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Re: generalizations




In article <MOD$970926.13246@rec.gardens.ecosystems>, William D Hulet
<whulet@uoguelph.ca> wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Bill Morgan wrote:

> > Well, the group *is* named rec.gardens.ecosystems. That last word is
> > implicitly a reference to science, specifically to ecology, a subdivision
> > of biology 
[snip]

>         This may be, but there is the question of what "ecosystems" means
> to both ordinary and technical people.  I've seen precious little
> discussion hear that would come under the definition of the scientific
> study of ecology.

Be patient.  It's still a young group, and some of us who do want to push
the disscussions in that direction (it's why many of us voted for the group
in the first place) have been too busy this summer...  At least the group
is finally starting to look a _little_ less like a tiny rec.gardens!!

[snip]
>         Do you want to grow something fast that requires a long time to
> establish itself?  Something exotic that doesn't adapt well to this
> environment?  Want consistent results?  Not willing to take the time and
> effort to really get to know what's going on in your garden?  If so, then
> you're stuck with "scientific" gardening practises (ie:  blasting the soil
> with something that allows you to "dumb" down your practices).  

No, this isn't what science is about.  Science doesn't, and doesn't even
pretend to, make that kind of decision.  It might make enough information
available that if you _do_ make the decision to put the wrong plant in the
wrong place you can pull it off, but the decision itself is made by
individuals for any number of personal reasons, good or bad.  People
certainly don't decide that monoculture turf-grass is a good idea in the
US, or that they should be able to eat fresh cherries in January, by
reading biology books!

> > In fact, there is no pressing need to make such an either/or distinction.
> > There is plenty of room in this group for both types of discussion. The
> 
>         Which is exactly what I was doing by making my comments.  The
> thing about some comments is that they fit into the paradigm of
> "discussion" whereas others are seen as attempts to shut it down.

Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting, but it seemed to me that you were trying
to shut down scientific discussions and the discussion of science in this
group...

[snip]
> humility.  I have yet to see any evidence that the people engaged in the
> scientific/agricultural complex have any understanding of Hippocrates'
> dictum of "first do no wrong". 

Nor, on average, do individuals of any profession.  Humans are a
self-centered species.  Pesticides are produced in such quantity because
people--individuals, homeowners--demand it.  They not only demand to buy
pesticides directly, at a rate of about 10 times as much per acre as the ag
business, but also indirectly by demanding out of season produce,
unblemished produce, cheap produce, etc.  Scientists are no less socially
responsible on average than any other group of humans.  Individual actions
matter when they add up over millions of people, and from my point of view
it's unfortunate that there are far fewer scientifically aware people than
otherwise.

> > Science is just a way of exploring the universe around us. And, like some
> 
>         This is so much baloney.  This may be the case for a small number
> of academics involved in theoretical research at Universities,

No, it's exactly what science is.  Science is a tool, specifically a way to
make observations, write them down so that our all-too-falible memories
don't deceive us, and then draw some conclusions from what we've observed. 
It can be used well or poorly, for 'good' aims or 'bad' ones.  But the tool
itself is neutral, just as a hammer is neutral.

> but for
> the rest of society it is an authority figure that is used to justify a
> great number of social and political decisions.

And why does this happen?  Because _you_ (and your neighbors, and most of
your other fellow citizens) not only permit it but demand it.  The majority
has explicitly and unilaterally made the decision to not learn any science,
or even what science is (and isn't).  You have said (somewhat proudly if
I'm not mistaken) that you aren't a scientist.  Well, why not?!  The tool
of science is for everyone, not just a select few.  There are no lodge
secrets imparted to initiates.  There are no arcane rites in the dark of
the new moon.  Every kid is born a scientist, and remains one until s/he
notices that parents, and the TV news, and even many teachers roll their
eyes in fear at the dread name of science.  Well, early training and
instilled fears can be overcome.  It is an individual's choice to refuse
the power (not to mention the fun!) that can be had from knowing some
science.  No one is preventing a well educated public but the public
themselves. 

True, to do science professionally is a full time job.  So what?  It's a
full time job to be a professional musician, too, but darned near _any_
person can learn to play an instrument well enough at the amateur level not
to embarrass themselves.  It used to be the done thing--everyone learned at
least to play piano and/or sing.  In some parts of Europe there's still a
chamber orchestra or a string quartet for every neighborhood block.  Well,
the same thing applies to doing science.  It's easy for anyone to learn
enough of the basics to get a grasp on it, to use it, to enjoy it, and to
appreciate what others are doing, even if not usually to extend the
frontiers (though there are still fields where amateurs can do important
new work, too).  Doing so not only helps you choose between the many very
difficult decisions that need to be made in this over-populated and
over-complex world, but it can enrich just about any other hobby you might
have too, from gardening (understanding your soil ecology, plant needs
based on physiology) to music (how instruments make the sounds they do) to
painting (pespectives, types of paints, reflection of light).  Knowing the
basics of science can help sort out who's trying to pull the wool over your
eyes, and who knows which way is up.  It can help you choose which products
to buy to cause the least environmental harm (or which to do without
altogether), it can help you to choose the best species to plant to benefit
your local wildlife.  You can eventually gain a pretty powerful tool merely
by giving up one or two TV shows per week and investing that time in some
reading and (most importantly) experimentation.

>  There is no greater way
> of shutting down a substantive debate than by raising the spector of
> "science", yet how many times have we seen in retrospect that the research
> used as the ultimate authority had been manipulated for political or
> economic gain;  or the people involved simply didn't understand all the
> questions that they should have been asking?  

Caveat emptor.  If people expect 'truths' to be handed them on a plate with
zero effort on their part (after all, they don't want to miss the
Simpsons!), then they (and unfortunately the rest of us too) get what they
ask for.  Any perceived preisthood has been created by the public, not the
scientists.  Aside from a few groups who really don't get a fair shot at
any education, there is _absolutely_ _no_ _excuse_ in NA, Europe, or many
other countries for not having some idea of how to find out information,
understand the gist of it, and know which are the important questions to
ask.  The library is full of excellent resources that don't get used much.

Rather than waste effort flailing away at science and scientists, why don't
you switch over to the real culprit, and an important part of the solution,
which is _people_?  I've found that in general, if you can get someone to
listen to the gist of the scientific description of something, such as
_why_ killing off the soil organisms can get plants into big trouble, they
are much more likely to pay attention and eventually act upon it than if
you just say 'it's bad'.  People do like to see reasons for things, and if
they can't quite follow it the first time they see it, at least it's a
start, and they'll likely follow father the next time along.  If you give
what amounts to a religious argument ('I say so' or 's/he says so'), a few
may follow you, but not enough to matter, and you haven't really changed
their outlook in general, just patched on a new rule of thumb or two, and
rules of thumb have a nasty habit of turning on the unwary.

[snip]
> >  But science is primarily
> > concerned with a working knowledge of what we encounter. It is taken for
> > granted that this working knowledge may be incomplete, and it is always the
> 
>         Oh really?  Maybe in a university setting by a professor with
> tenure, but in an industrial setting I have yet to see many decision
> makers say "We could make a shit load of money off this new process, but
> I'm not quite sure that there aren't any unforseen consequences.

You're assuming that the decision makers are scientists, or even capable of
understanding the science and/or the possible consequences attached to
various possiblities.  This is rarely the case. Corporate decision makers
are business people, and it is generally written into their job description
that they will make money, somehow, for the stockholders, no holds barred. 
Perhaps more importantly, the stockholders, and the consumers who pay for
the end product, are the ultimate decision makers, and they should take
their full share of any blame.  I would love to see chairmen of the board
go to jail for illegal hazardous waste dumping instead of hiding behind the
corporation structure.  I'd like to see stockholders penalized in a
meaningful way too, beyond just a probably minor financial loss if the
company gets fined.  Wouldn't it be nice if people would invest in a
company because they believed in it, rather than because it might split
two-for-one next month, or because it pays a high dividend?  Not likely to
happen, is it?  By the way, do you own any stock? :-)  (Or worse, stock
funds where you can't tell _what_ your money is supporting from day to
day!)

> The people involved in industrial research
> are graduates of university science programs and they derive all their
> status in our society through association with the scientific enterprise. 

Scientist?  Status?  In _this_ society?  HAH!  In this society it's money
that makes for status, and even corporate scientists don't get much of that
green stuff compared to mid-level corporate managers.

More importantly, just because someone has been trained in science doesn't
mean that at any given time they are behaving as a scientist.  Science is a
process, and if the process isn't followed it isn't science, regardless of
someone's title.  You have to go beyond their title and examine the work,
and how they present the work, to decide how much weight to give their
arguments.   (*)  Yup, it takes some effort.  TANSTAAFL.

> > goal that gaps in that knowledge will eventually be filled in (though
> > perhaps they will never be completely filled in.)
> > 
> > > 
>         Which is exactly why our society needs to develop a little
> humility.  It needs to be willing to say "I could spray these dandelions,
> but who knows, maybe there's some consequence I don't know about from
> spraying with this chemical (nemotode, whatever).  Better be safe than
> sorry.  Why do I want this sort of a lawn anyway?"

Here again, why are you blaming science for 'our society' rather than
corporate marketing and individual indolence, which seems to be the
pace-setter of our current standards of so-called aesthetics?  Though I
guess it's possible that there are some scientists who bother to kill
dandelions, I don't know any.  They'd rather be doing something
interesting, and they realize as well as, or better than, most people that
there's a whole universe of interesting things to do.

[snip]
> > purist view, that might include fire, stone tools and clothing. We would be
> > naked, unarmed, tool-less hunter-gatherers. No thank you, please. 
> 
>         (Since at this point the argument has degenerated into invalid
> argument forms, such as the straw man, I too will descend to the realm of
> rhetoric by assuming that you are in favour of mindless progress.  This is
> only a response to your insinuation that I want us to return to the caves.
> "He who lives by the sword will die by it.")

No, it's not a strawman (maybe a tad of extrapolation beyond the data :-)). 
Do you drive? Cars are something almost everyone takes completely for
granted.  If you drive a car you are doing harm to the environment.  Cars,
and the entire business surrounding cars (tire manufacture, lubricants,
paints, road building...) are polluting industries.  I'll pit the harm I do
with a tablespoon or so of roundup a year against the harm you do with a
car any day.  Sure, life would be easier with a car.  I could actually get
out of the city occasionally and do my share of trampling the wilderness. 
But as an ex-chemist who knows a little about where all those products come
from and where they end up, I choose to be inconvenienced.  My roundup?  By
experimental trials roundup has become the lesser evil as I try to improve
my most-local environment.  I'm trying to restore native plants on my
miniscule lot.  The exotic quackgrass is capable of swamping my infant
plants, and all the handpulling and vinegar in the world won't stop it. 
Not even roundup does completely, but this is the first year I've had any
hope at all of beating it back enough to start putting in some native
groundcovers and hope they'll survive.  This is a trade off that happens on
a much larger scale too.  Without some sort of herbicide to kill off
invasive weeds, entire ecosystems can be lost in a such a way that they
can't be easily restored to native plants later because the weeds will have
already changed the hydrology, or poisoned the soil.  Waiting until the
very last fact is known about how glyphosate breaks down before using it
can guarantee a disaster, as opposed to having at least some current
evidence that using it on a one or two time basis is unlikely to cause
serious or prolonged harm (constant agricultural use is a different issue).

We can't separate out only what is done in gardening and agriculture and
ignore the rest; we have to at least _try_ to include all of our activities
when we decide what steps we need to take to be more 'green' if that's our
aim.  Life is a constant series of trade-offs, and often there is no
'right' answer.  At our current population, we do harm to the environment
merely by existing, but I'm not silly enough to tell everyone to drop dead
(or even to just drop dead myself :-)).  So if we want to try to minimize
the harm we do, it's necessary to learn a fair bit to try to balance the
trade offs.  Say you want to plant berrying shrubs for birds.  A common
'green' recommendation I see for that is to plant english holly.  Birds do
love it.  But holly is a highly invasive weedy plant that is eating up
large areas of wild habitat across the US, so though you might see more
birds in your yard if you plant it, there will be _fewer_ birds (and native
plants and insects...) in the nearby forest.  There is no simple recipe for
what makes a viable wildlife garden.  It takes some knowledge of the local
natural history to sort out which plants will _really_ serve wildlife the
best, and like it or not, natural history is science.

>         This is a silly, straw man argument.  I have yet to meet anyone
> who really wants this sort of outcome.  I am not asking you to give up
> very much, only that you take the time to figure out how much is enough.

But you seem to be asking us to give up science, which being an
intellectual tool does zero harm on it's own, and much good when used
properly.  How about if I ask you to not give up very much, only TV and
cars?  I can live without them easily, therefore you should be able to,
right?  Cars let you get to work or go to the mountains.  TV lets you watch
Bill Nye.  But _science_ is what made it possible to prove that the
phosphates from detergents and some industries (as opposed to other
pollutants) going into Lake Washington were causing the lake to die, and
that it was practical to fix the problem.  This evidence was strong enough
to convince people to vote to build a good sewer system and waste treatment
plant (against industry opposition) so that now the lake is pretty healthy
again.  The same science shows that phosphates going into Puget Sound a few
miles away are irrelevant compared to nitrogen compounds in effecting the
water quality (there are plenty of phosphates naturally in the Sound, but N
is rare and is what drives the balance of species).  For the Sound, it's
more important to watch out for over-fertilization of lawns (including pet
waste) than phosphate soap residues, so it's not necessary to ban
phosphates outright here, just keep them out of lakes and streams.  Knowing
which compounds are present, and how they effect the specific ecosysystems
in question (a pollutant in one place isn't necessarily a pollutant
everywhere), is an important way to fight corporations whose first answer
to a challenge is always 'there is no problem' and whose second answer
(when presented with more data from the scientists) is always 'but _we_
aren't causing the problem', and whose third answer (with even more data
from the scientists) is always 'but it's too expensive to fix it'.  Without
science as a powerful tool, there would probably still be no significant
water treatment for Lake Washington or the Sound, or many other places
because the local industries would still be claiming that it isn't _their_
fault the lakes are dying, and we'd all be in a stinky mess. (*)

> People's greed for convenience, consistency and so-on cannot be satiated,
> it can only be controlled. 

I think it can only be controlled by education, and real, scientific
education at that, which can most powerfully counter the current
marketing-based education people primarily get.  So there's a choice
between putting some sort of controls on advertising, including the subtle
advertising within TV shows and movies, not just explicit ads
(unconstitutional for good reason) or convincing people to start _learning_
things, both in school and on their own.

* An excellent book is _The Uses of Ecology_ by W. T. Edmondson.  It's not
only an interesting account of the ecology of various kinds of lakes and
how certain pollutants effect them, but also provides a blow-by-blow
account of the fight to save Lake Washington, and another blow-by-blow
account of the scientific fight against the soap and detergent industry in
general over the role of phosphates in the eutrophication of many lake
systems.  Best of all, there is an excellent chapter with advice on how to
determine whether an 'expert' really knows what's he's talking about.  It
also covers the issue of when a 'scientist' isn't behaving as one, but as a
corporate spokesperson, using an analysis of the tobacco industry as an
example.  Required reading for anyone interested in finding tools to
improve our treatment of the planet.
-- 
Allyn Weaks  allyn@u.washington.edu
PNW Native Wildlife Gardening:  http://chemwww.chem.washington.edu/natives/
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