Doubt is the foundation of all science. Every scientific principle and theory, no matter how established and trusted, contains the acknowledged possibility of error. This is the way science works. It is always in the process of disproving, adjusting or refining itself. This legitimate doubt at the foundation of science makes it particularly prone to misunderstanding and vulnerable to the illegitimate doubt that is irrational, self-serving or ideological.

Industry is quite willing to exploit this doubt to protect its markets and profits. The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was set up in 1993 by Philip Morris to discredit the medical evidence linking smoking to cancer and other health problems. A 1990s coalition of US fossil-fuel-based corporations formed the credible-sounding Information Council on the Environment with the specific intent to “reposition climate change as a theory, not a fact” (New Scientist, May 15/11).

Coal, chemical, pharmaceutical and oil companies have followed this effective strategy by establishing similar organizations with equally authoritative-sounding names to debunk any science that doesn’t suit their interests. People who join such organizations usually find themselves in the dilemma of being supported and then duped and exploited. But everyone else is also psychologically and materially victimized. So, too, is the environment, as the strategies to protect it are subverted by self-serving interests. And truth, that nebulous but most valuable of commodities, is lost in the manufactured confusion.

The mechanics of creating unfounded doubt are fairly clearly understood:

• Allege or imply a conspiracy and argue that scientific consensus has arisen through collusion rather than evidence.
• Use fake or selected experts to support the doubt.
• Select only the evidence that reinforces the doubt. Continue advertising this evidence even after it has been discredited – a lie repeated often enough begins to sound true. Never mention the other overwhelming body of supportive evidence.
• Discredit the science by attacking the character of the scientists.
• Amplify the importance of a mistake. Focus on a trivial error to discredit a huge body of credible research and findings. 
• Create standards of certainty that science may not be able to meet. If those standard are met, then create others that are more stringent. Always keep alive the doubt.
• Use logical fallacies. For example, scientists collaborate on climate research and attend international meetings, therefore they have conspired together to make global warming a socialist conspiracy to undermine free-market capitalism.
• Exaggerate differences of opinion. Manufacture doubt by portraying scientists as so divided on details that they seem to disagree on basic principles. Propagate doubt and confusion by insisting that these minor differences be publicized. Insist that dissident and minority views, regardless of their credibility, receive a hearing equal to the scientific consensus.

When confusion reigns, people revert by default to their old patterns of behaviour. Instead of embracing new insights and ideas, they continue doing what they have been doing, whether this be buying the same products, consuming the same amounts of energy or inflicting the same damage on nature. Change is invited by some measure of certainty. Any justification for innovation is subverted by doubt.

Doubt can be manufactured by even more devious means, such as outright lying. In 2006, a conservative columnist in Australia, Piers Akerman, published a condemnation of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by quoting its former chairperson, John Houghton, as saying, “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen” (Ibid.). The international press distributed the quote around the world, and Houghton’s statement became justification for discrediting the IPCC for sensationalizing and exaggerating the climate crisis. But Houghton had never said or written such a statement anywhere in his speeches or books.

In the manufacture of doubt, lies must seem credible. This single characteristic is enough to allow their propagation. Because people “use mental shortcuts” (Ibid.) to understand their surroundings and rarely check the veracity of quotes, such lies seem like they could be true, especially to people who are uneasy about the disturbing implications of scientific studies. Environmental subjects are particularly prone to this adverse reaction because they tend to strike at the foundational behaviour of our culture, inducing widespread worry, guilt and the need for corrective measures. The defensive and protective mechanisms of people then spread the lie until it reaches critical mass. Finally, the lie is believed simply because others believe it.

This is not mere quibbling. Our modern civilization is largely founded on principles that attempted to free “historical and scientific inquiry from dogma” (Ibid.). It is successful and viable to the extent that it places empirical truth above fanciful falsehood. And on a planet with profound and structural environmental problems, if we don’t have truth, we don’t have solutions.

As our circumstances move from serious to critical, we need a brave honesty if we are to identify these environmental problems and correct them. A subversive strategy of concocted deceit that spreads invented confusion is a strategy for delay and disaster. This is not a time for the debilitating effects of manufactured doubt.

The scientific community has been in a state of constrained panic during the last couple of years as the binding terms of the Kyoto Protocol approach expiry, as a replacement agreement to cut global greenhouse gases emission have foundered at international climate talks in Copenhagen and Cancun, and as the climate crisis continues to worsen. Because the doubts propagated by a few climate-change deniers seem to have been disproportionately effective in subverting corrective agreements and action, social scientists have been dissecting the dynamics of denial to understand what happened.

The inquiry has broadened from the refusal of a few people to accept evidence of climate change to the wider issue of how we humans confront new and disturbing information. The result could be called the psychology of denial. And, in the scientific tradition, the analysis is measured and rational, usually beginning with the distinction between skeptics and deniers.

Skeptics are inclined to examine claims one by one, weigh evidence carefully, attempt objectivity, and willingly follow where the facts lead. As personalities, they tend to be secure, open, adventurous and relatively immune to threat. Skepticism is normal and common, an essential attribute of adults, a guiding principle of science, and it tends to be the operating mechanism of people who are found on the “progressive” side of the political and ideological spectrum.

In contrast, deniers are inclined to weigh information with a “confirmation bias” that pre-judges on the basis of a tradition, intention or belief system. They change their minds more reluctantly than skeptics and tend to be closed, cautious and insecure outside the realm of the familiar. Deniers tends to be found on the more “conservative” side of the political and ideological spectrum. Generally, however, they are simply ordinary, well-intentioned people who are doing what they believe is right. But this is where the psychology gets more complicated.

Deniers tend to think of themselves “as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people” (New Scientist, May 15/10). They are most likely to be found in circumstances where “science must be taken on trust” (Ibid.). Thus deniers are usually associated with issues such as global climate change, evolution and tobacco use, and those issues in which the supportive evidence cannot be easily, immediately and tangibly demonstrated. For deniers, the trust issue gets entangled with their inclination to perceive scientists, doctors and technical experts as “arrogant and alien” (Ibid.). Perhaps this psychological dynamic is best illustrated by the 2009 comment of a Texan who was defending the teaching of creationism in schools because “…somebody’s got to stand up to the experts” (Ibid.).

Such a response is understandable in a world that is becoming more technical and complicated. People feel a loss of control. They want to reclaim the personal power that seems to be slipping away from them. A culture of individuality that has traditionally attempted to control the forces of nature can be expected to respond with frustration and anger when climate scientists argue that we are losing this struggle by unleashing forces beyond our abilities to manage. Deniers take this threat personally.

Deniers tend to be controllers. They also tend to have a larger than normal sense of their own importance and are inclined to be suspicious and intolerant of criticism and different opinions. While everyone needs some sense of control and self esteem in their lives, we all must concede to our limitations and dispensability. The world will not end with the loss of any one of us and we have no basis for believing that it should function according to our individual conception of it. Controllers don’t like to be controlled. Indeed, they may react perversely to any authoritative information.

Psychologists have also mentioned the “innumerate” problem, the inability of some people to grasp concepts such as probability. Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. Not every evolutionary change benefits the species. Although the average surface temperature on the planet is going up, climate change doesn’t mean that every place is going to get warmer. General trends cannot be deduced from isolated examples. Anecdotes and personal experience are coloured by subjectivity. The scientific method necessarily discredits such individual perception and helps to create the impression among deniers that scientists are elitists whose ideas diminish the importance of individuals and the validity of their awareness. So, in defense of their own experience, credibility and self-respect, deniers strike out against science, its theories and its practitioners. Regardless, denial is a common first response to things we didn’t want to happen.

Guilt is another important consideration that motivates deniers. Anthropogenic climate change means that we are all implicated in an unprecedented travesty against our planet’s ecology, the ultimate consequences of which are expected to be unimaginably disruptive and dire. The damage to our human reputation and dignity would be correspondingly disastrous. A squabbling, greedy, warring, destructive and irresponsible species is not the inescapable image we want to have of ourselves. Denial is a protective reflex against the discomfort of this censure and its ensuing guilt. If we can’t change the evidence inundating us, we can deny its validity by using complex and ingenious rationalizations.

So, what does the psychology of denial ultimately mean? Perhaps that we are a complex and ingenious species perfectly capable of undoing ourselves by our own complexity and ingenuity.