Todd Suomela's Library tagged ignorance →  View Popular, Search in Google

"This is the fourth and last entry in a series that has examined the climate change disinformation campaign as an ethical matter. The purpose of this series has been to distinguish between responsible scientific skepticism, an approach to climate change science that should be encouraged, and the tactics of the climate change disinformation campaign, strategies deployed to undermine mainstream climate change science that are often deeply ethically offensive. "

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"And, given all the new platforms that exist solely for the purpose of satisfying curiosity, the web is also a reminder of our perpetual knowledge. The answers, for the most part, are there for us; we just need to take the step of asking the questions. So while it's easy to make fun of the people who broadcast their ignorance, it's much better to celebrate them. They're a collective reminder that, with the world's knowledge newly at our fingertips, the only thing worse than ignorance is indifference."

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"Moving to the history of science, one instance of taking social factors seriously is the “Matthew effect” noted by Robert Merton (i.e., Matt.25:29: “…to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance …” ). In a classic paper from 1968, Merton noted, among other things, that scientific prestige tended to accumulate on those who already possessed it in some degree, such that, for example, when two scientists a and b have done the same kind of work, but a has a reputation and b does not (e.g., is working as a lab-technician, or a graduate student), it is scientist a who tends to get the Nobel Prize if the work leads to amazing discoveries. Into this, Burke suggested, geografic (working in centers tend to be rewarded more than working in the margins) and gender factors may also be present (such as the famous story of the discovery of the double helix, and Rosalind Franklin’s neglected role – or, ironically, even the relation between Merton himself and his wife, the sociologist Harriet Zuckerman, who also researched the phenomenon of multiple independent discoveries, while it is Merton’s name that has become attached to the “Matthew effect”!).

Among the many other well-known social effects charted out were the notion of dominated vs. dominating knowledges (e.g. Foucault, and a host of post-colonial thinkers), habitus (Bourdieu), and tacit knowledge (Polanyi). But what I found more interesting was the reflections on the history of ignorance."

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"My feeling (derived largely from observations on climate change and creationism, which raise similar questions) is that we can distinguish numerous different belief states that go along with birtherist answers to opinion poll questions."

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"But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not."

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