Freeborn, David and O'Connor, Cailin (2024) Industrial Distraction. [Preprint]
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Abstract
There are myriad techniques industry actors use to shape the public understanding of science. While a naive view of this sort of influence might assume these techniques typically involve fraud and/or outright deception, the truth is more nuanced. The aim of this paper is to analyze one common technique where industry actors fund and share research that is accurate and (often) high quality, but nonetheless misleads the public on important matters of fact. The technique in question involves reshaping the causal understanding of some phenomenon with distracting information. We call this industrial distraction. We use case studies and causal models to illustrate how industrial distraction works, and how it can negatively impact belief and decision making even for rational learners. As we argue, this analysis is relevant to discussions about science policy, and also to philosophical and social scientific debates about how to define and understand misleading content.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Keywords: | causal models, industry, science communication, propaganda | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Causation General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > History of Science Case Studies General Issues > Science and Society |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Cailin O'Connor | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 28 Aug 2024 03:36 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 28 Aug 2024 03:36 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 23843 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Causation General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > History of Science Case Studies General Issues > Science and Society |
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| Date: | 2024 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23843 |
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