What Happens When We Don’t Like the Science?

Recently I’ve seen some criticism relating to Dr. Temple Grandin from a few people who are opposed to her ideas on animal welfare – namely that we need to listen to the consumer and understand what they think and want. It doesn’t seem like rocket science, does it? Ignore your consumers wishes and pretty soon you don’t have a market.

“Just show consumers the science, not the emotion…” seems to be the battlecry. “If somebody hasn’t published a peer-reviewed paper on it, they shouldn’t be allowed to say it!” Except it’s not as simple as that, is it? Just look at the furore over LFTB (lean finely-textured beef or so-called “pink slime”). A safe, technologically-sound, scientifically-approved product that, once it was labeled pink slime, was utterly undesirable to the consumer. Never mind that they were still happy to eat Twinkies, Slim-fast (just what is that pink powder?) or kelp juice (green slime?), the perception was out there that LFTB was gross, and no matter how much science was quoted, bang, out of beef products it went.

We can talk about science all we like, but sometimes that just isn’t going to get the message across. I can’t imagine that any consumer who goes into a battery chicken (caged layer) house or sees a photo of a pig in a gestation crate says “Wow, what a beautifully efficient and scientific system!” That response becomes even less likely when all they see is a photo of it on Facebook.

So what happens when the science doesn’t play nicely into our perceptions and beliefs? When about social science papers that show that consumers evaluate foods based on emotion, not science? Or survey data that shows that we can take consumers to a farm and explain agriculture…but that it doesn’t change the preconceived ideas that 75% of them already held?* Do we ignore the inconvenient science because we don’t like the answers? Keep banging the same drum and hope that we can maintain the status quo?

Here’s a thought. Rather than looking at agriculture through your own eyes, try and see it through the eyes of somebody else. Part of Dr. Grandin’s success can be attributed to that fact that, because of her autism, she can empathize with animals in handling systems. Isn’t time we followed her example and tried to think outside the cattle chute?