WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:02.359 Oh hey, it's the tea bag camped out in your 2 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:05.719 garbage disposal. Alli Ward, here we are. It's February twenty 3 00:00:05.719 --> 00:00:08.240 twenty five. We got a fresh, shiny new year. Now 4 00:00:08.359 --> 00:00:11.640 this is an updated encore, so we have gone through 5 00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:17.640 meticulously and added updated asides, extra asides, more references of articles, 6 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:21.120 and even some news from the last few weeks for you, 7 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:23.280 so you can please pass it on to everyone in 8 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:26.079 the world, because today we are exploring the topic not 9 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:32.000 just ignorance, but willful ignorance, intentional misinformation, doubt controversy, how 10 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:36.840 populations can willingly swallow ladle folds of bullshit as if 11 00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:40.920 it's the truth. But before we examine our own lingering denseness, 12 00:00:41.159 --> 00:00:43.600 let's thank the folks at patreon dot com slash ologies 13 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:46.960 for all their great questions they submitted and for supporting 14 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:48.759 the show for as little as a dollar a month. 15 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:50.799 You two can join if you'd like. Think you to 16 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:53.719 everyone who subscribes and rates and of course reviews to 17 00:00:53.799 --> 00:00:56.159 keep the show up in the charts. And this week's 18 00:00:56.159 --> 00:00:58.799 hot pick from just a few days ago is from 19 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:03.719 help h A E. L l PPP, who wrote, thanks 20 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:07.439 Handsome heard from another podcast and hooked. Really enjoy passing 21 00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:11.280 on to friends. Help handsome is a compliment I will take. 22 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:13.560 And everyone who left reviews, I read them all. 23 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:14.280 I love them all. 24 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:16.480 Thank you so much. Okay, onto this twenty twenty five 25 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:19.760 update to agnetology. We're going to get into it. Agno 26 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:22.920 comes from the Greek for unknown, and according to the 27 00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:27.000 originator of the word agnetology, it is the study of 28 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:30.359 ignorance and it seeks to answer why we don't know 29 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:32.920 what we don't know? And the person who coined the phrase, 30 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:35.879 I'm sure you're like, was it a long dead philosopher, 31 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:39.640 Was it a quippie war nurse? Was it a child 32 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:43.120 wise beyond her years? Nope, it's our guest today, that 33 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:46.879 is correct. The biggest cheese in the agnetology world is 34 00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:50.040 here to talk to you, and he edited the book Agnetology, 35 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:54.120 The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, and approximately ten million 36 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:57.760 of you have tweeted and emailed me begging to have 37 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.599 him on. He's been on my list for years, so 38 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:02.680 this was a huge get to have him sit down 39 00:02:03.079 --> 00:02:06.040 during a pandemic and chat via computer. He got his 40 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:09.680 bachelor's degree in biology and then went to Harvard University 41 00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:12.240 to get his master's and his PhD in the history 42 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:15.560 of science. He is now a professor at Stanford University 43 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:18.159 teaching the history of science. And I'm going to warn 44 00:02:18.199 --> 00:02:21.639 you up top if you do not enjoy political discourse 45 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:27.319 or scientific facts versus religious mythology, or how industry favors 46 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:31.759 profits over health, or the topic of equity for marginalized groups, 47 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:34.599 this episode may not be for you, or rather it 48 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:37.960 might be perfect for you. We're living a very uncomfortable, 49 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.960 very polarized, scary times in so many ways. We've got 50 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:46.039 a lot of decisions being made that will impact generations. 51 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:50.120 We've seen a rise in incredibly alarming ideologies and gestures, 52 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.360 a lot of folks not talking to certain family members. 53 00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:57.919 Shit is fucked, and it pains me to see the 54 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.360 divides because I feel like there's so much place psychologically 55 00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:06.360 underneath these sometimes violent differences of opinion. So we get 56 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.159 into all of that, and I was very curious and 57 00:03:09.199 --> 00:03:12.039 excited to talk it out with someone who studies ignorance 58 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:16.280 and the comfort of ignorance for a living agnetologist, doctor 59 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:39.159 Robert Doctor. Everyone has told me I need to hunt 60 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.800 you down to talk about what you study. And you 61 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:48.039 are technically speaking, an agnetologist. 62 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:50.400 I guess, so, yeah, that's one of the things I do. 63 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:53.840 I do a lot of different things. I'm my title 64 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:58.280 as I'm Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University, 65 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:01.919 where I'm also a professor by courtesy of pulmonary medicine. 66 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:06.840 But I work on a lot of different things, including 67 00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:08.199 the history of ignorance. 68 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:13.240 And you studied also the history of science. How did 69 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.480 it dovetail into the history of ignorance? At what point 70 00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:18.800 did a light bulb go off and you thought, oh, 71 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:19.879 I want to study that. 72 00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:25.920 Well. I was always interested in puzzles and mysteries and illusions, 73 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:30.199 even from being a kid. I remember in high school 74 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:33.399 trying to figure out the moon illusion. Why does the 75 00:04:33.399 --> 00:04:36.920 moon appear large on the horizon? And I basically I 76 00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:38.879 think figured it out. It's you know, we live in 77 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:42.600 a low dome cosmology where the sky we figure is 78 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:45.439 about two or three miles high and the horizon is 79 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:48.480 about ten or twenty miles high, So it makes sense 80 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:53.959 that if something appears the same above you and on 81 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.519 the horizon, it will actually in effect create an illusion 82 00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:00.519 of being much larger on the horizons. So that's kind 83 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:04.759 of the popular cosmology we live in because if a 84 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:09.000 bird is overhead, it's closer. If it's on the horizon, 85 00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:12.600 it's farther, and we normalize that and that creates the 86 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:15.600 moon illusion. So I was always interested in puzzles and 87 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:19.079 Martin Gardner type of mysteries. 88 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.639 Oh and for more on those moon illusions see the 89 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:26.759 Selenology episode with rock Hell Nuno. Also side note, Martin 90 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:31.199 Gardner was a popular and beloved mathematics columnist. Yeah, he 91 00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:34.240 made math cool. And he was a founder of the 92 00:05:34.279 --> 00:05:37.600 skeptics movement, starting way back with his early nineteen fifties 93 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:40.759 book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. So 94 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:44.800 this guy was the original MythBuster, the founder of the 95 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:46.680 debunking of flim flammery. 96 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:51.759 And I remember noticing learning things that I thought were 97 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:53.680 true that turned out not to be true. I remember 98 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:57.879 as a kid thinking that we would eat chicken hearts. 99 00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:00.519 I grew up in South Texas and we would eat 100 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:03.000 chicken hearts. So I thought my heart was the size 101 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:06.199 of a chicken heart. Still when I think of my heart, 102 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.279 I kind of think of like a little tiny chicken heart. 103 00:06:09.079 --> 00:06:12.519 And I remember thinking that every country was the same size, 104 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:17.000 and the same shape, and that I remember puzzling, how 105 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:20.079 can it be that a refrigerator is hot at the 106 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.160 back and that it's the heat at the back that 107 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:23.560 makes the cold in the front. 108 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:25.800 One day, we're going to figure this out in a 109 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:29.360 thermotechnology episode for y'all. I promise that day is not. 110 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:33.240 Today, you know. So I was a curious child, and 111 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:37.000 when I went off to graduate school after majoring in 112 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.720 biology and chemistry, I didn't know what I wanted to do. 113 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:45.680 And I started noticing that basically all what I was 114 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:49.079 supposed to learn was all of this great science Darwin 115 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:54.800 and Einstein and the double helix. And I thought, you know, well, 116 00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:57.600 what about you know, the things people don't know? And 117 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.879 what about all the people who don't believe in evolution 118 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:04.079 and don't understand cosmology? What about them? And that was 119 00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:09.800 uninteresting to my Harvard professors, and so I thought, you know, hey, 120 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:11.680 wait a minute, a lot of people don't believe evolution. 121 00:07:11.720 --> 00:07:14.560 Why don't we study that? Yeah? Yeah, And so that's 122 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:17.199 kind of one of the things that got me going 123 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:18.399 on ignorance. 124 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:21.600 And what about the word itself agnetology? Where did that 125 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:22.040 come from? 126 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:26.160 I started I got involved with some radical science groups 127 00:07:26.399 --> 00:07:30.120 at Harvard University, where I was studying with Stephen J. Gould. 128 00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:31.120 Stephen J. 129 00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:34.680 Gould side note, was known as someone who challenged the 130 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:38.399 scientific theories he found to be rooted in racism, among 131 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:41.120 studying a lot of other things. So this work toward 132 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:44.079 dismantling misinformation goes way back. 133 00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:49.519 And we were studying things like how the chemical industry 134 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:56.000 lies about chemicals, and how the tobacco industry lies about cigarettes, 135 00:07:56.079 --> 00:07:59.560 and the sugar industry as its own set of deceptions. 136 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:04.839 And so I was saying, you know, you know, this 137 00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:06.800 is kind of a big deal. You know, Harvard was 138 00:08:06.839 --> 00:08:12.519 taking all this money from the sugar industry and creating ignorance. 139 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:13.879 And I could see it around me, and I said, 140 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:17.680 you know, we need a word for the creation of ignorance. 141 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:22.120 There's something called epistemology, which is this study of knowledge, 142 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:26.319 how we know what we know. What are the methods, empiricism, rationalism, 143 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:30.199 you know, the sources of knowledge. That was heavily studied. 144 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:32.960 And what I noticed is everyone was ignoring ignorance. 145 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:36.200 He says this was salient to him because he comes 146 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.639 from the Deep South and his beliefs didn't match those 147 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:41.039 of a lot of his relatives. 148 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:44.200 Again, it was sort of like, what about them, you know, 149 00:08:44.360 --> 00:08:48.399 and what about these big corporations lying about tobacco or 150 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:52.759 lying about chemicals? And so I said, well, we need 151 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:56.679 a word. And so this was in the early nineteen nineties. 152 00:08:56.720 --> 00:09:00.519 I was writing a book on cancer, a book on 153 00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:03.559 Nazi medicine, because that's another another thing I write about 154 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:06.240 Nazi science. But I was writing a book on what 155 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:12.039 causes cancer, and I needed a word for all of 156 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:17.279 these efforts to create ignorance. And so I asked a 157 00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:19.679 linguist friend of mine, a brilliant linguist by the name 158 00:09:19.720 --> 00:09:26.080 of Ian Bole, and he came up with agnatology. And 159 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:31.919 originally we spelled it differently. It was agna and agnatology, 160 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:38.240 and we got protests from the people who studied jawless fish, 161 00:09:38.279 --> 00:09:43.960 which is agnathology, and so I changed it to agno. 162 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:50.480 So there's a cognate with, you know, agnostic and agnostic 163 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:55.080 and that sort of thing. So that was sort of 164 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:58.600 how it came up. I needed a word to describe 165 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:03.120 the deliberate production of ignorance, the kind of things we 166 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:09.039 now associate with climate denial or fear of vaccines, or 167 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:14.559 you know, the denial of the hiv idiology of AIDS, 168 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:15.279 things like that. 169 00:10:15.399 --> 00:10:22.440 And what is the difference between creating willful ignorance and propaganda? 170 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:24.799 Is there a difference, or as propaganda just another word 171 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:25.080 for it. 172 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:35.840 Well, they are slightly different. Both involved deception, but not 173 00:10:35.879 --> 00:10:38.440 necessariarily and not in every case. For example, I think 174 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:42.200 the Nazis really believed their own propaganda. In other words, 175 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:47.879 propaganda is kind of like an extreme word for education, 176 00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:50.879 and it's bad. If it's bad education, it's good. If 177 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.919 it's good education, it rear least used to be. And 178 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:56.759 so you can believe your own propaganda. But ignetology is 179 00:10:56.919 --> 00:11:01.639 maybe a little more subtle. Because the tobacco industry they 180 00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:05.759 knew that cigarettes caused cancer, and their whole goal was 181 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:10.919 to create ignorance, to stave off people learning the truth 182 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:16.559 by creating doubt, by throwing the smoke screen, by throwing 183 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:20.159 sand in the gears, playing tag with the waves, a 184 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:25.000 refreshing way to take a walk at the beach. How 185 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:29.679 can you add to it with a mental cigarette? And 186 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:33.200 they were able to instrumentalize science by doing that. So 187 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:38.159 by funding genetics, by funding the study of viruses, they 188 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:43.639 created all these blind alleys and false ideologies for disease. 189 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:47.919 So it's a much more diabolical thing. Propaganda I think 190 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:52.720 of as more ham handed. It's just brainwashing really, Whereas 191 00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:57.799 the tobacco industry was much more clever in creating doubt 192 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:03.840 by emphasizing uncertain and they become really engines of uncertainty 193 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:07.000 by saying, there's two sides to every question. There are 194 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:10.840 two sides to a story, you know, there's so they 195 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:15.240 set up the whole Tobacco Institute to promote these non 196 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:19.159 tobacco causes of cancer. It's a kind of giant misdirection campaign, 197 00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:22.600 and that's much more subtle than just the you know, 198 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:24.840 browbeating of propaganda. 199 00:12:25.159 --> 00:12:29.519 Yeah, my mom told me a story that when she 200 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:31.720 was trying to loose some weight after her first baby 201 00:12:31.759 --> 00:12:35.480 in the early seventies, that her obstritrician recommended taking up smoking. 202 00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:39.120 You know that's I'm so glad you brought that up, 203 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:44.799 because until the nineteen eighties, doctors were more likely to 204 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.279 recommend that pregnant women smoke than to recommend against it. Ah, 205 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:52.399 it was the it was called the smaller babies theory, 206 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:55.159 and the tobacco industry ran with it. They funded the 207 00:12:55.159 --> 00:12:59.399 people pushing for this theory. The theory was that, yes, 208 00:12:59.519 --> 00:13:03.039 it makes a smaller baby if you smoke, but they're 209 00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:06.759 just as healthy and it's more pleasant to just have 210 00:13:06.879 --> 00:13:09.879 this nice small baby. And so I've talked to several 211 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:15.320 women whose doctors told them to take up smoking during pregnancy. Again, 212 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:18.759 that was part of that whole you know, the sunny 213 00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:24.320 side of nicotine that was pushed by the tobacco industry. 214 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:28.200 Just a quick side note. In nineteen thirty seven, Philip Morris, 215 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:31.440 tobacco giant, ran an ad in a Saturday Evening post 216 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:35.720 depicting a child bell hop offering up a silver platter 217 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:40.360 of cigarettes, with the information when smokers changed to Philip Morris, 218 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.200 every case of irritation of the nose and throat caused 219 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:47.360 by smoking cleared completely or definitely improved. Then there are 220 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:48.759 TV gems too. 221 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:52.120 Time out where many men of medicine usually means just 222 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:54.120 long enough to enjoy a cigarette. 223 00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:58.559 So as an agnetologist, he clearly covers smoking, but his 224 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:04.480 book also includes chapter on military operations and c literal orgasms, 225 00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:09.519 issues with indigenous paleontology, racial ignorance and injustice, and of 226 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:14.960 course commerce. What are some of the other historical especially 227 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:20.240 in America, campaigns of doubt and ignorance that have kind 228 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:23.039 of been waged on our collective intelligence. 229 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:29.240 Well, there's so many in Washington, d c. There's fifteen 230 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:33.360 hundred trade associations, you know, the Beer Institute, the Sugar Institute, 231 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:38.799 the Methyl beautle Ether Task Force, Salt Institute. Basically, every 232 00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:42.480 product that might cause harm has an institute or a 233 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:48.159 trade association designed to diminish that harm or to cast 234 00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:52.120 out on that harm. So there are basically every thing 235 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:55.320 that causes harm, whether that be asbestos or food dies 236 00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:59.720 or Coca Cola through the Beverage Council or whatever it's called, 237 00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:05.799 there are these organizations whose job it is to rescue products. 238 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:09.960 And you know, some of the more dramatic ones are 239 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:13.399 things like the Lead Institute, which years ago, going back, 240 00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:18.360 you know, into the twenties, thirties, forties, they would promote 241 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:22.720 lead and just you call cast doubts on the hazards 242 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:28.639 of lead. And the Asbestos Information Association did the same thing. 243 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:33.879 The Calorie Control Council, Coca Cola was funding some of 244 00:15:33.919 --> 00:15:37.279 these things trying to rescue the reputation of sugar, and 245 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:41.960 these things often were interrelated. So the Sugar Research Foundation 246 00:15:42.360 --> 00:15:45.679 president in the early nineteen fifties actually goes to work 247 00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:49.240 for the tobacco industry, saying that he could use the 248 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:52.519 same techniques that they'd use to rescue the reputation of 249 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:58.279 sugar to rescue the safety of tobacco. So there's an 250 00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:04.879 interlocking they're even associations of trade associations. See their whole buildings. 251 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:07.440 I remember one, I think it was in Atlanta, where 252 00:16:07.519 --> 00:16:09.799 there's a whole building full of these trade associations and 253 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:13.559 they share tricks, and it's a little bit like that 254 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:16.960 great scene and thank you for smoking, where there's the 255 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:22.000 gun lobby and what is it sugar or tobaccos? We 256 00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:26.600 call ourselves the mod squad. Mod Merchants of Death were 257 00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:31.080 lobbyists for the tobacco, alcohol, and firearms industries. How many 258 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:33.919 alcohol related does a year? Well, thou, that's what two 259 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:38.320 hundred and seventy a day, tragedy. So these groups sometimes 260 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:44.600 even work together as engines of uncertainty, engines of ignorance. 261 00:16:44.919 --> 00:16:48.320 And does that change for you? I imagine how you 262 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.720 just live your day to day life. Do you kind 263 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:56.080 of see things with like an infrared vision that maybe 264 00:16:56.159 --> 00:16:59.039 other people don't like When you walk down the soda 265 00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:04.200 isle in your store, or see flashes on social media 266 00:17:04.279 --> 00:17:05.039 or the news. 267 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.920 Well, sure, yeah, you always want to know who's funding it. 268 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:13.000 I remember I had an and who worked for I 269 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:15.640 think it was some kind of dairy council or chicken 270 00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:19.599 counsel herself, even in my own family, and there was 271 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.640 an issue on the ballot about whether to require certain 272 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.319 minimum square footage for chickens, you know, And I remember 273 00:17:27.319 --> 00:17:29.200 her raising this to her, and she said, oh, chickens 274 00:17:29.240 --> 00:17:31.480 hate to run free, you know, they'll just peck themselves 275 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:34.240 to death. And so she had kind of been bought in, 276 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:37.079 had sort of bought into this mythology of you know, 277 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:41.920 chickens actually like their confinement. So I see it all 278 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:42.359 the time. 279 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:46.759 Yeah, see the oft sided twenty fifteen study put out 280 00:17:46.759 --> 00:17:51.319 by the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply. They're like justice man, 281 00:17:51.599 --> 00:17:54.599 These chickens love cages the size of its shoe box 282 00:17:54.640 --> 00:17:58.480 as cozy as hell man, Actually bad news. Cage free 283 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:02.519 hens do not typically spend their days roaming rolling green hills. 284 00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:05.759 Though they're not out there chasing grasshoppers, singing Joni Mitchell 285 00:18:05.839 --> 00:18:08.799 songs into the Golden horizon. Cage free just means that 286 00:18:08.839 --> 00:18:11.440 they kind of hang out in a big warehouse pooping 287 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:14.440 on each other. Forgive me of robbing anyone of that 288 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:18.480 willful ignorance. I had cage free eggs for burgroos. And 289 00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:20.960 what do you think the difference is between just straight 290 00:18:21.079 --> 00:18:27.000 up ignorance of not being exposed to something versus willful 291 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:30.880 ignorance when you maybe have an inkling that you perhaps 292 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:33.000 could be wrong about something, but you just don't want 293 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:35.440 to believe it. Where's where does denial fit into that? 294 00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:39.079 Oh yeah, denial is key. There's all kinds of ignorance. 295 00:18:39.160 --> 00:18:42.279 There's there's native what I call native ignorance. So we 296 00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:45.200 all start off, you know, as embryos, we're ignorant, right, 297 00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:47.799 we have to come Each one of us comes into 298 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:52.039 the world innocent and not knowing everything we know we 299 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:55.039 have to learn, and so all of us have a 300 00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:59.240 kind of innocent ignorance and then our very lives as 301 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:02.880 as creatures. You know, it has a lot to do 302 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:06.079 with evolution because we evolved as predators. We have the 303 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:10.319 forward looking eyes of the predator, which means we are 304 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:16.079 highly focused. And what highly focused means we ignore almost everything. 305 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:19.119 So we have the focus of the predator and not 306 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:23.960 the eternal watchfulness of prey. A horse sees three sixty, 307 00:19:24.079 --> 00:19:26.680 but nothing in particular. They're out there on the watch 308 00:19:26.759 --> 00:19:30.000 for everything, but they don't focus on any one thing. 309 00:19:30.039 --> 00:19:32.559 And the biology of that is, you know, deep in 310 00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:33.759 our neural circuits. 311 00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:37.119 At this moment, I felt embarrassed for Robert because he 312 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.359 clearly went one hundred and eighty degrees, because you know 313 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:41.400 how people will say she changed her mind and did 314 00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:44.000 him three sixty, but you're like, well, technically that just 315 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:45.799 means that they came full circle. I think you mean 316 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:48.079 one eighty. And I looked it up and it read 317 00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:51.720 horses have a range of vision of about three hundred and. 318 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:55.079 Fifty degrees what so he was totally right. 319 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.079 Horses can see almost everything around them. 320 00:19:58.680 --> 00:19:59.640 I was ignorant of this. 321 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:02.359 They could pretty much see everything but their own butts. 322 00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:06.640 Also their I anatomy involves something called a nervous tunic, 323 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:09.200 which sounds like something I would wear in a nightmare 324 00:20:09.240 --> 00:20:12.599 of me giving a ted talk. Anyway, human eyesight is 325 00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:14.759 more literally straightforward. 326 00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:20.640 We have a phobia which concentrates our perception, and that's 327 00:20:20.759 --> 00:20:24.720 very different from a prey like a deer, And so 328 00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:28.200 even in our biology it means that we have this 329 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:32.799 intensive focus and we have to ignore everything. I mean, 330 00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:35.319 if you think about it, if you saw everything at once, 331 00:20:36.119 --> 00:20:40.319 you could see nothing, or if you remembered everything you've 332 00:20:40.359 --> 00:20:43.640 ever known, you would also know nothing. So a big 333 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:47.160 part of learning is forgetting. A big part of focus 334 00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:51.839 is in attention. You know, you can't focus without defocusing 335 00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:55.599 at the very same time on most things that are 336 00:20:56.200 --> 00:20:56.599 around you. 337 00:20:56.640 --> 00:20:58.200 So twenty twenty five me here. 338 00:20:58.279 --> 00:21:00.960 So since this episode aired, we have put out a 339 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:04.960 three part ADHD episode series that will either change your 340 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:07.720 life or maybe the life of someone in your life. 341 00:21:07.799 --> 00:21:10.279 It's linked in the show notes. It's a banger, okay, cool. 342 00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:14.119 So that's another aspect of agnetology is actually looking at 343 00:21:15.319 --> 00:21:18.640 the creation of ignorance, even in the non human animal world. 344 00:21:18.759 --> 00:21:22.920 So the reason that deer have white bellies is that's 345 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:26.799 how they create themselves as a non object. All objects 346 00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:29.400 in the world have a shadow on the bottom, and 347 00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:34.200 if you're prey, you create a white underbelly to dissolve 348 00:21:34.279 --> 00:21:37.759 yourself as an object into the surrounding. So that's a 349 00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:43.559 form of ignorance creation or creating the invisibility or camouflage, 350 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:47.440 and many many animals do that. So as long as 351 00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:52.119 there's been predation, there's been camouflage. And that's a kind 352 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:55.079 of way of making yourself invisible. 353 00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:58.480 So next time you see a deer or a frog 354 00:21:58.599 --> 00:22:01.519 or a lizard, just feel free to say that's called countershading. 355 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:03.559 And then if you want, you can high five yourself. 356 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:12.000 And what about what is say, happening on a nationwide 357 00:22:12.119 --> 00:22:17.400 level the last few years in particular, do you have 358 00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:23.240 to use maps at all to study higher levels maybe 359 00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:26.319 of willful ignorance or how do you how do you 360 00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:30.240 parse out who is maybe more susceptible to believing certain things? 361 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:34.119 Yeah, no, it's it's true. There's a there's a geography 362 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:39.400 of ignorance. So while it's true that basically everything that 363 00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:42.160 has been known has been forgotten, it's also true that 364 00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:45.960 many of the things that have been forgotten are known 365 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:47.960 to some people. And in a way, that's what the 366 00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:52.880 whole field of history is is to recover lost lost knowledge. 367 00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:58.720 But education is very selective, right, people are well educated, 368 00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:02.960 they're poorly educated. There's a big geography of knowledge, and 369 00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:05.960 humorous deal with this very well. I remember Jay Leno, 370 00:23:06.039 --> 00:23:08.160 the comedian, used to do what he called jaywalking and 371 00:23:08.200 --> 00:23:11.079 he would ask people, how many moons does the Earth have? 372 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:20.319 What is our galaxy? Call I am it's also a 373 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:23.279 candy bars. I mean, it was kind of one of 374 00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:26.480 those who's buried in Grant's tomb kind of questions. But 375 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:29.759 a lot of people don't know a lot of things. 376 00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:31.400 And that's one of the things I actually do in 377 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:34.160 my classes is I do a kind of what I 378 00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:39.240 call an agnetology survey, where I ask people something else 379 00:23:39.279 --> 00:23:42.920 that's really how old is the Earth? And it's surprising. 380 00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:45.079 I remember when I did this at Harvard for the 381 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:48.759 undergraduates about it turned out about fifteen percent of the 382 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:53.000 biology majors at Harvard were creationists. I thought the world 383 00:23:53.119 --> 00:23:57.440 was six thousand years old, So it's In other words, 384 00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:01.920 I developed what I call agnometrics, the measurement of ignorance. 385 00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:06.960 And you know, there's lots of techniques for studying ignorance 386 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:11.480 and surveys you can do, and yeah, it's cool. 387 00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:15.079 Agnometrics, by the way, isn't the only great word that 388 00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:18.599 you're going to learn today? Also consider agnogenesis, which is 389 00:24:18.680 --> 00:24:24.000 creating doubt for nefarious purposes, or agnometric generators, which are 390 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:28.160 the forces generating the doubt. Now Why do some opinions 391 00:24:28.319 --> 00:24:33.759 seem so regional? What creates factors that are agnogeographical which 392 00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.039 is a word that I just made up. Is there 393 00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:40.680 something about perhaps the geography of being near a port 394 00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:46.440 city or a body of water that exposes people to say, 395 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:48.680 different cultures or different types of people. 396 00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:52.039 Yeah, that historically has been true. That's why a lot 397 00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:56.759 of the great early empires and intellectual centers are built 398 00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:00.640 on maritime commercial centers. You think of the ancient Greeks 399 00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:04.440 trading amongst the city states, or you think of the 400 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:11.920 river cultures, either in Mesoamerica or ancient China. So trade, 401 00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:16.079