{"id":8355,"date":"2020-02-24T16:29:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T21:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=8355"},"modified":"2020-10-07T09:34:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T13:34:13","slug":"the-art-of-sowing-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/the-art-of-sowing-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art Of Sowing Doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A climate\nscientist, a French politician, and an industrialist walk into a bar … <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s\nthe setup for an anecdote, made popular by French philosopher Bruno Latour,\nthat Assistant Professor of English Patrick Love shares to explain his area of\nresearch\u2014rhetoric, or in this case, agnotology, which is the study of\nculturally induced doubt, particularly when it comes to the publication of\ninaccurate or misleading scientific data (think: climate change doubters). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAgnotology\nis a rhetorical framework used that encompasses an anti-intellectual\nprogression of ideas, and it is often invoked by climate skeptics or climate\ndeniers to mitigate arguments of people like us\u2014specialist\u2019s or scientists who\nstudy climate to a great degree,\u201d says Love. \u201cIt\u2019s a doubt that comes about\nthrough a cultural consensus. It doesn\u2019t arise from necessarily one place, but\nit comes from our collective willingness to doubt or ignore something.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nexample of the rhetoric used by those who reject mainstream climate science\ngoes something like this: A climate scientist presents her position and says,\n\u201cWe need to do this now, it\u2019s essential, and we\u2019ll need to do this in the future.\u201d\nThen an industrialist, perhaps someone from the coal industry, asks, \u201cWhy\nshould we trust you over anyone else?\u201d The sense of doubt cast by the\nindustrialist creates equivalency, or a sense of equal weight between both\narguments, says Love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The industrialist\nmight then ask the scientist if she can say with absolute certainty that what\nshe predicts is going to happen exactly <\/em>as she predicts it\u2014something no\nscientist would ever do, says Love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith\nthe scientific method … we are only willing to go to 99% because we have a\ndisciplinary duty to acknowledge that we might be wrong about some things along\nthe way,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, the industrialist starts by creating that doubt, then\ngoes on to say that academics or specialists are financially motivated\u2014they\nwant their research agenda to continue, they want to continue getting funded,\nthey want to keep studying this problem because it lines their pockets\nsomehow.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love\nsays the industrialist would then oversimplify the issue, acknowledging that\nsomething might be happening but offering up a retort along the lines of, \u201cIt\u2019s\nfar enough in advance,\u201d or, \u201cIt\u2019s going to happen in ways we can manage over\ntime.\u201d Lastly, to support his views, the industrialist will find narrow,\ncontradictory studies that counter entire bodies of research, just so he can\ncontinue down a path of inaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe agnotological argument, which often comes down to market\njustification, gives [people] a justification for inaction\u2014or less\naction\u2014through an appeal to rationality, through saying, \u2018Let\u2019s not freak out\nabout this, let\u2019s be calm, let\u2019s move slowly,\u2019\u201d says Love. \u201cThe industrialist\nwill say immediately, \u2018Well of course I\u2019m motivated by the market: I want to\nsave you money. I might not do what you\u2019re recommending, but your bottom line\nwill be better, and who knows if anything will change.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And though Love acknowledges there is no clear antidote to combating the rhetoric used by those who reject mainstream climate science, the more important course of action is to reframe the discussion as one about morals. The state of doubting that climate change is real often comes down to a moral decision, says Love, where a person sides with what is beneficial and profitable to them individually in the short term instead of what is better for our species and the planet in the long term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThinking about it as a moral thing is important, because if all we want to do is save money, then we have to think about what\u2019s really important to us, what our priorities are. We need a planet\u2014that\u2019s the number one priority,\u201d says Love. \u201cThere is a coming point where that rationality is going to run out on us. We are facing a crisis and we need to, in a sense, acknowledge that as a moral issue that we face.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, read Part III of this series: Law and World Order.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s easy to make people question facts, says one rhetorician. That’s why we need to change the conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":8357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Uncategorized","issue":"Spring 2020","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8355"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9293,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355\/revisions\/9293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}