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  2. Denialists' Deck of Cards: The Fifth Hand, The False Expert and Growing Petulance

Denialists' Deck of Cards: The Fifth Hand, The False Expert and Growing Petulance

By choofnagle on May 23, 2007.
i-77f9802772e4ea4fe5889657a5e7dc97-10c.jpg The denialist is in serious trouble at this point. Whatever problem that didn't exist has continued to capture regulatory attention. It is time to devote serious resources to fighting the proposal being debated.

The denalist should have a fake consumer group or academic group at this point. It will pay off with fake research and fake experts that provide a patina of legitimacy to the denialist's points.

One of my favorite examples of the bogus research group was presented by Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, on Georgetown University's "Credit Research Center:" "I make only a simple empirical observation: As far as I can tell, the Credit Research Center, funded by the credit industry, has never produced a single piece of work at odds with a credit industry position on any subject, while it has produced multiple papers that support the industry's call for more pro-creditor, anti-debtor legislation--always in the name of independent, academic research."

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Denialists' Deck of Cards

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You don't even need fake experts to do this kind of stuff. Get some contrarians, a few devil's advocates, or just people whose research isn't really relevant to the issue at hand (but looks as if it might be). Then fund the heck out of them.

The folks you fund don't even need to be actively dishonest. All they have to do is not speak out when you take their work and twist it past recognition.