An original account of willful ignorance and how this principle relates to modern probability and statistical methods Through a series of colorful stories about great thinkers and the problems they chose to solve, the author traces the historical evolution of probability and explains how statistical methods have helped to propel scientific research. However, the past success of statistics has depended on vast, deliberate simplifications amounting to willful ignorance, and this very success now threatens future advances in medicine, the social sciences, and other fields. Limitations of existing methods result in frequent reversals of scientific findings and recommendations, to the consternation of both scientists and the lay public. Willful Ignorance: The Mismeasure of Uncertainty exposes the fallacy of regarding probability as the full measure of our uncertainty. The book explains how statistical methodology, though enormously productive and influential over the past century, is approaching a crisis. The deep and troubling divide between qualitative and quantitative modes of research, and between research and practice, are reflections of this underlying problem. The author outlines a path toward the re-engineering of data analysis to help close these gaps and accelerate scientific discovery. Willful Ignorance: The Mismeasure of Uncertainty presents essential information and novel ideas that should be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of scientific research. The book is especially pertinent for professionals in statistics and related fields, including practicing and research clinicians, biomedical and social science researchers, business leaders, and policy-makers.

Psychologists, economists, historians, computer scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and legal scholars explore the conscious choice not to seek information. The history of intellectual thought abounds with claims that knowledge is valued and sought, yet individuals and groups often choose not to know. We call the conscious choice not to seek or use knowledge (or information) deliberate ignorance. When is this a virtue, when is it a vice, and what can be learned from formally modeling the underlying motives? On which normative grounds can it be judged? Which institutional interventions can promote or prevent it? In this book, psychologists, economists, historians, computer scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and legal scholars explore the scope of deliberate ignorance.

Ignorance is trending. Politicians boast, "I'm not a scientist." Angry citizens object to a proposed state motto because it is in Latin, and "This is America, not Mexico or Latin America." Lack of experience, not expertise, becomes a credential. Fake news and repeated falsehoods are accepted and shape firm belief. Ignorance about American government and history is so alarming that the ideal of an informed citizenry now seems quaint. Conspiracy theories and false knowledge thrive. This may be the Information Age, but we do not seem to be well informed. In this book, philosopher Daniel DeNicola explores ignorance -- its abundance, its endurance, and its consequences.

Carin Miller has reluctantly gone to Berlin to work in the bakery of a family friend. She arrives in 1933, just as Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Her stay in Germany was to last only two years, but instead spanned over twelve years, until the end of World War II. She is appalled by the treatment of the Jews and the policies of the Nazi regime. She begs her friend, Anna, who is Jewish, to get out of Germany. Carin wonders why the German people put up with Hitler and the atrocities of the SS. She criticizes their willful ignorance, but discovers that she too is guilty of hiding her head in the sand. Carin falls in love with Peter and then finds out that he is a high-ranking officer in the SS. He confesses his love for her and asks her to wait for him until after the war. As a Christian, she knows that the relationship must end. Standing by while the horrific events unfold around her does not sit well with Carins conscience, but why get involved when Germany is not her country? She is a Christian, not a Jew. And what can one person do? Will she join the Resistance, knowing the risks?

Throughout history, humans have always indulged in certain irrationalities and held some fairly wrong-headed beliefs. But in his newest book, philosopher Lee McIntyre shows how we've now reached a watershed moment for ignorance in the modern era, due to the volume of misinformation, the speed with which it can be digitally disseminated, and the savvy exploitation of our cognitive weaknesses by those who wish to advance their ideological agendas. In Respecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age, McIntyre issues a call to fight back against this slide into the witless abyss. In the tradition of Galileo, the author champions the importance of using tested scientific methods for arriving at true beliefs, and shows how our future survival is dependent on a more widespread, reasonable world.

“With deft prose and page after page of keen insights, Heffernan shows why we close our eyes to facts that threaten our families, our livelihood, and our self-image--and, even better, she points the way out of the darkness.” --Daniel H. Pink In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Heffernan's Willful Blindness is a tour de force on human behavior that will open your eyes. Why, after every major accident and blunder, do we look back and say, How could we have been so blind? Why do some people see what others don't? And how can we change? Drawing on studies by psychologists and neuroscientists, and from interviews with business leaders, whistleblowers, and white collar criminals, distinguished businesswoman and writer Margaret Heffernan examines the phenomenon of willful blindness, exploring the reasons that individuals and groups are blind to impending personal tragedies, corporate collapses, engineering failures-even crimes against humanity. We turn a blind eye in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, to reduce anxiety, and to protect prestige. But greater understanding leads to solutions, and Heffernan shows how-by challenging our biases, encouraging debate, discouraging conformity, and not backing away from difficult or complicated problems-we can be more mindful of what's going on around us and be proactive instead of reactive.

In Centering Epistemic Injustice: Epistemic Labor, Willful Ignorance, and Knowing Across Hermeneutical Divides, Kamili Posey asks what it means for accounts of epistemic injustice to take seriously the lives and perspectives of socially marginalized knowers. The first part of this book takes up the predominant account of testimonial injustice offered by Miranda Fricker, arguing that testimonial injustice is not merely about the epistemic harms perpetrated by dominant knowers against marginalized knowers, but also about the strategies that marginalized knowers use to circumvent those harms. Such strategies expand current conceptions of epistemic injustice by centering how marginalized knowers engage and resist in hostile epistemic environments. The second part of the book examines Fricker’s concept of hermeneutical injustice, rooted in hermeneutical marginalization. Thinking alongside critics of hermeneutical injustice, Centering Epistemic Injustice explores the relationship between dominant knowing and marginalized knowing and asks if social power—including the power to shape collective resources and ways of meaning-making—makes it impossible for dominant knowers to know and “hear well” across hermeneutical divides. Finally, the book asks whether hermeneutical divides are real divides in understanding and how dominant knowers might come to be better knowers in the pursuit of a more thoroughgoing epistemic justice.