Intellectual Dishonesty: Guilt by Association

Intellectual Dishonesty

Intellectual dishonesty is the advocacy of a position which the advocate knows or believes to be false or clearly misleading, or is the advocacy of a position which the advocate does not know to be true, and has not performed rigorous due diligence to insure the truthfulness of the position. Rhetoric is used to advance an agenda or to reinforce one's deeply held beliefs in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.

If a person is aware of the evidence and agrees with the conclusion it portends, yet advocates a contradictory view, they commit intellectual dishonesty. If the person is unaware of the evidence, their position is ignorance, even if in agreement with the scientific conclusion. If the person is knowingly aware that there may be additional evidence but purposefully fails to check, and then acts as though the position is confirmed, this is also intellectual dishonesty.