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Overview
It is important that scientists think about and know their history - where they came from, what they have accomplished, and how these may affect the future. Weed scientists, similar to scientists in many technological disciplines, have not sought historical reflection. The technological world asks for results and for progress. Achievement is important not, in general, the road that leads to achievement. What was new yesterday is routine today, and what is described as revolutionary today may be considered antiquated tomorrow.
Weed science has been strongly influenced by technology developed by supporting industries, subsequently employed in research and, ultimately, used by farmers and crop growers. The science has focused on results and progress. Scientists have been--and the majority remain--problem solvers whose solutions have evolved as rapidly as have the new weed problems needing solutions. In a more formal sense, weed scientists have been adherents of the instrumental ideology of modern science. That is an analysis of their work, and their orientation reveals the strong emphasis on practical, useful knowledge; on know how. The opposite, and frequently complementary orientation, that has been missing from weed science is an emphasis on contemplative knowledge; that is, knowing why. This book expands on and analyzes how these orientations have affected weed science’s development.
- The first analytical history of weed science to be written
- Compares the development of weed science, entomology and plant pathology
- Identifies the primary founders of weed science and describes their role
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780123815026 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Elsevier Science |
| Publication date: | 02/04/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 480 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
A History of Weed Science in the United States
By Robert L. Zimdahl
Elsevier
Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc.All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-12-381502-6
Chapter One
Why write a history?
What we, or at any rate what I refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw. Maxwell (1980)
The introduction to Wright's (2004, pp. 1, 2) A Short History of Progress relates a story about the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin (1848–1903). In the 1890s, Gauguin left Paris for Tahiti. In 1897, a mail steamer brought the news that his favorite child, his daughter, Aline, had died from pneumonia. After months of depression he produced his masterpiece, the title of which is an appropriate beginning and an answer to the question—Why write a history? The work's French title is—D'Où Venons Nous? Que Sommes Nous? Où Allons Nous? The English translation is: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Gauguin's intent, in the post-impressionist tradition, was to use his art to produce an emotional experience dependent on personal impression. My goal is not to ask existential questions, as Gauguin did, but to use his questions as a guide to an exploration of the development of weed science in the United States.
The questions Gauguin asked seem to have easy answers. If one regards them as personal questions, it is easy to assume that all people with reasonable intelligence know where they came from, where they are, and quite a bit about their career and life destination. If Gauguin's questions are larger, societal questions then the answers are not as easy or obvious. When I ask Gauguin's questions about my discipline—weed science, they become difficult and the answers are elusive and perhaps absent. Some of the difficulty is explained by the words of Knüsli (1970), a chemist who was intimately involved in herbicide development with J. R. Geigy S. A. in Basle, Switzerland:
Technology does not like historical reflections. The technological world asks for results and for progress. Achievement is important not, in general, the road that leads to achievement. What was new yesterday is routine today, and what is described as revolutionary today may be considered antiquated tomorrow. Our age is a daily challenge, beloved or hated, depending on where we stand.
Knüsli's point is similar to that made by Pollan (2008, p. 46) who wrote about food 38 years later. Pollan notes that few scientists "ever look back to see if they or their paradigms might have gone astray." As Knüsli said, achievement is important. Pollan, sounding a lot like Kuhn's (1970, p. 35) description of normal science as puzzle solving, says that scientists are trained "to keep moving forward, doing yet more science to add to the increments of our knowledge, patching up and preserving whatever of the current consensus can be preserved until the next big idea comes along." Or in Kuhn's terms, until a new paradigm appears.
Weed science has been strongly influenced by technology developed by supporting industries, employed in research by weed scientists, and, ultimately, used by farmers. Weed scientists similar to scientists in many technological disciplines have not sought historical reflection. They have focused on results and progress. They have been problem solvers whose solutions have evolved as rapidly as have the new weed problems to be solved. In a more formal sense, weed scientists have been adherents of the instrumental ideology of modern science. That is an analysis of their work and their orientation reveals the strong emphasis on practical, useful knowledge—on know-how (Dear, 2005). The opposite and frequently complementary orientation that has been missing from weed science is an emphasis on contemplative knowledge, which one might call "knowing why."
Weeds and their control are one of agriculture's enduring problems. Even if the claim that more human labor is expended to weed crops than for any other human activity is not true, it is indisputable that a great deal of human labor is expended to weed crops (see Holm, 1971). Modern agriculture in the world's developed nations has addressed but not eliminated most weed problems through extensive use of herbicides and the more recent development of herbicide resistant crops through genetic modification. These methods while undeniably successful for their intended purpose also have created manifold environmental, non-target species and human health problems. At the same time it is true, as Holm (1978) claimed, that "the western world has acquired so much wisdom and power over nature ... that we squabble about it—while two thirds of the world are (sic) still screaming to get it." Farmers in the world's developing nations use some herbicides but newer herbicides and the necessary application technology are often unavailable or too expensive. Weeds are always present in these farmer's fields and the available, affordable control methods are mechanical weeding, usually with animal power, or by hand, and most of the labor is provided by women (see Chapter VIII). Neither Holm's (1971) hypothesis that "more energy is expended for the weeding man's crops than for any other single human task," nor the corollary hypothesis that women do most of the world's weeding has been verified. Both are similar to many other agricultural hypotheses. They are not debated; they are accepted.
There is no analytical/interpretive history of weed science that identifies and explores its fundamental hypotheses and their consequences. Several useful chronologies of the creation and development of U.S. weed science societies (see Chapter VII) are available. However, none of these address the fundamental hypotheses of weed science that must be understood in their historical context, as an essential contribution to the desired goal of developing sustainable, environmentally, socially, and politically acceptable weed management methods for the world. A plausible reason for this is that weed science, among the agricultural sciences, is young. The Weed Society of America first met in New York City in 1956. The name was changed to the Weed Science Society of America in 1967 (Appleby, 2005). Volume 1 of the journal Weeds (changed to Weed Science in 1968), with nine articles, was published in October 1951. R. D. Sweet of Cornell University was the editor. That issue included 1,384 citations of publications on weeds that appeared from January to June 1951: Clearly, weed work had begun before the journal or society began. The citations compiled by the Division of Weed Investigations of the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that weed work was underway in many places. The lead article in the first issue (Willard, 1951) noted that there were only "three full time weed men in 1934 and not too many part time ones." However, by late 1951, forty-six State Agricultural Experiment stations had active weed research projects.
A second reason for the lack of an analytical history of weed science may reflect the view among practitioners of progressive, applied sciences such as weed science that "history is a fiction that has little more relation to our lives than a story or novel (Fussell, 1945)." If one knows or is quite certain that the weed management methods now available and those on the horizon are the best methods. It is neither logical nor necessary to study or explore the reasons (the history) for the creation of those methods and those who developed them because it is incredible to think that there is any intention of returning to them (Fussell, 1945). "History," as Henry Ford told us, "is more or less bunk" (quoted in the Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916). It is tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today. The British historian A. J. P. Taylor said, "The only lesson of history is that there are no lessons of history" (Murphy, 2007, p. 13).1 If Ford and Taylor are correct, then it is reasonable to ask, why study history? It seems to be not just unnecessary; it is a waste of time.
There is another view of history that is best expressed in a metaphor. Weed science is young among the sciences and has changed so rapidly in its young life that weed scientists have had a hard time just keeping up. The speed of change resembles the view one has when riding on a fast train. If one looks out the window at the edge of the track or at a nearby field or town, everything goes by so fast that it is nearly impossible to focus on anything except the blur of passage. A glimpse is all you get and that glimpse is gone almost as soon as it appears. It is similar to time where the present is gone as soon as it arrives. It is now history and the next moment passes as quickly. The present, the view of close things from the train window, is gone as soon as it arrives. All we have that we can retain is the thought of what we saw—but it is now past, it is history. We anticipate what may come into view—the future, but it has not appeared and when it does it is immediately gone. However, when one looks out the train window at the horizon, one is compelled to take a distant view and things become clearer and remain visible longer. They can be studied and thought about as they pass because they stay in the field of vision and in one's mind longer. It is the desirable clarity of the long view that history gives us and that this book will try to explore.
It is not uncommon to hear that history is just one damn thing after another, but if we don't pay attention to what has happened we may just keep solving the same problems and addressing the same issues over and over. Historical study, when it is done well, can be a useful chronology of what has happened, even though it is often told by the winners, by those who have endured. Others view it as a series of stories about the past, some apparently interesting, others seemingly trivial. In addition, "more and more, history has become a competition between and among narratives, self-consciously disdainful of what we used to think of as fact" (Peretz, 2009).
Gilderhus (1992, p. 48) offers three schemes historians have used to interpret the past, and thus "mute their sense of vulnerability in facing the unknown by seeking to determine recurring tendencies in the past." The first is to assume that history is cyclical, a "motion in circles, repeating endlessly over and over again." The second or providential view is that history is a story of progress moving through time in a linear fashion from a beginning to a middle and then to an end. The third or progressive view of history is also one of linear progress through time from a beginning to an end. The two differ in that the motive force in the second is some form of divine guidance, whereas in the third it is metaphysical or natural forces that impel progress. I expect that many weed scientists could find evidence of cyclical trends. Methods of weed control appear and fade only to appear again in a new system of weed management. Should we till soil or adopt no-till methods? Mulching and companion cropping are old methods now re-appearing in organic systems of crop production. The use of electricity and solar energy for weed control made a brief appearance and may re-appear with advances in technology. However, it is more likely that weed scientists regard their science as one characterized by linear progress through time guided by scientific advances and natural forces. Providential forces may be important to some but I cannot judge their ultimate importance. It seems clear that weed science has made enormous changes in weed management methods during its short existence. The pattern has been linear and progressive.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A History of Weed Science in the United States by Robert L. Zimdahl Copyright © 2010 by Elsevier Inc. . Excerpted by permission of Elsevier. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Chapter I. Reasons for writing a history of weed science in the U.S.
Chapter II. The development of entomology and plant pathology and their societies in comparison to weed science.
Chapter III. Beginning the study of weeds
Chapter IV. The founders of weed science and weed science societies.
Chapter V. Creation and development of university weed science programs.
Chapter VI. Development of herbicides after 1945
Chapter VII. The creation and development of weed societies
Chapter VIII. Weed science and changes in agricultural practice.
Chapter IX. Weed science and the agrochemical industry.
Chapter X. The consequences of weed science’s pattern of development.
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The only book written about the history of weed science in the U.S.