Agnotology

Agnotology is a branch of social science. It studies how doubt or ignorance about a subject is created. For example, when scientific studies rely on inaccurate data, they create doubt about the truth and spread ignorance about it. More generally, the term also highlights a common condition: that learning about a subject leaves a person more uncertain than before.

Etymology

This new word was made by Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology. Proctor cites the tobacco industry's conspiracy to manufacture doubt about the cancer risks of tobacco use as a very good example of how this can be done. Under the banner of science, the industry produced research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty.

Impact of media

The way in which media attention works can produce ignorance. Other factors that influence it are that corporations or governments do not reveal certain facts. At times, they force these facts to be removed if they have been revealed. The methods they use include censorship, destroying documents, putting the weight of certain facts differently, or being inattentive or forgetful.

Propagation of knowledge

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 key evidence was classified military information related to underseas warfare.