Agnotology

This article is about the study of culturally-conditioned ignorance. For the 19th-century theory of the unknowable, see agnoiology.

Within the sociology of knowledge, agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of deliberate, culturally cultivated ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data (i.e. disinformation). More generally, the term includes the condition where more knowledge of a subject creates greater uncertainty.

Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor cites the Tobacco industry playbook to manufacture doubt about the adverse health effects of tobacco use as a prime example. David Dunning of Cornell University warns that powerful interests exploit the internet to "propagate ignorance".

Active agents of culturally cultivated ignorance include mass media, corporations, and government agencies, operating through secrecy and suppression of information, document destruction, and selective memory. Passive causes include structural information bubbles, such as those produced by racial or class divisions, characterized by limited and selective access to information. Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse knowledge does not "come to be", or is 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.

The availability of large amounts of knowledge may allow people to cherry-pick information (whether factual or not) that reinforces their beliefs, a practice known as confirmation bias, and ignore inconvenient knowledge by consuming repetitive or fact-free entertainment. Evidence conflicts on how television affects viewers.

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