Thanks for the suggestion. Iāve added a few production numbers of plant-based and conventional meat after the first table in the results section to provide this context.
One reason we didnāt ask questions about āwhat % of meat production will be cultured meat in 20XXā was that it would require forecasters to also produce models of total meat production (including plant-based and funghi-based meat). This seemed overly taxing and could introduce a lot of unclear underlying assumptions. We did ask āWhat will total global conventional meat and seafood production be in 2051 in millions of metric tons (80% confidence interval i.e. 80% probability that the true value is between this range)ā and there was quite a large range: For example, forecaster 1 estimated 30M to 600M metric tons, while forecaster 3 estimated 695M to 1.1B metric tons (I gave 620M to 1.1B metric tons). So itās not entirely clear what a reasonable denominator to use would be to arrive at the %, and I think is an area where people can have reasonable disagreement.
One reason we didnāt ask questions about āwhat % of meat production will be cultured meat in 20XXā was that it would require forecasters to also produce models of total meat production (including plant-based and funghi-based meat).
Yeah, Iām not saying there was any problem with the questions you gave to the forecasters. My comment concerned how to present the findings to the readers of this article.
Iāve added a few production numbers of plant-based and conventional meat after the first table in the results section to provide this context.
Fwiw I would also include additional information in the very first bullet point; e.g.:
We (Neil and Linch) developed forecasting questions around cultured meat reaching annual production volume sold in metric tons (>100,000, >1M, >10M, >50M) by a certain year (2031, 2036, 2051) in addition to hypothesized signposts of progress (funding, researchers, input costs, food service sales, and public support). By comparison, today annual production of conventional meat, including seafood, is 500M metric tons [if thatās correct].
I think that without such a comparison, most readers wonāt be able to properly understand the summary on its own.
Relatedly, I found this sentence a bit hard to grasp:
Imagine we expect an X% probability that at least 5% of meat and seafood production in 2051 (an arbitrary but significant threshold we estimate to be 50M metric tons) will come from cultured meat.
I thought that this meant that total meat and seafood production in 2051 would be equal to 50M metric tons . But reading the data about production volumes you just added, I now realise that you may have meant that 5% of total meat and seafood production in 2051 would be equal to 50M metric tons. I think it would be good if this was more clearly disambiguated.
Makes sense. Made a few edits along those lines. Genuinely appreciate suggestions on how to make our summaries more useful to readers, so thanks again.
Thanks for the suggestion. Iāve added a few production numbers of plant-based and conventional meat after the first table in the results section to provide this context.
One reason we didnāt ask questions about āwhat % of meat production will be cultured meat in 20XXā was that it would require forecasters to also produce models of total meat production (including plant-based and funghi-based meat). This seemed overly taxing and could introduce a lot of unclear underlying assumptions. We did ask āWhat will total global conventional meat and seafood production be in 2051 in millions of metric tons (80% confidence interval i.e. 80% probability that the true value is between this range)ā and there was quite a large range: For example, forecaster 1 estimated 30M to 600M metric tons, while forecaster 3 estimated 695M to 1.1B metric tons (I gave 620M to 1.1B metric tons). So itās not entirely clear what a reasonable denominator to use would be to arrive at the %, and I think is an area where people can have reasonable disagreement.
Yeah, Iām not saying there was any problem with the questions you gave to the forecasters. My comment concerned how to present the findings to the readers of this article.
Fwiw I would also include additional information in the very first bullet point; e.g.:
I think that without such a comparison, most readers wonāt be able to properly understand the summary on its own.
Relatedly, I found this sentence a bit hard to grasp:
I thought that this meant that total meat and seafood production in 2051 would be equal to 50M metric tons . But reading the data about production volumes you just added, I now realise that you may have meant that 5% of total meat and seafood production in 2051 would be equal to 50M metric tons. I think it would be good if this was more clearly disambiguated.
Makes sense. Made a few edits along those lines.
Genuinely appreciate suggestions on how to make our summaries more useful to readers, so thanks again.
Thank you!