Abstract
Agnotology concerns the creation and preservation of confusion and ignorance. Certain positions are advocated in science in order to promote sociopolitical interests with the result of launching mock controversies or epistemically unjustified dissent. I propose to identify agnotological ploys by the discrepancy between the conclusions suggested by the design of a study and the conclusions actually drawn or intimated. This mechanism of “false advertising” serves to implement agnotological endeavors and helps identify them without having to invoke the intentions of the relevant agents. I discuss three agnotological cases, i.e., studies on bisphenol A, Bt-maize/Roundup, and Oslo’s airport Gardermoen. Pinpointing agnotological endeavors is a means for weeding out approaches that look fitting at first glance, but are blatantly inappropriate, in fact.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
It is true, even the agnotological study by Séralini et al. (2012) had the beneficial effect of stimulating pluralism. But appreciating the importance of contrasting studies in examining effects and side-effects of GMOs does not have to resort to an agnotological study. That is to say, the goal of stimulating pluralism is not a good reason for conducting and debating agnotological studies.
References
Andalo, Ch., et al. 2012. Science et Conscience. Le Monde, Nov. 16, 2012. http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2012/11/14/science-et-conscience_1790174_3232.html. Accessed 8 Apr 2016.
Biddle, J.B., and A. Leuschner. 2015. Climate skepticism and the manufacture of doubt: Can dissent in science be epistemically detrimental? European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5: 261–278.
Carrier, M. 2013. Values and objectivity in science: Value-Ladenness, pluralism and the epistemic attitude. Science & Education 22: 2547–2568.
———. forthcoming. Agnotological challenges. How to capture the production of ignorance in science. Under review.
de Souza, L., and L.M. Oda. 2013. Letter to the editor. Food and Chemical Toxicology 53: 440.
Driessen, P. 2009. Disclosing climate change risks. http://www.cdfe.org/center-projects/the-climate-lobby/disclosing-climate-change-risks/. Accessed 13 Apr 2015.
Droste-Franke, B., M. Carrier, M. Kaiser, M. Schreurs, Ch. Weber, and Th. Ziesemer. 2015. Improving energy decisions. Towards better scientific policy advice for a safe and secure future energy system. Heidelberg: Springer.
Hacking, I. 1999. Weapons research. In The social construction of what? 163–185. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 2000. How inevitable are the results of successful science? Philosophy of Science 67 (Proceedings): S58–S71.
Kitcher, Ph. 2001. Science, truth, democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2011. Science in a democratic society. Amherst: Prometheus.
Kuhlen, I. 2009. Die Haftungsfrage, Deutsches Ärzteblatt 106(49), 4 Dezember 2009, 103. http://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/67026. Accessed 5 Apr 2016.
Longino, H. 1990. Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Magnus, D. 2008. Risk management versus the precautionary principle. Agnotology as a strategy in the debate over genetically engineered organisms. In Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance, ed. R.N. Proctor and L. Schiebinger, 250–265. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Merton, R.K. 1942. The normative structure of science. In The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations, 267–278. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1973.
Michaels, D. 2008. Manufactured uncertainty: Contested science and the protection of the Public’s health and environment. In Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance, ed. R.N. Proctor and L. Schiebinger, 90–107. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Oreskes, N. 2015. From nuclear winter to climate change: The political uses of scientific dissent. In Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung im Praxistest, ed. P. Weingart and G.G. Wagner, 35–50. Weilerswist: Velbrück.
Oreskes, N., and E.M. Conway. 2010. Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
Popper, K.R. 1966. The open society and its enemies II. The high tide of prophecy. 5th rev ed. London: Routledge.
Proctor, R.N. 2008. Agnotology: A missing term to describe the cultural production of ignorance (and its study). In Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance, ed. R.N. Proctor and L. Schiebinger, 1–33. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Proctor, R. 2012. Golden holocaust. Origins of the cigarette catastrophe and the case for abolition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schlitt, R. 2013. Ein Piks mit finanziellen Folgen. Deutsches Ärzteblatt 110 (8): 22. Februar 2013, A 304. http://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/134836. Accessed 5 Apr 2016.
Séralini, G.-E., et al. 2012. Long term toxicity of a roundup herbicide and a roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology 50: 4221–4231. Retracted by the editor. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637
Séralini, G.-E., et al. 2014. Republished study: Long-term toxicity of a roundup herbicide and a roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Environmental Sciences Europe 26: 1–17.
TAZ. 2011. „Riskant für Kinder und Jugendliche“, 9.9.2011. http://www.taz.de/!5112434/. Accessed 5 Apr 2016.
Wilholt, T. 2009. Bias and values in scientific research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40: 92–101.
Wise, N.M. 2011. Thoughts on politicization of science through commercialization. In Science in the context of application. Methodological change, conceptual transformation, cultural reorientation, ed. M. Carrier and A. Nordmann, 283–299. Dordrecht: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Carrier, M. (2018). Identifying Agnotological Ploys: How to Stay Clear of Unjustified Dissent. In: Christian, A., Hommen, D., Retzlaff, N., Schurz, G. (eds) Philosophy of Science. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72577-2_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72577-2_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72576-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72577-2
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)