Arthur Carlson wrote: > > I'm afraid you will have to be meticulous if you don't want to waste your > time. (Leaving aside the question of whether the project is likely to be a > waste of time regardless of how carefully it is done.)
In my opinion you only a project like this is never a waste of time because in the end you will if something is fruitful or not. If there is something to learn... Besides that, if you have an open mind, what can chance bring to your door? As we say in Brazil, "you may shoot at what you saw and kill what you didn't see"... Serendipity lurks... >If you want to plant > the seeds outdoors, you will need many (many!) years before you can get > statistically significant results because you have to control not only for > the season but also for the weather in each year. I beg to differ. In spite of the fact that what you say looks quite impressive and the only way to make it "scientifically", I tend to think this i precisely what science should NOT do. First of all because it is extremely hard to do because the number of variables to control would tend to infinite. And each one of them would be likely to assume an ample range of values. Suffice it to mention a few like temperature, wind, insolation, rain, air humidity, irrigation, presence of microorganisms in in soil, positions of the planets, moon and the sun and the relations amongst themselves and with the atmospheric and edaphic conditions... This is clearly impossible. On the other hand, if I were to create an artificial environment where some of the elements could be under strict control, the experiment would end up being useless, neither proving nor disproving anything. For instance, let's say in the end I notice NO DIFFERENCE among seeds sowed in different moon ages. What would it prove? Nothing! Or, if I wanted to force it to prove something I would be able to say: "in a green house, under precise control of temperature, pressure, humidity (a long list of variables) we can draw the conclusion the the moon does not influence the development of plants". And this is regorously useless because no plant is cultivated like that in a real farm. Also, it should be noted, IF (and this is a BIG IF) the moon affects the plants, one thing is finding that it does (or perhaps it does not); something completely different is finding HOW it affects... So, maybe its effects (if any) is due to differences in the water table; perhaps because microorganisms (fungi, bacteria, mycelia) are more active or less active under different moons; perhaps because the moonlight activates some enzymes or hormone... The list is endeless. If I take the experiment to my lab I am bluntly and blindly presuming that the moon can only affect plants (IF it really can) through some mysterious and unknown energy. This CAN be the case, but it is not necessarily so. I think this kind of assumptions are too often taken for granted when they shouldn't. (We can find things like this in the medical literature, for instance, when someone wants to demonstrate that certain drug cures such or such disease. The double-blind experiments very often do not prove anything exactly because they exclude reallity and introduce an artificial environment. On the other hand, something much simpler may lead us to much more useful conclusions. For instance, in this project, imagine that I select a small piece of land that is relatively flat, regular and uniform. I prepare the entire piece for sowing using the same technique that I would use for normal agriculture. Now I select a lot of seeds as uniform as possible. I randomly divide it into 365 smaller lots of equal size. Say, 20 seeds each. Starting on January first I sow the first 20 seeds. >From there on I sow 20 seeds everyday until December 31. Meanwhile, the whole piece of land as well as the sowed seeds and plants will have equal influence from all known and unknown variables. The unknown being probabily more important. As I reap each row (a row per day) I can take the measures I want: appearance, water contents, nutrients contents, dry weight, plant size, root size, quantity and weight of pods... whatever is relevant for that particular plant. In the end I can -- for instance -- take am average of each quantity/quality of interest. This will give me a baseline in a graph. Now I plot, day by day, the result of each harvest. It is very likely that I'll have a sinusoid representing the seasons: in the summer production will be above the baseline; in the winter bellow the baseline. That sinusoid may also be "attenuated" at the end, perhaps representing the hydration or age of the seeds (usually the older a seed is the less likely it will germinate). If I have several different plants and varieties (which is easy enough to do) I can compare the results and confirm how seasons affects diffents seeds, so on and so forth. No, back to moon influence. If the moon (and perhaps the planets and the sun) has any influence, it will be made clear in a "sinusoid inside a sinusoid". Let's assume -- just for the sake of argument -- that beans have a higher yield when sowed in the new moon while it has the least yield in the waining moon. Now, if this is the case, as the year wears out from the first of January to the end of December we will find a sinusoid peaking (for each moon cycle) in the new moon and bottoming in the waining moon. Peaks might be less tall in the winter and taller in the summer; the valleys might be deeper in the winter and less deep in the summer. But if the moon has an influence (as above), we'll still see its presence in the sinusoid. Well, if we can't see no changes in the curve as the days advance and the moon ages (in a cyclical manner) then we can conclude no influence exists. Otherwise, we can conclude that there is an influence and then decide when it is positive and when it is negative. The experiment is so simple that we can expect to be able to do it not only year after year but also with many different plants. And, with a little help from interested souls, perhaps around the world. And, whatever the results are, they will be valid for true-to-life agriculture not for white apron, air-conditioned pseudo agriculture. I know things like these seem naïve to sophisticated minds, but it is the only thing someone simpleminded like me needs to be kept busy and happy. Best regards - fernando > For example, you need to > compare two sets of seeds, both planted at the equinox, but one set in a > year where the moon was full at the equinox and the other in a year where > the moon was new at the equinox. But that is not enough because you have to > be sure that the temperature, cloudiness, and percipitation at the time of > planting and several weeks before and after were similar. Your only hope to > prove an effect would be to plant the seeds indoors and keep the > temperature, humidity, and light at constant levels over several months. > Several plantings would be necessary to be sure the seeds weren't drying out > or something from one planting to the next. If you could manage to prove a > small but consistent effect it would have no immediate application because > the weather and other effects would certainly be more important in deciding > when to plant in any given year. On the other hand, an incontrovertible > positive result would be extremely interesting from a scientific point of > view -- precisely because it would contradict so much of what we believe to > understand about the world. > > Best regards, > > Art Carlson -- REDUZIR, REUSAR, RECICLAR -- Dever de todos, amor aos que virão REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE -- Everybody's duty, love to those who are to come Fernando Cabral Padrao iX Sistemas Abertos mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pix.com.br Fone Direto: +55 61 329-0206 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] PABX: +55 61 329-0202 Fax: +55 61 326-3082 15º 45' 04.9" S (23 L 0196446/8256520) 47º 49' 58.6" W 19º 37' 57.0" S (23 K 0469898/7829161) 45º 17' 13.6" W
