion of science denial is highly ambiguous and that, once we carefully distinguish among all the different phenomena that are often conflated under this label, it is doubtful that any of them warrants all of the concerns that animate the critics of science denial. This has important consequences for how we understand the complex and delicate relationship between science and the public and, more generally, the collective epistemic malaise afflicting liberal democracies.

    References

    References

    Achen, Christopher H., and Bartels, Larry M.. 2016. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
    Almassi, Ben. 2012. ‘Climate Change and the Ethics of Individual Emissions: A Response to Sinnott-Armstrong’. Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy 4 (1): 4–21.
    Altanian, Melanie. 2024. The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism. London: Routledge.
    Alter, Charlotte. 2014. ‘Anti-Vaccination Parents Reject Scientific Evidence against Autism’. Time, 4 March. https://healthland.time.com/2014/03/04/nothing-not-even-hard-facts-can-make-anti-vaxxers-change-their-minds/.
    Anderson, Elizabeth. 2011. ‘Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony’. Episteme 8 (2): 144–64. https://doi.org/10.3366/epi.2011.0013.
    Angell, Marcia. 2005. The Truth about the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do about It. New York: Random House.
    Aytaç, Uğur. 2021. ‘On the Limits of the Political: The Problem of Overly Permissive Pluralism in Mouffe’s Agonism’. Constellations 28 (3): 417–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12525.
    Ball, James. 2018. Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World. London: Biteback.
    Bardon, Adrian. 2019. The Truth about Denial: Bias and Self-Deception in Science, Politics, and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Beres, Derek, Remski, Matthew, and Walker, Julian. 2023. Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat. London: Penguin.
    Berman, Jonathan M. 2020. Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
    Blewett, Lynn A., Davidson, Gestur, Bramlett, Matthew D., Rodin, Holly, and Messonnier, Mark L.. 2008. ‘The Impact of Gaps in Health Insurance Coverage on Immunization Status for Young Children’. Health Services Research 43 (5 Pt 1): 1619–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2008.00864.x.
    Bogart, Laura M., Wagner, Glenn, Galvan, Frank H., and Banks, Denedria. 2010. ‘Conspiracy Beliefs about HIV Are Related to Antiretroviral Treatment Nonadherence among African American Men with HIV’. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (1999) 53 (5): 648–55. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0b013e3181c57dbc.
    BonJour, Laurence. 1978. ‘Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?’ American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1): 1–14.
    Brennan, Jason. 2017. Against Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
    Brown, James Robert. 2004. ‘Money, Method and Medical Research’. Episteme 1 (1): 49–59. https://doi.org/10.3366/epi.2004.1.1.49.
    Brown, Matthew J. 2024. ‘For Values in Science: Assessing Recent Arguments for the Ideal of Value-Free Science’. Synthese 204 (4): 112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04762-1.
    Carter, J. Adam. 2024. ‘Epistemic Normativity Is Not Independent of Our Goals’. In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 3rd Ed., edited by Roeber, Blake, Sosa, Ernest, Steup, Matthias, and Turri, John, 263–73. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
    Cassam, Quassim. 2019. Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Cleghorn, Elinor. 2021. Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World. New York, NY: Dutton.
    Collins, Harry M., and Evans, Robert. 2007. Rethinking Expertise. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    Conee, Earl, and Feldman, Richard. 2004. Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Contessa, Gabriele. 2022. ‘Shopping for Experts’. Synthese 200 (3): 1–21.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03590-5.
    Contessa, Gabriele. 2023. ‘It Takes a Village to Trust Science: Towards a (Thoroughly) Social Approach to Public Trust in Science’. Erkenntnis 88 (7): 2941–66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00485-8.
    Contessa, Gabriele Public Trust in Science: A Communitarian Approach. Unpublished Manuscript.
    Cook, John, Nuccitelli, Dana, Green, Sarah A. et al. 2013. ‘Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature’. Environmental Research Letters 8 (2): 024024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024.
    Cook, John, Oreskes, Naomi, Doran, Peter T. et al. 2016. ‘Consensus on Consensus: A Synthesis of Consensus Estimates on Human-Caused Global Warming’. Environmental Research Letters 11 (4): 048002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002.
    Croce, Michel. 2018. ‘Expert-Oriented Abilities vs. Novice-Oriented Abilities: An Alternative Account of Epistemic Authority’. Episteme 15 (4): 476–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2017.16.
    Cruz, Helen de. 2020. ‘Believing to Belong: Addressing the Novice-Expert Problem in Polarized Scientific Communication’. Social Epistemology 34 (5): 440–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2020.1739778.
    D’Ancona, Matthew. 2018. Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back. London: Ebury Press.
    Desai, Angel N., and Majumder, Maimuna S.. 2020. ‘What Is Herd Immunity?’ JAMA 324 (20): 2113. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.20895.
    Ditto, Peter H., Liu, Brittany S., Clark, Cory J. et al. 2019. ‘At Least Bias Is Bipartisan: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives’. Perspectives on Psychological Science 14 (2): 273–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617746796.
    Trump, Donald J. [@realDonaldTrump]. 2012. ‘The Concept of Global Warming Was Created by and for the Chinese in Order to Make U.S. Manufacturing Non-Competitive’. Tweet. Twitter. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385.
    Douglas, Heather. 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
    Douglas, Heather 2023. ‘Differentiating Scientific Inquiry and Politics’. Philosophy 98 (2): 123–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819122000432.
    Druckman, James N., and McGrath, Mary C.. 2019. ‘The Evidence for Motivated Reasoning in Climate Change Preference Formation’. Nature Climate Change 9: 111–19.
    Ellis, Jon. 2022. ‘Motivated Reasoning and the Ethics of Belief’. Philosophy Compass 17 (6): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12828.
    Fagan, Moira, and Huang, Christine. 2019. ‘A Look at How People around the World View Climate Change’. Pew Research Center (blog). 18 April 2019. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/04/18/a-look-at-how-people-around-the-world-view-climate-change/.
    Fantl, Jeremy, and McGrath, Matthew. 2009. Knowledge in an Uncertain World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Fasce, Angelo, Schmid, Philipp, Holford, Dawn L. et al. 2023. ‘A Taxonomy of Anti-Vaccination Arguments from a Systematic Literature Review and Text Modelling’. Nature Human Behaviour 7 (9): 1462–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01644-3.
    Feemster, Kristen A., and Szipszky, Claire. 2020. ‘Resurgence of Measles in the United States: How Did We Get Here?’ Current Opinion in Pediatrics 32 (1): 139–44. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOP.0000000000000845.
    Fine, Cordelia. 2011. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds Society and Neurosexism Create Difference. Reprint edition. New York: W. W. Norton.
    Frances, Bryan, and Matheson, Jonathan. 2024. ‘Disagreement’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward, N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, Winter. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/disagreement/.
    Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005. On Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
    Friedman, Lisa. 2020. ‘Covid, Climate and Denial’. The New York Times, 7 October, sec. Climate. www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/climate/covid-climate-and-denial.html.
    Furman, Katherine. 2024. ‘Beliefs, Values and Emotions: An Interactive Approach to Distrust in Science’. Philosophical Psychology 37 (1): 240–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2023.2266454.
    Gaffney, Adam, Himmelstein, David U., Dickman, Samuel, McCormick, Danny, and Woolhandler, Stephanie. 2023. ‘Uptake and Equity in Influenza Vaccination among Veterans with VA Coverage, Veterans without VA Coverage, and Non-Veterans in the USA, 2019-2020’. Journal of General Internal Medicine 38 (5): 1152–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-022-07797-7.
    Gaffney, Adam W., Woolhandler, Steffie, and Himmelstein, David U.. 2022. ‘Association of Uninsurance and VA Coverage with the Uptake and Equity of COVID-19 Vaccination: January–March 2021’. Journal of General Internal Medicine 37 (4): 1008–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-021-07332-0.
    Gerken, Mikkel. 2022. Scientific Testimony: Its Roles in Science and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Goldberg, Sanford C. 2010. Relying on Others: An Essay in Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Goldberg, Sanford C. 2018. To the Best of Our Knowledge: Social Expectations and Epistemic Normativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Goldberg, Jeffrey. 2020. ‘Why Obama Fears for Our Democracy’. The Atlantic, 16 November. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/why-obama-fears-for-our-democracy/617087/.
    Goldenberg, Maya J. 2021. Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
    Gould, Stephen Jay. 2006. The Mismeasure of Man. Revised and Expanded edition. New York: W. W. Norton.
    Grizzard, Matthew, Frazer, Rebecca, and Monge, Charles. 2023. ‘Demystifying Schadenfreude: How Disposition Theorizing Explains Responses to Social Media Stories of Unvaccinated COVID-19 Deaths’. New Media & Society 27: 702–25, July, 14614448231184868. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231184868.
    Habgood-Coote, Joshua. 2019. ‘Stop Talking about Fake News!’ Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (9–10): 1033–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2018.1508363.
    Hannon, Michael. 2023. ‘The Politics of Post-Truth’. Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 35 (1): 40–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2023.2194109.
    Hansson, Sven Ove. 2017. ‘Science Denial as a Form of Pseudoscience’. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 63 (June): 39–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.05.002.
    Hares, Andrew, Dickinson, Janet, and Wilkes, Keith. 2010. ‘Climate Change and the Air Travel Decisions of UK Tourists’. Journal of Transport Geography, Tourism and climate change, 18 (3): 466–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.06.018.
    Hiller, Avram. 2011. ‘Climate Change and Individual Responsibility’. The Monist 94 (3): 349–68. https://doi.org/10.5840/monist201194318.
    Holford, Dawn L., Fasce, Angelo, Costello, Thomas H., and Lewandowsky, Stephan. 2023. ‘Psychological Profiles of Anti-Vaccination Argument Endorsement’. Scientific Reports 13 (1): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30883-7.
    Holford, Dawn L., Schmid, Philipp, Fasce, Angelo, and Lewandowsky, Stephan. 2024. ‘The Empathetic Refutational Interview to Tackle Vaccine Misconceptions: Four Randomized Experiments’. Health Psychology 43 (6): 426–37. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001354.
    Holpuch, Amanda. 2014. ‘Obama Calls for Climate Change Action in California Commencement Speech’. The Guardian, 14 June, sec. Environment. www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/14/obama-university-california-irvine-speech-climate-change.
    Hoofnagle, Mark, and Hoofnagle, Chris Jay. 2007. ‘What Is Denialism?’ Denialism (blog). 30 April 2007. https://denialism.com/about/.
    Imhoff, Roland, and Lamberty, Pia Karoline. 2017. ‘Too Special to Be Duped: Need for Uniqueness Motivates Conspiracy Beliefs’. European Journal of Social Psychology 47 (6): 724–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2265.
    Irzık, Gürol, and Kurtulmuş, Faik. 2019. ‘What Is Epistemic Public Trust in Science?’ The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4): 1145–66. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axy007.
    Irzık, Gürol, and Kurtulmuş, Faik 2021. ‘Well-Ordered Science and Public Trust in Science’. Synthese 198 (Suppl 19): 4731–48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02022-7.
    Shanto, Iyengar, and Westwood, Sean J.. 2015. ‘Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization’. American Journal of Political Science 59 (3): 690–707.
    Jenke, Libby. 2024. ‘Affective Polarization and Misinformation Belief’. Political Behavior 46 (2): 825–84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09851-w.
    Jylhä, Kirsti M., Stanley, Samantha K., Ojala, Maria, and Clarke, Edward J. R.. 2023. ‘Science Denial’. European Psychologist 28 (3): 151–61. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000487.
    Kahan, Dan M. 2015. ‘Climate-Science Communication and the Measurement Problem’. Political Psychology 36 (S1): 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12244.
    Kahan, Dan M. 2016. ‘The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is and How to Measure It’. In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, edited by Robert, A. Scott and Kosslyn, Stephen, 1–16. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118900772.etrds0417.
    Kahan, Dan M. 2017. ‘The “Gateway Belief” Illusion: Reanalyzing the Results of a Scientific-Consensus Messaging Study’. Journal of Science Communication 16 (5): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.16050203.
    Kahan, Dan M., Peters, Ellen, Wittlin, Maggie et al. 2012. ‘The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks’. Nature Climate Change 2 (10): 732–35. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547.
    Kahn-Harris, Keith. 2018. ‘Denialism: What Drives People to Reject the Truth’. The Guardian, 3 August, sec. News. www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/03/denialism-what-drives-people-to-reject-the-truth.
    Kalichman, Seth C., Eaton, Lisa, and Cherry, Chauncey. 2010. ‘“There Is No Proof That HIV Causes AIDS”: AIDS Denialism Beliefs among People Living with HIV/AIDS’. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 33 (6): 432–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-010-9275-7.
    Kourany, Janet, and Carrier, Martin, eds. 2020. Science and the Production of Ignorance: When the Quest for Knowledge Is Thwarted. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
    Kreil, Agnes S. 2021. ‘Does Flying Less Harm Academic Work? Arguments and Assumptions about Reducing Air Travel in Academia’. Travel Behaviour and Society 25 (October): 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2021.04.011.
    Kuhn, Thomas S. 1957. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    Kwon, Diana. 2019. ‘How to Debate a Science Denier’. Scientific American. www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-debate-a-science-denier/.
    Lackey, Jennifer. 2018. ‘Experts and Peer Disagreement’. In Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology, edited by Benton, Matthew A., Hawthorne, John, and Rabinowitz, Dani, 228–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Levin, Dan. 2021. ‘They Died from Covid: Then the Online Attacks Started’. The New York Times, 27 November, sec. Style. www.nytimes.com/2021/11/27/style/anti-vaccine-deaths-social-media.html.
    Levy, Neil. 2017. ‘Due Deference to Denialism: Explaining Ordinary People’s Rejection of Established Scientific Findings’. Synthese, June. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1477-x.
    Levy, Neil 2021. ‘Echoes of Covid Misinformation’. Philosophical Psychology 36 (5): 931–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2021.2009452.
    Levy, Neil 2022. Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen to Good People. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Levy, Neil, and Varley, Russell. forthcoming. ‘Mind the Guardrails: Epistemic Trespassing and Apt Deference’. Social Epistemology. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2024.2400560.
    Lewandowsky, Stephan. 2021. ‘Liberty and the Pursuit of Science Denial’. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Human Response to Climate Change: From Neurons to Collective Action, 42 (December): 65–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.02.024.
    Lewandowsky, Stephan, Cook, John, Ecker, Ullrich K. H. et al. 2020. The Debunking Handbook 2020. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. https://sks.to/db2020.
    Li, Wenchao, Long, Christopher, Fan, Tongyao et al. 2023. ‘Gas Cooking and Respiratory Outcomes in Children: A Systematic Review’. Global Epidemiology 5 (December): 100107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2023.100107.
    Lin, Weiwei, Brunekreef, Bert, and Gehring, Ulrike. 2013. ‘Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Indoor Nitrogen Dioxide and Gas Cooking on Asthma and Wheeze in Children’. International Journal of Epidemiology 42 (6): 1724–37. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyt150.
    Linden, Sander L. van der, Leiserowitz, Anthony A., Feinberg, Geoffrey D., and Maibach, Edward W.. 2015. ‘The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence’. PLOS ONE 10 (2): e0118489. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118489.
    Linden, Sander L. van der, Clarke, Chris E., and Maibach, Edward W.. 2015. ‘Highlighting Consensus among Medical Scientists Increases Public Support for Vaccines: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment’. BMC Public Health 15 (1207): 1–5 (December). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2541-4.
    Leib, Litman, Rosen, Zohn, Hartman, Rachel et al. 2023. ‘Did People Really Drink Bleach to Prevent COVID-19? A Guide for Protecting Survey Data against Problematic Respondents’. PLOS ONE 18 (7): e0287837. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287837.
    Mann, Michael, and Toles, Tom. 2016. The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy. Illustrated edition. New York: Columbia University Press.
    Marlon, Jennifer R., Goddard, Emily, Howe, Peter et al. 2023. ‘Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2023’. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (blog). 13 December. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/.
    Marshall, Barry J., and Warren, J. Robin. 1984. ‘Unidentified Curved Bacilli in the Stomach of Patients with Gastritis and Peptic Ulceration’. The Lancet 323 (8390): 1311–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(84)91816-6.
    McIntyre, Lee. 2018. Post-Truth. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
    McIntyre, Lee 2019. The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
    McIntyre, Lee 2021. How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
    McKenna, Robin. 2020. ‘Persuasion and Epistemic Paternalism’. In Epistemic Paternalism: Conceptions, Justifications and Implications, edited by Axtell, Guy and Bernal, Amiel, 91–106. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield International.
    Melo-Martín, Immaculada de, and Intemann, Kristen. 2018. The Fight against Doubt: How to Bridge the Gap Between Scientists and the Public. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Michaels, David, ed. 2008. Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Miller, Boaz. 2013. ‘When Is Consensus Knowledge Based? Distinguishing Shared Knowledge from Mere Agreement’. Synthese 190 (7): 1293–1316. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0225-5.
    Mnookin, Seth. 2012. The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
    Mooney, Chris. 2014. ‘Study: You Can’t Change an Anti-Vaxxer’s Mind’. Mother Jones (blog). 3 March. www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effect/.
    Mooney, Chris 2021. ‘Why Science Denial Is Driven by Much More than Just Politics’. Washington Post, 27 October. www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/07/01/politics-may-interfere-with-science-but-not-all-science-denial-is-political/.
    Mouffe, Chantal. 2005. On the Political. London: Routledge.
    Nadler, Steven M., and Shapiro, Lawrence. 2021. When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: How Philosophy Can Save Us from Ourselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
    Nguyen, C. Thi. 2020. ‘Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles’. Episteme 17: 141–61. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.32.
    Norman, Andy. 2021. Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think. New York: Harper Wave.
    NPR. 2015. ‘Scientific Evidence Doesn’t Support Global Warming, Sen. Ted Cruz Says’. NPR. 9 December. www.npr.org/2015/12/09/459026242/scientific-evidence-doesn-t-support-global-warming-sen-ted-cruz-says.
    Nyhan, Brendan, and Reifler, Jason. 2015. ‘Does Correcting Myths about the Flu Vaccine Work? An Experimental Evaluation of the Effects of Corrective Information’. Vaccine 33 (3): 459–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.11.017.
    Brendan, Nyhan, Reifler, Jason, Richey, Sean, and Freed, Gary L.. 2014. ‘Effective Messages in Vaccine Promotion: A Randomized Trial’. Pediatrics 133 (4): e835–e842, February. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-2365.
    Offit, Paul A. 2015. Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Illustrated edition. New York: Basic Books.
    Naomi, Oreskes, and Conway, Erik M.. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.
    Paul, Annie Murphy. 2017. ‘Why Science Denial Isn’t Necessarily Ideological’. Washington Post, 25 May, sec. Opinions. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-science-denial-isnt-necessarily-ideological/2017/05/25/c8cc8346-3f14-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html.
    Pomerantsev, Peter. 2020. This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War against Reality. Illustrated edition. New York: PublicAffairs.
    Porter, Amy, and Goldfarb, Johanna. 2019. ‘Measles: A Dangerous Vaccine-Preventable Disease Returns’. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine 86 (6): 393–98. https://doi.org/10.3949/ccjm.86a.19065.
    Potochnik, Angela. 2024. Science and the Public. Elements in the Philosophy of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Rascoe, Ayesha. 2020. ‘Herman Cain, Former GOP Presidential Candidate, Dies From COVID-19’. NPR, 30 July, sec. Politics. www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897158910/herman-cain-former-presidential-candidate-dies-from-covid-19.
    Raz, Joseph. 1985. ‘Authority and Justification’. Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1): 3–29.
    Raz, Joseph 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
    Ridder, Jeroen de. 2024. ‘What’s So Bad about Misinformation?’ Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (9): 2956–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2021.2002187.
    Rushing, J. Taylor, and Martosko, David. 2016. ‘Trump Insists It Was a “joke” When He Claimed Global Warning Is a Hoax’. Daily Mail, 18 January, sec. News. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3405315/Trump-insists-joke-claimed-Chinese-invented-global-warming.html.
    Saini, Angela. 2017. Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong – and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
    Saini, Angela. 2020. Superior: The Return of Race Science. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
    Schmid, Philipp, and Betsch, Cornelia. 2019. ‘Effective Strategies for Rebutting Science Denialism in Public Discussions’. Nature Human Behaviour 3 (9): 931–39. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0632-4.
    Schulz, Kathryn. 2010. ‘Stress Doesn’t Cause Ulcers! or, How to Win a Nobel Prize in One Easy Lesson: Barry Marshall on Being … Right’. Slate, 10 September. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/09/stress-doesn-t-cause-ulcers-or-how-to-win-a-nobel-prize-in-one-easy-lesson-barry-marshall-on-being-right.html.
    Sinatra, Gale, and Hofer, Barbara. 2021. Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do about It. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. 2005. ‘It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations’. In Perspectives on Climate Change, edited by Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter and Howarth, Richard, 221–53. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
    Smith, Allan. 2021a. ‘A Trio of Conservative Radio Hosts Died of Covid: Will Their Deaths Change Vaccine Resistance?’ NBC News. 3 September. www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trio-conservative-radio-hosts-died-covid-will-their-deaths-change-n1278258.
    Smith, David Livingstone. 2021b. Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    Specter, Michael. 2009. Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. 1st ed. New York: Penguin Press.
    Stegenga, Jacob. 2018. Medical Nihilism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Stott, Peter. 2021. Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle against Climate Change Denial. London: Atlantic Books.
    Tappin, Ben M., Pennycook, Gordon, and Rand, David G.. 2020a. ‘Bayesian or Biased? Analytic Thinking and Political Belief Updating.’ Cognition 204: 1–12. 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104375
    Tappin, Ben M., Pennycook, Gordon, and Rand, David G. 2020b. ‘Thinking Clearly about Causal Inferences of Politically Motivated Reasoning: Why Paradigmatic Study Designs Often Undermine Causal Inference’. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 34: 81–87.
    Taylor, Kyla W., Eftim, Sorina E., Sibrizzi, Christopher A. et al. 2025. ‘Fluoride Exposure and Children’s IQ Scores: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’. JAMA Pediatrics 179 (3): 282–92. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.5542.
    Thagard, Paul. 1999. How Scientists Explain Disease. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
    Thaller, Annina, Schreuer, Anna, and Posch, Alfred. 2021. ‘Flying High in Academia – Willingness of University Staff to Perform Low-Carbon Behavior Change in Business Travel’. Frontiers in Sustainability 2: 1–10, (December). https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2021.790807.
    Till, Christine, and Green, Rivka. 2021. ‘Controversy: The Evolving Science of Fluoride: When New Evidence Doesn’t Conform with Existing Beliefs’. Pediatric Research 90 (5): 1093–95. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-020-0973-8.
    Trivers, Robert. 2011. The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. New York: Basic Books.
    Tsai, George. 2014. ‘Rational Persuasion as Paternalism’. Philosophy and Public Affairs 42 (1): 78–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12026.
    Tseng, Sherry H. Y., Lee, Craig, and Higham, James. 2022. ‘Managing Academic Air Travel Emissions: Towards System-Wide Practice Change’. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 113 (December): 103504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2022.103504.
    Tufekci, Zeynep. 2025. ‘We Were Badly Misled about the Event that Changed Our Lives’. The New York Times, 16 March, sec. Opinion. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/opinion/covid-pandemic-lab-leak.html.
    Tyson, Alec, Funk, Cary, and Kennedy, Brian. 2023. ‘What the Data Says about Americans’ Views of Climate Change’. Pew Research Center. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/.
    Vickers, Peter. 2023. Identifying Future-Proof Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Washington, Harriet A. 2007. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Doubleday.
    Watson, Jamie Carlin. 2021. Expertise: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Bloomsbury.
    West, Mick. 2018. Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect. New York: Skyhorse.
    Whitmarsh, Lorraine, Capstick, Stuart, Moore, Isabelle, Köhler, Jana, and Quéré, Corinne Le. 2020. ‘Use of Aviation by Climate Change Researchers: Structural Influences, Personal Attitudes, and Information Provision’. Global Environmental Change 65 (November): 102184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102184.
    Wilholt, Torsten. 2013. ‘Epistemic Trust in Science’. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (2): 233–53. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axs007.
    Williams, Daniel. 2023a. ‘The Case for Partisan Motivated Reasoning’. Synthese 202 (3): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04223-1.
    Williams, Daniel 2023b. ‘The Marketplace of Rationalizations’. Economics and Philosophy 39 (1): 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266267121000389.
    Williams, Joshua T. B., Rice, John, Cox-Martin, Matt, Bayliss, Elizabeth A., and O’Leary, Sean T.. 2019. ‘Religious Vaccine Exemptions in Kindergartners: 2011–2018’. Pediatrics 144 (6): e20192710. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-2710.
    Worsnip, Alex. 2024. ‘Epistemic Normativity Is Independent of Our Goals’. In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 3rd Ed., edited by Roeber, Blake, Sosa, Ernest, Steup, Matthias, and Turri, John, 253–62. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
    Wynne, Brian. 1996. ‘May the Sheep Safely Graze? A Reflexive View of the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide’. In Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology, edited by Lash, Scott, Szerszynski, Bronislaw, and Wynne, Brian, 27–83. London: SAGE.
    Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 2012. Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    The PDF of this book complies with version 2.1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), covering newer accessibility requirements and improved user experiences and achieves the intermediate (AA) level of WCAG compliance, covering a wider range of accessibility requirements.

    Content Navigation
    Table of contents navigation

    Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.

    Reading Order and Textual Equivalents
    Single logical reading order

    You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.

    Visual Accessibility
    Use of colour is not sole means of conveying information

    You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.

    Structural and Technical Features
    ARIA roles provided

    You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.