Agnotology
The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance
Published on 12. May 2008
Book
Hardback
312 pages
978-0-8047-5652-5 (ISBN)
Description
What don't we know, and why don't we know it? What keeps ignorance alive, or allows it to be used as a political instrument? Agnotology-the study of ignorance-provides a new theoretical perspective to broaden traditional questions about "how we know" to ask: Why don't we know what we don't know? The essays assembled in Agnotology show that ignorance is often more than just an absence of knowledge; it can also be the outcome of cultural and political struggles. Ignorance has a history and a political geography, but there are also things people don't want you to know ("Doubt is our product" is the tobacco industry slogan). Individual chapters treat examples from the realms of global climate change, military secrecy, female orgasm, environmental denialism, Native American paleontology, theoretical archaeology, racial ignorance, and more. The goal of this volume is to better understand how and why various forms of knowing do not come to be, or have disappeared, or have become invisible.
Reviews / Votes
"Anyone who thinks ignorance is nobodys business has a lot to learn from these provocative essays. The distinguished authors offer compelling evidence that what we do not know is every bit as much a product of human choice and ingenuity as what we choose to know. Agnotology rescues ignorance from the no-mans-land of unexamined social phenomena. It makes us ask what is at stake when we dont know things that are plainly before our eyes. This is a book for every thinking citizen."-Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University "In the past years there have been few new fields of research as timely as agnotology. Many a time one is puzzled by the widespread ignorance of some of the greatest challenges mankind faces today, be it global warming, the way to the Iraq war, or the global tobacco epidemic. Agnotology might very well be the tool to delve into the great black holes of modern knowledge and also find a way out." -Andrian Kreye, arts and ideas editor, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Palo Alto
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
1 table, 15 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 153 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-8047-5652-5 (9780804756525)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Robert N. Proctor is Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University and the author of The Nazi War on Cancer (1999) and Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know (1995). Londa Schiebinger is the John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science and the Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Her recent books include Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (2004) and Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering (forthcoming from Stanford).
Content
Contents Preface xxx 1. Agnotology: A Missing Term to Describe the Cultural Production of Ignorance (and its Study) Robert N. Proctor 1 Part I. Secrecy, Selection, and Suppression 2. Removing Knowledge: The Logic of Modern Censorship Peter Galison 000 3. Challenging Knowledge: How Climate Science Became a Victim of the Cold War Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway 000 4. Manufactured Uncertainty: Contested Science and the Protection of the Public's Health and Environment David M. Michaels 000 5. Coming To Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance Nancy Tuana 000 Part II. Lost Knowledge, Lost Worlds 6. West Indian Abortifacients and the Cultural Production of Ignorance Londa Schiebinger 000 7. Suppression of Indigenous Fossil Knowledge: From Claverack, New York 1705 to Agate Springs, Nebraska, 2005 Adrienne Mayor 000 8. Agnotology in/of Archaeology Alison Wylie 000 Part III. Theorizing Ignorance 9. Social Theories of Ignorance Michael J. Smithson 000 10. White Ignorance Charles W. Mills 000 11. Risk Management vs. the Precautionary Principle: Agnotology as a Strategy in the Debate over Genetically Engineered Organisms David Magnus 000 12. Smoking Out Objectivity: Journalistic Gears in the Agnotology Machine Jon Christensen 000 Notes 000 List of Contributors 000 Index 000