In a recent exchange on Twitter, I was called Ignorant for failing to understand a concept held by a self-proclaimed thought leader on the topic. Here in the US When you call someone ignorant, it's usually during, as some have already pointed out, a discussion or a debate. People usually discuss or debate things they think they know about. When you tell them they don't, it's insulting.
Ignorance is simply the state of not knowing something, not having certain knowledge or information. One can be ignorant simply due to never having been exposed to certain things; it has no real bearing on one's intelligence. Yet people truly are insulted by being called ignorant. The word has connotations that aren't conveyed by the dictionary definition.
The term uninformed is often used for someone who has little or no knowledge about something. It's more polite than being called ignorant.
The term willfully ignorant refers to those who lack the information or facts because they refuse to acknowledge them. Ignorance is a matter of choice. Willful ignorance (as a noun in our Federal Acquisition parlance and the law) is a decision made in bad faith to avoid becoming informed about something so as to avoid having to make undesirable decisions that such information might prompt.
When we talk about the root causes of many of the problems encountered in our Federal space, one of those root causes is Willful Ignorance. For projects - managing cost and schedule - the guidance and regulations are right there in the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the Orders and Guides, the Compliance Documents and they are willfully ignored
For safety and safeguards domains, the regulations, procedures, and policies are usually hanging on the wall.
So Here's the Challenge
I'm uninformed about many things, even though I have multiple graduate degrees and have been applying them since the late '70s. I don't know how to repair electronics, so I have my neighbor look after my audiophile amplifier when it started misbehaving. I do know how to repair cars and their engines - at least when I was a kid and in college. But today I'm hopeless, since the late 90's cars are actually computers on wheels, so the local Honda shop fixes them for me.
I'm hopefully never willfully ignorant since I was trained as a scientist and engineer, but I do ask annoying questions which also comes from that training and experience. Experience working with and watching successful scientists and engineers ask those pesky questions like:
- I see you've made this conjecture, but do you have any evidence to support it?
- What you just said is counter to the established principles of the domain we are working in. Those principles may be Immutable as well. The 1st Law of Thermodynamics is one of those pesky immutable principles when someone claims the world would be saved if we all drove electric cars, ignoring the 1st law that says energy is neither created nor destroyed. So where is all the energy going to come from the charge those batteries, and the transmission of that energy? Power line losses are between 8% and 15% alone. Add to that the efficiency of a coal-fired plant of around 35%. Oil-fired plants are around 56% to 60%.
When a person is called ignorant, do they mean they are uninformed on the topic or they are willfully ignorant of a topic they should have known about in their experience, training, or education?
My Personal Beef
When the advocates of #NoEstimates state you can make decisions while spending other people's money in the presence of uncertainty - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory) - they are Willfully ignoring the principles of Microeconomics of Software Development, the principles of Managerial Finance, and the Principles of Probabilistic Decision making
I'd suggest that is different than I don't know what you're talking about, so could you please provide some resources that first support your claim and second examples of how that claim is applicable to the domain I work in (with reference example) because what you're saying makes no sense to me from my decades of experience, training, and research
Final Comment
When someone is presenting an idea, it's not clear how that idea works outside the presenter domain and the presenter is asked to provide references, examples beyond their own anecdotes, verification that the idea is applicable in other domains and contexts, calling the questioner ignorant, first an ad hominem fallacy and second, it's incumbent on the presenter of the idea to provide the resources to further the understanding of the questioner.
The Ad Hominem Fallacy is attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement, question, or argument instead of seeking to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument. Or in this experience simply providing links to the background materials needed to come to a better understanding of the situation in which the claim is being made.
