Something strange has been going on recently when it comes of food politics. When we look at views held by those on the right and the left, we've seen a drastic change in viewpoints about how we grow our food and more importantly what government should do about it. But the story goes deeper than just a change in preferences that seems irrational, it's a change from the irrational to rational (from a scientific perspective) and back again.
Background
In graduate school I could not help but make an intriguing anecdotal observation. Why was it that on the left you could observe adopted viewpoints that seemed consistent with the latest science related to climate change while at the same time a rejection of the consensus of most medical and scientific organizations with regard to what is referred to in popular slang as genetically modified foods (GMOs) and the use of certain complimentary crop protection technologies like glyphosate (a.k.a the herbicide Roundup)? And at the same time, why did it seem that on the right you could observe adopted viewpoints that seemed to conflict with most scientists regarding climate change but at the same time have a more positive viewpoint on GMOs and other crop protection technologies like glyphosate? My applied work in graduate school focused on theoretically modeling these interesting preferences and attempting to understand the empirical evidence describing them (see here for more discussion).
How it started....
These conflicting views about science on the part of both the left and right is a well documented phenomena in the media and legislative history. As a result a minority of progressive scientists were left scratching their heads in the past in utter confusion about how many of their associates could come down on the wrong side of the scientific debate. From Scientific American:
"I'm a granola (anddirt)-eating, tree-hugging, liberal/progressive. If I was called by a pollster asking about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), I'd be counted among the folks that disapprove, but only because I think it doesn't go far enough...yet, despite the lack of evidence for harm, despite the fact that it's already possible to find food that doesn't contain GMO, people on my side of the political spectrum, who are generally pro-science when it comes to climate change, seem to ignore or misrepresent the science of biotechnology...I'll admit, it pains me to take the same side as Monsanto on matters of public policy. Surely, Monsanto's position on GMOs is informed by profit motive, not the public good. But in this case, the profit motive lines up with scientific consensus."
Personal opinion polls can be noisy but economists know the power of revealed preference, and as politicians and voters reveal their preferences through the policies they support, we see the same trend as discussed here in Politico:
"Though some polling has shown GMO labeling support to be about equal among Republicans, Democrats and Independents, looking at GMO-related legislation tells another story. The most publicized anti-GMO bill, California’s Proposition 37, was officially supported by the California Democratic Party and officially opposed by the California Republican Party. If you look at the sponsors of the various anti-GMO bills making their way through state legislatures—I’ve looked up every one—the vast, vast majority of sponsors are Democrats, with just a few Republicans sprinkled in. Even at the national level, anti-GMO sentiment is dominated by Democrats. It was Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, of Alaska, who called genetically engineered salmon “Frankenfish” in a 2011 letter, signed by seven Democratic senators, urging the Food and Drug Administration not to approve an application for the salmon."
We also have seen this with other issues as well like chemicals in our food:
“Chemical safety” laws attempting to ban bisphenol A (BPA)—a synthetic compound used in canned-goods packaging and in hard plastics such as water bottles...lack any scientific basis. There is no evidence that either of these chemicals is harmful to human health in the amounts they are used in common household products. Yet 99 percent of Democrats voted in support of the state laws banning them, according to one advocacy organization."
Now hold this last thought for the moment:
"One area of science denialism where the political bent is, in fact, a bit more equivocal, at least these days, is anti-vaccination sentiment. This dangerous concept was once a darling of the left, as evidenced by early proponents such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and by the poor immunization rates in historically liberal areas, such as the Pacific Northwest and much of California. (Speaking of California, the largest donor to the anti-GMO bill is also one of the Internet’s biggest anti-vaccine advocates.) And let’s not forget that even candidate Barack Obama, in 2008, offered up the incorrect and misleading idea that the “science is inconclusive” ( it’s not) regarding a possible link between autism and vaccines ( there’s none)."
How its going...the Great Flippening
Now fast forward almost two decades and there seems to be an even more intriguing observation with the recent election and nomination of RFK Jr to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
In a recent Boomberg article "Democrats Let MAGA Co-Opt the Healthy Food Movement" Deena Shanker writes:
"In an October video supporting the Trump campaign, Kennedy stands in front of the USDA building and recites the same talking points I’ve been hearing from left-leaning advocates for as long as I can remember."
RFK Jr also discussed glyphosate (a.k.a. Roundup herbicide) on the Joe Rogan show this past year.
Political positions on food seem to be flipping - a scenario described by podcaster Vance Crowe (formerly Monsanto's Director of Millennial Engagement) as "the great flippening." From his tweet:
"the left went from being suspicious of big pharma, and biotech to becoming their biggest supporters, after a philosophical embrace of “trust the science”...Now the left embraces vaccines and GMOs because thats “what the science says.." The right, simultaneously started looking at many domains that had previously been considered lefty (Whole Foods/raw milk, wariness of vaccines etc) and along with a distrust of what academia was producing reversed to positions almost unfathomable a decade earlier."
As pointed out in one of Crowe's recent interviews:
"this might be the first time that rural America is maybe not aligned typically with who we would politically."
Vance also sits down with Kevin Folta (University of Florida Department of Horticultural Sciences) where they dig more into the science and cultural forces shaping these changes including trust and what that means for science and policy in this new era.
In another discussion Vance declares "all our gods are dead" in describing the surprising endorsement of food activist Vani Hari by republican Thomas Massie.
"Ag is going to be in a position where their former political home which was the right and the libertarians saying give agriculture the ability to do their work with the technology they need - I think that's going to go away as agriculture is going to be in a very difficult fight for technologies."
How can we explain this?
As pointed out in the previous Politico article "Sometimes it’s not so much that liberals deny science as simply ignore it when it’s convenient."
According to Caplan:
"...people have preferences over beliefs. Letting emotions or ideology corrupt our thinking is an easy way to satisfy such preferences...Worldviews are more a mental security blanket than a serious effort to understand the world."
This means that:
"Beliefs that are irrational from the standpoint of truth-seeking are rational from the standpoint of utility maximization."
One way to think about this is how does our social network drive these beliefs and preferences? In a previous post, I visualized social harassment costs that vary depending on one's peer group. If these costs exceed a certain threshold (k), consumers might express preferences that otherwise might seem irrational from a scientific standpoint. For example, based on peer group, a consumer might embrace scientific evidence related to climate change, but due to strong levels of social harassment, reject the views of the broader medical and scientific community related to the safety of genetically engineered foods. For more discussion see here, and here.
Social Networks Depicting Sentiment Towards Genetically Modified Foods
Left: Democrat Social Network Circa 2015 Right: Republican Social Network Circa 2015
Left: Republican Social Network Today Right: Democrat Social Network Today
So the social network diagrams on the top indicated that prior to around 2015 there was a lot of negative sentiment toward GMOs among those with left leaning preferences (as discussed previously). While on the right the sentiment was much more positive. To the extent that peer group matters to the formation of preferences this would explain why those on the left, might have historically ignored or down-weighted any evidence that conflicts with their beliefs about the benefits and safety of GMOs. And the same goes for the right in terms of those whose beliefs were more consistent with the evidence and had a more positive view toward GMOs. (we could tell similar stories about glyphosate and food additives). The social network diagrams on the bottom illustrate how these networks and preferences may have 'flipped' in the last decade.
Actually in his article Choose Your Own Anti-Science economist and political scientist Chris Blattman offers an example of how one's social network can override how much weight is carried by evidence when forming preferences. This seems to capture what appears to be an inflection point in history, a time before preferences flipped between those on the right and left:
"I see a lot of the same sentiments in an article titled Why I Stopped Defending GMOs. My reading of the essay is this: A left-wing activist realized that the evidence base for GMOs was enormous, and campaigned for their use. But he grew wary of her right-wing bedfellows after 2016, and began to put his faith back in the skeptics from his identity group."
Identity Protective Cognition
In Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition (Kahan, 2017) the concept of identity protective cognition adds more to the picture. Below are three aspects of identify protective cognition:
- What people accept as factual information is shaped primarily by their values and identity
- Identity is a function of group membership, i.e. it's tribal in nature
- If people choose to hold beliefs that are different from what the 'tribe' believes, then they risk being ostracized (i.e. they face social harassment costs)
- As a result, individual thinking and thought patterns evolve to express group membership and what is held to be factual information is really an expression of 'loyalty to a particular identity-defining affinity group'
Although smaller in overall size, anti-vaccination clusters manage to become highly entangled with undecided clusters in the main online network, whereas pro-vaccination clusters are more peripheral. Our theoretical framework reproduces the recent explosive growth in anti-vaccination views, and predicts that these views will dominate in a decade. Insights provided by this framework can inform new policies and approaches to interrupt this shift to negative views. Our results challenge the conventional thinking about undecided individuals in issues of contention surrounding health, shed light on other issues of contention such as climate change, and highlight the key role of network cluster dynamics in multi-species ecologies.
Consumer Perceptions of Biotechnology: The Role of Information and Social Harassment Costs
The Ethics of Dietary Nudges and Behavior Change Focused on Climate and Sustainability
Consumer Perceptions, Misinformation, and Vaccine Hesitancy
