Manufactured controversy

Mechanisms of manufacturing controversy and uncertainty

Manufacturing controversy has been a tactic used by ideological and corporate groups to "neutralize the influence of academic scientists" in public policy debates. Cherry picking of favorable data and sympathetic experts, aggrandizement of uncertainties within theoretical models, and false balance in media reporting contribute to the generation of manufactured controversies.

Alan D. Attie describes its process as "to amplify uncertainties, cherry-pick experts, attack individual scientists, marginalize the traditional role of distinguished scientific bodies and get the media to report "both sides" of a manufactured controversy."

Those manufacturing uncertainty may label academic research as "junk science" and use a variety of tactics designed to stall and increase the expense of the distribution of sound scientific information. Delay tactics are also used to slow the implementation of regulations and public warnings in response to previously undiscovered health risks (e.g., the increased risk of Reye's syndrome in children who take aspirin). Chief among these stalling tactics is generating scientific uncertainty, "no matter how powerful or conclusive the evidence", to prevent regulation.

Another tactic used to manufacture controversy is to cast the scientific community as intolerant of dissent and conspiratorially aligned with industries or sociopolitical movements that quash challenges to conventional wisdom. This form of manufactured controversy has been used by environmentalist advocacy groups, religious challengers of the theory of evolution, and opponents of global warming legislation.