There is a viewpoint is that ideology should not enter into matters of public health. The scientific consensus should inform the policy. I agree that bottom-up, market solutions can’t be the solution to every problem. Regulation is likely going to play an important role. I think the belief in science as the corrective is too simplistic.

Take the evidence that macronutrient intake converges on higher fats, lower carbs, and lower quality of carbs in the presence of increasing food-abundance. My first point is there could be multiple interpretations of this phenomenon, only one of which is that the industry creates this average human behaviour.

A second, perhaps more important point is when we do agree on what the evidence means, we know nothing about how we should react to it. Ideology necessarily enter the debate here. To pretend otherwise is dishonest. Even as you gather more evidence, you cannot answer every relevant question.

For example; we have evidence that X is occurring and agree that X is not ideal. We subsequently gather evidence that Y alleviates X. Have you studied and catalogued every consequence of ‘Y’? Doubtful. Without this, we do not know the trade-offs. Ideology will influence our guesses and weighting. Disagreement is, therefore, not as simple as you have made out, and it is necessary for compromise on what will likely be a better solution than one mindset can muster. Your certainty that the other side of the debate is ignoring the science is, in my experience, not fair.