Gentlemen: What "What is Sound Science?" is about is not GMOs or even agriculture specifically, but what is the nature of scientific inquiry. It's refuting one person calling another person's basic body of knowledge that he brings with him and integrates new knowledge into--junk science. It's a way of discrediting another person's basic belief system and rationalizing your own refusal to have a dialogue with that person.
The scientific community of Ph.Ds and M.Ds is very rigid. Only one person gets credit for a discovery and gets to name it. Then that person has his whole identity bound up into that discovery. If someone, say his graduate student, writes a paper that debunks the whole basis of his discovery, then do you think that student will get a good grade on his paper or will get his own PhD under that professor. No. He probably gets dropped. Think about Velikovsky whose writings refuted the bases of many disciplines. He was not accepted at all by them, yet now...guess what? In the end, Dr. Kirschenmann knocks linear, reductionist observations, proprietary information, technology for profit that ignores ecology and cultures, the focus on killing a pest, not on understanding the complex biological systems within which the pest emerges (focus on the county putting Diquat Dibromide in the lake to kill Eurasian watermilfoil rather than on the grandfathered home sewage systems that spew into the lake and the run-off from fertilizing lawns that run down to the water's edge which feed the milfoil) as bad science and he touts Polanyi's style of indwelling and Aldo Leopold's statement on sustainability which he paraphrases as "Our task is not to 'save' the environment, nor to preserve things as they are, (neither of which is possible) but to engage the environment in ways that enhance its capacity for renewal" as good science. We all have our schtick. I don't see that Kirschenman would object to peppering. The man has a PhD and was a teacher and he left all that and came to help his ailing Dad with their farm. Markess, he turned a whole huge farm of hundreds of acres into a BD farm. He probably used peppering. Then they asked him to be the head of the Leopold Center. He'd done his indwelling. Now he's trying to communicate on the PhD level about this subject which makes it harder to understand. In a nice way, he attacking the scientific basis of industrial agriculture. Now read "The Future of Agrarianism." <http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubinfo/papersspeeches/WBerry.html> My two cents, Merla Lloyd Charles wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Moen Creek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 2:21 PM > Subject: Re: Kirschenmann speech > > > Loved ones, > > > > This IMHO is the most significant and concise writing I have read in ages. > > > > If I may suggest that this refutes, in it's opening 6 or so paragraphs, > the > > use of peppering to lay a plague on GM wheat & other aspects of the tecno > > crap injected in our food. It tells us to put faith in the virility of > life > > and not fall for the mechanistic belief that because some jerks put chunks > > of foreign DNA into a plant's genome that they (the plant) are going to > hang > > on to it long! > > Hi Markess > Could you elaborate please, I've tried to read the first > part of the speech posted by Barrly Lia three times and have completely > missed it on each occasion - I'm not trying to be picky or smart - just can > not make heads or tails of it in relation to your comment here. > On a different but similar tack - I am more optimistic than most > about the capacity of nature (with a little help) to rid the system of the > GMO - these are only super weeds to a conventional farmer trying to control > them with chemical herbicides - without the herbicides (organic or BD > farming) they are GENETICALLY INFERIOR plants - I grew canola conventionally > up until 2000 and as the varieties progressed in search of higher yields and > better oil percentage they became sucessively weaker and less robust under > anything but ideal conditions - I never yet saw a canola plant with anything > like the vigour and tenacity of a wild radish plant so again - take > herbicides out of the system and it breaks down. Maybe what this is what you > are talking about but I cant see it in the speech I read! - Help - ? > Cheers > Lloyd Charles
