Professional Obfuscation

Ulysses and sirens

Description

The complexity of the world makes reasoning about it very difficult. In many public deliberations it can be useful if this situation can be made even more incomprehensible. There are many ways to bring this about. One effective way to do is to engage professionals to develop campaigns to increase public ignorance. In the United States the tobacco lobby effectively kept damaging information about the lethality of their product the people. They also systematically claimed that there was no "proof" of the link. More recently climate change denial campaigns have been developed that are intentionally designed to sow doubt in the population.

How it Works

According to Wikipedia, Agnotology "is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data."

Resources =

Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance by Robert Proctor.