Meat vs Vegetarian: the War of Strong Opinions

The question whether the views of people with strong but scientifically unsupported opinions should be given prominence equal to those with compelling scientific evidence in the decades-long battle of ‘conclusive evidence’ between the Meat and the Veg camp, seems to have surfaced again in the debate.

On one hand, there is always a moral choice camp for whom vegetarianism and veganism are choices of non-violence towards animals. PETA is the biggest advocate for moral vegetarianism and much alike other followers of this principle, is not too much concerned with the ultimate healthiness of the food choice, as long as it does not involve killings. “Soy sausages and “Fib Ribs to Tofurky jerky and mock lobster” that PETA is citing as its meat alternatives, do not sound too ingredient-friendly.

On the other hand, people choosing vegetarian or meat diet for its health-related advantages are faced with dire straits of scientific burden of proof because health is a long-term domain of high science.

‘Compelling scientific evidence’ appears to be a strong word sequence with almost magical powers, practically an idiom, but, of course, it has to be handled carefully. In many examples of bad or ‘yellow’ journalism, the phrase “British [American, sometimes on gets Chinese for exoticism] scientists have discovered” often validates, or at least serves as modality qualifier for the stories with unchecked or altogether invented facts.’ Trust of popular reader in omnipotent Science is of course a wonderful legacy of the European Enlightenment – the Scotts of the 17th and the French of the 18th centuries. The Enlightenment Project with positivism at its core has put The Science on the Olympus higher than that of the Greek gods. Unprecedented authority of the positivist method of science, naturally, still serves many good