[be-ez]

It sounds like you didn't read the report or check the references on page 26.

I recommend reading this paper and coming to your own conclusion about "almost no doubt". Within sustainability science, there is little debate about the lack of efficiency to produce protein via cows.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

[skybrian]

That's more impressive, and yet, as a non-expert, I still don't know how to evaluate whether the calculation is bug-free. Do you? I guess I'd have to track down all the references and build my own spreadsheet? There are some spreadsheets listed in the references, but it seems like a complicated task.

Just to nit-pick one little detail, it seems to treat all land the same: "Significant decreases in land occupation also follow from a shift away from animal-based foodstuffs. The VEG and VGN occupy 70% and 79% less land than the MUD, respectively (VEG = -63% and VGN = -74% for isocaloric diet comparison)."

But, prime farmland and grazing for grass-fed beef aren't the same, so adding them up and taking a percentage seems dubious. (I'm also skeptical of estimates with no margin of error.)

Given that no single scientific paper is definitive (you need to read the literature) I don't see how to come to a conclusion on any of this without a whole lot more work than I'm going to put into it for an online discussion.

[norswap]

Juse because "we can't be absolutely sure" doesn't mean the evidence doesn't point in a direction.

There doesn't seem to be ground to overwhelmingly doubt to evidence to the point where the conclusions are radically reversed.

It's a known cognitive bias (assuming you don't know what you're doing) or sophism (if you do).

See: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GrDqnMjhqoxiqpQPw/the-proper...

[skybrian]

While I don't have a basis for saying the most common take on things is wrong, the way I think of this is: what's the likelihood that we'll see a new study that proves the opposite of what most non-experts (or even experts) currently believe?

In the case of nutrition, economics, and ecology, my rough answer is "rather high". (Consider Piketty and spreadsheet errors.) And answering this question combines all of them. If being right matters, I'd hedge my bets.

Most people aren't heavily invested in Impossible Foods, so bet-hedging basically means letting them do their thing and seeing how it turns out. I look forward to trying their new product.

I'm just quibbling with "no doubt". Just like being an expert in most subjects is unnecessary, being doubt-free is unnecessary for most people in most subjects, and I think most conversations would go better if the true believers (and radical cynics) backed off a bit and acknowledged uncertainty.

[ace_of_spades]

While I take your point that there is always some uncertainty involved sometimes it is just not that productive to reinforce doubt... otherwise we would never move forward.

Look at climate change... are we 100% certain? Of course not but there is overwhelming evidence that is just prudent to act even for the faint possibility of being wrong.

Same here... logic (how could be creating a living thing to slaughter it and eat it be more effecient than processing and eating the feed itself? That would mean raising an animal with all its (unnecessary) complexity was more efficient than our focused industrial processes...) and evidence (e.g., scientific studies and calculations) very much point to the direction that production of meat alternatives would be much more environmentally friendly (at scale).

I don’t think this is so much about “true believers” but there is simply a lot of evidence pointing in the direction that this is really something that could improve the world in many dimensions.

But you are certainly right that like any other pursuit this should be done dillegiently and with care. If you have specific criticism of some evidence that should be discussed... However, there is no need to be overly sceptic and lay bricks on the road if there is no credible evidence pointing in that direction (In this case baseline skepticism doesn’t seem to hold up against the available evidence at this point). Change will be difficult and reinforcing doubt might delay the development and roll out of viable products at high costs to environment and animals.

[Retric]

Until we stop wasting farmland growing crops for cows their is zero difference between crop land and farm land.

Scrub land filled with cows is obviously terrible for the environment, but so is the wasteland traditional farming creates. We call it insecticide but it really kills off entire ecosystems. Minimizing impact means minimizing the land we use.

[be-ez]

The original comment wrote off the report as "some unsourced numbers in a press release" - I aimed to show it was more than that. Impossible has quite the academic rigor.

Agreed - there's plenty of room to interpret the specific numbers.

[LoSboccacc]

Sure it's less efficient when compared to high protein crops, but there are vaste acres of land that can't be farmed and can only sustain grazing animals (and then some of those are more feed efficient than others, say, cows vs sheep)