In The Playbook: How to deny science, sell lies and make a killing in the corporate world, Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies, maps out how companies respond to a major threat to their operations — scientific evidence. Readers are likely familiar with how the tobacco industry denied evidence of smoking’s harms for many profitable decades, and, more recently, how the fossil fuel industry suppressed, then denied, the scientific evidence of its products’ central role in climate change. Here Jacquet demonstrates that scientific denial is industry agnostic — that is, a corporation can use the same toolkit to attack virtually any threat, whether it’s evidence that links red meat to colon cancer, that neonicotinoid pesticides harm bees, or that asbestos damages lungs.
This strategy, broadly speaking, can be broken into four, often sequential, steps: Challenge the problem — that is, deny that it exists. Challenge causation — acknowledge that there is a problem but deny that your product causes it. Challenge the messenger — discredit scientists and whistleblowers by calling them biased, alarmist or crazy. And if all that fails, challenge the policy — propose voluntary measures and fight regulations.
