When we either

A. adjust our social norms to make the world at large less punishing for pedants, “well, actually”, and those who do not “read the room” — when people are more willing to accept “well that was poorly framed but true” as a valid reason to keep someone in leadership.

B. Make humans better at social interactions in general without somehow introducing tradeoffs.

I am wondering if you are hinting at the cold war, Vietnam or Afghanistan/Iraq.

I honestly can't tell.

Or the war on drugs, or the food pyramid, both of which are still happening.

Or smoking is good for you.

Or drinking a glass of wine every single day.

leaded gasoline, the low fat diet, web 2.0, ...

I was thinking the vaccines cause autism debacle, the manufacturing consent on whether or not cigarettes cause cancer, the oil companies holding their climatology research they'd finished in the 70's. But gulf war 2 probably counts too.

I am positive growing up I read about how some anesthetic they used during childbirth in the sixties was linked to some kind of birth defect but it is ridiculous to say that about vaccines.

Why is there doubt that vaccines are safe and that tobacco is harmful?

I can understand reluctance to say too much of sweet smoothies filled with fresh fruits is harmful or milk/milk products are harmful because they contain lots of useful nutrients and the reality is very nuanced and our understanding will evolve over the next few decades.

However, the topics you mentioned are solved issues. Why is it so easy to cast doubt about them?

Thalidomide might be what you're thinking of. Didn't realise until now that it wasn't approved in the US until the risks were well known. But in the UK at least "thalidomide was (supposed to be) safe too" is an easy argument you'll hear fairly often.

>... a subsidiary of Distillers Co. Ltd (now part of Diageo plc), marketed thalidomide throughout the UK, Australia and New Zealand, under the brand name Distaval, as a remedy for morning sickness. Their advertisement claimed that "Distaval can be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child ... Outstandingly safe Distaval has been prescribed for nearly three years in this country."

>Experts estimate that thalidomide led to the death of approximately 2,000 children and serious birth defects in more than 10,000 children, about 5,000 of them in West Germany

> Why is it so easy to cast doubt about them?

Because people will say just about anything if you pay them to say it, and they will keep saying it for as long as you keep paying them.

This feeds into people reasonable assumption that if to different people are saying different things these is some doubt about the issue.

> Why is it so easy to cast doubt about them?

The entire vaccines cause autism thing started as a disinformation campaign against the MMR vaccine in order to sell an alternative (expensive) 3 part vaccine and to win a lawsuit. The media gave the original paper huge coverage without actually reading it and it took many people a lot of work debunking and discrediting the author before he even lost his medical license.

You never read "We got tricked into spreading BS" on the front page of a newspaper.

How about tobacco and climate change?

In addition to sibling comments, I'd add

Focusing just on industrial misinformation, I'd add

  - asbestos and lung disease
  - mercury dumping
  - chromate dumping
  - numerous workplace hazards

product liability truths are a third-rail in market capitalism

translation: mass market products are responsible for a very large portion of the total economic GDP, and by definition, touch the lives of millions (or more) people each day. Product liability is a system of law where the brand holder does have financial responsibility when things go wrong. Truth, obviously, is the real effects of the products on people, living things, and our common environment. A third-rail is a real-live, high voltage carrier of power for trains, but the term is used to convey something too powerful to even slightly touch, at the risk of death and destruction. In colloquial political talk it means that a appointed official or elected official could be terminated by broaching the topic in public.

from an "Economist magazine point of view" some products do cease to generate profit after restrictions or penalties on the market, which is "deadly" to profit.

depending on your world view, many products today, like gas-driven cars, are actually toxic from the beginning, yet have so much economic and daily importance that it is collectively tolerated, until it is not.

ordinary product liability, like "body burden" long lived chemistry rubbing off from sofas or children's toys, live in a gray area in markets where a change in public opinion or regulatory framework can alter the product and its market quite a bit at any time.

since steady profit over time is a de-facto definition of social power, there are multiple layers of second or third order actors that delay, deny and obfuscate any change in status quo, and are paid real money to do so.

activists, educators, researchers and regulators that try to change the status quo of products with facts about toxicity are then "touching a third-tail"

source: research on electronics products life-cycle worldwide

Infant circumcision in America is a good candidate here, sadly.