Agnotology

Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of deliberate, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. More generally, the term also highlights the condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

Coined in 1995 by Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor, along with linguist Iain Boal, the word is based on the Neoclassical Greek word agnōsis (ἄγνωσις, 'not knowing'; cf. Attic Greek ἄγνωτος, 'unknown') and -logia (-λογία). Proctor cites as a prime example the tobacco industry's 40-year public relations campaign to manufacture doubt about the adverse health effects of tobacco use. This technique and its subsequent adoption by the fossil fuel industry in a similar campaign against the scientific consensus on climate change is the focus of the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.

Active causes of culturally-induced ignorance can include the influence of the media, corporations, and governmental agencies, through secrecy and suppression of information, document destruction, and selective memory. Another example is climate change denial, where oil companies paid teams of scientists to downplay the effects of climate change. Passive causes include structural information bubbles, including those created by segregation along racial and class lines, that create differential access to information.

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.