Agnotology

I suppose I should be writing about the irony of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who railed against the perfidy of Edward Snowden, now complaining that the CIA hacked her Senate staffers’ computers.  Some targets are just too easy, so instead I’ll be discussing the new field of agnotology.  

My spellchecker thinks that word is a mistake, but it’s a neologism for the study of the production of ignorance.  One of the big experts is Dr. Robert Proctor of Stanford.

Some examples of the production of ignorance?

  

Big tobacco putting out a memo in 1969 saying “doubt is our product,” and then proceeding to attack the data on the dangers of smoking.

“Death panels” in the run-up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Global warming as a theory.  Also evolution, and, by the way, the earth is approximately 6000 years old.

Almost any item on Fox News.

Here’s one from the U.S. Supreme Court from the Citizens United decision:  The 14h Amendment reference to “persons” actually meant corporations.

If you’d like to read more, Google “Hiltzik agnotology” and you’ll get there.  I want to thank my friend Kim for sending me Michael Hiltzik’s article the L.A. Times.