Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.
Conducting large-scale terrorist attacks against the United States remained a priority for bin Laden, who argued that the number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan was insufficient to prompt a significant change in U.S. foreign policy. To do that, he concluded, required something more. “[E]very year 400,000 (four hundred thousand) people die from smoking, which is a huge number compared to the number killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they still have not come out in mass protests to close down tobacco companies,” he wrote.