How effective is education at correcting misperceptions

Whether its GMOs or pesticides or economic effects of various food policies, it seems that the public often holds beliefs that are at odds with what the experts believe.  A natural tendency - especially for someone who is an educator - it to propose that we need more education on these topics.

But, how effective are we at changing people's minds?  This article in Pacific Standard by the psychologist David Dunning might give us pause.  

The research suggests:

“What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.”

But, before you start feeling too confident in your own abilities, read the following:

“An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge. This clutter is an unfortunate by-product of one of our greatest strengths as a species. We are unbridled pattern recognizers and profligate theorizers. Often, our theories are good enough to get us through the day, or at least to an age when we can procreate. But our genius for creative storytelling, combined with our inability to detect our own ignorance, can sometimes lead to situations that are embarrassing, unfortunate, or downright dangerous—especially in a technologically advanced, complex democratic society that occasionally invests mistaken popular beliefs with immense destructive power (See: crisis, financial; war, Iraq). As the humorist Josh Billings once put it, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (Ironically, one thing many people “know” about this quote is that it was first uttered by Mark Twain or Will Rogers—which just ain’t so.)”

Several studies seem to suggest that providing people with a little information may not lead to more agreement on an issue, but rather can result in polarizing opinions. The reason is that information makes use feel more informed, and lets us feel more confident in whatever our political or cultural tendencies would lead us to believe in the first place.  That is, people bend information to reinforce their identity and cultural beliefs. 

Frankenfood

Buried in the comments section of an article in the Guardian about a UK retailer selling some American brands that contain GMOs was this comment that made me laugh:

“It should be noted that Frankenstein was not even a hybrid, let alone a gmo. He was a grafted individual, much like today’s grapevines in vineyards and apple trees.”

An interview on GMO labeling initiatives

Here's an interview I did with the University of Nebraska's Market Journal on the outcomes of the most recent ballot initiatives on GMO labeling.

GMO and Soda Votes

I have been keeping an eye on several ballot initiatives in yesterday's election.  Not all results are finalized, but here's what we know so far:

In Colorado, mandatory GMO labeling was defeated by a wide margin, 66% to 34%, with 93% of precincts reporting.

In Oregon, mandatory GMO labeling is very close and still up in the air.  With 88% of the votes counted, the "No's" are ahead by about 26,000 votes (659,404 to 633,132), giving the "No's" a current 51% to 49% margin. 

A vote in Maui, HI to ban cultivation of GMOs is too close to call

Berkeley, CA passed a soda tax (75% in favor vs. 25% opposed)

The majority of voters in San Francisco, CA favored a soda tax (55% in favor), but the initiative required a 2/3 majority to pass. Thus, the soda tax failed in San Francisco.  

Why haven't GMOs lived up to their promise?

Keith Kloor writes at Discover.com

“next time you hear someone say GMOs haven’t lived up to their potential, much less contribute to food security, remember the biotech crops and foods that never made it to market, and how Kimbrell [the founder and executive director of the Center for Food Safety, which for years has spearheaded opposition to biotechnology] and his fellow anti-GMO activists proudly take ownership of that.”

The evidence?  The anti-GMO activist presents it himself at a recent anti-technology conference in New York:

““We stopped GMO potatoes, we stopped GMO wheat, we stopped genetically modified rice, and we stopped genetically modified salmon,” he said. (The last one has been in regulatory limbo for over a decade.) It’s impossible to quantify how much credit biotech opponents should receive for the failed commercialization of the aforementioned GMOs.”

Anti-biotechnology activists complain biotechnology hasn't lived up to its promise all the while fighting the approval of the most promising biotechnologies.