Ignorance

Name(s):

Inexperience

Mindlessness

Unfamiliarity

Dependence on ignorance

Ignorant people

Nature

There is still no answer to many scientific questions and there exists an uncertain degree of knowledge with regard to major disciplines. The physical and behavioural sciences such as psychology and economics, which are so frequently looked to for certitude, do not always come up with clear cut answers; and unsubstantiated theories often disguise a lack of knowledge.

While one category of ignorance applies to what is not known, another category applies to the inability to assemble all the facts needed. For example, although there may be considerable understanding of the effects of single policies on single objectives, where multiple and sometimes conflicting effects and objectives of programmes and policies exist the processes for evaluating all these may be too complex, so that decisions are made in ignorance of all the relevant data.

Another type of ignorance allows for the knowledge to exist and also the capability and means to acquire it, but the will to do so is not present. Unwillingness to look at the facts constitutes intellectual bias. An emotional bias has the same effect, such as identification with a particular set of interests whether they are national, political, economic, ideological or religious. In the latter case, a tenet of Roman Catholic theology, for example, describes those who will never embrace Christianity due to their heredity, upbringing or environment, as 'invincibly ignorant', which aptly describes the 'closed' mind in any situation.

Claim

Ignorance, which is the opposite of wisdom, is the mental condition that oversees injustice.

Counter-claim

1. Surveys that claim to establish the relative ignorance of any population group, whether within countries or between countries, are methodologically suspect. The interpretation of any statistical results of such surveys in isolation is questionable in the absence of any accompanying discussion of the social, cultural and economic environment in which these supposedly ignorant individuals function as members of a productive society. It is impossible to make a connection between statistics of ignorance and the past or future status of a society. For example in recent comparisons of USA high school students with their foreign counterparts fails to take into account the continued elitism in of non-USA educational systems. The USA has many more people, with a greater range of socio-cultural backgrounds, in high school than in other countries.

2. If all knowledge were within a man, and ignorance were wholly absent, that man would be consumed and cease to be. So ignorance is desirable, in as much as by that means he continues to exist (Jalaluddin Rumi).

Broader

General obstacles to problem alleviation

Narrower