permaculture

[Brent Ladd <laddb@ecn.purdue.edu>]

Toby Hemenway wrote:

>
>
>  I have no data to prove that scientists, in general,  are more committed to
> "truth" than others, though it's not unreasonable to believe that a passion
> for science may select for this. But I think that science, as a profession,
> lends itself to truthfulness more than marketing or other jobs dedicated to
> increasing the size and power of an organization.
>
>

Who's "truth"? Universal truth? is there one? I usually find myself and 
others'
espousing truth from their own perspective-and alas this is the best most of 
us can do
most of the time-and here is where bias enters the picture-we all have one. I 
wish my
experience with science had been as good as yours, Toby. My past efforts 
spent in
agricultural research allowed me to see just how self-serving and corrupt 
scientists
can be. For one thing, few of these scientists recognized their own inherent 
bias'.
Just an example: When getting into discussions over animal welfare and the 
production
methods under which modern livestock are often raised-I noticed a pattern 
among ag
scientists; even if they finally conceeded that animals could feel pain, 
suffer, etc.
they resorted to religous underpinnings and would say something like-"well 
the animals
were put here for us to use as we see fit!" end of discussion. Their own
interpretation of biblical scripture and rationalized viewpoints were part of 
their
foundation to make decisions like this. we all have a bias (I don't know if 
they can
be called good or bad)-I just point out this one example from my experience 
with
tenured scientists. Attempting to recognize and account for our bias is 
difficult, but
necessary if scientific methods are to be used accurately. Check out Jerry 
Mander's
book "In the Absence of the Sacred" on this thread.

Indeed, in the field of land grant agricultural research the scientists are 
also in
many ways the marketers. As a graduate student involved in helping with 
various
research I saw data tampering more than once to support the claims of the 
agribusiness
industry and especially the granting "agency"-which turns out too often to 
also be
agribusiness. Scientists are sometimes asked to sign off on an agreement 
stating that
"harmful" results will not be reported. I know of only one instance where a 
lead
scientist refused to sign such an agreement-and low and behold the company 
did not
fund the research (and this upstanding fellow is no longer the dept. head 
either...)
For another, all too often I've seen the marketing end of things actually 
preceed the
research-one example was that bsT for dairy cows (an injectible hormone to 
increase
milk production) was being pushed by Monsanto at the top levels of land grant
universities before any research was done (sure, Monsanto was going to empty 
out the
cookie jar for land grant labs to do the research). This was eye-opening to 
me. In
fact I saw an internal letter from the dept. head stating 'find a way to 
convince
dairy farmers to use this and at the same time we must convince the public'. 
These
occurences led me to leave ag research and to have a healthy skepticism of 
what comes
out the other end in ag research circles.

Don't we need to get organized enough to start doing our own research and data
collection? Science (and good experimental design and statistical analysis) 
is indeed
a powerful tool for helping to sort out many "what if's and how's". But, it 
is only
one tool of many ways of knowing.

Brent

>
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to permaculture as: laddb@ecn.purdue.edu
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu
> Get the list FAQ at: 
> http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/documents/permaculture.faq

--
Brent Ladd
Water Quality Specialist, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1146
Ph: 765-496-6331  Fax: 765-496-1356
Email: laddb@ecn.purdue.edu

Safe Water for the Future Web Site: www.ecn.purdue.edu/safewater

"If there is magic on this planet it is surely found in the spirit of 
water"-Loren
Eiseley