Thread by @DocRichard

One of the most important and common tricks used by deniers of Covid and man-made climate change is to pick up on a single error made by their opponents and magnify it into a total, all-encompassing "proof" that the deniers are right.
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This is called the Fallacy of Composition, when it is falsely reasoned that what is true of the parts of a whole must be true of the whole. nizkor.com/features/falla…

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Deniers use many other techniques. One is an emotional tone of absolute certainty in all their pronouncements on their topic, so that it feels that anyone who disagrees with them is clearly a fool.

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Another factor in the success of deniers is their audience's preparedness to believe Government has a plan to bring about total control. This often feeds off powerful narratives conveyed by films like Matrix and V for Vendetta.

So, science denial is a form of social paranoia 4/

So how do we address this denialism?

It's not easy.

First, we need to accept their is a grain of truth in the raindrop of their misunderstandings. People make errors. scientists are people. Scientists make errors. Yes, the Covid graphs were wrong.
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Second we need to understand that science creates a coherent picture out of tousands of observations and inferences. It does not rely on a single "proof".

Contrast this with the idealism that underpins the deniers. Their argument runs like this:
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"Libertarianism feels absolutely right and good to me.
Man-made climate change, and public health measures to suppress Covid impinge on my liberty.
Therefore I will do all in my power to deny the science of climate and epidemics."

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Deniers will fail in the end. Truth is stronger than paranoia and fixed ideas. But deniers, especially if they have access to mass media, are certainly able to delay rational action aimed at dealing with the many problems facing humanity in 2020

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