A term I hadn’t heard of before: agnotology. Coined in 1992 by Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor and linguist Iain Boal, is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, often used to sell products, influence opinion, or win favour. This field examines how ignorance is manufactured and maintained, particularly through the dissemination of misleading scientific data, secrecy, and the suppression of information.
The concept was born out of a need to understand not just how knowledge is acquired but why certain knowledge remains unknown or ignored. Proctor’s work on the tobacco industry’s efforts to obscure the health risks of smoking exemplifies this. The industry manufactured doubt through a sophisticated public relations campaign, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of harm. You can see the same thing at play today with climate change, and the oil and gas industry’s onslaught of disinformation.
The internet plays a crucial role in propagating ignorance. I am frequently puzzled by what I’ve heard called “aggressive gullibility.” People cherry-pick and share information that aligns with their beliefs, or even make things up whole cloth and then steadfastly and actively refuse to to be fact checked. Indeed, being presented with evidence that contradicts their beliefs seems to make people double and triple down, at least if social media comments are any indicator. This brings to mind the quotation from Jonathan Swift: “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.”
Of course, part of that is because people don’t like to admit when they’re wrong, especially publicly. I have also seen research that indicates that people refuse to change their beliefs in the face of evidence to the contrary in part because the belief has become an important part of their identity.
Interestingly, even the easy and private availability of facts isn’t enough — anyone who has a smart phone has access to the whole world’s knowledge, and someone could easily quietly fact check something before posting or sharing it. Yet, some people would rather risk (or in some cases, guarantee) public ridicule than fact check before posting, which is really odd when you think about it. Is it the case that any attention is good attention online for some people? Is it pure trolling? (Itself is a bizarre phenomenon.) Are they paid disinformation posters? It’s hard to tell how much online activity is a result of people’s genuinely held beliefs versus something done as a performance or for pay.
Do people with anti-factual beliefs change their minds later, in private? Does the introduction of a smidgen of doubt eventually unravel a set of beliefs that are unsupported by facts? Sometimes it happens; you see stories all the time about people who change even fundamental beliefs. Can we get this to happen more often? That’s a tougher question. Sometimes it seems like by the time someone gets to the point where they’re repeatedly sharing the same thoroughly debunked misinformation that they’re ‘too far gone.’
Or is it possible to inoculate people against disinformation in the first place? Schools have variously attempted to teach critical thinking skills; judging by the current state of things either we’re not doing enough or we need to do it better.
Related on this blog: Schismogenesis