Deliberate ignorance

Deliberate ignorance is the practice of refusing to consider or discuss logic or evidence disproving ideologically motivated positions. A related concept is the fallacy of invincible ignorance. Examples of deliberate ignorance include:

• Howard Dean, a physician, former Governor, and longtime politician, refusing to recognize that taxpayer-funded abortion increases the number of abortions
• abortionists refuse to address the undisclosed harm to the mothers who have abortions
• refusing to acknowledge the inferior credentials of the critics of Richard Sternberg, whom they ostracize for having published an intelligent design article
• Democrats refusing to acknowledge Barack Obama's appeal to unpatriotic donors and supporters
• materialists refuse to address the impossibility of material explanation for migration and homing
• evolutionists refuse to address the lack of a plausible evolutionary path for the whale and the other counterexamples to evolution
• liberals refuse to address how socialism destroys productivity
• Advocates of the global warming theory refuse to consider any scientific evidence which shows that natural causes have always had a greater effect on terrestrial air temperature than human activity.
• Liberal cafeteria Christians refuse to consider Bible verses that contradict their preconceived notions of what the Bible should say.
• Liberal Internet discussion boards quickly delete posts that present facts contradicting liberal ideology and ban users making such posts.
• atheists refuse to acknowledge a priori philosophical proofs of the existence of God, and specifically the Christian god, such as the ontological argument; they also fail to provide proof and evidence that there is no God.

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Common expressions of deliberate ignorance include:

• "I find that hard to believe!" (Howard Dean, June 11, 2008, in response to a fact ignored by liberals)
• "I'm not aware of that!" (without admitting a failure to look)
• "I've never seen that in the New York Times!"
• "That's not what it said in my (public school) textbook!"
• "Let's talk about something else!"
• "I'm not interested in that!"
• "They hate us for our freedom!"
• "Complete suspension of disbelief!"
• "That offends me!" (used as an excuse not to consider facts or logic)
• "You're persecuting me!" (when the "persecution" consists only of pointing out inconvenient facts or logic)

Crime of Deliberate Ignorance

Deliberate ignorance can be a crime. For example, jurors were instructed "to consider whether ... former Enron Corp. executives deliberately ignored accounting fraud as the energy trader fell into bankruptcy."