title: Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance
author:  Robert N. Proctor 
description: "In the past years there have been few new fields of research as timely as agnotology. Many a time one is puzzled by the widespread ignorance of some of the greatest challenges mankind faces today, be it global warming, the way to the Iraq war, or the global tobacco epidemic. Agnotology might very well be the tool to delve into the great black holes of modern knowledge and also find a way out." (Andrian Kreye)<br /><br />"Anyone who thinks ignorance is nobodys business has a lot to learn from these provocative essays. The distinguished authors offer compelling evidence that what we do not know is every bit as much a product of human choice and ingenuity as what we choose to know. <i>Agnotology</i> rescues ignorance from the no-mans-land of unexamined social phenomena. It makes us ask what is at stake when we dont know things that are plainly before our eyes. This is a book for every thinking citizen."Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University
zlib_text:  
  Lucian of Samosata on Slander v. 11.11, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 28 May 2018 
  Page 1 of 8 
  Ignorance and Assumption 
  stretching out a hand to Slander 
  
  BLACK VERSUS WHITE MAGIC SERIES 
  IGNORANCE AND ASSUMPTION STRETCHING OUT A HAND TO SLANDER 
  Lucian of Samosata on Slander v. 11.11, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 28 May 2018 
  Page 2 of 8 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Translated by H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler. Frontispiece: Ptolemy I Soter flanked by Ignorance and 
  Assumption, and stretching out a hand to Slander. Detail from the Calumny of Apelles (1495) by 
  Sandro Botticelli, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. 
   TERRIBLE THING IS IGNORANCE, the source of endless human woes, spread-
  ing a mist over facts, obscuring truth, and casting a gloom upon the individ-
  ual life. We are all walkers in darkness — or say, our experience is that of 
  blind men, knocking helplessly against the real, and stepping high to clear the imag-
  inary, failing to see what is close at their feet, and in terror of being hurt by som