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  • From: "Amlie & Hayas" <tamlie@netscape.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fw: mychorizal fungal rip off?
  • Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:01:01 -0400

We can generalize this even further (beyond the area of "funded research") to academic research in general.

Almost all academic research is done to either (a) get tenure at a university, (b) get promotion at a university, or (c) pad the resume. Published research is the "coin of the realm" in academia. With it, your career blossoms. Without it, you're on the street.

What gets published? Well, sound scientific usually stands a good chance, but more important is the sensational "man bites dog" story, or research which confirms the journal editors' prejudices. (I'm trying to resist the urge to take a gratuitous swipe at much of the global warming research or some of the other cause-celebre research issues.)

Every now and then we hear about "scientific studies" from some academic(s) where you think "why in the world did someone research this?". To usage imagery from "It's a Wonderful Life", every time you see questionable research published (every time a bell rings) an asistant professor somewhere gets tenure.

Tom Amlie

----- Original Message ----- From: "Max Robinson" <maxrobinson@wv-cis.net>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 8:40 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fw: mychorizal fungal rip off?


There is a great deal of deception in marketing products, but the faith that
I see in "scientific research" is more troubling to me. I worked for 12
years as a Research Assistant at a Medical School, and before that 2 years
as a Graduate Student. I confess that I am disillusioned. It's not that
there is not great deal of important and reliable research out there, but
the system is open to abuse, and the faith that we as a culture put in
research makes it an attractive target for deception.

Research is usually very expensive, and researchers usually do not have
funds given to them by their employer to undertake research on their own. So
they must become grant writers.

The entity that gives the grant controls the research, not directly, but in
two important ways. First, they decide what questions get asked. If the
researcher has a question of his own, he must find someone with money to be
made from his question, or he is out of luck.

Second, the grantor retains the right to decide if, and where, the results
will be published. So trials that don't find a result that the money source
is interested in never see the light of print.

This is even worsetham it sounds, becausse the way a researcher wins grants
is by showing all the successful research he's done that has been published
in the past. If his past few projects didn't find something that his grant
source wanted to publish, he probably won't get any more grants, and his
career grinds to a halt. There is tremendous pressure to make sure he
designs his experiment to find a "good" result.

And even if his research finds something great, and it gets published, if
someone doesn't pay to get it into the mass media, the public never knows
about it.

I'm a blueberry grower. About 20 years ago, the large blueberry growers
decided to "tax" themselves a small percent of every pound sold for research
and development. They paid several researchers to find something wonderful
about blueberries, and several did (of course). These were published in
scientific journals, and then millions of dollars were spent to get the news
into every possible outlet. And now we all know that blueberries have
antioxidants, and hundreds of people show up at my farm to pick because
they've been told that blueberries will add years to their lives.

I'm sure that blueberries are good for you, and we should eat more fresh
fruit; but this process was not the finding of some independent, altruistic
researcher; it was a very expensive, high-tech advertising ploy to rescue an
overproductive agricultural industry from price collapse. It worked, by the
way. And most of the research that you see every day is part of the same
process. Someone has an agenda.

Most of us know not to trust advertising; we should also be skeptical of
advertising with a Ph.D.

Max



----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>
To: "NAFEX" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:55 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] Fw: mychorizal fungal rip off?


Strangely, I find myself agreeing with both Bill and Donna, and thought
they
both had some very good points, even though the points seemed somewhat
conflicting. On the one hand, black and white research has limitations
because of statistical variance (it's sometimes amazing how conclusions
are
drawn from such tiny samples), or not considering enough variables in
setting up the research (i.e. testing mychorizal on numerous different
soil
types). Sometimes it seems research limitations are built in because
there
is rarely enough funding to do exhaustive research.

On the other hand, it is frustrating to sometimes see whole industries
built
on nothing but anecdotal evidence. Some industry selling foo foo powder
will jerry rig their own research to support their conclusions. Then,
when
there is no MAINSTREAM research to support them, they claim the
universities, corporations, doctors, government, etc. are being paid-off.
Supposedly, it's all one big conspiracy. Our human mind is very tricky.
It
will accept what we "want to believe" first, then rationalize the facts to
fit, all the while fooling us into thinking we have found the truth of the
matter.

Mark
KS
----- Original Message ----- From: "William C. Garthright" <>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 8:39 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] mychorizal fungal rip off?



> There have been discussions of foliar feeds on this group with many
> folks saying they do nothing. Well, nothing compared to what?
> Nothing compared to a garden in Iowa soil I can understand. But with
> worthless soil, anything a plant can get is noticeably helpful.


That's a very good point, Donna. Our situations are all different. But
one big problem with this kind of discussion, from my point of view, is
simply that anecdotes aren't evidence. Without peer-reviewed, duplicable
scientific research - with careful controls and, if possible,
double-blind precautions - it's really hard to know for sure what's real
and what's just an artifact of our expectations, beliefs, and hopes. And
I must add that much of what I hear about mycorrhizal fungi and foliar
sprays is from people who are selling the stuff (not that I think that
they're lying, only that it's even easier in such a case to fool
ourselves).

Let me be clear that I know NOTHING about mycorrhizal fungi (the
original topic here) myself. I did use it when I planted my fruit trees,
vines, and bushes in my backyard, because I figured that it couldn't
hurt. But I have no idea if it was a waste of money or not. So I am not
criticizing the practice. I just don't know.

But I do know that I like the scientific approach at this Horticultural
Myths website:


http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/index.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/6d8ye6

At a quick glance, I don't see any articles about mycorrhiza, but here's
a good example of an article about compost tea which clearly explains
about scientific research:


http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/magazine%20pdfs/CompostTea.pdf

or

http://tinyurl.com/ct8lmq

I'm just trying to say - in my own long-winded way - that I'd prefer
scientific evidence, one way or another, about mycorrhizal fungi,
compost tea, and pretty much everything else that I might use in my
life. It's not always available, in which case we must do the best we
can. But there are always so many other factors that can affect personal
anecdotes - including our own individual situations, as you note, but
also our different levels of expertise, attention, expectations, and
even chance.

Hmm,... maybe I'll send an email to Dr. Chalker-Scott requesting an
article about mycorrhizal fungi. I really would like to know what
scientific research there's been on adding it to new plantings. (As you
suggest, I suspect that it depends on WHERE you're doing the planting.)

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
Last September I gave my Jack Russell terrier, Daisy, all of my money to
invest. She promptly dug a hole in my backyard and buried my entire nest
egg. Since then, I've beaten the S & P 500 by more than 50 percent. Now,
you're probably wondering, what if your dog isn't as smart as Daisy? No
worries. He's probably still smarter than you. - Andy Borowitz
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