Comments on: Burning away ecological ignorance http://conservationbytes.com/2009/08/24/burning-away-ecological-ignorance/ Conservation research... with bite Tue, 29 May 2012 05:05:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Conservation Scholars: David Lindenmayer « ConservationBytes.com http://conservationbytes.com/2009/08/24/burning-away-ecological-ignorance/#comment-2804 Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:39:02 +0000 http://conservationbytes.com/?p=2608#comment-2804 [...] in this country for over 30 years. I recently featured David here at ConservationBytes.com on the importance of incorporating ecological knowledge into Australian bushfire policy, but here’s a more comprehensive coverage of his [...]

]]> By: Geoff Russell http://conservationbytes.com/2009/08/24/burning-away-ecological-ignorance/#comment-2767 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:24:31 +0000 http://conservationbytes.com/?p=2608#comment-2767 Farmers use a similar line when asking people to listen to their advice … “We live on the land, we look after the land … we know what we are talking about.” You spruik for research and they very effectively pit experience against research and rely on a public distrust of stuff they don’t understand (i.e., research). My favourite example of experience sucking as a teacher is tooth grinding. Some moron farmer in the 1980s decided that old sheep had trouble chewing grass and figured their teeth needed sharpening … within a couple of years a massive industry sprang up building crushes to hold heads of sheep still while farmers went at them with angle grinders. It took researchers some years to PROVE that the procedure didn’t work and it doesn’t happen these days … but it is still legal … check the code of Practice for details http://www.publish.csiro.au/books/download.cfm?ID=5389

The basic problem is an anti-intellectual society which idolises farmers, “the land” and an Australia which never existed while daemonising research. Plimer’s professed distrust of computer models is a great example of the Aussie “experience” bias in action. He knows it and plays it for all its worth.

What’s the solution to this problem? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

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