A Paper For Our Times: Toxic Ignorance Cycles

[NNadir]

The paper to which I'll refer, based on its title alone, in this post is this one: Breaking the “Toxic Ignorance Cycles” that Hinder New Approach Method (NAM) Acceptance in Environmental Risk Assessment Paris Jeffcoat, Gordon M. Hickey, Steven Maguire, and Niladri Basu Environmental Science & Technology 2025 59 (41), 21801-21811.

The paper is free to read, and I neither have the time, or since it's free to read, need the time to discuss it in any detail.

It appeals to the the scientific pathways for evaluating environmental risks, discussing animal testing vs. newer methods, cell based assays, computer modeling, etc...

The part that hits me in the age of the fascist takeover and fall of the United States is excerpted below:

...Regulatory scientists have long faced an uphill battle against uncertainty in decision-making contexts. (7−9) However, it has been noted that in these contexts, ‘what is referred to as uncertainty can hide the distinction between uncertainty, risk and ignorance’. (10) Broadening conceptual understandings of uncertainty is valuable as it allows us to remove the perceived objectivity around discussions of ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ in risk assessment and regulatory contexts. Ignorance, as an aspect of uncertainty, informs the decisions made by regulatory scientists just as knowledge does. However, multiplicities of ignorance begin to emerge, from the seemingly benign (e.g., a lack of available knowledge, an objective ‘unknown’ or ‘uncertainty’), to the more calculated and subversive (e.g., fear, uncertainty, and doubt manufactured to cast doubt on the validity of available knowledge, creating more subjective ‘unknowns’ and ‘uncertainties’). (11) Limited by various forms and forces of ignorance, regulatory agencies can be hamstrung against their mandates. (11) Historical cases concerned with uncertainty, ignorance, and risk in the chemicals industry and in regulatory risk assessment largely relate to the availability (or, rather, unavailability) of EHS data. However, as the risk paradigm advances and evolves, and NAMs are increasingly integrated into regulatory workflows and decision-making processes, uncertainty, ignorance, and risk related to the validity of new tools, technologies, and types of EHS data are a notable concern...

The bold, underlining and the italics are mine.

The use of manufactured doubt originated in large part from the cigarette industry in the 1960's, and powered, in my view, horrible popular belief systems like climate denial, antivaccine mythology and, on our side of the political spectrum to some degree, anti-GMO efforts, antinukism, etc.

A worthy monograph on the topic of industrial use of manufactured doubt is this one: The Parrot and the Igloo: Climate and the Science of Denial

(Nobody is immune from these popular effects, neither those of us on the left, nor those awful people on the right. Appeals to ignorance work as a function of the human condition.)

It's a paper worth consideration, I think.

(I wish I had more time to consider all the issues falling on me for consideration in the last, often terrible, months. I feel like I can't catch up, and I'm an old man, out of intellectual depth and breath.)