Rationality when Insulated from Evidence

Thanks for weighing in, Elo. I have learned from this that sometimes providing a concrete example for an abstract problem can be so distracting as to almost completely obscure the problem.

Have you tried bayesian updates?

Yes, this has been the crux of my difficulty. I have done my best to follow Bayes Theorem, my prior probability is not a strong factor (I would not be exceptionally shocked one way or the other on this particular issue, so I put my prior probability at 60% for one side), and when I get to evidence updates, I basically only have two decent pieces of evidence "Scientific organizations X, Y, and Z (of C credibility) hold this position" and "Scientific organization A and B (of D credibility) hold this other position." And then I have "The argumentation for this position is more flawed than this other position."

That seems to be just about as far as I can get, insulated from direct observation or--as you recommend--experimentation. So I am able to calculate my posterior probability and have some confidence in my approach, but I can't help but feel unsatisfied about the scope of evidence that brought me to change my position.

Also:

GMO has been around for ~10-20 years now. We are yet to see negatives of the scale predicted by the opposition to GMO. Waiting long enough has yielded evidence of absence of risk.

That is strong evidence that GMO does not have observable risks within 10-20 years of adoption, but it is considerably weaker evidence about what GMO adoption looks like after 30, 40, 50 years or a lifetime.

Waiting long enough has yielded evidence of absence of risk.

Just like the turkey had a lot of evidence for humans being nice to him until the day before thanksgiving.

GMO has been around for ~10-20 years now.

By the standard that 20 years with a new technology should be enough to see problems with it various techonologies from lead pipes, to cigaretts to asbest, were also proven to be safe.

Without labeling of products it's also difficult to actually gather the information. I think it's a bad general argument to say that people shouldn't know whether they are ingesting X because X isn't proven to do anything yet.

Point #2 is a big important point. The media does not select relevant issues, they chose issues that play well to the public. Sometimes these overlap, but often they do not. GMO is a good example, because it is reported as monolithically important, but each genetic modification has to be considered individually; considering GMOs as a unified group is not very useful. Likewise, if you are interested in health and nutrition, you should also look for vegetables that are grown to be nutritious, which includes many GMO but not others: many plants are modified to look better, not be healthier; but many plants are modified to be more nutritious, not look better; etc. Moreover, you can also get some benefit in nutrition by ignoring the GMO debate and looking at things like soil health (organic works as a vague proxy for this, but again, 'organic' is a media chosen label, and so is touted as Very Relevant In Every Way and also does not limit itself to soil health) or time-since-harvest (locally grown, proxy, media pollution, etc.)

Thanks, Ishaan. That was a lot of good directions to come at this from.

I especially found a few of them novel ways to eke out more confidence from an insulated problem:

If it's a political issue, try to find out what people who might plausibly be expertish in the area yet don't seem to be invested in debating the issue think about it.

check what known superforecasters in the field think (people who have a track record of successful predictions in that area). Superforecasters need not actually be loudly engaging with the issue, just ask.

check if people who have different types of knowledge tend to say different things (e.g. economists vs. sociologists)

I'll try to remember those for questions like this in the future.

Furthermore, notion that you raise struck me:

Most things for which it is important for you to personally understand have measurable consequences to you. Why do you need the right answer to the GMO question, what would you even do with the right answer?

I suppose I've never really considered why I wanted the right answer to a question, I suppose I ascribe a relatively high weight to "understand things" in my utility function. That said, thinking about it from the angle of "What would I do with the right answer": In this case, I would do is embrace/avoid GMO foods for my personal health and safety, vote to label/not-label/ban/regulate GMO, and argue for others to do the same.

Isn't that the ideal of a democratic system: an informed populace vigorously contesting in the marketplace of ideas?

I generally agree with your position, but let me be the devil's advocate here:

Let's assume that some fraction of the population are Nazis, and they decide to boycott all Jewish products. Let's assume there is a general agreement on the definition of "Jewish products" (for example anything produced by a company with a Jewish owner, or using such component). The Nazis express a desire to have all products clearly labeled. Would you support this specific customer right?