If I told you that this is a genetically-engineered 'man carrot', grown by Monsanto-funded Denis Avery of the Center for Global Food Issues in an heroic attempt to improve eyesight and prevent erectile dysfunction by consuming just one vegetable - would you believe me?
I thought not... but you'd better believe that agnotology is ''the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data''. The term was coined by a science historian, Robert N. Procter, to describe an increasingly common phenomenon in public debates over scientific matters, such as the extent of the harm caused by tobacco smoking or greenhouse gas emissions. It involves the telling of outright lies or half-truths, or the presentation of factual data in ways which are misleading.
In its worst form it involves compounding the lie by attributing it to a reputable scientist or public science organisation. This is what Denis Avery of the misleadingly named Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute did in 1998 when he claimed that people who ate organic food were eight times more likely to be attacked by the potentially fatal strain of E. coli 0157:H7 than those who ate non-organic food.
Not only was and is there no truth in this statement, but the individual scientist to whom Avery attributed this 'fact' never said or wrote any such thing, and neither did the US Centers for Disease Control, which Avery also cited as a source. You can read more about his lies on organic food, and how they were exposed, on the Sourcewatch site.
But the interesting (and sad) thing is that a lie repeated often enough starts to be believed as truth, especially when the source is also being lied about, and the lie is further compounded with lying 'analysis'. In the case of the E.coli lie Avery claimed that the fictitious greater contamination of organic food was because organic food is grown in raw manure, when the truth is that organic production standards in the USA and everywhere else expressly prohibit this. Organic production standards are legally enforceable. If a consumer ever found raw manure on an organic product they (or the state) could sue the grower, and if the case were proven damages and/or compensation would apply. A consumer would have no such comeback if poisoned via manure on a non-organic product, or by toxic E.coli traced back to its usual farm source – a feedlot where cattle are packed shoulder to shoulder and stand for days in raw manure.
Avery's lies about organic food are a prime illustration of the old adage ‘A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on'. I have seen Avery's lies (all of the above) propagated in the most unexpected places by the most unexpected people. For example, in the correspondence columns of the Christchurch Press by a member of the philosophy department of the University of Canterbury. (I could probably explain how this happened, but don't wish to bore readers interested in agriculture with academic absurdities.)
Culturally-induced ignorance occurs because people prefer to believe lies which fit in with their existing world-view. Lies propagated by a peer group with the same world-view are taken at face value as the truth. This was unfortunate but perhaps not too harmful in the days before lying was transformed into an industry by public relations corporations and those who hire them. These days – beware the menace of Denis and his ilk.
