On Sun, 17 Apr 2016 15:24:07 -0700, Christopher Green wrote:
Proctor is very well known in Science & Technology Studies. He
got into a dust up in the psych journals several years ago with
an eminent historian of psychology named John Burnham (Ohio St.,
I think), who had apparently once testified in court on behalf of
tobacco companies, bringing his historical expertise to bear on
the topic. I do not recall all the details at present, but that is
probably why his name turns up in PsycInfo. Agnotology has
been around for a long while now. Proctor's book on it is from 2008.
Although it is often described as the "study of ignorance," it is
really about the intentional *production* of ignorance (or
justification
for the denial of knowledge that is well-established), usually for
political or commercial purposes. Tobacco companies "selling doubt"
about the health effects of their product is the classic example.
More recently, manufacturing doubt about the cause and effects
climate change has become the central item. (Naomi Oreskes
has shown that not only is the style of argument in the cases of
tobacco and climate change similar; it turns out that the two campaigns
have often been developed by the selfsame "scientists" who sell
their academic cred to corporations who need the appearance of
"independence" to enhance the believability of their denials.)
Evolution is a frequent "victim" of similar campaigns. Every time
you hear a politician start their remarks with "I'm not a scientist but
it seems to me...," that is a classic agnotological trope in action.
A few points:
(1) A key part of the article that Jim Clark cites below give the
fullest expression, I believe, of what agnotology means:
|Agnotology is the study of willful acts to spread confusion
|and deceit, usually to sell a product or win favour.
However, I would add that it not exactly ignorance that is being
exploited but "uncertainty". That is, given that scientific theories
and explanations are tentative and subject to revision, one cannot
be 100% certain that a particularly conclusion is "TRUE", in the
deductive reasoning sense. Consequently, any scientific
uncertainty, no matter how precisely measured (e.g., there is
a 5% chance that this test result is wrong) is seen as a weakness
instead of a strength (i.e., we know the probability of being wrong).
For people who are 100% sure of what they know (e.g., the Bible
is the inerrant word of God), the stories that science tells seem
like weak narratives compared to the true stories that the Bible
tells (all you need is faith). When a Creation Science advocate
says "Evolution is only a theory" they think that they are pointing
out a weakness: theories can be wrong but the Bible cannot be
wrong. There are few statements we can make that we can
have 100% confidence in, such as "All U.S. Presidents have been
men" (though some might question whether one or two were
intersex) and most statements are based on limited samples of
observation and knowledge (e.g., the "Black swan problem").
Nonetheless, people will believe that the former is more often
the case than the latter.
(2) With respect to the cigarette smoking controversy, first,
I suggest watching the movie "Thank You For Smoking"; see:
http://www.amazon.com/Thank-Smoking-Widescreen-Aaron-Eckhart/dp/B000H0MKOC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1460995807&sr=8-2&keywords=thank+you+for+smoking
Second, it is useful to keep in mind the first major person to
argue against claims that cigarette smoking (and other forms)
cause cancer or other illnesses: Sir Ronald A. Fisher, the
father of ANOVA and numerous contributions to statistics and
genetics. For one version of his argument in support of
cigarette smoking, see:
Fisher, R. (1958). Cigarettes, cancer, and statistics. The Centennial
Review of Arts & Science, 2, 151-166.
NOTE: available on Jstor.
Fisher is correct that true experiments have not been conducted
nor could be conducted with humans, thus the usual causal relationship
that experiments produce could not be established. If one were
relying only on correlational data, well, "correlation is causation"
and he argued that a pre-disposition to cancer might lead one to
smoke (instead of smoking leading to cancer). The quote from
the above article, I think, expresses the point best:
|The subject is complicated, and I mentioned at an early
|stage that the logical distinction was between A causing B,
|B causing A, something else causing both. Is it possible,
|then, that lung cancer-that is to say, the pre-cancerous
|condition which must exist and is known to exist for years
|in those who are going to show overt lung cancer- is one
|of the causes of smoking cigarettes? I don't think it can be
|excluded. I don't think we know enough to say that it is such
|a cause. (p162)
Fisher is rightly pointing out the limitations of correlational
analysis but the evidence that has accumulated since he wrote
this show that he was fundamentally wrong. The epidemiologist
Stolley reviews this situation to try to understand why Fisher
was so adamant in his refusal to accept the concept that smoking
could cause cancer and/or other serious illnesses: see:
Stolley, P. D. (1991). When genius errs: RA Fisher and the lung
cancer controversy. American journal of epidemiology, 133(5), 416-425.
Stolley does point out that Fisher took this position after he
had retired and there were "secondary benefits" to taking a
gadfly position on a topic that many medical professional
thought was established (some statisticians, such as Berkson,
agreed with Fisher but I believe changed their position over
time). See the following article for a more neutral position
about the history of epidemiological research on smoking
and lung cancer:
White, C. (1990). Research on smoking and lung cancer: a
landmark in the history of chronic disease epidemiology.
The Yale journal of biology and medicine, 63(1), 29.
So, is it the spreading of ignorance, the exploitation of uncertainty,
using spin to persuade people that the facts are now what they
are (listen to the current presidential candidates positions and
promises), or all of the above that define agnotology?
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
On Apr 17, 2016, at 4:24 PM, Jim Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi
Came across following article describing work by a science historian
under
the rubric of "agnotology" (study of ignorance) that clearly overlaps
with
interest in critical thinking, debunking, and the like in psychology.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance
Here's an intro to Proctor's book on the subject.
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/hale/ENVS5200/Agnotology-Introduction.pdf
Proctor has a few references in PsycInfo, three on tobacco and one on
eugenics, which probably overlaps with psychology in other ways as
well
(e.g., evolutionary psychology).
New to me, but perhaps not others.
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