Re: [compost_tea] compost tea a pseudoscience?

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 00:05:35 -0500

The scientific method is:

1. Observation
2. Formation of an hypothesis based on those observations
3. Testing that hypothesis
4. Using observation from that testing to re-formulate the hypothesis over and over again until the hypothesis is generally accepted
5. Formation of theory, based on repeated testing.


AACT is beyond the observation stage, and past the hypothesis stage, well into the testing, trying to figure out the parameters that define what is and what is not compost tea.

We have some clear hypotheses, some not-so-clear ones, some assumptions, poor logic and mis-conceptions. The gamut is there, and they will be cleared up as continued testing is done.

There is what is possible with the best of all healthy biology in the soil, and there is the transition to get to that biology.

We have never failed to get our clients off pesticides and end high inputs of inorganic fertilizer IF the biology in the soil reached what we have seen as being the best for the plant species involved.

Fully proven? Ah, but you can't do that in science. There's always the next set of conditions, variations, etc. Could be the next situation is the one where the rule does not hold.

To do science is to test, test and test again, defining the parameters of the testing condition ever more rigorously.

Reductionistic science means taking a single factor by single factor approach. If a farming practice requires water, plant species, and N additions, the reductionistic approach says each factor has to be tested individually and in all combinations.

That's just ONE WAY of doing science. Useful in certain conditions, but not in otheres.

A more rational approach is to delete from the testing scheme all the management combinations that don't make sense from a real world point of view. If we always put kelp and fish hydrolysate into our teas, and thus don't care what the effect of each individually actually is, why test each separately?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

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Received on Tue Nov 25 2003 - 00:43:19 EST

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