The link between science denial and conspiracy theorism has been obvious to scientists for years. Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, for example, was one of the first to know it was real, long before anyone had found the slightest evidence of it—a search that continues to this day.
Take BBD, one of the blogosphere’s most vocal and indefatigable opponents of science (despite lacking any qualifications therein). He believes we’re all being lied to by a “machine” that operates, naturally enough, “behind the scenes”:
This is what I mean when I say that the denial industry has constructed a false narrative for contrarians to karaoke. Misdirection, false equivalence and dogmatism are central to it all and it needs to be shut out of public discourse because it is a fundamental distortion of the truth. If more were publicly known about the contrarian spin machine, its outputs would be less tolerated by the public and (more) policy makers. Perhaps it’s not the science that needs better communication, but the dishonest tactics of the misinformation industry. IMO, people do not realise what is going on behind the scenes and that is the greatest ‘communication’ problem of the lot.
CLIMATE NUREMBERG 