Holistic Grazing (split from Cliven Bundy thread)

[Reality Check]

Can I order two bags of Brittle please.

I assume that Red Baron Farms going on about this on about this so far imaginary "brittle" stuff is a reference to the Savory brittleness scale which is an unscientific guess.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

P.S. implying that "brittle" grasslands is the ridiculous, circular "take away herbivores and desert forms" is not good! You need to give examples of grasslands that were scientifically judged to be "brittle" before desertification.

I get it. I really do understand your frustration. HM mimics a natural trophic cascade. ie biomimicry. And you can't even begin to see how it mimics that trophic cascade when the cascade it uses for a model is still hotly disputed. It is somewhat circular. First you assume that maybe removing herbivores or changing their behavior in many cases is what caused the desertification. Then you attempt to add herbivores in various ways and methods and observe when the theoretical trophic cascade that caused desertification reverses. Then you develope a method that consistently reverses that cascade. Then you go back and claim, "See? The initial hotly disputed cascades I mimicked must be right, because I can replicate and reverse it consistently at will." That's a whole lot to take in for someone who is still stuck on the initial hotly disputed cascades. And it is a bit "circular". You could never be 1000% sure that the cascades you are mimicking truly ever happened in the first place. You can measure and quantify the results to a large degree, but the causation vs correlation debate still rages. The fact that you can artificially reproduce those theoretical cascades is just evidence that the initial hotly disputed trophic cascades happened that way. But it is very strong evidence because it is so easily repeatable. In a way, HM is evidence for the debate on the Megafauna extinctions. And the Megafauna extinctions are the evidence Savory used to develop HM. It is circular in that respect.

ETA PS Here is some more evidence. Particularly addressing hydrology.

 

[Reality Check]

I get it. I really do understand your frustration....irrelevant HM stuff snipped...

You do not get it.
The frustration I have is that you are someone who seems to be quite intelligent but
* thinks that a vague, subjective scale is somehow scientific.
* cannot answer a post with material relevant to that post (this reply is an example - where is the scientific definition of "brittle", Red Baron Farms?).
* cannot acknowledge that a rainforest is not a grassland!
* cannot acknowledge that a fertile plateau is not a desert!
* cannot backup assertions with evidence or at least acknowledge that these are fact less assertions.
Red Baron Farms: Evidence for the "The australian megafauna decreased, in brittle areas that ecological change resulted in desert, but in areas that were not brittle, change still happened, but didn't result in desertification" claim?

Red Baron Farms: Evidence that "dry" grassland will turn to desert if the herds of herbivores are removed (and the reverse)?
Start with defining the "dry" part of "dry grasslands".

ETA:
* keeps bring up Savory and HM claims that are irrelevant to the subject of my posts, e.g. the Savory/HM claims for the Australian case could be to introduce cattle to browse grass but your assertion would be to reintroduce giant kangaroos to browse trees .

ETA2:

First you assume that maybe removing herbivores or changing their behavior in many cases is what caused the desertification. ...snipped a fantasy...

And you really do not understand what my assumptions are !
My assumptions include that
* you have evidence when you assert that removing herbivores from "dry" grasslands causes desertification.
* you are smart enough not to make up fantasies about my assumptions (not well supported so far) .
* you may one day present the scientific evidence behind your assertions.
* you are not just blindly parroting the unsupported assertions of someone else (Savory?). That if you are repeating their assertions then you have a list of their scientific evidence behind the assertions.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

You do not get it.
The frustration I have is that you are someone who seems to be quite intelligent but
* thinks that a vague, subjective scale is somehow scientific.
* cannot answer a post with material relevant to that post (this reply is an example - where is the scientific definition of "brittle", Red Baron Farms?).
* cannot acknowledge that a rainforest is not a grassland!
* cannot acknowledge that a fertile plateau is not a desert!
* cannot backup assertions with evidence or at least acknowledge that these are fact less assertions.
Red Baron Farms: Evidence for the "The australian megafauna decreased, in brittle areas that ecological change resulted in desert, but in areas that were not brittle, change still happened, but didn't result in desertification" claim?

Red Baron Farms: Evidence that dry grassland will turn to desert if the herds of herbivores are removed (and the reverse)?
Start with defining the "dry" part of "dry grasslands".

Ok I'll try my best. No guarantees, but I'll give it a stab.
"* thinks that a vague, subjective scale is somehow scientific."

You can never use reductionist science. It doesn't work. There are quite literally nearly an infinite number of interactions and constantly changing variables. A reductionist science scale like the aridity index simply fails, where a holistic science brittleness scale works. The somewhat vague subjective nature of the scale is actually why it works. Emergent properties not possible to detect by analysis are possible to define by a holistic science approach. Since those emergent properties are the primary focus of HM.......

"* cannot answer a post with material relevant to that post (this reply is an example - where is the scientific definition of 'brittle'"

The simple answer is brittle land is subject to desertification. So simply insert "subject to desertification" or "already having been subjected to desertification" for "brittle". So a "brittleness scale" would be a scale that attempts to define the relative ease that land is subject to desertification. Aridity is just one of many factors affecting "brittleness".

"* cannot acknowledge that a rainforest is not a grassland!
* cannot acknowledge that a fertile plateau is not a desert!
* cannot backup assertions with evidence or at least acknowledge that these are fact less assertions."

These are bordering on personal attacks in the form of strawmen. I never claimed those things, so I am not required to attempt to back them up. I think your confusion may however rest with a logic fallacy called equivocation. Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as much of its vegetation and wildlife. A rainforest could potentially degrade to a grassland and a grassland to a desert, and the last step of that degradation be considered desertification, but that is not what you seem to be claiming I said. I suggest you carefully reconsider your statements with the knowledge that desertification is not desert, it is a process. In this case we are concerned with that process of land degradation when it is caused by anthropogenic reasons.

"Evidence for the "The australian megafauna decreased, in brittle areas that ecological change resulted in desert, but in areas that were not brittle, change still happened, but didn't result in desertification" claim?"

I linked you to a couple of papers with the evidence that large regions of Australia underwent dramatic land degradation after humans arrived. Also that the animals were dramatically reduced first, then the ecosystem changes. What part are you missing? You didn't read the papers?

ETA The last quote I will simply say that I attempted to reword my discussion since you and others were having problems understanding "brittle" and "desertification". I tried to simplify it to a level you could at least start to understand. I fully acknowledge that was a mistake and may actually have caused even more confusion. Sorry. Hopefully the above will help in that regard better.

 

[Reality Check]

Evidence for HM is actually very popular and widely used in NZ and Australia

Ok I'll try my best.

Not vey good, Red Baron Farms.
* We can use reductionist science because it works.
Savory (presumably) whining about it to allow the making up of imaginary scales does not change the fact that his scale is useless.

The simple answer is brittle land is subject to desertification.

So we are relying on bad definitions: brittle land is subject to desertification, thus any grassland that turns to desert is "brittle" and we have no way of determining this beforehand !

* cannot backup assertions with evidence or at least acknowledge that these are fact less assertions."
...I never claimed those things,

Yes you did: Red Baron Farms: Evidence for the "The australian megafauna decreased, in brittle areas that ecological change resulted in desert, but in areas that were not brittle, change still happened, but didn't result in desertification" claim?
We were talking about grasslands turning into deserts and you cited rain forests turning into fertile farmlands. You have still not acknowledged the error.
Thus

* cannot acknowledge that a rainforest is not a grassland!
* cannot acknowledge that a fertile plateau is not a desert!


You still have not backed up your assertions (above and following) with evidence:
Red Baron Farms: Evidence that "dry" grassland will turn to desert if the herds of herbivores are removed (and the reverse)?
Start with defining the "dry" part of "dry grasslands".
You are not required to back them up if you do not mind being thought of as spouting endless groundless assertions without any evidence.

I linked you to a couple of papers with the evidence that large regions of Australia underwent dramatic land degradation after humans arrived.

You mentioned (no link) one paper that was irrelevant to your assertion about grasslands, Red Baron Farms. That was the same paper that was actually linked to from the news article that you linked to in reply to The Central Scrutinizer's post about your grassland assertion.
Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction
which lead to the questions about you understanding the difference between rainforest and grassland/fertile land and desert.

Oh dear - you should not encourage me to look back in the thread for seemingly imaginary papers, Red Baron Farms
Red Baron Farms (28th May 2014): Evidence for HM is actually very popular and widely used in NZ and Australia?.
Or would you like to acknowledge that there is no evidence that Savory's HM (as opposed to holistic management) is "widely used in NZ and Australia"?

 

[Reality Check]

I will simply say that I attempted to reword my discussion since you and others were having problems understanding "brittle" and "desertification".

I think that everyone here understands the term desertification.

Understanding "brittle" is easy - it is a basically a weasel word. Any land that turns into desert is "brittle' thus "brittle" land can turn into desert .

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I really find it amusing how you are able to come up with these complex arguments as to why the Brittleness scale is useless and how HM can't be anything more than woo, yet....

Savory, Mollison and others can restore land with so called useless "woo" CONSISTENTLY and CONSISTENTLY document that every time. They can also teach others how to do it and document it CONSISTENTLY.

Meanwhile people using your so called science CONSISTENTLY fail over and over time and time again, universally. Yet that isn't considered "woo" by you.

You really are like the eggheads early in the science of aerodynamics that used to say somewhat jokingly, "By the physics of aerodynamics, a bumblebee can't fly." Of course I am not sure if you are old enough to remember when that was a common saying. But you in your scientific zeal are making an error in rational thinking resulting in your pseudoscience ideas.

HM is science based and has real repeatable results that can be measured. Your argument, while clever, is similar to arguing bumblebees can't fly.

 

[Reality Check]

I really find it amusing how you are able to come up with these complex arguments as to why the Brittleness scale is useless and how HM can't be anything more than woo, yet....
...snipped more Savory hero worship ...

I totally find it amazing that you think that I am presenting complex arguments, Red Baron Farms .
It is basic science that scales need to be objective to be useful. So the simple reason as to why the Savory brittleness scale is useless it that it is subjective.

I have never said that HM is woo. You have not presented any credible scientific evidence that it works yet. But thanks for labeling HM woo ,Red Baron Farms , even if I do not agree with you. Any methodology that according to you depends in an obvious bit of "woo" like the Savory brittleness scale is dubious to say the least.

 

[TjW]

No. Real science makes predictions. Pseudoscience makes postdictions. The unquantifiable "brittle" is postdicted from the results.
Get the results you wanted? Then HM works. Don't get the results you wanted? Then the land was too 'brittle'. And HM 'works'.

 

[Reality Check]

You really are like the eggheads early in the science of aerodynamics that used to say somewhat jokingly, "By the physics of aerodynamics, a bumblebee can't fly.".

Oh dear - the bumblebee argument , Red Baron Farms !

The "bumblebee arument", in pseudoscience, states that the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee can't fly, as it does not have the required capacity (in terms of wing area or flapping speed). Consequently, therefore, science can be shown to be in error, providing a loophole for pseudoscientific "explanations". Arguments like these are occasionally used by creationists to claim that it's impossible for bees to be a product of evolution, though they're quite common in more general anti-science circles that like to cry "look at science, it knows nothing!"
Unfortunately (for the pseudoscientists), the laws of physics do not in any way forbid bumblebee flight; there are no papers that deny bumblebee flight, and no scientist has done so in a lecture, except, perhaps, ironically. To put it simply, it is possible to "prove" that a bumblebee cannot fly if you perform an extremely crude calculation (like forgetting to take into account things like the rate of flapping, the rotation of the wing, or the action of vortices), but a full aerodynamic calculation (to say nothing of getting all empirical and watching a bumblebee fly) will show that the bumblebee's flight works perfectly fine.
Origin
The origin of the statement is lost in the mists of time, but one version says that it was made by French entomologist August Magnan in 1934, based on calculations by his assistant, an engineer.[1] Other versions suggest that the bumblebee could not fly according to the principles of fixed-wing aerodynamics; that is to say, it must flap its wings. In fact, bumblebees simply flap harder than other insects, increasing the amplitude of their wing strokes to achieve more lift, and use a figure-of-eight wing motion to create low-pressure vortices to pull them up.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

LOL Very funny twisting of words. I always knew you were clever. But the fact that the brittleness scale is flexible, doesn't mean it is not useful. In fact it is the key to understanding "Landscapes in different climates respond very differently to similar management" Landscape brittleness

"Lessons from a Brittle Landscape", Permaculture Magazine

Maybe read up on it. There is two sources approaching the subject from different perspectives.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

No. Real science makes predictions. Pseudoscience makes postdictions. The unquantifiable "brittle" is postdicted from the results.
Get the results you wanted? Then HM works. Don't get the results you wanted? Then the land was too 'brittle'. And HM 'works'.

In order for your argument to have ANY validity at all, you would first have to find cases where HM didn't work to restore the land. That my friend is a VERY VERY VERY difficult thing to find. It is simply too effective to find failures. Not saying it is impossible. I am sure it is possible somewhere. But you need to be like a pig on a truffle to find it. If the land experienced or is still experiencing desertification after man killed off or changed the behavior of the large herbivore herds and megafauna and/or their predators (which is most the planet), then HM works consistently, even in seemingly impossible circumstances.

 

[Reality Check]

LOL ...HM fantasies snipped...

Not so funny ignorance of basic science from Savory that you seem to have fallen for hook, line and sinker. As I said:

It is basic science that scales need to be objective to be useful. So the simple reason as to why the Savory brittleness scale is useless it that it is subjective.

I have never said that HM is woo. You have not presented any credible scientific evidence that it works yet. But thanks for labeling HM woo ,Red Baron Farms , even if I do not agree with you. Any methodology that according to you depends in an obvious bit of "woo" like the Savory brittleness scale is dubious to say the least.

A scale that is so "flexible" that it can mean anything is doubly useless.

Did that "reductionist science" nonsense also come from Savory, Red Baron Farms?
Does the continued unsupported assertion that Savory's HM works come from him or you, Red Baron Farms?
Given your history of unsupported assertions, I suspect this unsupported assertion is from you. But who knows - you could be just parroting Savory .

Personally I have no doubt that any good land management program (including HM) works, i.e. improves the quality of the land. But you have provided no evidence in this thread that HM works better than any other land management program. You have provided evidence of a bit of Savory's incompetence (the brittleness scale). The TED talk gave a couple of hints of more incompetence. But whether this affects HM is still unknown.

 

[Reality Check]

In order for your argument to have ANY validity at all, you would first have to find cases where HM didn't work to restore the land.

Wrong, Red Baron Farms. As I pointed out in my last post - any good land management program will restore land. Even doing nothing could restore land in some cases! The question is whether HM works better than other land management programs.

 

[Reality Check]

Landscape brittleness
"Lessons from a Brittle Landscape", Permaculture Magazine

Second one first - an fairly irrelevant article (not about brittle or even dry grasslands!) in "The Permaculture Magazine". An anecdote about a (large) Spanish garden !

Landscape brittleness

Brittleness scale
Savory places landscapes on an arbitrary brittleness scale from 1 (very nonbrittle) to 10 (very brittle). He emphasizes that this scale is not precise -- the important thing is whether you are dealing with a brittle, semi-brittle, or nonbrittle environment, because that's what affects the land's response to management.

Confirmation about the unscientific nature of the Savory brittleness scale. He is basically saying let anyone define "brittle" landscapes as ... brittle just using feelings ! Then there is the guess about how the land would respond to management.

The general description of brittleness in the rest of the page is good.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

No. Real science makes predictions. Pseudoscience makes postdictions. The unquantifiable "brittle" is postdicted from the results.
Get the results you wanted? Then HM works. Don't get the results you wanted? Then the land was too 'brittle'. And HM 'works'.

I wish you wouldn't have said that. Now we'll have to watch more YouTube videos.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I wish you wouldn't have said that. Now we'll have to watch more YouTube videos.

You guys don't have to do anything. I approached this with the incorrect assumption that you actually wanted to learn about a new scientific breakthrough. My bad. HM is all about predictions. Predictions that actually happen. Things like changes of biological diversity, changes in hydrodynamics etc... That's what started this whole argument, a prediction that I made that you laughed at. Predicted results that I have seen first hand. Land I have actually walked on and seen for myself. So go back to your Dilbert cubicles and find some one else to argue the point. I am exhausted trying to talk to you. Dinwar I can talk to. We may have disagreements, but at least his arguments are intelligent.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I approached this with the incorrect assumption that you actually wanted to learn about a new scientific breakthrough.

We do! Do you have one?

 

[Reality Check]

I approached this with the incorrect assumption that you actually wanted to learn about a new scientific breakthrough.

Please tell us about this new scientific breakthrough, Red Baron Farms.
List the papers about it in the scientific literature.
List the many institutions teaching, advocating and using this new scientific breakthrough.
But please remember:
* anecdotes are not scientific evidence (the plural of anecdote is not data!)
* a web site selling a product is not scientific evidence that the product works
* assertions need a little thing called evidence to support them
* science has basic standards, e.g. scales need to be calculable (objective not subjective so that experiments using them are replicable).

 

[Dinwar]

* science has basic standards, e.g. scales need to be calculable (objective not subjective so that experiments using them are replicable).

That's not necessarily true.... The issue is, a lot of things we CAN'T calculate, either because we don't know how to put it into an equation yet or because the equations are not solveable (Darcy's Law, to reference hydrology once again). And then you have scales that are descriptive but not calculatable. The one about sexuality comes to mind--you can't calculate how homo/heterosexual a person is, but that doesn't stop the scale from being usful.

The most fundamental aspect of science RBF has forgotten is that a one must examine the whole of the relevant dataset. This includes things like hydrology, which RBF dismissed as woo. Until that concept is accepted, holistic grazing is never going to rise above voodoo in terms of scientific rigor.

Dinwar I can talk to.

You may think you can talk to me, but I've no interest in talking to you. I consider you nothing more than a pseudo-science peddler, and you've demonstrated a refusal to actually learn relevant information.