The manufacture of ignorance

STC 100 Agnatology

The politics of the construction of scientific ignorance

The Wise Outsider ?

• Many STS, Politics and Cultural Studies scholars have noted the importance of considering what issues come into public and political discussion and what issues don’t.

• Imagine a friendly alien coming to earth she lands her space ship and asks to be driven to meet the PM, in the car she asks to listen to the news and finds a newspaper and reads it. While awaiting her appointment with the P.M. she flicks through various TV channels and looks out the window at the suburban sprawl. After meeting with the P.M., her fact finding mission complete, she returns to her space ship and back to her planet. In her report from her short visit to earth she struggles to explain why there was so little interest in the high levels of C02 in the earth’s atmosphere, toxic chemicals being flushed down drains, traffic congestion, car accidents, dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels, and obvious social inequalities and differences in living conditions between the suburbs she was driven through. But instead almost everyone seemed obsessed with cooking competitions; young men ritually beating each other up because of their states of origin; the benefits of allegedly scientific skin moisturisers; politicians new baby’s etc. and that the PM’s major pre- occupation in their meeting was that her planet might buy Australian coal and iron ore.

Agenda Setting; Social Problem Discourses and Media Framing.

• There are numerous explanations for why issues that ‘a rational outsider’ might imagine we should be interested in and what ends up dominating public discourse can be so different.

• Political interests can shape what topics get time in the media and in public debate through advertising, ownership of mass media, public relations campaigns, sponsorship of political parties and lobby groups.

• Even in the age of the internet blogs and web sites and online news sources can still be manipulated by powerful interest groups and PR companies… although the processes involved are becoming more complex.

Out of sight out of Mind ?

• Cultural traditions and political disengagement are also important factors

• Important areas of study linked to the above concerns involve the study of Agenda Setting; Social Problem Discourses and Media Framing. .

• These concepts represent efforts to put issues into the public spotlight, today’s lecture looks at their counterpoint, efforts to hide things from the public spotlight…or the social construction of ignorance

Hidden Issues? Many long standing issues have taken considerable effort by lobby groups to be put on the ‘public’ agenda. • Abuse of children in Institutional care documented in films like Spotlight and the recent Australian Royal Commission. •Domestic Violence •Sexual Harassment •Racism

Who makes what we use?

Lecture 1 “ It all starts at the tip” considered ignorance of e –waste. On a similar note how often do we consider who has been involved in producing our electronic ‘goodies’ now and in the recent past? Does the electronics/computer revolution have different history for the workers to us the users?

Case Study: the Hidden Costs to Workers of the Computer Revolution.

• It’s often noted that the development of computers over the last 2-3 decades represents a shift to an environmentally clean information economy and society where dirty and dangerous jobs in factories have been replaced by new forms of work and production.

• It’s much more rarely noted that one of the consequences of the recent IT revolution has been exposure to toxic chemicals used as part of the construction processes of electronic products by a number of generations of electronics workers in countries such as Taiwan and South Korea. Whilst there have been some improvements in work conditions in recent years many workers are still exposed to toxic chemicals and the issue has recently become controversial as workers get sick and die of cancer. ( see the 2 brief readings for this weeks class)

The RCA Taiwan Case • In Oct 2017 The Taiwan High Court made a ground breaking

decision which some commentators hope will help discourage corporations in wealthy countries exporting pollution and health risks in electronics industries in the future

• The Court awarded 23.7 million US $ Damages to 486 surviving Taiwanese electronics workers (mostly women) who had been employed by RCA Taiwan (its parent company was US Gaint General Electric) between the 1970-90’s manufacturing TV’s and electronics for mainly the US market

• Important because unlike the US and Australia many Asian countries haven’t had traditions of workers being able to sue corporations for damages in negligence (Toxic Torts).These countries have been a traditional hub for producing electronics goods.

Toxic cocktail of exposures

• Workers had experienced an epidemic of cancers, miscarriages and other illnesses which could be linked to the use of various solvents and fumes involved in producing these products. Things like circuit boards etc

• Carcinogens such as Benzene, Trichloroethylene, and a cocktail of other toxins were in the air conditioning and water used by the workers.

• RCA had made no real effort to curb these exposures. Not surprising because RCA had moved manufacturing to Taiwan from the US in the 1970’s to capture cheap wages and avoid stricter standards and monitoring of workplace conditions in the US to start with !

Corporate methods to evade responsibility

• When they realised they might be sued in the 90’s for making workers ill they closed down operations in Taiwan and moved to China

• Plant operating records ‘accidently’ destroyed in a fire • Started moving assets away from Taiwan eg: sold parts of the

company to a French company and set up subsidiary companies in Bermuda,

• Sold the buildings and plant and moved profits from sale away from Taiwan , placing 100 million $ in a French bank account.

• Employed extremely expensive ‘expert’ witnesses from US and tried to exploit strict legal standards for proving cause and effect to create uncertainty

Samsung workers in South Korea

• For over a decade last there has been a battle between Samsung computer chip and display workers in Sth Korea with the company claiming compensation for illnesses, including MS leukemia and other cancers linked to toxic exposures in their workplaces.

• 200 + cases of Leukemia, Lupus, Lymphoma, MS, Reproductive disorders and 76 workers dying in only their 20’s -30’s.

• An advocacy group ‘SHARPS’ (Supporters for legal rights of people in the semi-conductor industry) was formed and have been involved in supporting sick workers and organising protests up to the present

Trade Secrets? • Workers originally encountered huge legal obstacles

because the Sth Korean Government and Samsung refused to reveal what chemicals workers were being exposed to on the basis that they were protected by trade secrets.

• This secrecy regarding manufacturing processes in the semi-conductor industry not uncommon

• New industry also less known about some of the toxic chemicals workers may have been exposed to

Samsung goes into damage control

• In response to pressure from workers groups in 2015, Samsung offered some compensation mainly financial aid covering covered medical fees to number of worker workers with a list of 26 diseases including cancer and multiple sclerosis.

• A number of workers rejected what the and demanded that Samsung apologize sincerely and publicly and provide transparent compensation and continued to pursue Samsung through the courts.

Recent Sth Korean Court finds against Samsung

• Last year (2017) The South Korean Supreme Court supported a a former worker at a Samsung LCD plant who said their MS had been caused by their exposure to toxic chemicals whilst at work. This overturned an earlier decision.

• The female worker’s job had been to assess 100 panels an hour for defects and wipe then down with a form of alcohol cleaning agent other conveyor bels nearby also involved processes which released toxic chemicals.

• .In the earlier case Samsung had won because the worker didn’t have enough information to make their case as Samsung had withheld information claiming it was linked to trade secrets

• In the 2017 case the court overruled the earlier court criticising the government for failing to measure workers exposure levels and Samsung for refusing to disclose information about chemical toxins.

S. Korean court says worker's rare disease linked to Samsung YOUKYUNG LEE Associated Press 2017

Dispute ongoing • Protests still ongoing but further deals and apologies

being offered • A recent scientific report suggested Toxic links claimed

by the workers difficult to prove but that company still can’t be exonerated…..

• Little publicity for the case in Australia • Should the conditions experienced by workers outside

of Australia, manufacturing the products we use in Australia, influence our behaviour as consumers?

• This issue has also has particular relevance to the manufacture of much of our clothing.

The social construction of Ignorance ?

• Well known Historian of Science Robert Proctor ( see tute readings) has through his work on the history of tobacco smoking and health suggested that the study of different forms of ignorance and absence of public concern is extremely important.

• Other important scholars who have built on these interests include Naomie Oreskes and Tim Conway in their influential popular book on global warming Merchants of Doubt.

Agnatology

Proctor coined the term Agnatology to describe the study of ignorance:

We need to think about the conscious, unconscious, and structural productions of ignorance, its diverse causes and conformations, whether brought about by neglect, forgetfulness, myopia, extinction, secrecy, or suppression. The point is to question the naturalness of ignorance, its causes and its distribution. (Proctor, 2008: 3) (For a profile of Proctor see readings for this week BBC Futures)

Proctor (2008: 3) distinguishes three kinds of ignorance ( see Pinto reading in Tutorial Guide)

1.In the traditional sense, ignorance is understood as native state: A vacuum or void that needs to be replaced with knowledge

2. In a second sense, ignorance can be a passive construct or lost realm. This is the type of ignorance that grows from the social conditions in which science is made, including science’s political geography (who is a scientist and why, and why science is done in some places rather than others) and the selection of certain lines of research over others. In this sense, ignorance emerges from the combination of decisions, circumstances and accidents that surround practices of knowledge production.

3. Ignorance can also be an active construct or strategic ploy: It can be deliberately made and maintained to fulfill the interests of certain people. In this sense, ignorance becomes a manufactured product, instead of being a natural or accidental result

.

A Brief History of Tobacco and Cigarettes • The health risks of smoking cigarettes were widely scientifically

known and accepted for many decades before anything was done • Even though corporations knew of the dangers they deliberately and

largely successfully thwarted regulation and being sued by victims of smoking for 40 + years.

• Elaborate strategies deliberately formulated in consultation with Marketing Gurus’ helped shape science, government strategies and public perceptions of risk.

• YES IT WAS A REAL CONSPIRACY finally revealed in documents big Tobacco companies were forced to make public as a result of a series of court cases they lost in the 1990’s. Their behaviour was regarded by US courts as being of the same order as racketeering and the Mafia.

5 Key Features of the so called ‘Tobacco Strategy’ or making ‘Doubt their Product’

(1) Emphasis on scientific uncertainty Even if it misrepresents mainstream scientific views (2) Support of friendly research Even if it is not strictly relevant to the main topic (3) Recruitment of distinguished scientists Even if their area of expertise is not relevant to the topic. Retired Physicists

being used to speak on Public Health (4) Creation of an echo chamber effect Create Institutions which look scientific (which aren’t) which then refer back to

studies they commissioned themselves (5) Attack to unfavourable scientific research. Use media obligation for balanced reporting to demand the right to publically

attack scientific research that doesn’t suit by measuring it against unreasonable standards of scientific proof.

Strategic distortion of aspects of how science is actually practiced

“ In part the effectiveness of the tobacco strategy has not been because it completely misrepresents how science is actually practiced ( for example) scientists know that their results are uncertain, research projects support research that contributes to their goals, research teams aim at recruiting distinguished scientists, scientists want to disseminate their research results widely, and scientific research is held to high standards of criticism…. But rather in the effectiveness of efforts made to distort/reshape aspects of these normal practices to suit their interests. This means the ‘ claims’ produced by the tobacco strategy can look like proper science even if seriously inadequate” (Pinto 2017)

What has made this strategy possible • General lack of awareness on the part of the public

about how science is actually done • Inadequate communication by research scientists with

the public and regulators • Inadequacies of science communication eg: false

balancing • Triumph of marketing and PR • Significant financial resources available to promote the

strategy • Mobilization of political lobby groups and ‘think tanks’

who embraced the cause of big Tobacco Companies as part of their broader ideological agenda to discourage the regulation of health and environmental risks.

Same Strategies have re-appeared in debates about Climate change

• Same Corporate Interest Groups and PR and Marketing firms involved in thwarting regulation and litigation in the case of Cigarettes have also been active in trying to shape public debate in relation to Global Warming using the same strategies.

• See Tute reading Pinto and Oreskes and Conway’s widely cited book ‘Merchants of Doubt’