Robert Proctor doesn’t think ignorance is bliss. He thinks that what you don’t know can hurt you. And that there’s more ignorance around than there used to be, and that its purveyors have gotten much better at filling our heads with nonsense.
Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford, is one of the world’s leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance. It’s a rich field, especially today when whole industries devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their products and activities.
The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson’s files, “Doubt is our product.” Big Tobacco’s method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo’s author wrote, but to establish a “controversy.”
When this sort of manipulation of information is done for profit, or to confound the development of beneficial public policy, it becomes a threat to health and to democratic society. Big Tobacco’s program has been carefully studied by the sugar industry, which has become a major target of public health advocates.
It’s also echoed by vaccination opponents, who continue to use a single dishonest and thoroughly discredited British paper to sow doubts about the safety of childhood immunizations, and by climate change deniers.
And all those fabricated Obamacare horror stories wholesaled by Republican and conservative opponents of the Affordable Care Act and their aiders and abetters in the right-wing press? Their purpose is to sow doubt about the entire project of healthcare reform; if the aim were to identify specific shortcomings of the act, they’d have to accompany every story with a proposal about how to fix it.
Proctor came to the study of agnotology through his study of the Nazi scientific establishment and subsequently of the tobacco industry’s defensive campaign.
Early in his career, he told me, he asked an advisor if Nazi science was an appropriate topic of research. “Of course,” he was told. “Nonsense is nonsense, but the history of nonsense is scholarship.” As part of his scholarship, Proctor says he “watches Fox News all the time.”
Proctor acknowledges that not all ignorance is bad.
“There are reasons we don’t want people to know how to make an airborne AIDSvirus or biological weapons,” he says. “And the right to privacy is based on a kind of sanctioned ignorance — we don’t want everyone to know everything about us all the time.”
But then there’s ignorance custom-designed to manipulate the public. “The myth of the ‘information society’ is that we’re drowning in knowledge,” he says. “But it’s easier to propagate ignorance.”
Want to read more? Click here. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140307,0,1622098.column#ixzz2vjRUmfXR
I the spirit of accuracy, I feel I should clarify a point. Regarding the following:
It is the job of defense lawyers to create “doubt” about accusations made against their clients. In 1969 the accusation that smoking “caused” cancer was not backed by scientific proof. The claims were exaggerated and not backed by scientific evidence. The campaign to target tobacco companies by activists and unscrupulous tort lawyers was deceptive…for the money. Tobacco was a big pockets target. The claims about addiction are incredibly deceptive since literally millions of people have managed to quit smoking without a rubber room.
In 1996 researchers found what they believe is a direct link. Benzo[a]pyrene, found in tobacco smoke, causes mutation of the p53 gene and that leads to the “uncontrolled cell division” that is “found in over 50% of all human tumours, including 60% of lung cancers.”
This mutation apparently occurs in cancer patients who don’t smoke so tobacco companies continue to do their own research and dispute the direct link claim.
The next big fight will be over cannabis and its affects on cancer and cancer treatment.
According to this site marijuanna smoke has more benzo[a]pyren than tobacco:
Researchers have found new information about the p53 mutation:
The fact that marijuana is now considered a treatment to help patients with cancer might prove to be the biggest epic fail yet.
Caveat emptor!
Everything in moderation!
Scientists will continue to do research, advertisers will continue to sell, and lawyers will continue to look for deep pocket cases.
Individuals should rely on common sense and their own ability to make good choices.
The knock on Fox News was the professor engaging in the very thing he apparently abhors…as if Fox was less interested in reporting accurately? Please.
And this:
Why? Did the activist and lawyers that targeted tobacco include in their ads ways to fix the smoke in tobacco? The aim was to destroy, a la Saul Alinski rule #12:
The left will now attempt to discredit any citizen or political group that criticizes the President, Democrats, or Obamacare as if the law has had no significantly harmful affect in our lives. We know better. There were much better ways to solve the few problems that actually existed in the healthcare industry. Obamacare was about power, dependency, and the takeover and control 5-6% of the economy.
Caveat emptor!
So you never said exactly which section of the ACA bothers you……
I got better health insurance and support ironing out any probs in the ACA. However to say the Healthcare system was better before is delusional. A healthcare plan that dumps you when you get sick after paying years of premiums? A system that bankrupted people?
Control? Power? Like the Banks? Wall Street? Koch’s and friends? Rabbi Pinto? CIA? ect
The real issues are the TPP, Corupt KXL, CIA, Drones, Patriot Act, Citizens United, NDAA, Caryle Group’s NSA activity and a former CIA/USA President profiting, ………………
I like my new policy that no longer has a lifetime cap for treatment…..
So which actual sections of the law bother you and lets fix it…I am sure an expert like you has read the law by now!
Tina: “The claims about addiction are incredibly deceptive since literally millions of people have managed to quit smoking without a rubber room.”
I’m confused by this statement. Do you believe the only way to overcome an addiction is a “rubber room?”
Dewey: “So you never said exactly which section of the ACA bothers you……”
Well, of course she has. There are dozens and dozens of articles here where she talks about the specific sections of the ACA she has a problem with. Now whether all of those sections actually exist has been a subject up for debate, but…
Dewey this article isn’t about healthcare. ts about a study that concludes we are a culture that is easily duped.
I’m glad you are happy with your new policy. A lot of other people are not!
In California,before ACA, it was against the law for insurers to drop coverage “for getting sick”.
Unfortunately regulators in California were not prepared or willing to do their jobs as regulators. What good are regulations if regulators don’t take the job seriously.
The excuse was that the big bad insurance company was fighting them in the courts. Give me a break! they do have a right to appeal but they also have to prove their case. Fine the company, when they don’t pay add penalties and interest and take them to court! Let a judge give them an ultimatum. The regulators have to be tough and if they aren’t they have no teeth.
If they were losing cases in court there’s a chance that the claimant was dropped lawfully and just hadn’t bothered to read and understand the policy or failed to renew.
But if the regulators didn’t bother to do their jobs because they were activists who wanted the issue against the insurance companies to push for government healthcare they should be fired!
And yes…I do think there are people capable of acting badly in their capacity as servants of the people.
I don’t want The ACA fixed.
The President has changed the law too many times creating legal issues and making compliance a joke and a nightmare.
Thousands of regulations have been added so that knowing the letter of the law is very difficult and requires an expensive compliance lawyer for interpretation.
It gives too much power to an unelected official and board at HHS.
It shoves more people into Medicaid/Medical putting more stress on state budgets.
It will destroy the private sector insurance companies (by design).
People are getting screwed with higher premiums and out of pocket costs after being told premiums would be $2500.00 less!
Doctors are retiring because of the compliance costs complex, punishing rules.
People are losing their jobs or hours are being cut.
Small businesses like restaurants are choosing to charge customers more, through a surcharge on their bills, to cover higher healthcare costs.
The confusion, complexity, and uncertainty is creating a drag on our economy. The cost to the citizens is lack of job creation.
This law is crap. It needs to be repealed and replaced.
I just was informed of a crazy thing.
Spell illuminati backwards, add dot com, and plug it in the URL window:
itanimulli.com
…then see where it takes you!
Tina,
Before you get Dewey all worked up and paranoid about itanimulli.com let me fill in some information. The domain itanimulli.com is owned by some guy named John Fenley of Provo, Utah (see domain registration information following this message). John apparently has an odd sense of humor since he paid for this domain and and is paying to have an associated website hosted just for the sole purpose of transferring you to the NSA website. Maybe he thinks the domain will be worth something some day. I doubt it. Sorry to make something mysterious kind of dull. Just wait until Dewey get around to this. I’m sure he will create some vast conspiracy associated with the domain. I’m sure it will be entertaining but it will also be very annoying
WHOIS search results for: ITANIMULLI.COM (Registered)
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Domain Name: ITANIMULLI.COM
Registry Domain ID: 92386827_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Update Date: 2013-11-17 23:27:06
Creation Date: 2002-11-20 02:54:13
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2014-11-20 02:54:13
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.480-624-2505
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: John Fenley
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: 1985N 360E
Registrant City: Provo
Registrant State/Province: Utah
Registrant Postal Code: 84604-1803
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Phone: 8014273274
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Now that is good research MCS. Thanks for sharing it with us.
MCS, I share your concerns about turning that particular crank but I was also hopeful that someone would have a common sense answer…did I already tell you how smart you were to choose that handle?
Chicago youth not impressed with mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel probably never thought he’d be slammed like this…”
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/121626-four-teens-just-called-mayor-rahm-emanuel-way-make-english-teacher-proud/