The study of narrative coercion, the intoxicating rush some derive from combining power with just enough deception to mislead—yet not so much as to be caught and held to account by those they exploit. The embezzler sleeps soundly so long as the only crime in town is called “bank robbery,” and he’s its loudest foe. While he holds the keys to the vault, the word embezzle will never exist.
Just as ponerology (from Greek πονηρός (ponērós), “evil”) is the study of the nature and habits of evil, and agnoiology (from Greek ἀγνοέω (agnóeo), “ignorance”) is the theoretical study of the machinations and conditions of ignorance, so too do we need a term for the study of how authority and power are abused to create quasi‑truths and coercive official doctrines masquerading as science.
Key tenet of ethical skepticism: If the right term does not exist, then it must exist.
Exapátisiology
A component of the study triad of ethical skepticism: Ponerology, Agnoiology, Exapátisiology
(from Greek ἐξ– prefix = intensifier meaning “out of, derived from” + απάτησις (apátēsis) meaning “a deceptive ploy”, or combined, “derived from a cunning narrative”) is the study of deception through the manufacture of authoritative or scientific apparency—the processes and psychological mechanics by which individuals or institutions manipulate or coerce others into accepting a false belief set or political technology (doctrine).
While its cognate, apátiology (from Greek ἀπάτη (apátē), “fraud”), focuses on the abject act of fraud itself, exapátisiology focuses more on the specialized art of selling fraudulent narratives to large populations in the name of science, rationality, skepticism, or truth. It examines the intoxicating rush some derive from combining power with just enough of a truth shortfall to mislead—yet not so much as to be caught and held to account by those they exploit.
However, unlike ponerology and agnoiology—which presume the observer to operate from a viewing platform (if not a self‑attributed one) of “the good” (righteousness in the former, true knowledge in the latter)—the observer within exapátisiology makes no claim to possess the “real truth.” Instead, they act as a neutral (epoché) examiner of the tactics and methods of false skepticism and false science. Such an observer may, in many cases, even agree with the specific claims advanced by those they evaluate, yet still recognize the signature patterns of agency, disinformation, or ulterior motive behind the participant’s actions—elements the participant themselves may not even consciously perceive.
The ethical skeptic is, by necessity, a student of all three disciplines. Yet it is this missing but essential term—exapátisiology—that the ethical skeptic also recognizes as a tactic of exapátisiology itself: to permit no language to exist that can precisely name one’s crimes. As Orwell observed in 1984, the aim of Newspeak was to make certain disapproved thoughts “literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express them.” In like manner, the practitioner of exapátisiology seeks to strip the lexicon of any term capable of exposing their abuse of authority—thereby rendering the recognition of such abuse, if not unthinkable, at least unspeakable.
The embezzler sleeps soundly so long as the only crime in town is called “bank robbery,” and he’s its loudest foe. While he holds the keys to the vault, the word embezzle will never exist.
Such is the habit of our science communicators and social skeptics. It is through exapátisiology that millions more perished from our COVID response than from COVID itself.
The Ethical Skeptic, “Exapátisiology”; The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 31 July 2025; Web, https://theethicalskeptic.com/2025/07/31/exapatisiology/