# Selective ignorance **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2019, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111 "2019-12-19T20:20:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![atimnie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atimnie/32/11_2.png) [@atimnie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atimnie)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/21 "2019-12-20T19:39:55Z")
There’s a fine line between willfully ignorant and stupid, and if you’re trying to have a civil debate, stupid should not be a part of it. Have I used the word stupid? Yes, but this is on YouTube and not what you would consider a civil debate. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/22 "2019-12-20T19:43:45Z")
It’s pointless to engage with people like that. They won’t change their minds, probably ever, and will just annoy you no end. Cut them out of your life and tell them why. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/23 "2019-12-20T20:29:14Z")
There really is a qualitative difference between people who refuse to believe the knowable (science) and people who persist in believing in the unknowable (religion). Saying something is false when it is **demonstrably** true is not the same as saying something which cannot be truly demonstrated either way, by its very nature, is either false or true. This is something many atheists don’t grasp, and obviously many fundamentalist religious don’t either. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/24 "2019-12-20T20:43:06Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I guess I’m sensitive to this word choice, because I generally consider the term “rational Humanist” to be the best description of my personal philosophy/worldview. Allows me to “define” myself differently from identifying one specific supernatural concept that I reject. That seems a perfectly reasonable name to me. I suspect you can demonstrate how your belief system is rational. > [@](#): > > Also, in my experience, people are AT LEAST as likely to be offended by being called ignorant, not realizing it solely refers to a lack of knowledge, as opposed to “stupidity.” > > There is essentially no chance of communicating w/ someone on anything more complex than the current weather, if the parties are not able to agree upon the definition of the terms they use. If someone objects to being called ignorant about something, you can give them a quiz. I always begin conversations with creationists by asking them to define evolution. Often they have been told by their religious leaders that evolution involved absurdities, like dogs turning into cats. The fact is, we all do irrational things and believe irrational things. This has been proven through experiment. But believing an irrational thing does not make you irrational. Accusing someone of calling you irrational when they point out you hold an irrational belief is a defense mechanism, since it means you don’t have to defend the belief. As I said, I’ve heard this all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/25 "2019-12-20T20:47:07Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Saying something is false when it is **demonstrably** true is not the same as saying something which cannot be truly demonstrated either way, by its very nature, is either false or true. This is something many atheists don’t grasp, and obviously many fundamentalist religious don’t either. Excuse me. How dies atheism figure here? Atheism is lacking belief since the existence of any god has not been demonstrated. It does not mean that we know no gods exist. Perhaps you don’t grasp atheism. ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/26 "2019-12-20T20:54:16Z")
A great example of this phenomena is the “Russia Narrative”. Despite a Mueller report that showed no American conspired or “colluded” with the Russians to affect the election people still believe the opposite. They still believe this in light of the things revealed in the IG Report. Many major new organizations bought into this “Russia Narrative” despite the evidence to the contrary being readily available. You have many people on this board with the tag line (Fighting Ignorance Since 1973) still believing that the Steele Dossier was verified and the information contained in it was true despite the IG Report blowing it out of the water. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/27 "2019-12-21T10:35:59Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > Unfortunately climate change (and many other aspects of science) are not easy to understand. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Oh? It’s never struck me a difficult concept. Yes, the Earth has undergone cooling and warming cycles many times, but human industrial activity promises to cause a warming cycle much much faster than any previous cycle, on the order of a few centuries instead of over several thousand years. The concept is easy get but it sounds too much like a “just so” story. I believe it but I don’t pretend to believe it because of the evidence. The causal links are too complicated, even for a scientist, to put together without years of study and understanding. I believe it because thousands of experts tell me that it’s true. If someone doesn’t have this same faith in the experts or if they distrust their motives (“they just want to bring down capitalism”, “they are faking the evidence for personal gain”) then it becomes easier to grab onto evidence to the contrary, however shaky. This explanation does not work for the people who deny the moon landing — those people are just nuts — but I think it does explain the people who deny climate change, evolution, the evidence for Trump’s impeachment and the damage that Brexit will do to the British economy. Motivated reasoning is very powerful. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/28 "2019-12-21T10:41:33Z")
> [@EasyPhil](#): > > A great example of this phenomena is the “Russia Narrative”. Despite a Mueller report that showed no American conspired or “colluded” with the Russians to affect the election people still believe the opposite. They still believe this in light of the things revealed in the IG Report. Many major new organizations bought into this “Russia Narrative” despite the evidence to the contrary being readily available. You have many people on this board with the tag line (Fighting Ignorance Since 1973) still believing that the Steele Dossier was verified and the information contained in it was true despite the IG Report blowing it out of the water. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/29 "2019-12-21T12:11:10Z")
The common-sense argument for climate change (assuming that the person you are talking to has any) is: • The earth is warming up - this is as firmly established as any scientific fact about the weather could possibly be. It’s possible to argue about the reasons for it, but not about the temperature rise itself. • Human beings have been dumping tens of billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year - year after year and decade after decade. To imagine that this has _no_ effect is unscientific. • It’s possible to argue about what the nature of the effect is, or how large it is, but it is not possible to argue that human activity has no effect. If volcanoes spewing out ash can affect world climate, then many decades of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere can affect world climate. Actions have consequences. • Large corporations whose industries produce greenhouse gases have a strong financial interest in preventing any regulation. They are pouring many millions of dollars all the time into funding anti-climate-change organizations, creating anti-climate-change talking points, publicizing them through media organizations which are friendly to large corporations, and lobbying governments. These are also facts. • This means that any argument about climate change has to be very carefully and critically examined, and allowance has to be made for the propaganda effort financed by corporations who don’t want to reduce emissions because that would reduce their profits. That is why it is best to accept the consensus of independent scientists. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/30 "2019-12-21T12:45:53Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > The concept is easy get but it sounds too much like a “just so” story. I can see why it might if the person has already decided to reject the idea, in which case I’d be wasting my time trying to explain it. Frankly, life’s too short to spend chasing someone’s mental goalposts. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/31 "2019-12-21T13:21:43Z")
> [@EasyPhil](#): > > A great example of this phenomena is the “Russia Narrative”. Despite a Mueller report that showed no American conspired or “colluded” with the Russians to affect the election people still believe the opposite. They still believe this in light of the things revealed in the IG Report. Many major new organizations bought into this “Russia Narrative” despite the evidence to the contrary being readily available. You have many people on this board with the tag line (Fighting Ignorance Since 1973) still believing that the Steele Dossier was verified and the information contained in it was true despite the IG Report blowing it out of the water. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to offer into evidence Exhibit A. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/32 "2019-12-21T16:11:10Z")
The selectively ignorant exhibit a sly arrogance. They know something you don’t. They can refute your argument in an instant: Person at church - “Obama is going to take our guns” Me - “That’s not true, he’s been in office 8 years and it hasn’t happened” Person at church - “See, that proves my point” Me - “Huh?” The selectively ignorant are insiders who know secret things others do not. It’s the easy way out. They have full knowledge of complex matters without expending any intellectual effort. If I reject Climate Change then I am smarter than the scientists. If I know the Moon Landing was a hoax then I have superior political insight. Ignorance provides a safe pinnacle from which to view the world. To leave it would require great effort. However, they universally accept the benefits of modern society while rejecting it’s underpinnings. On my first day in the military a Sergeant loudly gave us the word on how to get along: “…if you are sick, you will go on sick call…I know…them doctors is the dumbest people in the world…but they will get you well…” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/33 "2019-12-21T19:32:22Z")
> [@EasyPhil](#): > > A great example of this phenomena is the “Russia Narrative”. Despite a Mueller report that showed no American conspired or “colluded” with the Russians to affect the election people still believe the opposite. They still believe this in light of the things revealed in the IG Report. Many major new organizations bought into this “Russia Narrative” despite the evidence to the contrary being readily available. You have many people on this board with the tag line (Fighting Ignorance Since 1973) still believing that the Steele Dossier was verified and the information contained in it was true despite the IG Report blowing it out of the water. Yes, this is a great example of how people can continue to believe something even when the evidence says otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/34 "2019-12-21T20:08:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Excuse me. How dies atheism figure here? Atheism is lacking belief since the existence of any god has not been demonstrated. It does not mean that we know no gods exist. > Perhaps you don’t grasp atheism. I always thought that what you describe is agnosticism. I always tell people that by knowledge I am an agnostic, but by belief an atheist, by which I mean that I believe that there is no god. Frankly I think I would choose not to hang out with such willfully ignorant people. I want to comment on this quote from **Bryan Ekers** : > [@](#): > > I’m not sure about this, either. If the person is open to the concept and doesn’t have some religious or religious-like anti-evolution preconceptions, I don’t think it would be hard to describe how not all babies are alike; that some babies have a very tiny advantage that gives them a slightly better chance of living long enough to have babies of their own, and if you spin this out over a few thousand generations, you’ll see the tiny traits that gave the original babies their slight advantage becoming more and more reinforced in their descendants to the point where the descendants might look significantly different from the original babies. You don’t have to invoke genetics or mutation right away, just point out that while a baby inherits traits from its mother and father, it doesn’t get them to exactly the same degree as its mother or father - some traits will be more pronounced or less pronounced, and this mix can offer a tiny advantage or a tiny disadvantage. If the tiny-disadvantage baby has babies of their own and passes on this tiny disadvantage, eventually luck will catch up to them and that branch of the family will reach a generation that doesn’t have successful babies and will come to an end. Meanwhile, the original baby’s sibling who by luck got a tiny advantage and managed to pass it on is more likely to have his or her branch of the family continue, all of whom have inherited the tiny advantage. Within that branch, the babies who randomly get more of the tiny advantage have an even better chance at survival and a hundred generations later, the tiny advantage is on full display and it might become difficult to picture how a baby could survive without it. Until the environment suddenly changes and the advantage is now a liability, and if all the members of that family have come to depend on their advantage and now it’s a problem, that family quickly goes extinct. “Look at me, I’m a bird on an island from a whole family of birds who get by just fine and don’t waste energy on running away from things because there’s nothing to run away from. Wait a sec, somebody brought a cat to the island, I wonder how this will play out…” It is not that the advantageous trait gets intensified down the generations. It is simpler than that. If a trait is advantageous, that is leads to more descendants, then it will gradually spread throughout the populations. And Darwin did not understand the mechanism. Only Mendel’s gene theory made this plausible. And the idea of evolution was widespread even before Darwin. One of its proponents was his grandfather Erasmus Darwin. What made evolution plausible was Darwin’s natural selection and Mendel’s genes. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/35 "2019-12-21T20:19:15Z")
Maybe, but I tried to describe the way that I would try to explain evolution to someone who didn’t know anything (or might vaguely believe some _wrong_ things they heard a long time ago from a religious person or saw on the internet once) about Darwin, Mendel and genetics. I’d rather just cast it as babies who inherit traits from their parents with some randomness, and this randomness means the baby’s particular combination of traits might give them a very tiny advantage or a very tiny disadvantage affecting their odds of growing up to have babies of their own. If the person I’m talking to can’t even grasp _that_ as a concept, then I’d admit defeat right away. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/36 "2019-12-21T20:36:34Z")
Can’t or _won’t_ grasp that as a concept, I should note. If I get resistance right off the bat to the idea of inheritance with randomness then I can take that as a good indication the whole process will be a struggle and the person wants to _not_ grapple with evolution. Fine, good luck to them, have a good life. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/37 "2019-12-21T21:46:20Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I always thought that what you describe is agnosticism. I always tell people that by knowledge I am an agnostic, but by belief an atheist, by which I mean that I believe that there is no god. > > Frankly I think I would choose not to hang out with such willfully ignorant people. Agnosticism contains knowledge in its name. Atheism contains belief, or lack thereof. Now, I agree that agnosticism has been commonly used by chicken atheists, since it gives theists the hope that the agnostics are on the fence and can be saved, and so shouldn’t be beaten up or worse. As for belief that god doesn’t exist, which god? Lacking belief in a god in the absence of evidence for that god should be the default position, which makes atheism in the sense of lack of belief (dare I say) rational. But while I might have good reason to believe that the western god does not exist, how about the god or gods of a civilization on a planet three galaxies over? Believing that god - and all the nearly infinite number of gods I can imagine do not exist also seems irrational to me. As for what agnosticism really means, I accept that it is impossible to know that no gods exist, but it is certainly possible to know that one does - at least to the level I know that Paris exists, and I’ve been there. And god worth its mettle will know how to prove itself to me. That the wumpus hasn’t appeared on my lawn doesn’t prove that it’s shy - it is evidence that it doesn’t exist, especially if the wumpus fans tell me it is all around me. If only I had faith I’d imagine I’d see it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/38 "2019-12-21T21:53:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Maybe, but I tried to describe the way that I would try to explain evolution to someone who didn’t know anything (or might vaguely believe some _wrong_ things they heard a long time ago from a religious person or saw on the internet once) about Darwin, Mendel and genetics. I’d rather just cast it as babies who inherit traits from their parents with some randomness, and this randomness means the baby’s particular combination of traits might give them a very tiny advantage or a very tiny disadvantage affecting their odds of growing up to have babies of their own. If the person I’m talking to can’t even grasp _that_ as a concept, then I’d admit defeat right away. From my reading, your use of advantageous was in the reproductive success sense, and exactly correct. However, I’ve heard many creationists say they accept your definition, but that is only “microevolution” and not “macroevolution” which they mutter means microbes to men, ans if this was supposed to happen in two weeks or so. They are a bit iffy about the mechanisms which prevent speciation and further convergence. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/39 "2019-12-22T00:57:36Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > From my reading, your use of advantageous was in the reproductive success sense, and exactly correct. > However, I’ve heard many creationists say they accept your definition, but that is only “microevolution” and not “macroevolution” which they mutter means microbes to men, ans if this was supposed to happen in two weeks or so. They are a bit iffy about the mechanisms which prevent speciation and further convergence. Well, that’s one of those ignorant-preconception firewalls I alluded to. It wouldn’t shock me if they only know the phrases “microevolution” and “macroevolution” in the context of using them to protect themselves from an accurate understanding of evolution, which they’ve probably been conditioned to believe is sinful in some way. To me, the most obvious follow-up question is to ask how old they think the Earth is, and if I get a number in the thousands and not the billions, then I consider cutting my losses and walking away. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111/40 "2019-12-24T03:48:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Agnosticism contains knowledge in its name. Atheism contains belief, or lack thereof. Incorrect. Agnostics just claim not to know if any gods are worth bothering. Theists bother one or more gods. Atheists don’t bother with gods. Just as “bald” is not a hair color, so “atheism” is not a belief system. Back to topic. People believe exactly what they want to believe. Trying to convince a believer is IMHO a waste of energy. My cousin, not a simple person, won’t listen to any atheist talk because her dead baby is in Jesus’ arms and that gives her great comfort. As Thomas Kuhn noted, paradigms die out when all their believers do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-ignorance/845111.md?page=3)