Agnotology: Ignorance is Power

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

Ignorance / Confusion 
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Are you confused about world events? politics? public policy? You are not alone. Governments and corporations employ tactics  to keep the public discourse and political landscape on uneven ground for power and profit:

Agnotology is the study of wilful acts to spread confusion and deceit, usually to sell a product or win favour

In the article: The Man who Studies the Spread of Ignorance*, we learn how and why this wilful spread of ignorance is so important to the criminal mind.

“I was exploring how powerful industries could promote ignorance to sell their wares. Ignorance is power… and agnotology is about the deliberate creation of ignorance.

“In looking into agnotology, I discovered the secret world of classified science, and thought historians should be giving this more attention.” 

But this spread of ignorance and confusion happens in more than the commercial sphere, it happens in the political one as well:

Proctor explains that ignorance can often be propagated under the guise of balanced debate. For example, the common idea that there will always be two opposing views does not always result in a rational conclusion. This was behind how tobacco firms used science to make their products look harmless, and is used today by climate change deniers to argue against the scientific evidence.

“This ‘balance routine’ has allowed the cigarette men, or climate deniers* today, to claim that there are two sides to every story, that ‘experts disagree’ – creating a false picture of the truth, hence ignorance.”

Have you been in the middle of this type of agnotology? It is more common than you realize. 

If you want to keep ahead of the spread of ignorance, then be sure to fact check everything you see, hear, and read. 

The truth is out there.

*Oh and by the way, BBC, there is no climate change based on facts and science. So in your article cited above you allowed two different types of agnotological references to create fallacies in your argument, but good try anyway.

Source: BBC

Sulawesi Cave Confirmed: Oldest Art in Human History Thus Far

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

Archaeology / Art
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In humans, when did creativity begin? Was it solely Europeans as has the evidence has suggested these many years? Or, is creativity simply a human trait for which we have yet to discover the remnants in other ancient civilizations? 

Enter the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Human history will never be the same again. 

“The minimum age for (the outline of the hand) is 39,900 years old, which makes it the oldest hand stencil in the world,” said Dr Aubert.

“Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one,” he told BBC News.

This also indicates a relatively stable human civilization region as the cave paintings were drawn over an 13,000 year time period. 

Other cave paintings around the world are:

Compare the painting above from Bone with the one immediately below, which is from El Castillo cave in northern Spain, and dated to be 37,300 years old by researchers at Bristol University.

What does this mean for human history? That art did not begin in Europe. This dating of the Indonesian cave art shows that art traveled with humans across history. The realization that art and creativity may have followed along to Europe from Africa itself.

Human art could go back as far as 60,000 years.

The source link also contains an interactive video of the site. 

Source: BBC