1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is the study of ignorance in and of science.
An example of this is blackboxing, which is the notion that it can be beneficial to hide the internal parts of a system, and only make the input and output visible to the user.
Surprise can reveal what scientists are ignorant of, which help them focus their research in order to gain knowledge.
This division of SSI is generally looking at the causes of public ignorance of science, as well as the impact it can have on scientific research and society.
Although the latter is unavoidable, by the common view in SSI, this has made scientists more hesitant to discuss their ignorance, since this could be used by media to diminish their work.
One area where media is said to have played a prominent role in the public opinion of the matter is that of the global warming controversy.