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The Spread of Ignorance (bbc.com)
New submitter Eric Eikrem writes: BBC Future has just published an interesting article on Robert Proctor, a science historian from Stanford University, who studies how people or companies with vested interests spread ignorance and obfuscate knowledge. The spread of ignorance follows certain patterns, whether it is about tobacco or climate change. 'Proctor found that ignorance spreads when firstly, many people do not understand a concept or fact and secondly, when special interest groups -- like a commercial firm or a political group – then work hard to create confusion about an issue. In the case of ignorance about tobacco and climate change, a scientifically illiterate society will probably be more susceptible to the tactics used by those wishing to confuse and cloud the truth.'
"The spread of ignorance follows certain patterns, whether it is about tobacco or climate change"
It's fascinating that these are the topics that pop up here in regards to "ignorance" which implies right there that this article has an agenda.
People are very VERY used to the concept of gaslighting and more importantly a concept called the "con". Used since the dawn of time by politicians and leaders to get their way.
The problem has never been that the public disagrees that "smoking is bad for you". The problem has always been its use as a whipping point to socially control the populace. Just like prohibition was at the turn of the century in the US.
Likewise for climate change as the current cause celebre - It's the solutions, again, being demanded. Switch over all gasoline engines to battery usage (which pollute and damage the environment in just as many other ways as battery creation (and reclamation) will cause pollution and environmental damage of other kinds. Or rework the economies in favor of socialist ones.
The people are cautious of the cons and the scams - and that's a good thing, not ignorance.
I think that it also helps that there's fertile ground for denial.
For example with climate change, there's a large number of Americans who see hard-core environmentalists as a bunch of hippies who are constantly yelling that the sky is falling and want government intervention in everything. (To be fair, there are vocal environmentalists that fit this mold, and they're very vocal.) So, it doesn't take much to cause a knee-jerk reaction against the claims of environmentalists because of negative perceptions of environmentalists in general. In fact, it might happen even without the prodding of people who want to peddle ignorance. Here's an interesting example of what I'm talking about: an otherwise thoughtful person who automatically rejected climate change ideas simply because of the source but has since reevaluated his beliefs.
Smoking also had fertile ground for ignorance. Since there was a push for government involvement, anti-nanny-staters were likely to automatically push back. Tobacco companies pedaling ignorance had fertile ground there too.
So If he is really investigating the spread of ignorance, why did he use a religious term of "denier" to explain people that doubt climate change is as dire as some report? This is a guy that has wrote books about how forward thinking the Nazi's were about science. He has multiple books about tobacco, and testified against the tobacco industry. Does that discount it all? No, but full disclosure wasn't done and it defiantly shows a bit of an agenda on Proctor's part.
The key quote from his article, and one that I found at some point in the past:
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' -- Isaac Asimov
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. The article is not talking about stupid people, i.e. willfully ignorant people. Ignorance is simply the lack of knowing, which is what many people and many scientists make as mistakes, which are far more forgivable. What is truly egregious are those spreading misinformation to create ignorance. Scientists often change their position based upon the facts, this isn't ignorance, it's learning. Religion is willfully pushing people to do things known to be harmful to themselves or other around for a perceived payoff in some unproven state that comes after known life, which is why it is called faith. Religion is simply willful ignorance in the belief of something else. While it obviously did not start out as such, the lack of adaptability of many major religions shows that there is no rigor, and the belief system itself is built more on dogma or the people that make up the religion. Even modern religions such as Mormonism struggle with this, where many of the facts are known. Please don't confuse the willful ignorance and stupidity of some religion with the uninformed ignorance of science.
I attribute it to the increasing use of "frame", first by politicians and political commentators and now by everyone. Figure out how you want to frame an argument and then keep pushing it, tasking about it only in terms of that frame and ignoring everyone else.
It's an effective technique because it makes it impossible to have any meaningful debate or argument. A lot like Newspeak, it prevents people from even discussing the issue in terms that don't fit your frame. It also polarizes groups, especially when combined with some good old fashioned demonizing of the enemy.
Welfare, fairness, taxation, feminism, gun control, foreign policy, men's issues, immigration, the EU... All have become poisoned by this particularly destructive kind of spin.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, it is a mistake to use consensus as validation when it comes to anything. After Einstein's theory of relativity came about, somebody published a work titled "100 authors against Einstein" that was trying to "disprove" relativity by means of scientific consensus. Einstein correctly pointed out that it should only take one of them to prove him wrong.
In mathematics (not science I know), a proof is one that is agreed upon by consensus. ... very bad ...
So you must be very bad in math
Science doesn't have proofs (it has supporting data for a hypothesis). Maybe this is a problem.
That is nonsense, too. There is plenty of since that has proofs. E.g. the absorption spectrums of elements, or their atomic weight or electron hull. Plenty of science stuff is simply facts and does not need particular proof beyond facts. E.g. that stuff lighter than water swims in water ... no brainers.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
People who deliberately promote agnotology for commercial or selfish gain are causing great harm to our civilization, economically, socially, and morally. They cause our society to make incorrect decisions that will make all of us worse off. Let's consider some other people who cause harm in our society.
Drug dealers lure vulnerable people onto a path that usually leads to ruin. But their damage is limited to a relatively small number of people. Pimps also lure vulnerable young people onto a path of abuse and degradation. They often purposely addict their victims to drugs so that they will be more controllable. They in essence destroy the lives of these young people for profit. Although the damage done by pimps and drug dealers is obvious and clear, their impact is relatively small on society, since they impact so few people.
Contrast the above examples of unambiguous evil with those who worked to confuse society over the dangers of smoking. Even today, smoking kills millions of people each year worldwide. Anyone who worked confuse smokers and potential smokers about the potential dangers of smoking is complicit in the deaths of those who succumb. Dying of lung cancer is pretty much like dying of suffocation over a period of weeks or months. It is an excruciating way to die.
Thus, I see equivalence between consciously trying to confuse people about smoking, and being a drug dealer and/or a pimp. Except that those who try to sow confusion about the dangers of smoking are far worse, because in the end they will be associated with the deaths of far more people.
As for global warming, I think that consciously sowing confusion about the science is morally far worse than any of the above examples I mentioned. The near term consequences of global warming have been/will be higher food prices. For us in the western world, we will find ways of dealing with this, even though it will cause economic harm. But for those of live in North Africa, the consequences are far worse. Political unrest, for example during the "Arab Spring" can be tightly associated with the price of wheat. For those who spend most of their income on food, having the price of wheat go up even by 30% can be devastating. And if high wheat prices were associated with the Arab Spring, they are also indirectly associated with the Syrian war (as is an ongoing water shortage). These conflicts have resulted in many deaths, and have created countless homeless refugees.
To summarize, I believe that those who deliberately sow confusion about important issues are morally complicit in the deaths that will result from the agnotology they helped induce. I hold such people beneath drug dealers and pimps. If you are too stupid to understand science, well I guess it really isn't your fault. But those who know what they are doing, or worse are paid to sow ignorance and confusion are in my opinion amongst the worst scum of humanity.