Denialism

For the titular concept, see Denial.

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid believing in a psychologically uncomfortable truth.^[1] Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.^[2]

Banner at the 2017 Climate March in Washington, D.C.

In the sciences, denialism is the rejection of basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a subject, in favor of ideas that are radical, controversial, or fabricated.^[3] The terms Holocaust denial and AIDS denialism describe the denial of the facts and the reality of the subject matters,^[4] and the term climate change denial describes denial of the scientific consensus that the climate change of planet Earth is a real and occurring event primarily caused in geologically recent times by human activity.^[5] The forms of denialism present the common feature of the person rejecting overwhelming evidence and trying to generate political controversy in attempts to deny the existence of consensus.^[6][7]

The motivations and causes of denialism include religion, self-interest (economic, political, or financial), and defence mechanisms meant to protect the psyche of the denialist against mentally disturbing facts and ideas; such disturbance is called cognitive dissonance in psychology terms.^[8][9]

Definition and tactics

Anthropologist Didier Fassin distinguishes between denial, defined as "the empirical observation that reality and truth are being denied", and denialism, which he defines as "an ideological position whereby one systematically reacts by refusing reality and truth".^[10] Persons and social groups who reject propositions on which there exists a mainstream and scientific consensus engage in denialism when they use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument and legitimate debate, when there is none.^[6][7][11] It is a process that operates by employing one or more of the following five tactics to maintain the appearance of legitimate controversy:^[6][12]

1. Conspiracy theories – Dismissing the data or observation by suggesting opponents are involved in "a conspiracy to suppress the truth".
2. Cherry picking – Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers to make their opponents look as though they base their ideas on weak research. Diethelm and McKee (2009) note, "Denialists are usually not deterred by the extreme isolation of their theories, but rather see it as an indication of their intellectual courage against the dominant orthodoxy and the accompanying political correctness."^[6]
3. False experts – Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility. This goes hand-in-hand with the marginalization of real experts and researchers.^[6]
4. Moving the goalposts – Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence (aka Shifting baseline)
5. Other logical fallacies – Usually one or more of false analogy, appeal to consequences, straw man, or red herring.

Common tactics to different types of denialism include misrepresenting evidence, false equivalence, half-truths, and outright fabrication.^[13][14][15] South African judge Edwin Cameron notes that a common tactic used by denialists is to "make great play of the inescapable indeterminacy of figures and statistics".^[15] Historian Taner Akçam states that denialism is commonly believed to be negation of facts, but in fact "it is in that nebulous territory between facts and truth where such denialism germinates. Denialism marshals its own facts and it has its own truth."^[16]

Focusing on the rhetorical tactics through which denialism is achieved in language, in Alex Gillespie (2020)^[17] of the London School of Economics has reviewed the linguistic and practical defensive tactics for denying disruptive information. These tactics are conceptualized in terms of three layers of defence:

1. Avoiding – The first line of defence against disruptive information is to avoid it.
2. Delegitimizing – The second line of defence is to attack the messenger, by undermining the credibility of the source.
3. Limiting – The final line of defence, if disruptive information cannot be avoided or delegitimized, is to rationalize and limit the impact of the disruptive ideas.

In 2009 author Michael Specter defined group denialism as "when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie".^[18]

Prescriptive and polemic perspectives

If one party to a debate accuses the other of denialism they are framing the debate. This is because an accusation of denialism is both prescriptive and polemic: prescriptive because it carries implications that there is truth to the denied claim; polemic since the accuser implies that continued denial in the light of presented evidence raises questions about the other's motives.^[10] Edward Skidelsky, a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University writes that "An accusation of 'denial' is serious, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or self-deception. The thing being denied is, by implication, so obviously true that the denier must be driven by perversity, malice or wilful blindness." He suggests that, by the introduction of the word denier into further areas of historical and scientific debate, "One of the great achievements of The Enlightenment – the liberation of historical and scientific enquiry from dogma – is quietly being reversed".^[19]

Some people have suggested that because denial of the Holocaust is well known, advocates who use the term denialist in other areas of debate may intentionally or unintentionally imply that their opponents are little better than Holocaust deniers.^[20][21] However, Robert Gallo et al. defended this latter comparison, stating that AIDS denialism is similar to Holocaust denial since it is a form of pseudoscience that "contradicts an immense body of research".^[22]

Politics and science

Further information: Antiscience, Pseudoscience, and politicization of science

Climate change

This section is an excerpt from Climate change denial.[edit]

Climate change denial (also global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of a scientific controversy where there is none.^[23] Climate change denial includes unreasonable doubts about the extent to which climate change is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, and the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions.^{[24][25][26]: 170–173} To a lesser extent, climate change denial can also be implicit when people accept the science but fail to reconcile it with their belief or action.^[25] Several studies have analyzed these positions as forms of denialism,^{[27]: 691–698} pseudoscience,^[28] or propaganda.^[29]: 351

Many issues that are settled in the scientific community, such as human responsibility for climate change, remain the subject of politically or economically motivated attempts to downplay, dismiss or deny them—an ideological phenomenon academics and scientists call climate change denial. Climate scientists, especially in the United States, have reported government and oil-industry pressure to censor or suppress their work and hide scientific data, with directives not to discuss the subject publicly. The fossil fuels lobby has been identified as overtly or covertly supporting efforts to undermine or discredit the scientific consensus on climate change.^[30][31]

HIV/AIDS

Main article: HIV/AIDS denialism

AIDS denialism is the denial that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).^[32] AIDS denialism has been described as being "among the most vocal anti-science denial movements".^[33] Some denialists reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that the virus exists but say that it is a harmless passenger virus and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as denialists acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of recreational drug use, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and side effects of antiretroviral medication, rather than infection with HIV. However, the evidence that HIV causes AIDS is scientifically conclusive^[34][35] and the scientific community rejects and ignores AIDS-denialist claims as based on faulty reasoning, cherry picking, and misrepresentation of mainly outdated scientific data.^{[lower-alpha 1]} With the rejection of these arguments by the scientific community, AIDS-denialist material is now spread mainly through the Internet.^[36]

Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, embraced AIDS denialism, proclaiming that AIDS was primarily caused by poverty. About 365,000 people died from AIDS during his presidency; it is estimated that around 343,000 premature deaths could have been prevented if proper treatment had been available.^[37][38]

COVID-19

Main article: COVID-19 misinformation

"COVID is a lie" graffiti in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England

The term "COVID-19 denialism" or merely "COVID denialism" refers to the thinking of those who deny the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic,^[39][40] at least to the extent of denying the scientifically recognized COVID mortality data of the World Health Organization. The claims that the COVID-19 pandemic has been faked, exaggerated, or mischaracterized are pseudoscience.^[41] Some famous people who have engaged in COVID-19 denialism include Elon Musk,^[42] former U.S. President Donald Trump,^[43][44] and former Brazilian President Bolsonaro.^[45]

Evolution

Main article: Rejection of evolution by religious groups

Religious beliefs may prompt an individual to deny the validity of the scientific theory of evolution. Evolution is considered an undisputed fact within the scientific community and in academia, where the level of support for evolution is essentially universal, yet this view is often met with opposition by biblical literalists.^{[46][47][48][49][50]} The alternative view is often presented as a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis's creation myth. Many fundamentalist Christians teach creationism as if it were fact under the banners of creation science and intelligent design. Beliefs that typically coincide with creationism include the belief in the global flood myth, geocentrism, and the belief that the Earth is only 6,000–10,000 years old.^[51] These beliefs are viewed as pseudoscience in the scientific community and are widely regarded as erroneous.^[52]

Flat Earth

Main articles: Flat Earth and Modern flat Earth beliefs

The superseded belief that the Earth is flat, and denial of all of the overwhelming evidence that supports an approximately spherical Earth that rotates around its axis and orbits the Sun, persists into the 21st century. Modern proponents of flat-Earth cosmology (or flat-Earthers) refuse to accept any kind of contrary evidence, dismissing all spaceflights and images from space as hoaxes and accusing all organizations and even private citizens of conspiring to "hide the truth". They also claim that no actual satellites are orbiting the Earth, that the International Space Station is fake, and that these are lies from all governments involved in this grand cover-up. Some even believe other planets and stars are hoaxes.

Adherents of the modern flat-earth model propose that a dome-shaped firmament encloses a disk-shaped Earth. They may also claim, after Samuel Rowbotham, that the Sun is only 3,000 miles (4,800 km) above the Earth and that the Moon and the Sun orbit above the Earth rather than around it. Modern flat-earthers believe that Antarctica is not a continent but a massive ice floe, with a wall 150 feet (46 m) or higher, which circles the perimeter of the Earth and keeps everything (including all the oceans' water) from falling off the edge.

Flat-Earthers also assert that no one is allowed to fly over or explore Antarctica, despite contrary evidence. According to them, all photos and videos of ships sinking under the horizon and of the bottoms of city skylines and clouds below the horizon, revealing the curvature of the Earth, have been manipulated, computer-generated, or somehow faked. Therefore, regardless of any scientific or empirical evidence provided, flat-Earthers conclude that it is fabricated or altered in some way.

When linked to other observed phenomena such as gravity, sunsets, tides, eclipses, distances and other measurements that challenge the flat earth model, claimants replace commonly-accepted explanations with piecemeal models that distort or over-simplify how perspective, mass, buoyancy, light or other physical systems work.^[53] These piecemeal replacements rarely conform with each other, finally leaving many flat-Earth claimants to agree that such phenomena remain "mysteries" and more investigation is to be done. In this conclusion, adherents remain open to all explanations except the commonly accepted globular Earth model, shifting the debate from ignorance to denialism.^[54]

Genetically modified foods

Main article: Genetically modified food controversies

See also: GMO conspiracy theories

There is a scientific consensus^{[55][56][57][58]} that currently available food derived from genetically modified crops (GM) poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[59][60][61][62][63]} but that each GM food needs to be tested on a case-by-case basis before introduction.^[64][65][66] Nonetheless, members of the public are much less likely than scientists to perceive GM foods as safe.^{[67][68][69][70]} The legal and regulatory status of GM foods varies by country, with some nations banning or restricting them, and others permitting them with widely differing degrees of regulation.^{[71][72][73][74]}

Psychological analyses indicate that over 70% of GM food opponents in the US are "absolute" in their opposition, experience disgust at the thought of eating GM foods, and are "evidence insensitive".^[75]

Statins

Statin denialism is a rejection of the medical worth of statins, a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs. Cardiologist Steven Nissen at Cleveland Clinic has commented "We are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our patients to Web sites..."^[76] promoting unproven medical therapies. Harriet Hall sees a spectrum of statin denialism ranging from pseudoscientific claims to the understatement of benefits and overstatement of side effects, all of which is contrary to the scientific evidence.^[77]

Mental illness denial

Main article: Mental illness denial

Mental illness denial or mental disorder denial is where a person denies the existence of mental disorders.^[78] Both serious analysts,^[79][80] as well as pseudoscientific movements^[78] question the existence of certain disorders. A minority of professional researchers see disorders such as depression from a sociocultural perspective and argue that the solution to it is fixing a dysfunction in society, not in the person's brain.^[80] Some people may also deny that they have a mental illness after being diagnosed, certain analysts argue this denialism is usually fueled by narcissistic injury.^[81] Anti-psychiatry movements such as Scientology promote mental illness denial by having alternative practices to psychiatry.^[78]

Election denial

See also: Election denial movement in the United States

Election denial is false dismissal of the outcome of a fair election. Stacey Abrams denied the 2018 election for governor in Georgia was "a free and fair election" and spent $22 million in "largely unsuccessful" litigation.^[82] In the United States since the 2020 presidential election, there has been an ongoing stolen election conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election.

Historiography

Main article: Historical negationism

Historical negationism, the denialism of widely accepted historical facts, is a major source of concern among historians and it is frequently used to falsify^[83][84] or distort accepted historical events. In attempting to revise the past, negationists are distinguished by the use of techniques inadmissible in proper historical discourse, such as presenting known forged documents as genuine, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view, and deliberately mistranslating texts.^[85]

Some countries, such as Germany, have criminalized the negationist revision of certain historical events, while other countries take a more cautious position for various reasons, such as the protection of free speech. Others mandate negationist views, such as California, where schoolchildren have been explicitly prevented from learning about the California genocide.^[86][87]

Armenian genocide denialism

This section is an excerpt from Armenian genocide denial.[edit]

The Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum promotes the false view that Armenians committed genocide against Turks, rather than vice versa.^[88]

Armenian genocide denial is the negationist claim that the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World War I—a crime documented in a large body of evidence and affirmed by the vast majority of scholars.^[89][90] The perpetrators denied the genocide as they carried it out, claiming that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were resettled for military reasons, not exterminated. In its aftermath, incriminating documents were systematically destroyed. Denial has been the policy of every government of the Ottoman Empire's successor state, the Republic of Turkey, as of 2024^[update].

Borrowing arguments used by the CUP to justify its actions, Armenian genocide denial rests on the assumption that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate state action in response to a real or perceived Armenian uprising that threatened the empire's existence during wartime. Deniers assert the CUP intended to resettle Armenians, not kill them. They claim the death toll is exaggerated or attribute the deaths to other factors, such as a purported civil war, disease, bad weather, rogue local officials, or bands of Kurds and outlaws. The historian Ronald Grigor Suny summarizes the main argument as "there was no genocide, and the Armenians were to blame for it".^[91]

A critical reason for denial is that the genocide enabled the establishment of a Turkish nation-state; recognizing it would contradict Turkey's founding myths.^[92] Since the 1920s, Turkey has worked to prevent recognition or even mention of the genocide in other countries. It has spent millions of dollars on lobbying, created research institutes, and used intimidation and threats. Denial affects Turkey's domestic policies and is taught in Turkish schools; some Turkish citizens who acknowledge the genocide have faced prosecution for "insulting Turkishness". Turkey's century-long effort to deny the genocide sets it apart from other historical cases of genocide.^[93]

Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey, also denies the genocide and campaigns against its recognition internationally. Most Turkish citizens and political parties support Turkey's denial policy. Scholars argue that Armenian genocide denial has set the tone for the government's attitude towards minorities, and has contributed to the ongoing violence against Kurds in Turkey. A 2014 poll of 1,500 people conducted by EDAM, a Turkish think tank, found that nine percent of Turkish citizens recognize the genocide.^[94][95]

Holocaust denialism

Main article: Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial refers to the denial of the murder of 5 to 6 million Jews by the Nazis in Europe during World War 2. In this context, the term is a subset of genocide denial, which is a form of politically motivated denialism.^[96][97]

Nakba denialism

Main article: Nakba denial

Nakba denial refers to attempts to downgrade, deny and misdescribe the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Nakba,^[98] in which four-fifths of all Palestinians were driven off their lands and into exile.^[99]

Srebrenica massacre denialism

Further information: Srebrenica massacre § Denial

Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, and Edina Bečirević, the Faculty of Criminalistics, Criminology and Security Studies of the University of Sarajevo have pointed to a culture of denial of the Srebrenica massacre in Serbian society, taking many forms and present in particular in political discourse, the media, the law and the educational system.^[100]

See also

• Philosophy portal
• Psychology portal

• Agnotology
• Anti-environmentalism
• Barriers to pro-environmental behaviour
• Confirmation bias
• Cult
• Delusion
• Environmental skepticism
• Euphemism
• Gibson's law
• Inoculation theory
• List of cognitive biases
• Obscurantism
• Pseudoskepticism
• Philosophy of science
• Psychology of climate change denial
• Red pill and blue pill
• Reputation management

Notes

1. To support their ideas, some AIDS denialists have also misappropriated a scientific review in Nature Medicine which opens with this reasonable statement: "Despite considerable advances in HIV science in the past 20 years, the reason why HIV-1 infection is pathogenic is still debated" (Borowski 2006, p. 369).

References

1. Maslin 2009.
2. O'Shea 2008, p. 20.
3. Scudellari 2010.
4. Usages of Holocaust and AIDS denialism: Kim 2007; Cohen 2007; Smith & Novella 2007, p. e256; Watson 2006, p. 6; Nature Medicine's editor 2006, p. 369
5. Usages of global-warming denialism: Kennedy 2007, p. 425 Colquhoun 2009, p. b3658; Connelly 2007; Goodman 2007.
6. Diethelm, Pascal; McKee, Martin (January 1, 2009), "Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?", European Journal of Public Health, 19 (1): 2–4, doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckn139, PMID 19158101
7. McKee, Martin; Diethelm, Pascal (December 14, 2010), "How the growth of denialism undermines public health" (PDF), BMJ, 341: 1309–1311, doi:10.1136/bmj.c6950, PMID 21156741, S2CID 35789525
8. Hambling 2009.
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13. MacDonald, David B. (2008). Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical Representation. Routledge. p. 133. ISBN 978-1134085729.; Bloxham, Donald (2005). The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. Oxford University Press. p. 208. ISBN 978-0199226887.
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15. The dead hand of denialism Edwin Cameron. Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg), April 17, 2003.
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33. Kalichman SC, Eaton L, Cherry C (June 2010). ""There is no Proof that HIV Causes AIDS": AIDS Denialism Beliefs among People Living with HIV/AIDS". J Behav Med. 33 (6): 432–440. doi:10.1007/s10865-010-9275-7. PMC 3015095. PMID 20571892.
34. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee for the Oversight of AIDS Activities (1988). Confronting AIDS: Update 1988. Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.17226/771. ISBN 978-0309038799. PMID 25032454. …the evidence that HIV causes AIDS is scientifically conclusive.
35. "The Evidence that HIV Causes AIDS". National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. January 14, 2010. Retrieved October 8, 2010.
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46. Myers 2006.
47. NSTA 2007.
48. IAP 2006.
49. AAAS 2006.
50. Pinholster 2006.
51. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (Supreme Court of the United States)., cited by Numbers 2006, p. 272 as "[on]ne of the most precise explications of creation science"
52. "Statements from Scientific and Scholarly Organizations". National Center for Science Education. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
53. Wade, Lizzy (January 27, 2016). "In Defense of Flat Earthers". The Atlantic.
54. Pierre, Joe (February 19, 2017). "Flat Earthers: Belief, Skepticism, and Denialism".
55. Nicolia, Alessandro; Manzo, Alberto; Veronesi, Fabio; Rosellini, Daniele (2013). "An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research" (PDF). Critical Reviews in Biotechnology. 34 (1): 77–88. doi:10.3109/07388551.2013.823595. PMID 24041244. S2CID 9836802. We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops.
    
    The literature about Biodiversity and the GE food/feed consumption has sometimes resulted in animated debate regarding the suitability of the experimental designs, the choice of the statistical methods or the public accessibility of data. Such debate, even if positive and part of the natural process of review by the scientific community, has frequently been distorted by the media and often used politically and inappropriately in anti-GE crops campaigns.
56. "State of Food and Agriculture 2003–2004. Agricultural Biotechnology: Meeting the Needs of the Poor. Health and environmental impacts of transgenic crops". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved August 30, 2019. Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). These foods have been assessed for increased risks to human health by several national regulatory authorities (inter alia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, the United Kingdom and the United States) using their national food safety procedures (ICSU). To date no verifiable untoward toxic or nutritionally deleterious effects resulting from the consumption of foods derived from genetically modified crops have been discovered anywhere in the world (GM Science Review Panel). Many millions of people have consumed foods derived from GM plants – mainly maize, soybean and oilseed rape – without any observed adverse effects (ICSU).
57. Ronald, Pamela (May 1, 2011). "Plant Genetics, Sustainable Agriculture and Global Food Security". Genetics. 188 (1): 11–20. doi:10.1534/genetics.111.128553. PMC 3120150. PMID 21546547. There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on Environmental Impacts Associated with Commercialization of Transgenic Plants, National Research Council and Division on Earth and Life Studies 2002). Both the U.S. National Research Council and the Joint Research Centre (the European Union's scientific and technical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission) have concluded that there is a comprehensive body of knowledge that adequately addresses the food safety issue of genetically engineered crops (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004; European Commission Joint Research Centre 2008). These and other recent reports conclude that the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment (European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2010).

58. But see also:

    Domingo, José L.; Bordonaba, Jordi Giné (2011). "A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants" (PDF). Environment International. 37 (4): 734–742. Bibcode:2011EnInt..37..734D. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2011.01.003. PMID 21296423. In spite of this, the number of studies specifically focused on safety assessment of GM plants is still limited. However, it is important to remark that for the first time, a certain equilibrium in the number of research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was observed. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that most of the studies demonstrating that GM foods are as nutritional and safe as those obtained by conventional breeding, have been performed by biotechnology companies or associates, which are also responsible of commercializing these GM plants. Anyhow, this represents a notable advance in comparison with the lack of studies published in recent years in scientific journals by those companies.

    Krimsky, Sheldon (2015). "An Illusory Consensus behind GMO Health Assessment". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 40 (6): 883–914. doi:10.1177/0162243915598381. S2CID 40855100. I began this article with the testimonials from respected scientists that there is literally no scientific controversy over the health effects of GMOs. My investigation into the scientific literature tells another story.

    And contrast:

    Panchin, Alexander Y.; Tuzhikov, Alexander I. (January 14, 2016). "Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons". Critical Reviews in Biotechnology. 37 (2): 213–217. doi:10.3109/07388551.2015.1130684. ISSN 0738-8551. PMID 26767435. S2CID 11786594. Here, we show that a number of articles some of which have strongly and negatively influenced the public opinion on GM crops and even provoked political actions, such as GMO embargo, share common flaws in the statistical evaluation of the data. Having accounted for these flaws, we conclude that the data presented in these articles does not provide any substantial evidence of GMO harm.
    
    The presented articles suggesting possible harm of GMOs received high public attention. However, despite their claims, they actually weaken the evidence for the harm and lack of substantial equivalency of studied GMOs. We emphasize that with over 1783 published articles on GMOs over the last 10 years it is expected that some of them should have reported undesired differences between GMOs and conventional crops even if no such differences exist in reality.

    and

    Yang, Y.T.; Chen, B. (2016). "Governing GMOs in the USA: science, law and public health". Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 96 (4): 1851–1855. Bibcode:2016JSFA...96.1851Y. doi:10.1002/jsfa.7523. PMID 26536836. It is therefore not surprising that efforts to require labeling and to ban GMOs have been a growing political issue in the USA (citing Domingo and Bordonaba, 2011). Overall, a broad scientific consensus holds that currently marketed GM food poses no greater risk than conventional food... Major national and international science and medical associations have stated that no adverse human health effects related to GMO food have been reported or substantiated in peer-reviewed literature to date.
    
    Despite various concerns, today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Health Organization, and many independent international science organizations agree that GMOs are just as safe as other foods. Compared with conventional breeding techniques, genetic engineering is far more precise and, in most cases, less likely to create an unexpected outcome.
59. "Statement by the AAAS Board of Directors On Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods" (PDF). American Association for the Advancement of Science. October 20, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2019. The EU, for example, has invested more than €300 million in research on the biosafety of GMOs. Its recent report states: "The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies." The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.
    
    Pinholster, Ginger (October 25, 2012). "AAAS Board of Directors: Legally Mandating GM Food Labels Could "Mislead and Falsely Alarm Consumers"" (PDF). American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
60. European Commission. Directorate-General for Research (2010). A decade of EU-funded GMO research (2001–2010) (PDF). Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. Biotechnologies, Agriculture, Food. European Commission, European Union. doi:10.2777/97784. ISBN 978-9279163449. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
61. "AMA Report on Genetically Modified Crops and Foods". American Medical Association. January 2001. Retrieved August 30, 2019 – via International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications."REPORT 2 OF THE COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH (A-12): Labeling of Bioengineered Foods" (PDF). American Medical Association. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 7, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2019. Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.
62. "Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms: United States. Public and Scholarly Opinion". Library of Congress. June 30, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2019. Several scientific organizations in the US have issued studies or statements regarding the safety of GMOs indicating that there is no evidence that GMOs present unique safety risks compared to conventionally bred products. These include the National Research Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Medical Association. Groups in the US opposed to GMOs include some environmental organizations, organic farming organizations, and consumer organizations. A substantial number of legal academics have criticized the US's approach to regulating GMOs.
63. National Academies Of Sciences, Engineering; Division on Earth Life Studies; Board on Agriculture Natural Resources; Committee on Genetically Engineered Crops: Past Experience Future Prospects (2016). Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (US). p. 149. doi:10.17226/23395. ISBN 978-0309437387. PMID 28230933. Retrieved August 30, 2019. Overall finding on purported adverse effects on human health of foods derived from GE crops: On the basis of detailed examination of comparisons of currently commercialized GE with non-GE foods in compositional analysis, acute and chronic animal toxicity tests, long-term data on health of livestock fed GE foods, and human epidemiological data, the committee found no differences that implicate a higher risk to human health from GE foods than from their non-GE counterparts.
64. "Frequently asked questions on genetically modified foods". World Health Organization. Retrieved August 30, 2019. Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.
    
    GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous application of safety assessments based on the Codex Alimentarius principles and, where appropriate, adequate post market monitoring, should form the basis for ensuring the safety of GM foods.
65. Haslberger, Alexander G. (2003). "Codex guidelines for GM foods include the analysis of unintended effects". Nature Biotechnology. 21 (7): 739–741. doi:10.1038/nbt0703-739. PMID 12833088. S2CID 2533628. These principles dictate a case-by-case premarket assessment that includes an evaluation of both direct and unintended effects.
66. Some medical organizations, including the British Medical Association, advocate further caution based upon the precautionary principle:
    
    "Genetically modified foods and health: a second interim statement" (PDF). British Medical Association. March 2004. Retrieved August 30, 2019. In our view, the potential for GM foods to cause harmful health effects is very small and many of the concerns expressed apply with equal vigour to conventionally derived foods. However, safety concerns cannot, as yet, be dismissed completely on the basis of information currently available.
    
    When seeking to optimise the balance between benefits and risks, it is prudent to err on the side of caution and, above all, learn from accumulating knowledge and experience. Any new technology such as genetic modification must be examined for possible benefits and risks to human health and the environment. As with all novel foods, safety assessments in relation to GM foods must be made on a case-by-case basis.
    
    Members of the GM jury project were briefed on various aspects of genetic modification by a diverse group of acknowledged experts in the relevant subjects. The GM jury reached the conclusion that the sale of GM foods currently available should be halted and the moratorium on commercial growth of GM crops should be continued. These conclusions were based on the precautionary principle and lack of evidence of any benefit. The Jury expressed concern over the impact of GM crops on farming, the environment, food safety and other potential health effects.
    
    The Royal Society review (2002) concluded that the risks to human health associated with the use of specific viral DNA sequences in GM plants are negligible, and while calling for caution in the introduction of potential allergens into food crops, stressed the absence of evidence that commercially available GM foods cause clinical allergic manifestations. The BMA shares the view that there is no robust evidence to prove that GM foods are unsafe but we endorse the call for further research and surveillance to provide convincing evidence of safety and benefit.
67. Funk, Cary; Rainie, Lee (January 29, 2015). "Public and Scientists' Views on Science and Society". Pew Research Center. Retrieved August 30, 2019. The largest differences between the public and the AAAS scientists are found in beliefs about the safety of eating genetically modified (GM) foods. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) scientists say it is generally safe to eat GM foods compared with 37% of the general public, a difference of 51 percentage points.
68. Marris, Claire (2001). "Public views on GMOs: deconstructing the myths". EMBO Reports. 2 (7): 545–548. doi:10.1093/embo-reports/kve142. PMC 1083956. PMID 11463731.
69. Final Report of the PABE research project (December 2001). "Public Perceptions of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Europe". Commission of European Communities. Archived from the original on May 25, 2017. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
70. Scott, Sydney E.; Inbar, Yoel; Rozin, Paul (2016). "Evidence for Absolute Moral Opposition to Genetically Modified Food in the United States" (PDF). Perspectives on Psychological Science. 11 (3): 315–324. doi:10.1177/1745691615621275. PMID 27217243. S2CID 261060.
71. "Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms". Library of Congress. June 9, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
72. Bashshur, Ramona (February 2013). "FDA and Regulation of GMOs". American Bar Association. Archived from the original on June 21, 2018. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
73. Sifferlin, Alexandra (October 3, 2015). "Over Half of E.U. Countries Are Opting Out of GMOs". Time. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
74. Lynch, Diahanna; Vogel, David (April 5, 2001). "The Regulation of GMOs in Europe and the United States: A Case-Study of Contemporary European Regulatory Politics". Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on September 29, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
75. Scott, Sydney E.; Inbar, Yoel; Rozin, Paul (2016). "Evidence for Absolute Moral Opposition to Genetically Modified Food in the United States" (PDF). Perspectives on Psychological Science. 11 (3): 315–324. doi:10.1177/1745691615621275. PMID 27217243. S2CID 261060.
76. Husten L (July 24, 2017). "Nissen Calls Statin Denialism A Deadly Internet-Driven Cult". CardioBrief. Archived from the original on December 19, 2017. Retrieved December 19, 2017.
77. Hall H (2017). "Statin Denialism". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 41, no. 3. pp. 40–43. Archived from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
78. Novella, Steven (January 24, 2018). "Mental Illness Denial". ScienceBasedMedicine.org. Retrieved November 4, 2021.
79. "'Depression' Is a Symptom, Not a Disorder". opmed.doximity.com. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
80. Escalante, Alison. "Researchers Doubt That Certain Mental Disorders Are Disorders At All". Forbes. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
81. Saks, Elyn R. "Some thoughts on denial of mental illness." American Journal of Psychiatry 166.9 (2009): 972–973. Web. December 11, 2021
82. "An ethics watchdog criticized Stacey Abrams. His boss retracted it". The New York Times. November 3, 2022. Retrieved November 3, 2022. $22 million on a largely unsuccessful voting rights lawsuit [...] In 2018, Ms. Abrams lost a close campaign for governor to Brian Kemp and refused to concede
83. Watts, Philip (2009). "Rewriting history: Céline and Kurt Vonnegut". Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-2874-0.
84. Pohl, Dieter (2020). "Holocaust Studies in Our Societies". S:I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 7 (1): 133–141. ISSN 2408-9192. In addition, Holocaust research can support the fight against the falsification of history, not only Nazi negationism, but also lighter forms of historical propaganda.
85. Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, by Richard J. Evans, 2001, ISBN 0-465-02153-0. p. 145. The author is a professor of Modern History, at the University of Cambridge, and was a major expert-witness in the Irving v. Lipstadt trial; the book presents his perspective of the trial, and the expert-witness report, including his research about the Dresden death count.
86. Trafzer, Clifford E.; Lorimer, Michelle (August 5, 2013). "Silencing California Indian Genocide in Social Studies Texts". American Behavioral Scientist. 58 (1): 64–82. doi:10.1177/0002764213495032. S2CID 144356070.
87. Fenelon, James V.; Trafzer, Clifford E. (December 4, 2013). "From Colonialism to Denial of California Genocide to Misrepresentations: Special Issue on Indigenous Struggles in the Americas". American Behavioral Scientist. 58 (1): 3–29. doi:10.1177/0002764213495045. S2CID 145377834.
88. • Marchand, Laure; Perrier, Guillaume (2015). Turkey and the Armenian Ghost: On the Trail of the Genocide. McGill-Queen's Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 978-0-7735-9720-4. The Iğdır genocide monument is the ultimate caricature of the Turkish government's policy of denying the 1915 genocide by rewriting history and transforming victims into guilty parties.
    • Hovannisian 2001, p. 803. "... the unbending attitude of the Ankara government, in 1995 of a multi-volume work of the prime ministry's state archives titled Armenian Atrocities in the Caucasus and Anatolia According to Archival Documents. The purpose of the publication is not only to reiterate all previous denials but also to demonstrate that it was in fact the Turkish people who were the victims of a genocide perpetrated by the Armenians."
    • Cheterian 2015, pp. 65–66. "Some of the proponents of this official narrative have even gone so far as to claim that the Armenians were the real aggressors, and that Muslim losses were greater than those of the Armenians."
    • Gürpınar 2016, p. 234. "Maintaining that 'the best defence is a good offence', the new strategy involved accusing Armenians in response for perpetrating genocide against the Turks. The violence committed by the Armenian committees under the Russian occupation of Eastern Anatolia and massacring of tens of thousands of Muslims (Turks and Kurds) in revenge killings in 1916–17 was extravagantly displayed, magnified and decontextualized."
89. Dadrian 2003, pp. 270–271; Chorbajian 2016, p. 168;

    • Ihrig 2016, pp. 10–11. "While some have gone to great lengths to 'prove" that similar American reports are not credible, especially the memoirs of American ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr., and allege that, of course, the Entente countries produced only war propaganda, nothing of the sort can be said about the German sources ... After all, they were already afraid of the very negative repercussions these events would have for Germany during and after the war. What reason could they possibly have had to forge such potentially self-incriminating reports, almost on a daily basis, for months?"
    • Gürpınar 2016, p. 234. "Contrary to the 'selected naivety' of the first part of the 'Turkish thesis', here, a 'deliberate ignorance' is essential. Armenian 'counter-evidence' such as highly comprehensive and also poignant consular reports and dispatches are to be omitted and dismissed as sheer propaganda without responding to the question of why the diplomats falsified the truth."
    • Cheterian 2018a, p. 189. "As the deportations and the massacres were taking place, representatives of global powers, diplomats, scholars, and eyewitnesses were also documenting them, and all parties knew that those events were organized by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) with the aim to exterminate Ottoman Armenians ..."
90. Academic consensus:

    • Bloxham, Donald (2003). "Determinants of the Armenian Genocide". Looking Backward, Moving Forward. Routledge. pp. 23–50. doi:10.4324/9780203786994-3. ISBN 978-0-203-78699-4. Despite growing scholarly consensus on the fact of the Armenian Genocide ...
    • Suny 2009, p. 935. "Overwhelmingly, since 2000, publications by non-Armenian academic historians, political scientists, and sociologists ... have seen 1915 as one of the classic cases of ethnic cleansing and genocide. And, even more significantly, they have been joined by a number of scholars in Turkey or of Turkish ancestry ..."
    • Göçek 2015, p. 1. "The Western scholarly community is almost in full agreement that what happened to the forcefully deported Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was genocide ..."
    • Smith 2015, p. 5. "Virtually all American scholars recognize the [Armenian] genocide ..."
    • Laycock, Jo (2016). "The Great Catastrophe". Patterns of Prejudice. 50 (3): 311–313. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2016.1195548. ... important developments in the historical research on the genocide over the last fifteen years ... have left no room for doubt that the treatment of the Ottoman Armenians constituted genocide according to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
    • Kasbarian, Sossie; Öktem, Kerem (2016). "One Hundred Years Later: the Personal, the Political and the Historical in Four New Books on the Armenian Genocide". Caucasus Survey. 4 (1): 92–104. doi:10.1080/23761199.2015.1129787. ... the denialist position has been largely discredited in the international academy. Recent scholarship has overwhelmingly validated the Armenian Genocide ...
    • "Taner Akçam: Türkiye'nin, soykırım konusunda her bakımdan izole olduğunu söyleyebiliriz". CivilNet (in Turkish). July 9, 2020. Archived from the original on January 16, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
91. Suny 2015, pp. xii–xiii. "The Turkish state and those few historians who reject the notion of genocide have argued that the tragedy was the result of a reasonable and understandable response of a government to a rebellious and seditious population in time of war and mortal danger to the state's survival ... There was no genocide, and the Armenians were to blame for it. They were rebellious, seditious subjects who presented a danger to the empire and got what they deserved ... Still—the denialists claim—despite the existential threat posed by the Armenians and their Russian allies to the survival of the empire, there was no intention or effort by the Young Turk regime to eliminate the Armenians as a people."
92. Foundational violence:

    • Bloxham 2005, p. 111. "The Armenian genocide provided the emblematic and central violence of Ottoman Turkey's transition into a modernizing nation state. The genocide and accompanying expropriations were intrinsic to the development of the Turkish Republic in the form in which it appeared in 1924."
    • Kévorkian 2011, p. 810. "This chapter of the history treated here [the trials] clearly illustrates the incapacity of the great majority to consider these acts punishable crimes; it confronts us with a self-justifying discourse that persists in our own day, a kind of denial of the "original sin," the act that gave birth to the Turkish nation, regenerated and re-centered in a purified space."
    • Göçek 2015, p. 19. "... what makes 1915–17 genocidal both then and since is, I argue, closely connected to its being a foundational violence in the constitution of the Turkish republic ... the independence of Turkey emerged in direct opposition to the possible independence of Armenia; such coeval origins eliminated the possibility of acknowledging the past violence that had taken place only a couple years earlier on the one hand, and instead nurtured the tendency to systemically remove traces of Armenian existence on the other."
    • Suny 2015, pp. 349, 365. "The Armenian Genocide was a central event in the last stages of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the foundational crime that along with the ethnic cleansing and population exchanges of the Anatolian Greeks made possible the formation of an ethnonational Turkish republic ... The connection between ethnic cleansing or genocide and the legitimacy of the national state underlies the desperate efforts to deny or distort the history of the nation and the state's genesis."
    • Kieser, Hans-Lukas; Öktem, Kerem; Reinkowski, Maurus (2015). "Introduction". World War I and the End of the Ottomans: From the Balkan Wars to the Armenian Genocide. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85772-744-2. We are of the firm opinion, strengthened by the contributions in this volume, that the single most important reason for this inability to accept culpability is the centrality of the Armenian massacres for the formation of the Turkish nation-state. The deeper collective psychology within which this sentiment rests assumes that any move toward acknowledging culpability will put the very foundations of the Turkish nation-state at risk and will lead to its steady demise.
    • Chorbajian 2016, p. 169. "As this applies to the Armenians, their physical extermination, violent assimilation, and erasure from memory represent a significant continuity in the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey. The planning and implementation of the Armenian Genocide as an act of commission (1915–22) and omission (1923–present) constitute the final act of the Ottoman Empire and the start of a process of Turkification that defines the Turkish Republic a century later."
93. Distinctiveness of Turkish denial efforts:

    • Smith, Roger W. (2006). "The Significance of the Armenian Genocide after Ninety Years". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 1 (2): i–iv. doi:10.3138/G614-6623-M16G-3648. The Armenian Genocide, in fact, illuminates with special clarity the dangers inherent in the political manipulation of truth through distortion, denial, intimidation, and economic blackmail. In no other instance has a government gone to such extreme lengths to deny that a massive genocide took place.
    • Avedian 2013, p. 79. "Nonetheless, if there is one aspect which makes the Armenian case to stand out, if not unique, is its denial. The Armenian genocide is by far the case which is systematically and officially denied by a state ..."
    • Akçam 2018, pp. 2–3. "Turkish denialism in regard to the events of the First World War is perhaps the most successful example of how the well-organized, deliberate, and systematic spreading of falsehoods can play an important role in the field of public debate ... If every case of genocide can be understood as possessing its own unique character, then the Armenian case is unique among genocides in the long-standing efforts to deny its historicity, and to thereby hide the truths surrounding it."
    • Tatz, Colin (2018). "Why is the Armenian Genocide not as well known?". In Bartrop, Paul R. (ed.). Modern Genocide: Analyzing the Controversies and Issues. ABC-CLIO. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-4408-6468-1. Uniquely, the entire apparatus of a nation-state has been put to work to amend, ameliorate, deflect, defuse, deny, equivocate, justify, obfuscate, or simply omit the events. No other nation in history has so aggressively sought the suppression of a slice of its history, threatening everything from breaking off diplomatic or trade relations, to closure of air bases, to removal of entries on the subject in international encyclopedias.
94. Demirel & Eriksson 2020, p. 11.
95. "Only 9 Percent of Turks say Armenian Killings Genocide: Poll". The Daily Star. AFP. January 13, 2015. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
96. See, e.g., Strakosch, Elizabeth (2005). "The Political Methodology of Genocide Denial" (PDF). Dialogue. 3 (3): 1–23. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
97. Paul O'Shea, A Cross Too Heavy: Eugenio Pacelli, Politics and the Jews of Europe 1917–1943, Rosenberg Publishing, 2008. ISBN 1877058718. p. 20.
98. Shupak, Greg (2022). "Erasing The Nakba, Upholding Apartheid". Current Issues in Depth (8).
99. Pappe, Ilan (September 1, 2007). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
100. Denial of genocide – on the possibility of normalising relations in the region Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine by Sonja Biserko (the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia) and Edina Bečirević (Faculty of Criminalistics, Criminology and Security Studies of the University of Sarajevo).

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Further reading

Articles

• Holtcamp, W. (2012). "Flavors of uncertainty: The difference between denial and debate". Environmental Health Perspectives. 120 (8): a314–a319. doi:10.1289/ehp.120-a314. PMC 3440096. PMID 22854265.
• Kahn-Harris, Keith (August 3, 2018). "Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth". The Guardian.
• Oreskes, Naomi, "History Matters to Science: It helps to explain how cynical actors undermine the truth", Scientific American, vol. 323, no. 6 (December 2020), p. 81. "In our 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt, Erik M. Conway and I showed how the same arguments [as those used to cast doubt on the link between tobacco use and lung cancer] were used to delay action on acid rain, the ozone hole and climate change – and this year [2020] we saw the spurious "freedom" argument being used to disparage mask wearing [during the COVID-19 pandemic]."
• Rees, M. (2013). "Denial of catastrophic risks". Science. 339 (6124): 1123. Bibcode:2013Sci...339.1123R. doi:10.1126/science.1236756. PMID 23471373.
• Rosenau, J. (2012). "Science denial: A guide for scientists". Trends in Microbiology. 20 (12): 567–569. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2012.10.002. PMID 23164600.
• Scudellari, M. (March 2010). "State of denial". Nat. Med. 16 (3): 248. doi:10.1038/nm0310-248a. PMID 20208495. S2CID 26207026.
• Sharot, T.; Korn, C.W.; Dolan, R.J. (2011). "How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality". Nature Neuroscience. 14 (11): 1475–1479. doi:10.1038/nn.2949. PMC 3204264. PMID 21983684.

Books

• Gorman, Sara E.; Gorman, Jack M. (2016). Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199396603.
• McIntyre, Lee (2019). The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud and Pseudoscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 149–166. ISBN 978-0262538930.
• Norgaard, Kari Marie (2011). Living In Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262515856.
• Specter, Michael (2009). Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. Penguin. ISBN 978-1594202308.

External links

• Denialism Blog
• "Refusing Flu Shots? Maybe You're A 'Denialist'" National Public Radio