Agnotology

[Joel S. Berson]

NYTimes today.  "There is a lot more protectiveness than there used
to be," said Dr. [Robert N.] Proctor, who is shaping a new field, the
study of ignorance, which he calls agnotology. "It is often safer not
to know."  (New England Edition, C1/3.)

New to me in my studied ignorance, but it seems to date back at least
to a book review in Science magazine in January 2005.  I wonder
whether it was coined by Proctor in the call for papers for an
October 7 and 8, 2005, conference at Stanford, "Agnotology: The
Cultural Production of Ignorance", co-organized by him.  (The
illustration at
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/AgnotologyConference.html is worth seeing.)

Joel

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