[Vision2020] Undermining Science

[Ron Force]

I noted a paragraph in the current Daily Howler:

Last Friday, we looked at the large-scale messaging strategy described 
by James Hoggan on Maddow (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/2/10). If 
Hoggan is right, a long-term effort is underway to portray the 
scientific community as a biased liberal bloc, as was done in earlier 
eras with journalists. (If this strategy succeeds, “the liberal media” 
will be joined in voters’ minds by “liberal science.”) And please—don’t 
think this effort couldn’t succeed. Their side is massively-financed and technically skilled. Our side is in the hands of children, sell-outs 
and goof-balls. 

Here's the message:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh040210.shtml

SAVVY PLAYERS AND US (permalink): On Wednesday evening’s Maddow program, Rachel Maddow conducted a fascinating interview with James Hoggan, author of Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Are we liberals the Truly Bright Smart Ones? We thought Hoggan presented fascinating testimony about the way progressive interests get mauled by savvy corporate players and their “conservative” messaging.

Maddow spoke with Hoggan about Koch Industries, a giant funder of conservative causes and disinformation. Maddow asked about Koch’s role in climate change/energy issues. This was the start of Hoggan’s answer, although he would soon introduce a second topic:

    MADDOW (3/31/10): How much influence does Koch Industries really have in this—in the debate over climate change legislation in general and drilling specifically?

    HOGGAN: Well, back to 1997, 50—close to $50 million came from Koch Foundation, the Koch Foundation, to 40 different organizations that are part of a network that we call an echo chamber of climate change denial.

    MADDOW: So, over 13 years, they spent $50 million trying to convince people that climate change isn`t real.

    HOGGAN: $50 million. That’s right, through these different organizations. And the fact that there’s 40 of them creates this unique situation where people hear this message about, you know, doubt about climate science from so many different organizations, that it becomes believable.

In this statement, Hoggan describes highly effective disinformation-marketing. Average people hear “this message about doubt about climate science” from a wide variety of sources. Because they hear the message in so many places, the message becomes believable. In this first part of Hoggan’s answer, Hoggan describes a highly savvy disinformation machine—a machine that is simply smarter, and more determined, than any entity on the progressive side. But as he continued, Hoggan expanded his description of the way Koch Industries works. He went way back to the early 1990s—and he brought big tobacco in:

    HOGGAN (continuing directly): And people in my business and the public relations business have known this for a long time, back to the days of Philip Morris, which is actually where some of these organizations and the techniques that they use began in the early 1990s. Philip Morris started a group called the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. And it was very, very carefully thought-out public relations tactics that were used to shift the issues around tobacco off of health issue and onto sound-science issues. And Philip Morris knew they couldn’t do it by themselves, so they invited people like, or organizations like Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to join them. And they—it basically became the beginning of a campaign that a lot of these 40 different organizations that I was talking about earlier drew on to. You know, then it was tobacco, today it’s greenhouse gases.

Hoggan described “very, very carefully thought-out public relations tactics that were used to shift the issues around tobacco off of health issue and onto sound-science issues.” These tactics involved more than one large company, working in more than one policy area. For our money, the larger thrust of Hoggan’s point got lost in the ensuing conversation. But in this next Q-and-A, he stated his point most clearly:

    MADDOW (continuing directly): But you’re—but you’re saying it’s the same tactic in two ways. One, that you use a lot of different organizations so you can’t just dismiss the one industry-funded group that’s trying to shoot down what everybody else thinks is true. But it’s also taking on not only the policy issues about what the implications are of the science, but attacking the science, saying there’s no real problem here, trying to make that a money issue.

    HOGGAN: That’s right. It basically undermines, it poisons public conversations. And it undermines public confidence in science, and it makes it difficult for even well-intended political leaders to actually do the right thing on these issues.

In that exchange, Maddow slightly misstated the point, to the extent that we can parse what she said. The point is not that this sort of activity undermines confidence in the science (of some particular issue). As Hoggan stated, this tactic “undermines public confidence in science” itself. In effect, Hoggan was describing a decades-long push in which science itself is being turned into a suspect in the public’s mind—in which citizens are led to view professional scientists in general as a politicized interest group. We have seen this approach in recent months, in the determined demonizing of climate scientists in a few minor, but highly-flogged, flaps.

The target here is science itself, not the particular science of some particular issue.

According to Hoggan, he is describing “very, very carefully thought-out public relations tactics.” Over time, these tactics undermine the public’s confidence in science itself. Average voters hear science and scientists demonized when it comes to tobacco; they hear science and scientists demonized again when it comes to climate. They hear these assaults again and again, from many directions, concerning more than one issue. Soon, scientists become the latest incarnation of those “pointy-headed intellectuals” George Wallace used to denounce.

Adapting Hoggan’s language: People hear this kind of messaging from so many different organizations that it becomes believable.

Hoggan describes highly skilled messaging on the part of The Big Interests—messaging that affects the views of the public at large. What is our reaction in the progressive world? Simple! We go on our web sites and tell each other how stupid those voters must be! Their limbic brains must not work right! They’re just a gang redneck racists! Meanwhile, we do next to nothing to generate message machines which might help voters see past such deceptions. Instead, we send our millionaire broadcasters onto TV to aim dick jokes at the average voters who get conned by these sophisticated industry players. Our leaders go on Hardball and lick the boots of a man who busted his keister, for years, to put us all in this stew.

Question: Who are the dumb ones in that syndrome? The Interests, or us progressives?



      
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