I think there’s a vast difference between plausible deniability and the frequent reiteration of the words ‘willful ignorance.’ Most people simply aren’t smart, and they don’t have the brain energy to dig further. If they did have, then obtaining degrees in the hard sciences wouldn’t be more difficult than graduating high school.

In addition, when you consider that our brains accept as truth whatever we’ve been told over and over again (conditioning, brainwashing, etc.), then, there is no act of will when it comes to chucking out things that go against our socialization.

So, no, I’m not saying ‘Don’t’ attribute to malice that which is explainable by chance or ignorance.’ What I’m saying is that most people simply don’t have the intellectual ability to find out more, and I’m giving the various reasons for that.

There is a reason that advertising works.

While I’m sure that there are people who lie about not knowing something (the gas industry and climate change or the tobacco industry and lung cancer), this is not the same as people who have been so deeply socialized in something that they cannot accept anything else. People are programmed from birth, and the more average they are in intelligence, the more difficult this kind of shifting of world view is to eradicate.