Agnotology

Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. In 1995 Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology, and linguist Iain Boal coined the neologismon the basis of the Neoclassical Greek word ἄγνωσις, agnōsis, 'not knowing' (cf. Attic Greek ἄγνωτος 'unknown'), and -λογία, -logia. More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before. David Dunning of Cornell University is another academic who studies the spread of ignorance. 'Dunning warns that the internet is helping propagate ignorance – it is a place where everyone has a chance to be their own expert, he says, which makes them prey for powerful interests wishing to deliberately spread ignorance'.The creation of systemic unknowns where any potential 'fact' is always already countered by an alternative of apparently equal weight and value renders engagement with the conditions of reality – the very situations affective labor seeks to assuage – contentious and a source of confusion, reflected by the inability of participants in bubbles to be aware of the imminent collapse until after it has happened. The biopolitical paradigm of distraction, what Prada calls 'life to enjoy', can only be maintained if the underlying strictures remain hidden from view. If affective labor works to reduce alienation, agnotology works to eliminate the potential for dissent. Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. In 1995 Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology, and linguist Iain Boal coined the neologismon the basis of the Neoclassical Greek word ἄγνωσις, agnōsis, 'not knowing' (cf. Attic Greek ἄγνωτος 'unknown'), and -λογία, -logia. More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before. David Dunning of Cornell University is another academic who studies the spread of ignorance. 'Dunning warns that the internet is helping propagate ignorance – it is a place where everyone has a chance to be their own expert, he says, which makes them prey for powerful interests wishing to deliberately spread ignorance'. In his 1999 book The Erotic Margin, Irvin C. Schick referred to unknowledge 'to distinguish it from ignorance, and to denote socially constructed lack of knowledge, that is, a conscious absence of socially pertinent knowledge'. As an example, he offered the labeling 'terra incognita' in early maps, noting that 'The reconstruction of parts of the globe as uncharted territory is ... the production of unknowledge, the transformation of those parts into potential objects of Western political and economic attention. It is the enabling of colonialism.' There are many causes of culturally induced ignorance. These include the influence of the media, either through neglect or as a result of deliberate misrepresentation and manipulation. Corporations and governmental agencies can contribute to the subject matter studied by agnotology through secrecy and suppression of information, document destruction, and myriad forms of inherent or avoidable culturopolitical selectivity, inattention, and forgetfulness. Proctor cites as a prime example of the deliberate production of ignorance the tobacco industry's advertising campaign to manufacture doubt about the cancerous and other health effects of tobacco use. Under the banner of science, the industry produced research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty. Tribal resistance to science that contradicts medical or dental dogma heavily biases decision making, prompting vitriolic attacks that contributes the suppression of scientific knowledge in service of protecting a sanctioned narrative. Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse forms of knowledge do not 'come to be', or are ignored or delayed. For example, knowledge about plate tectonics was censored and delayed for at least a decade because some evidence remained classified military information related to undersea warfare. The term 'agnotology' was first coined in a footnote in Proctor's 1995 book, The Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know About Cancer: 'Historians and philosophers of science have tended to treat ignorance as an ever-expanding vacuum into which knowledge is sucked – or even, as Johannes Kepler once put it, as the mother who must die for science to be born. Ignorance, though, is more complex than this. It has a distinct and changing political geography that is often an excellent indicator of the politics of knowledge. We need a political agnotology to complement our political epistemologies'. Proctor was quoted using the term to describe his research 'only half jokingly', as 'agnotology' in a 2001 interview about his lapidary work with the colorful rock agate. He connected the two seemingly unrelated topics by noting the lack of geologic knowledge and study of agate since its first known description by Theophrastus in 300 BC, relative to the extensive research on other rocks and minerals such as diamonds, asbestos, granite, and coal, all of which have much higher commercial value. He said agate was a 'victim of scientific disinterest', the same 'structured apathy' he called 'the social construction of ignorance'. He was later quoted as calling it 'agnotology, the study of ignorance', in a 2003 The New York Times story on medical historians testifying as expert witnesses.