Longtime Los Angeles Times reporter-turned-business columnist Michael Hiltzik let his liberal flag fly on the front of Sunday’s Business section. The online headline was “Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study.”

The protagonist of this story was academic Robert Proctor of Stanford, touted as “one of the world's leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance.” As examples of propagated ignorance, Hiltzik discussed thinking smoking is safe, and vaccinations are deadly, and...."fabricating" Obamacare horror stories: