The Creation of Ignorance in Animals

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Horses have a range of vision of about 350 degrees. They could pretty much see everything but their own butts. Their eye anatomy involves something called a nervous tunic, which sounds like something i would wear in a imare of me giving a ted talk. Human eyesight is more literally straightforward. We have a fovia, which concentrates our perception. That's very different from a prey like a deer. And so even in our biology, it means we have this intensive focus, and we have to ignore everything. So that's another aspect of agnetology, is actually looking at a the creation of ignorance, even in tn the non human animal world.

Yes, there is an -ology for that. Dr. Robert Proctor is a Stanford professor of the History of Science and co-edited the book “Agnotology: The Making & Unmaking of Ignorance,” having coined the word 30 years ago. We chat about everything from the true evils of tobacco marketing, to the sugar lobby, to racial injustice, horse vision, the psychology of the Flat Earther movement, which countries have the highest rates of climate denial, empathy, how to navigate difficult conversations and why it's critical to dismantle the systems of willful ignorance, starting locally.

Dr. Robert Proctor’s book, Agnotology

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