Agnotology: On the Varieties of Ignorance, Criminal Negligence, and Crimes Against Humanity

Agnotology is the study of ignorance —how it is culturally created or condoned, and the purposes it serves in a society. Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor, a historian of science and technology, coined the word from the Greek agnosis, “not knowing,” and -ology, a subject of study or a branch of knowledge. The term first appeared in popular usage in 2003 in an article in the New York Times. “[A] great deal of attention has been given to epistemology (the study of how we know) when ‘how or why we don’t know’ is often just as important,” say Proctor and Londa Schiebinger in their seminal book Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. These authors have entered a target-rich territory, because the ways in which ignorance is created (agnogenesis) in our society are infinite—through media neglect and obfuscation, corporate or governmental secrecy and suppression, document destruction, myriad forms of cultural and political selectivity, inattention and forgetfulness, outright attempts to deceive and mislead (aka lying), and more. Proctor believes the study of ignorance has life-or-death consequences. This conviction stems from his role in the tobacco controversies in the waning years of the 20th century, in which he was a stern critic of the industry. “The tobacco industry is famous for having seen itself as a manufacturer of two different products, tobacco and doubt,” he asserts. The doubt refers to the tobacco companies' insistence that the science impugning tobacco was pie