Biodynamics is a Hoax

originally posted by SFJoe:
I haven't read Steiner. I tried to read Joly but he makes me see red. And listening to the guy always makes me wish I'd brought an IED to the party.

Anything involving homeopathy is hooey.

Astrology is hooey.

I'm not sure exactly what the claim would be that the experiment would test.

So I for one can't be as definitive as you'd like, Jonathan. And I've spoiled enough dinner parties with this argument already.
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I'd be surprised if you could be definitive. It's not easy for me to see how some of the claims that I have seen could even be tested. To say that it has the same relationship to science as the argument from design would be to insult the argument from design, which, in the 18th century at least, meant to commit itself to empirical argument.
 
Bravo Seth!

I spend my days thinking and working scientifically (in theory at least) and try to approach problems in a reasoned and logical way. So I should find biodynamie hooey, and I may find the actual details of BD to be hooey, but I really don't let it (the actual details of BD) concern me. On one level, it is a level of care and willingness to get one's hands dirty, and in this regard, I don't think it has too much to do with the actual details of BD. I don't really believe that if you buried the cow horn on a different day of the week it would adversely affect the quality of the wine made from the BD grown grapes, I think of it as a level of care for the vineyards and the finished wine that may be largely responsible for the excellence of many of these wines.

There also may be a bit of pre-scientific wisdom in it as well, taking the long term health of an agricultural system rather than a series of short-term solutions. One needs to only look at industrial champagne (or whereever else) vineyards to see the long-term results of short-term (scientific!) solutions to making "better" grapes into wine. I don't know, and I can't even think of a really serious objective way of determining the relative merits of this particular hooey. Especially if you're trying to compare increasing degrees of organic viticulture on a continuum toward BD.

I guess as hard as I try to be as scientific and rational in my professional life, I try to apply those principles to my personal life when appropriate, but also try to turn them off when they're not applicable. You can't quantify a great meal, or a good friend. You can record a moment, take notes on a wine, even take a stand on how you think you really feel about a wine or a restaurant, but a great friend, a good meal, or a great bottle of wine is vastly more than the sum of its parts. You can't be overly reductionist about it. Well, I guess you can, but I won't. I've got too much living to do.

Cheers,

Kevin
 
Isn't there a tenet in Chaos Theory that legitimates at least the notion of homeopathy? That is, the effects of an input, no matter how small can have significant overall impact on an entire system?
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
Isn't there a tenet in Chaos Theory that legitimates at least the notion of homeopathy? That is, the effects of an input, no matter how small can have significant overall impact on an entire system?
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No.

Not since Avogadro has homeopathy been possibly consistent with chemistry and physics.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

I'm not a biologist and I'm willing to cede to experimental results (preferably with a link so I can read them), but I remember a claim like yours about soil being fairly vigorously contested on a thread on the erstwhile version of the Parker board (with links to accounts of experiments). I don't remember any discussion of lunar cycle experiments nor anything I would call serious protocols used to control claims about lunar cycles.

This board and numbers of others contain people with pretty fair knowledge of biochemistry and geology. Please, someone who knows, tell me I'm wrong. I won't promise I won't follow up with quibbles and pestiferous questions of the kind I tormented people with over Euro futures until I can figure out the claims. But really if they are serious ones, someone can lay them out with reasonable responses to the kinds of doubts that will get expressed.

The level of discussion on the thread, as I said above, referred to post hoc ergo proper hoc statements, especially at the level of, it produces good wines so there must be something to it, or even, I use it and it works. And my point was, and remains, that with post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, one can prove a lot of things.
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I'm not seeing a lot a impassioned advocacy in favor of BD here, in the style of Joly (though I haven't read everything carefully); my impression is more of some people saying there's some evidence that introduction of BD practices are related to improvement of wine quality. Post hoc ergo proctor hoc does not serve, as you point out, as a basis for establishing causality; but a correlation between BD and product quality can be a reason to probe for causal ties between elements of the two. I vote with you to view BD claims skeptically, but not to dismiss them out of hand.

I think Ned's comments are particularly helpful, BTW.
 
You could view it as a crazy religion practiced by many great and many indiffeent winemakers.

Sort of like the way Jews make the best importers.

It's hard to see how it's causal.
 
I expect that a lot of winemakers, particularly those who really believe in it, improve their winemaking by biodynamics. I expect the explanation will lie in the advantages of organic practices and the increased attention to the vineyard that biodynamic practices involve. I don't like to offend deeply held beliefs when they aren't proselytizing, and some years ago, I tended to shrug off the silliness more. But when the argument from design becomes as intelligent design an argument about what should get taught in biology class, and when biodynamics is picked up by Cambie, Parker and others, as a means of selling the practice, it gets to be time to show some fang. I doubt that anything I say will do anything. But a lot of skepticism from consumers may well do a lot of good. After all, an allied step is homeopathic medicine, which no doubt does aid some patients.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
Isn't there a tenet in Chaos Theory that legitimates at least the notion of homeopathy? That is, the effects of an input, no matter how small can have significant overall impact on an entire system?
Click to expand...
No.

Not since Avogadro has homeopathy been possibly consistent with chemistry and physics.
Click to expand...

Would you mind elucidating?
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

You could view it as a crazy religion practiced by many great and many indiffeent winemakers.

Sort of like the way Jews make the best importers.

It's hard to see how it's causal.
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Well, Ned has argued (if I got this point right) that BD practices are, in part, not far from organic practices. Would you say that organic practices can be causally related to wine quality? If yes, and you accept Ned's point, it seems you could say the same of BD. No?

I don't feel that strongly one way or the other. A number of people I respect have said BD, practiced by an already good vintner, makes a difference. So I'm compelled to think about why that might be so.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

You could view it as a crazy religion practiced by many great and many indiffeent winemakers.

Sort of like the way Jews make the best importers.

It's hard to see how it's causal.
Click to expand...

For me, the issue becomes:

At what point does a truly rigorous, earnest investigation of causality vs. correlation give us Schrdinger's Cuve?
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
Isn't there a tenet in Chaos Theory that legitimates at least the notion of homeopathy? That is, the effects of an input, no matter how small can have significant overall impact on an entire system?
Click to expand...
No.

Not since Avogadro has homeopathy been possibly consistent with chemistry and physics.
Click to expand...

Would you mind elucidating?
Click to expand...
No, but no time today. Maybe Lipton can pitch in.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
Isn't there a tenet in Chaos Theory that legitimates at least the notion of homeopathy? That is, the effects of an input, no matter how small can have significant overall impact on an entire system?
Click to expand...
No.

Not since Avogadro has homeopathy been possibly consistent with chemistry and physics.
Click to expand...

Tell that to Sir John Maddox! (very inside joke)

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
Isn't there a tenet in Chaos Theory that legitimates at least the notion of homeopathy? That is, the effects of an input, no matter how small can have significant overall impact on an entire system?
Click to expand...
No.

Not since Avogadro has homeopathy been possibly consistent with chemistry and physics.
Click to expand...

Would you mind elucidating?
Click to expand...
No, but no time today. Maybe Lipton can pitch in.
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OK, I'll pitch in. At the heart of homeopathy is the idea that an agent can still have an influence even after it has been diluted to extremely low levels . SFJoe's Avogadro quip has to do with the idea that all substances are quantized into molecules, so if one dilutes a solution enough, one reaches a probabilistic scenario where the odds are strong that no more of the dissolved substance remains in solution. This conflict was famously tested when the editor of the prestigious journal Nature invited a proponent of homeopathy, Dr. Jacques Benveniste, to publish his findings about the activity of highly dilute solutions of an antibody. Benveniste did and within a few months his results had been widely re-examined and traced to experimental error rather than any homeopathic effect.

Mark Lipton
 
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