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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.'
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.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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.