The thing that changes people's minds is that they get accustomed to the new normal. Potatoes and tomatoes were once strange, new plants to Europe. Now they're core parts of the diet in many places.
Relying on the distinction between knowledge and belief is unfortunately much more difficult than it sounds. To a person approaching a subject in total ignorance, there is no good way to determine truth from well-written falsehoods. People tend to use their emotions as a proxy in the absence of any reliable knowledge.
There are small groups like rationalists who attempt otherwise, but they tend to be found taking modafinil and reading the Sequences instead of trying to convince a worried organic-foodie.
I completely agree, but am slightly more optimistic.
We have many areas in this life where this applies: god/politics/health/climate change/vaccinations/gmo and more. And almost everybody is searching.
Instead of rebutting people, ask them where knowledge comes from, explain them the difference between belief/correctness/reasons. And the difference between opinions based on feelings or based on reasons, and how to spot the differences, e.g. do you know tradeoffs. Ask them how they feel about people with different opinions on the subject.
But people do think. And it might surprise you who will ask you for more information. Worst case you lost a few minutes. Even if they don't change their mind, they do become slightly more "liberal".
Anecdotal, but I have been surprised quite a bit lately ;) the whole trump thing has stirred things up, even here in Europe.
We don't have to make people rationalists or skeptics. But just 10% in that direction would be nice. Perhaps most surprising is how little, or how badly, people have thought about knowledge vs belief.
I don't. They can eat whatever the hell they want. I do care that they seek to coerce the whole world to do the same.
I think we should all be free to eat whatever the hell we want. I think we should all have food that is maximally labeled with information about all strains of all plants and animals that go into them.
I don't want to force the worried organic foodies to eat GMOs. I want them to return the favor, but they seem hellbent on forcing me to live like them for reasons of fear. That same fear, plus some personal experience, leads me to think they're not really people who can be reasoned with.
Relying on the distinction between knowledge and belief is unfortunately much more difficult than it sounds. To a person approaching a subject in total ignorance, there is no good way to determine truth from well-written falsehoods. People tend to use their emotions as a proxy in the absence of any reliable knowledge.
There are small groups like rationalists who attempt otherwise, but they tend to be found taking modafinil and reading the Sequences instead of trying to convince a worried organic-foodie.