Agnotology

Agnotology PDF Author: Robert Proctor
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780804759014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
"This volume emerged from workshops held at Pennsylvania State University in 2003 and Stanford University in 2005"--P. vii.

Agnotology

Agnotology PDF Author: Robert Proctor
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780804759014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
"This volume emerged from workshops held at Pennsylvania State University in 2003 and Stanford University in 2005"--P. vii.

Science and the Production of Ignorance

Science and the Production of Ignorance PDF Author: Janet Kourany
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262538210
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
An introduction to the new area of ignorance studies that examines how science produces ignorance—both actively and passively, intentionally and unintentionally. We may think of science as our foremost producer of knowledge, but for the past decade, science has also been studied as an important source of ignorance. The historian of science Robert Proctor has coined the term agnotology to refer to the study of ignorance, and much of the ignorance studied in this new area is produced by science. Whether an active or passive construct, intended or unintended, this ignorance is, in Proctor's words, “made, maintained, and manipulated” by science. This volume examines forms of scientific ignorance and their consequences. A dialogue between Proctor and Peter Galison offers historical context, presenting the concerns and motivations of pioneers in the field. Essays by leading historians and philosophers of science examine the active construction of ignorance by biased design and interpretation of experiments and empirical studies, as seen in the “false advertising” by climate change deniers; the “virtuous” construction of ignorance—for example, by curtailing research on race- and gender-related cognitive differences; and ignorance as the unintended by-product of choices made in the research process, when rules, incentives, and methods encourage an emphasis on the beneficial and commercial effects of industrial chemicals, and when certain concepts and even certain groups' interests are inaccessible in a given conceptual framework. Contributors Martin Carrier, Carl F. Cranor, Peter Galison, Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Philip Kitcher, Janet Kourany, Hugh Lacey, Robert Proctor, Londa Schiebinger, Miriam Solomon, Torsten Wilholt

Ignorance, Power and Harm

Ignorance, Power and Harm PDF Author: Alana Barton
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319973436
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book discusses the concept of 'agnosis' and its significance for criminology through a series of case studies, contributing to the expansion of the criminological imagination. Agnotology – the study of the cultural production of ignorance, has primarily been proposed as an analytical tool in the fields of science and medicine. However, this book argues that it has significant resonance for criminology and the social sciences given that ignorance is a crucial means through which public acceptance of serious and sometimes mass harms is achieved. The editors argue that this phenomenon requires a systematic inquiry into ignorance as an area of criminological study in its own right. Through case studies on topics such as migrant detention, historical institutionalised child abuse, imprisonment, environmental harm and financial collapse, this book examines the construction of ignorance, and the power dynamics that facilitate and shape that construction in a range of different contexts. Furthermore, this book addresses the relationship between ignorance and the achievement of ‘manufactured consent’ to political and cultural hegemony, acquiescence in its harmful consequences and the deflection of responsibility for them.

Keywords in Radical Geography

Keywords in Radical Geography PDF Author: The Antipode Editorial Collective
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119558158
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
The online version of Keywords in Radical Geography: Antipode at 50 is free to download here. Alternatively, print copies can be purchased for just GB£7 / US$10 here. ******************************************************************************** To celebrate Antipode’s 50th anniversary, we’ve brought together 50 short keyword essays by a range of scholars at varying career stages who all, in some way, have some kind of affinity with Antipode’s radical geographical project. The entries in this volume are diverse, eclectic, and to an extent random, however they all speak to our discipline’s past, present and future in exciting and suggestive ways Contributors have taken unusual or novel terms, concepts or sets of ideas important to their research, and their essays discuss them in relation to radical and critical geography’s histories, current condition and possible future directions This fractal, playful and provocative intervention in the field stands as a fitting testimony to the role that Antipode has played in the generation of radical geographical engagement with the world

Challenges to Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs in Organizations

Challenges to Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs in Organizations PDF Author: Griffen, Aaron J.
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799840948
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Throughout the past several years, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have been a part of a growing phenomenon to address the diverse needs of organizations. However, the act of diversity training and implementation in programs has traditionally been reactive as a result of a scandal rather than proactive. As more industries see the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion training, we will continue to see the benefits of a sustainable, healthy working environment for all. Challenges to Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs in Organizations is an essential reference source that shares the challenges and opportunities faced by diversity, equity, and inclusion officers who are leading their organizations to becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive working environments. Featuring research on topics such as institutional equity, organizational culture, and diverse workplace, this book is ideally designed for administrators, human resource specialists, researchers, business professionals, academicians, and students, as well as organizations looking to make the intentional shifts necessary to develop and foster a more inclusive working and learning environment.

Golden Holocaust

Golden Holocaust PDF Author: Robert N. Proctor
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520950437
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 779

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Book Description
The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization. It is also one of the most beguiling, thanks to more than a century of manipulation at the hands of tobacco industry chemists. In Golden Holocaust, Robert N. Proctor draws on reams of formerly-secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely-used drug on the planet, with six trillion sticks sold per year. He paints a harrowing picture of tobacco manufacturers conspiring to block the recognition of tobacco-cancer hazards, even as they ensnare legions of scientists and politicians in a web of denial. Proctor tells heretofore untold stories of fraud and subterfuge, and he makes the strongest case to date for a simple yet ambitious remedy: a ban on the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.

Plants and Empire

Plants and Empire PDF Author: Londa Schiebinger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674043278
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life yet they are often at the center of high intrigue. In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany. But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the "peacock flower" into an abortifacient, to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.

The Critique of Digital Capitalism

The Critique of Digital Capitalism PDF Author: Michael Betancourt
Publisher: punctum books
ISBN: 0692598448
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Anything that can be automated, will be. The "magic" that digital technology has brought us - self-driving cars, Bitcoin, high frequency trading, the internet of things, social networking, mass surveillance, the 2009 housing bubble - has not been considered from an ideological perspective. The Critique of Digital Capitalism identifies how digital technology has captured contemporary society in a reification of capitalist priorities, and also describes digital capitalism as an ideologically "invisible" framework that is realized in technology. Written as a series of articles between 2003 and 2015, the book provides a broad critical scope for understanding the inherent demands of capitalist protocols for expansion without constraint (regardless of social, legal or ethical limits) that are increasingly being realized as autonomous systems that are no longer dependent on human labor or oversight and implemented without social discussion of their impacts. The digital illusion of infinite resources, infinite production, and no costs appears as an "end to scarcity," whereby digital production supposedly eliminates costs and makes everything equally available to everyone. This fantasy of production without consumption hides the physical costs and real-world impacts of these technologies. The critique introduced in this book develops from basic questions about how digital technologies directly change the structure of society: why is "Digital Rights Management" not only the dominant "solution" for distributing digital information, but also the only option being considered? During the burst of the "Housing Bubble" burst 2009, why were the immaterial commodities being traded of primary concern, but the actual physical assets and the impacts on the people living in them generally ignored? How do surveillance (pervasive monitoring) and agnotology (culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data) coincide as mutually reinforcing technologies of control and restraint? If technology makes the assumptions of its society manifest as instrumentality - then what ideology is being realized in the form of the digital computer? This final question animates the critical framework this analysis proposes. Digital capitalism is a dramatically new configuration of the historical dynamics of production, labor and consumption that results in a new variant of historical capitalism. This contemporary, globalized network of production and distribution depends on digital capitalism's refusal of established social restraints: existing laws are an impediment to the transcendent aspects of digital technology. Its utopian claims mask its authoritarian result: the superficial "objectivity" of computer systems are supposed to replace established protections with machinic function - the uniform imposition of whatever ideology informs the design. However, machines are never impartial: they reify the ideologies they are built to enact. The critical analysis of capitalist ideologies as they become digital is essential to challenging this process. Contesting their domination depends on theoretical analysis. This critique challenges received ideas about the relationship between labor, commodity production and value, in the process demonstrating how the historical Marxist analysis depends on assumptions that are no longer valid. This book therefore provides a unique, critical toolset for the analysis of digital capitalist hegemonics.

AGNOTOLOGY

AGNOTOLOGY PDF Author: American Psycho Association
Publisher: No Pledge Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Agnotology is the study of ignorance. This expose' unleashes a new attack on traditional questions about "how we know" to ask: Why don't we know what we don't know?! Agnotology (formerly agnatology) shows that ignorance is often more than just a lack of knowledge; it can also be the deliberate manufactured outcome of political and cultural struggles. What keeps ignorance alive, or allows it to be used as a political weapon of mass destruction? Ignorance has a history and a political geography, but there are also things people don't want you to know ("Ignorance is bliss" is a common cliché). This book treats examples from the realms of economic illiteracy, history, global climate change, militarism, environmental denialism, archaeology and anarchaeology, racial ignorance, and more. Those who do not study the past are condemned to repeat it. The goal of Agnotologists is to better understand how and why various forms of knowing do not come to be, or have disappeared, or have become invisible.

Merchants of Doubt

Merchants of Doubt PDF Author: Naomi Oreskes
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408828774
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.