Weaponising controversy: a demarcation of illegitimate dissent

Climate change research has faced increased public scrutiny over the last several years. The scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change has significant public policy implications, and this, combined with the resulting public scrutiny, has had material consequence to how science in this field is done. Dissenting research, as well as dissent more generally, is often made in a way that is damaging to the pursuit of knowledge, instead of beneficial to it. While historical accounts of ‘epistemically detrimental dissent’ (EDD) have captured some of the ways these views are created and spread, establishing strict criteria for these without implicating the normal dissent that is so crucial to scientific practice, remains difficult. After discussing the background of EDD in existing philosophical literature, an alternative – the communications account of epistemically detrimental dissent – is proposed