Agnotology: The inevident apocalypse everyone should be worried about
What connects the dots between American tobacco companies, Donald Trump, Brexit, Facebook and Hans Rosling?
Recently I read an article by Tim Harford titled The Problem With Facts.
Tim’s article made me realise the apocalyptic possibility of a world where the facts won’t matter. Tim’s starts with the story of how a PR firm helped America’s Big Tobacco beat the scientific evidence (of connection between lung cancer and cigarette smoke):
“Just before Christmas 1953, the bosses of America’s leading tobacco companies met John Hill, the founder and chief executive of one of America’s leading public relations firms, Hill & Knowlton. Despite the impressive surroundings — the Plaza Hotel, overlooking Central Park in New York — the mood was one of crisis.
Scientists were publishing solid evidence of a link between smoking and cancer. From the viewpoint of Big Tobacco, more worrying was that the world’s most read publication, The Reader’s Digest, had already reported on this evidence in a 1952 article, “Cancer by the Carton”. The journalist Alistair Cooke, writing in 1954, predicted that the publication of the next big scientific study into smoking and cancer might finish off the industry. And how can we solve this epidemic?
It did not. PR guru John Hill had a plan — and the plan, with hindsight, proved tremendously effective. Despite the fact that its product was addictive and deadly, the tobacco industry was able to fend off regulation, litigation and the idea in the minds of many smokers that its products were fatal for decades.”
Tim goes on to introduce the term “Agnotology” (formerly “agnatology”), which is the “study of how ignorance is deliberately produced”.
“So successful was Big Tobacco in postponing that day of reckoning that their tactics have been widely imitated ever since. They have also inspired a thriving corner of academia exploring how the trick was achieved. In 1995, Robert Proctor, a historian at Stanford University who has studied the tobacco case closely, coined the word “agnotology”. This is the study of how ignorance is deliberately produced; the entire field was started by Proctor’s observation of the tobacco industry. The facts about smoking — indisputable facts, from unquestionable sources — did not carry the day. The indisputable facts were disputed. The unquestionable sources were questioned. Facts, it turns out, are important, but facts are not enough to win this kind of argument.”
Agnotology is the study of (unethical malpractice?) of “culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data” to distract and redirect public attention. (Source: Wikipedia page on Agnotology)
The disputable facts are left undisputed. The unquestionable sources were questioned. Welcome to 21st century.
But you might ask, how is this all relevant in 21st century? Well, I’ll let Tim do the honours:
“Agnotology has never been more important. “We live in a golden age of ignorance,” says Proctor today. “And Trump and Brexit are part of that.”
In the UK’s EU referendum, the Leave side pushed the false claim that the UK sent £350m a week to the EU. It is hard to think of a previous example in modern western politics of a campaign leading with a transparent untruth, maintaining it when refuted by independent experts, and going on to triumph anyway. That performance was soon to be eclipsed by Donald Trump, who offered wave upon shameless wave of demonstrable falsehood, only to be rewarded with the presidency. The Oxford Dictionaries declared “post-truth” the word of 2016. Facts just didn’t seem to matter any more.”
And if you think this is limited to just having political implications, let’s throw social media into the mix:
“Facebook has also drafted in the fact checkers, announcing a crackdown on the “fake news” stories that had become prominent on the network after the election. Facebook now allows users to report hoaxes. The site will send questionable headlines to independent fact checkers, flag discredited stories as “disputed”, and perhaps downgrade them in the algorithm that decides what each user sees when visiting the site.”
In case you had been living under the rock, the likes of Google and Facebook had been accused of spreading fake news, and despite their efforts to curb the problem, the wider journalistic opinion is that the efforts aren’t sufficient.
So, if you are intrigued about:
- The PR tactics which were used by Big Tobacco to thwart the attempts of medical scientists and journalists to bring the facts to public (one such PR stunt was tobacco industry’s generous contribution to research funds in “genetics, viruses, immunology, air pollution.. almost anything, except tobacco”, which positioned Big Tobacco as a public-sprited industry).
- The (social) science behind Brexit as well as Trump’s rise to the position of POTUS.
- The behind-the-scenes social science involved in Chinese paid pro-government hacks (known as “50 cent army”) for putting comments on social media that seem to avoid controversial issues entirely to distract and redirect public attention.
- What is the solution to this depressing picture for those of us who aren’t ready to live in a post-truth world? (Hint: It’s scientific curiosity, not scientific literacy).
Tim ended his article with a tribute to Hans Rosling (renowned physician, academic, statistician, and public speaker who died in Feb 2017). Rosling championed the cause of sparking the “scientific curiosity” by showing people how science works using simple graphical presentations of data and thus bringing people closer to the human narratives of (social) sciences.
Hans Rosling was one of the very few potential candidates for igniting the scientific curiosity by creating a sense of wonder and raw fascination, for curious minds to have a first-hand experience of discovering surprising insights into how the world works. To understand why Tim Harford (and I) think so, I strongly recommend watching Hans Rosling’s TED talks (in which he talks about global socio-economic problems from population growth, poverty, HIV, child mortality etc.)
Intrigued?
Then go and read Tim’s post “The Problem with Facts” in it’s full glory at: http://timharford.com/2017/03/the-problem-with-facts/
It’s a long read, but it will be totally worth it. You have my word!
