Abstract:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific denialism had an immense media repercussion, and the word denialism became one of the most widely used derogatory terms in Brazil. However, those who employ it do not always know how to define it precisely or describe its psychological specificities, and thus fail to take its complexity and nuances into consideration. Misuse of concepts can promote epistemic confusion with adjacent notions that are not equivalent to denialism, such as skepticism, ignorance, pseudoscience, or agnotology. This article aims to define denialism based on a review of existing theory and to distinguish it from those related terms. To conclude, a reflection is proposed on the ethical implications of denialism, which can lead to the loss of lives in extreme situations, and on the importance of scientific literacy in decision-making.
Keywords:
Scientific denialism; Scientific education; Scientific concept