Reddit mentions: The best agricultural science books

It's just an Omax. I forget which model, but nothing overly fancy. And yeah just a drop of blood on a slide with a slip. Sealed around the edges with oil to slow oxidation. The "vacuoles" appear outside the objects as well. In fact that's where i first noticed them, but i just thought them to be debris until i saw them clustered inside the structure.

I'm not really sure what causes them to grow larger. One of the problems with these sorts of morphologies is that they vary widely from one species to the next and take on so many intermediary forms i really can't keep up with it. That's why when i couldn't find a WBC that looked like it and remembered the "fried egg" description i had to wonder about it. They can be triggered by some natural compounds like lysozyme as well as their own autolysins. I think the typical view is that they're mere laboratory curiosities caused by things like penicillin but this has been challenged and they probably represent various naturally occurring developmental paths a microorganism takes in response to environmental conditions. https://www.amazon.com/Cell-Wall-Deficient-Forms-Third/dp/0849387671 Also, i should state my blood is loaded with antibacterials though they are all derived from complex plant mixtures so i couldn't tell you the mechanism of action.

I do think you're probably right though. It's probably just a WBC and due to the nature of my health the presentation is not typical. The size is pretty consistent from one object to the next which probably wouldn't be expected of organisms growing independently. I still have to wonder what those orbs are though. I wish i had switched my major to microbiology when i knew what was good for me, ha. I feel like an absolute dunce on this scope.

Actually avoiding GM soy is pretty easy if it bothers you. US organic food standards prohibit GM products. About 90% of the soy products I have access to at my grocery (soy milk, tofu, tempeh) are organic and as such not GM.

This said, I know of no clinical evidence that has shown any health difference of GM vs non-GM. There is speculation about allergy potential (say for Bt corn), but I've seen no convincing data to support this link.

If you are interested in a detailed discussion on the topic, you might check out the book tomorrow's table It was co-authored by an organic farmer and a plant geneticist. It provides a well thought out, more scientific description of the pros and cons.

The big upside that few people tend to recognize is that GM foods are a very promising way to allow us to grow way more food, food that is much better for us, and at the same time have less environmental impact. Not all GMs provide these benefits currently, but the technology has the potential to do this good.

As an example, imagine if we could grow corn in Ethiopia that would be rich in B6, contain tons of balanced protein, be resistant to drought, insects, and fungus. Many of these innovations are possible and are likely part of our future, but they won't happen without engineering the genomes of these crops.

I applied from outside as well, so I recommend you start the application process now since you need your courses approved as an outside applicant and their turn around time is horrendous, it took me almost a year of back and forth e-mails since the person on the other end would take over a month to reply.
You have a chance, it worth a shot I got in with mid-80's, I know people who got in with low 80's, but we also had the MCAT at the time. We'll see in fall what the average was for the first class without the MCAT. The best way to improve your chances is to get your grades up(sorry it sucks). Get lots of varied experience, it doesn't even have to be vet related necessarily, do stuff that puts you in a leadership role. The interview was the best part for me, some people found it very stressful, so I recommend practicing(ask people to interview you or friends of friends you don't well works because it will make you uncomfortable, ask you career services at your university to help, they probably have a prep program geared toward Med-students, but it will help) , I recommend getting hold of this book the scenarios in here are good for understanding how to build you argument when taking the interview, you don't have to agree with what he says.

I'll keep an eye on this account for the next week if you have any questions.

It seems you have a balanced view of patents.. their potential benefit and their pitfalls. However, your history is lacking. In the US, hybrid seed development and distribution was created by farmers and land grant universities based off of public funds. Since food was thought of as a public good, the incentive to develop the experimental technologies for hybridization was fortified with taxes and public support. University extension agents would distribute these varieties for public use and feedback without expectation of massive profits. This was social contract. Then, in the search of profits private breeders worked IP protection on plant varieties, destroying this system entirely and limiting the options of production for farmers. Power shifted away from growers and public universities and into private breeding companies who now represent a handful of firms with total control over the majority of domestic seed production. You can read about it here in a book called First the Seed


There are so many things and conveniences I enjoy that did not require patent intervention. Patents are a young, human creation. Some more imagination and historical lens show how many other incentive systems can be employed to support these conveniences rather than consolidation of power for monied interests

Ah, yes. "The experts don't know what they're talking about, so trust me instead" argument.

All of your supposed takedowns of the veterinary community are easily refuted, but I'm not having this argument to convince you-- I'm having it for others who might be following this thread.

I'm fairly certain at this point everyone can see where you're coming from, so I feel pretty satisfied with where we are.

> I explained to you why your interpretation of L mech wolf study is wrong.

No, you didn't? And it's not relevant anyway, as this isn't very important in terms of the body of research that we currently rely on in veterinary behavior science.

For those not familiar, by the way, "balanced trainers" is this redneck idea that if you don't hit your dog sometimes, you're spoiling them. They would, of course, disagree with this exact phrasing, but it pretty well captures the mindset.

And for those following, as I mentioned earlier, it's pretty easy to find where expert consensus lies, as well as to see a broad range of citations supporting modern expert opinion. The citations are listed in 2 columns in small print, alphabetically; from "Olney" to "Song" covers 5 full pages. The person above me latched onto something he read somewhere and I have no idea why he's blown it out of proportion as if it matters. We don't study wolves to understand dogs, and why he insists some wolf study done in the 60's is the key to this argument is baffling to me. You can go to the google preview if you'd like to see it for free.

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Clinical-Behavioral-Medicine-Dogs/dp/0323008909

But at this point you basically have two options: listen to the person who believes if the modern church would only listen to Jordan Peterson then less people would be leaving Christianity (that's an actual comment from his recent history) who has bought into every myth about animal health he can find, or look at the overwhelming amount of research and consensus informing expert opinion.

By the way, again to those following: no veterinarian is an expert in all of the things my opponent claims we try to be experts in. It would in fact be illegal for a veterinarian to claim they are. That's why we have veterinary specialists in dentistry, behavior, nutrition, surgery, internal medicine, and other fields. Your family vet is a general practitioner. I'm not asking you to trust me because I'm a veterinarian, I'm asking you to trust the community of veterinary behavior specialists because they're veterinary behavior specislists.

All right. Just went through my library and the following stood out to me:


Desert Solitaire (1968) by Edward Abbey: One of the best American voices for conservation spent some seasons as a park ranger in the desert southwest. Here are some brilliant, funny, and soundly critical musings inspired by his time there.


A Continuous Harmony (1972) & The Unsettling of America (1977) by Wendell Berry: In my opinion, Wendell Berry is the best cultural critic we've ever had. He's 86 now and still a powerful voice of reason in a chaotic society. Dismissed mistakenly by fools as someone who just wants to go back to the old days, he offers much-needed critiques on our decomposing relationship to the land and what it's been doing to our culture.


Night Comes to the Cumberlands (1962) by Harry M. Caudill: This Kentucky native saw what the predatory and morally bankrupt coal industry had done to the people and land (and the relationship between the two) in Appalachia and outlined how it all happened in powerful inarguable detail. This book serves as a stern warning about what chaos and destruction industries can bring forth when profit is their only concern. Anyone wondering why Appalachia is full of depressed drug addicts can find the roots of those issues in this book, which inspired The War on Poverty.

The Big Sky (1947) by A.B. Guthrie Jr. : A classic novel about a young kid who runs away to join the fur trade in the frontier days. It tells a very believable story, rather than chasing the overblown myths of the West like most novels dealing with that subject.

Shantyboat (1977) & Payne Hollow by Harlan Hubbard: He and his wife Anna built a truly rewarding and pleasant life together almost entirely independent of modern industrial society in the 1940s and 50s, first floating down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on a shantyboat they built, living from temporary gardens and trading with people they met along the river, and then settling into Payne Hollow where they lived a realer-than-Thoreau existence together for decades. True love, and true meaningful living.

Of Wolves and Men (1978) by Barry Lopez: Rogan seems to think he's some kind of authority on wolves and I cringe every time I hear him start talking about them. It doesn't begin and end with "These are savage fucking predators that need to be controlled!" He seriously needs to read this book, which is a beautifully-written and exhaustive look at the history of the relationship between human and wolves. Like most interesting things, it is a complex issue.

My Life With The Eskimo (1909?) by Vilhjalmur Stefansson: The accounts of an ethnologist traveling through the arctic before much contact had been made between Europeans and Natives. Incredible stories of survival and the inevitable interesting situations that occur when two vastly different cultures meet.

The Marsh Arabs (1964) & Arabian Sands (1959) by Wilfred Thesiger: This dude went deep. Deep into the marshes of Southern Iraq and deep into the Empty Quarter of Arabia. Both books are amazing accounts of voyages through incredible parts of the world whose geography and people have since been changed forever.

The Mountain People (1972) by Colin M. Turnbull: This anthropologist lived with the Ik in Uganda as they went through a complete cultural disintegration brought on by starvation during a drought. Reading this, one sees how quickly complete tragic anarchy takes hold when basic resources are in desperate need. Humanity went out the window.

Let me know if you ever read any of these, and how you like them. I would bet they provide anyone with good food for thought and discussion.

You should study epistemology! There's a funny thing about Truth: it is impossible to find it unless you know what it looks like. If you did happen to stumble upon some absolute, undefiled Truth, how would you know that's what it really was? You'd have to recognize that it matches what you already know is True.

That's why it's impossible to logic anyone to faith. God is Truth, and He reveals Himself to whom He will. If He hasn't revealed Himself to someone, the Truth is not in them, and when they do get hit upside the head with a little bit of truth by an apologist, they can't recognize it as Truth--it's logically impossible.

But there's a very sobering flip side: if you do not know (with absolute certainty) what is True, you cannot say for certain that anything is true or false. How could you? That means that if you do not know God, it is impossible to know anything.

That's about three years worth of part-time study condensed into 10 sentences so it probably doesn't read that well, but I guarantee you that the more you study it the more glorious it will become.

From my understanding, the MMIs are kind of a weird format, and unfortunately you don't have the opportunity to talk about yourself / why you want to be a vet / what you bring to the table etc etc. Your resume and letter of intent should speak for themselves in that respect.

From my understanding, the MMIs are basically a series of scenarios (the format is based on med school interviews). Reading up on recent vet journals is a great place to start, and you'll probably want to read up on CVMA position statements as well - both are a great way to find out what the big issues are.

I'd also recommend spending some time learning about veterinary ethics. There's a whole format for making ethical decisions... you need to identify all the stakeholders, all the possible solutions, who would benefit/be harmed by each outcome, and how you would come to your decision. This book would be great to have a look through, if you can get your hands on it.

Good luck on your interview!

Hi! I've spent the past few days watching some online videos offered for free as part of a sustainability conference for anyone interested in managing or working on small farms. The conference website: www.smallfarmsummit.org . (The conference has finished, however. I just wanted to provide the source of my information.) One of the participants, Zach Wolf, delivered a video called, "Your Relationship to Soil Fertility Management." At the end, he mentioned these texts as sources for more information and research:

• [Soil Science Simplified] (http://www.amazon.com/Soil-Science-Simplified-Neal-Eash/dp/0813818230)
  
  
• [The Art of Balancing Soil Nutrients: A Practical Guide to Interpreting Soil Tests] (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Balancing-Soil-Nutrients-Interpreting/dp/1601730322/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427136013&sr=1-1&keywords=The+art+of+balancing+soil+nutrients)
  
  
• [Marschner's Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants, Third Edition] (http://www.amazon.com/Marschners-Mineral-Nutrition-Higher-Plants/dp/0123849055/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427136123&sr=1-1&keywords=mineral+nutrition+of+higher+plants)
  
  
• [The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Soil-Will-Save-Scientists/dp/1609615549/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_cp_3_9S4X?ie=UTF8&refRID=0X6WRFG59DYAVGMZW3WM)
  
  
• [The Farm as Ecosystem] (http://www.amazon.com/Farm-as-Ecosystem-Jerry-Brunetti/dp/1601730411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427390978&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Farm+as+an+Ecosystem)
  
  I haven't read any of them yet. I hope they are of some help to you. :)

4 years. Also grape vines are tricky and very long term (as you've said). When OP gets past that mark they will still want to drop a significant amount of fruit so they dont overload their vines (overload one year and you will never get quality fruit). Look into these books OP. http://www.amazon.com/Sunlight-Handbook-Grape-Canopy-Arrangement/dp/1875130101
^ expensive, but all about Canpoy Management and treliising (two very important parts of making growing quality fruit)

http://www.amazon.com/Venture-into-Viticulture-Introduction-Viviculture/dp/0730666352/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427609338&sr=1-2&keywords=Venture+into+viticulture

^ Basic book on viticulture

There is another great book (but I cant remember the title, its like the bible on all of this and has been in print since the dawn of time.... like one older version from the 50s suggested diesel fuel for weed management) I will have to remember the title. But those are the books that I held close to me when I was learning viticulture in college. There are a lot of things that you do to make grapes grow and many things you have to do to make grapes that are good grow. Leaf pulling and canopy management will save your ass the most when it comes to fungi and many dieses though.

> What is 'scientific anti-realism?'

This is from "Understanding Philosophy of Science" by James Ladyman. Hopefully it will give you the flavour of what it means. Thomas (admittedly, a bit of a patronising git) is explaining the anti-realist position.

Alice: So now you’re saying that science might give us knowledge up to a point but it only tells us about what we can
observe?

Thomas: Maybe so. It seems possible.

Alice: Yes, well, it’s possible that the table we are sitting at is a
figment of our imaginations or that it disappears when
nobody is looking at it but so what? You can’t prove anything beyond doubt but that doesn’t mean we don’t know
anything. If all you are saying is that I have as much right
to believe atoms are real as I do to believe the table is real
then I agree with you.

Thomas: Slow down. When you claim to
know there’s a table there, you aren’t claiming to know
about ultimate reality or the hidden nature of things, just
about how things seem.

Alice: Well, I am claiming that the table exists even when I am
not looking at it and that it is the same table you see, and
that it will still be here if we go away for a minute and
then come back and . . .

Thomas: Yes, but at least sometimes we can observe the table. The
point about atoms and the like is that they are purely
theoretical. For all we know there could be quite different
things causing what we see.

Alice: You might as well say that it just looks as if I am sitting
here but I’m not really.

Thomas: I don’t think it’s the same thing, and anyway, as far as
science is concerned, all that matters when it comes down
to it is getting the predictions right for what we observe.
Lots of different theories that disagree about what the
unobservable world is like could still agree in what they
predict about the results of experiments.

Note: I don't think Taleb is the kind of anti-realist who would question the existence of the table but he probably questions the existence of quarks and any properties physicists infer from their existence which go beyond what has been observed and measured.

Talk to your vet, they might want to adjust the dosage or try a different medication. It might also just be a temporary thing, it almost always takes a while (4 to 6 weeks) for the positive effects from SSRIs to start showing up.

Some SSRI / Prozac info that might be interesting / helpful:

An article by the ASPCA, Behavioral Medications for Dogs says:

>>SSRIs are rarely effective the first day, and in fact can increase anxiety in some dogs before they begin to have therapeutic effects. Because SSRIs create changes in the brain, they must be taken for at least six weeks before they produce therapeutic results. Any decisions regarding the success of the treatment should be postponed until the dog has been on the medicine at least four months.

And Dr. Overall (a veterinary behaviorist) says in Manual of Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Dogs and Cats:

>>Treat for as long as it takes to begin to assess effects: ... 3 to 5 weeks minimum for SSRIs and more specific TCAs

>>Plus 2. Treat until “well” with either no signs associated with diagnosis or some low, consistent level of
signs: minimum of another 1 to 2 months

>>Plus 3. Treat for the amount of time it took to attain the level in (2) so that reliability of assessment is
reasonably assured: minimum of another 1 to 2 months

>>Total: Treat for a minimum of 4 to 6 months

Ok, so before I get into everything I have to preface this with some details about me.

I debated for 4 years in college and have been a debate judge ever since, this means I have 7 years of continued debate experience and most of my friends are debaters. The type of debate I did was called British Parliamentary which is perfectly tuned to train you to do well on the writing portion of the GRE. It was all about encountering impromptu topics and being able to make well structured and well sourced arguments while having no physical evidence at your disposal. This taught me to think of very complex and detailed arguments very quickly, I think this is the key to getting a six on the exam.

So, look up BP debate online or on youtube and watch some of the debates and you'll get an understanding on how people like me think about arguments. If you expose yourself to these ideas/habits you'll be fine. I did about 45 minutes of preparation for the test in total not including the 3-4 practice essays I wrote in the practice tests I took leading up to the test.

You can also go to intelligencesquaredus.org and they have a bunch of great debates with experts that also think in the same fashion.

Now to the pointers. First, if you want to learn how to use the Toulmin model to structure your arguments, cut down on fluff and bring your salient points to the table feel free to PM me since it's an entirely different post all by it self.

Before you even get to the test, I would suggest you familiarize yourself with some science philosophy because questions about scientific institutions or fields of inquiry or business come up all of the time and the lessons taught in these books teach you content you can use in the argumentative section, and things to look out for in the assumption/logic section. I based the bulk of my argument section on "The Structure of Scientific revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. I would also highly suggest checking out [The Logic of Scientific Discovery, by Karl Popper] (https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Scientific-Discovery-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415278449/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474048437&sr=1-3&keywords=karl+popper). Both of these texts not only give you a great picture of how science functions, they also give you substantial insight into the reasoning behind science and other ventures. This is crucial to pull from in the logic/assumption section.

Before we go on, I'll give you the essay topic that I recently encountered, I'll refer back to it throughout the post: "In regards to fields of inquiry, younger professionals are more likely to make massive contributions to their fields than older professionals".

Before I start actually writing the essay, I take scratch paper and outline my argument. I give myself about 7-8 minutes for this (we used to get 15 minutes to make a 7 minute argument in BP, which includes getting to your room, you can practice this ability by looking up BP topics. If you can't find some, PM me and I'll send you some). I don't put together all of my arguments in full form, I just write "tag lines" pertaining to the gist of my argument. For example, in my essay I would write:

I: Kuhn, structure of sci revs: Paradigm. How young=better

A. What is paradigm

1. same data seen differently=different qualitative result/sci impact
   
   B. Young scientists unique to push paradigm
   
   
2. Based on livelihood of seeing things different
   
   a. Older scientists base livelihood on old assumption/paradigm
   
   This is more words than you need. You're not going to refer back to this word for word, instead it's a mental exercise to keep you organized. You came up with the ideas, so you're not going to forget why you put something in the linear order if it is linearized. I wouldn't forget what I was going to talk about in regards to assumptions/paradigms if I put down old scis base livelihood on old stuff.
   
   This model helps organize your thoughts so you don't have to waste time thinking of what's coming next, you can just throw a narrative down on the page. I think I wrote about 1000 words per essay this way. Most guides say you need to write above 600 words to get above a 5.
   
   When I'm thinking of arguments, I put myself in the shoes of the people I'm being asked to discuss. I think about the obstacles that an old or young professor or business owner confronts when trying to make a massive contribution. I think about what their crisis is, along with what their strengths are. I balance the strengths and weaknesses of the competing parties. I also think about the people in their environments, how are they going to treat the people in question. Will their peers respect them, not respect them, will they engage with them or let the researchers show that they should be paid attention to first. There's a lot to think about with this, but if you put yourself in their shoes, all of these characteristics play themselves out in front of you very quickly. This is why practicing those debate topics are so important, it trains your mind to think quickly about these alternatives.
   
   At the top, I used a phrase to begin that was relevant to the topic at hand. I probably started off saying something along the lines of "the life of a researcher is chaotic, the notion of publish or perish lies in wait, hovering over everything you do". This is preferable to simply restating the prompt. Remember that graders only spend a couple minutes on each essay, and if you seem boiler-plate from the get go, you're going to get a boiler-plate grade.
   
   Like many debaters, I like to do an overview at the top of my essay. Once I get my introduction finished with a hint of where I'm going to go with my arguments, I then make just the claims of my arguments and perhaps the impacts/solvency (check out Toulmin) in the second paragraph. This provides the reader with a clear line of what he/she expects to see in my essay and it makes the arguments seem more clear to them because they know what to expect.
   
   This was something along the lines of: "The arguments present in this paper will consist of analysis of the notion of the paradigm and how it contributes to advancement of the entire pursuit of science. Following this, the ramifications of tenure on a scientists career will be expressed and critiqued. Finally, the idea on how infrastructure access could hamstring younger scientists and thus, allowing for older researchers to take command will be discussed." This takes very little time to write, but it's very helpful for the grader because now they know where to look for, for development of arguments and the power of your reasoning. If you don't do this, it's possible that the grader will overlook some of your points and you may get a worse grade by human error.
   
   The rest of the paper writes itself if you have a solid outline. You just need to make sure that all of your points have a "why" to them. Why is your claim (assumption at the beginning of your argument) correct, you should use reason and substance to make these seem true. Don't leave anything as an assumption.
   
   Furthermore, I think the single most important characteristic in making a great argument is establishing what we call uniqueness. This is establishing why the thing you say is happening is actually CAUSING the thing to happen. You make it clear through your arguments that there are no other justifications for what your saying is true is actually true. I have a couple arguments on this one. First that older scientists have built their livelihood and careers on the assumptions and paradigms that they helped create/maintain, so they have developed a unique myopia to other alternatives that younger scientists haven't yet developed. Furthermore, young scientists are in a unique position to need to see things differently so they can make the contributions that lead to tenure. My entire second argument is about how tenure forces younger scientists to make big contributions and how it makes older scientists lazy because I ground the discussion in terms of publish or perish, up until you get tenure. The emphasis here is on mutual exclusivity, if "this" happens "that" can't happen. If a person doesn't have tenure, they're not safe and they have to publish exciting new things. If a person has developed or instilled a paradigm, they (I would argue) can't find another paradigm because it threatens everything they've worked for so they develop a selective myopia. Now this may not be the objective truth, but it comes across as a solid argument.
   

I'm actually English, and so wasn't really introduced to Mormonism properly until I moved to Denver Colorado many years ago. Over the years, looking at modern America, it amazes me how much of American culture is influenced by Mormonism, despite their status as something of a marginalized group.

I love pointing out to 'prepper' types how most of their doctrine comes from Mormon self-sufficiency doctrine (a good example of this: one of my favorite books on post-apocalyptic food self-sufficiency: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394492285)

Tl;Dr when it comes to the post-apocalypse, the Mormons have always been front-and-center in terms of practicality.

If you are preparing for an interview to get into veterinary school, might I suggest Introduction to Veterinary Ethics by Rollin? Its a nice approach, and at the very least will help you organize your answers in a logical way. I particularly like how he breaks it down every ethical question into five key areas: what are my duties/responsibilities as a veterinarian to myself, my profession, the patient, the client, and society? By examining each ethical question in from these five perspectives you can be assured that you have probably explored the issue from every angle. My final recommendation would be to chose a final path. By all means explore the options, discuss pros and cons, but at the end say what you would do. They don't want to to be wishy-washy and then avoid coming to any final solution.

If you have additional questions regarding interviews they might be better answered on the sub r/veterinaryschool - although it can be rather quiet there.

Like others have said, learning what characteristics plant families have makes plant I.D. so much easier. If this is something you really want to learn, I'd recommend a book like Wendy B. Zomlefer's Guide to Flowering Plants or Practical Plant Identification by James Cullen. Both of those should give you a rundown on common plant family characteristics and help you narrow it down at least to a family, if not a genus. Being able to accurately I.D. plants quickly is mostly practise, though; the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Though, because you don't think it's a native plant, once you have a rough idea of what it is, you can look at ornamental plants that will grow in your zone.

I'm not a sjw so that wouldn't really work out. "All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though" This is obviously a loaded observation that is meant only to offend and make 13yr ratheists blow a load in their trench-coat. The Nobel Prize is a western institution that has been around barely over a hundred years and the recipients chosen based as much on politics as on contributions... so as a measure of anything it is wholly useless. I'm not going to tediously deconstruct why, if you interested http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Scientific-Discovery-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415278449/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1376206740&sr=8-2&keywords=karl+popper is a good place to start.

Before rolling out personal definitions, consider reading a book.

> So what is your definition of science

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."

> And don't tell me data mining is not seeking to explain the material universe better, that is the entire point.

Please tell me you were joking.

And no, what you describe there is not science. The theory part is just applied mathematics, rest is engineering. The heuristics used are educated guesses about the model at best.

A few kids trying to infer what kind of video I'd like to watch next, they're not doing science either.

This! Like have people actually been presented with the choice? Because honestly most times it's the lesser of the two evils. It's very easy to sit and judge when you've never been the one to say yes I'll do it for this cat to live or no I wont go find someone else or lets euthanize. If people are interested in developing a more rounded view of ethics I'd recommend the Rollin book

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Veterinary-Medical-Ethics-Theory/dp/0813803993

For two of the most well know (albeit conflicting) looks at how science changes over time, you can check out Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge by Karl Popper and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Khun.

See also the Philosophy of Science, Science Studies, and the History of Science.


And there are also subreddits devoted to /r/PhilosophyofScience, this is a good introductory post

Also, this comic

The Genius Within http://www.amazon.com/The-Genius-Within-Discovering-Intelligence/dp/0151005516

A book I read this summer that I really enjoyed. You will learn to understand a new perspective on the concept of "smart." I also enjoyed his writing style and found it easy to read.

I see GMOs as part of a trend that began with the privatization of hybrid seeds in the US and the Green Revolution globally. They didn't start the project of taking the means of production away from farmers, but they absolutely are a part of it. (For a really thoughtful take on how biotechnology has been used to increase corporate control over agriculture, I recommend Jack Kloppenburg's First The Seed.)

As for the point about uneven food distribution--what good will increasing food production do if the people who need it can't get it? If worldwide food production increases by 50%, but all of that additional food either goes to waste or is used inefficiently because poor people can't afford it, then what is the point? We need to make sure that everyone gets a more-or-less equal slice of the pie before we need to worry about having a bigger pie.

I'd also quibble with your assertion that organic farms take up more land than conventional farms. That may be true (I don't really have the time to comb through the methodology of the paper you linked to), but that assumes that organic farms and conventional farms have comparable ecological impacts. This seems to be comparing apples to oranges.

Correct. If I buy a specialist book I expect to pay $130+. Most I ever paid was about $200. (In the old days we used to just photocopy them.)

There are some lovely exceptions. There's the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (waterproof plastic softcover; gotta love it), which I think is cheap due to the fact that they sell so many, and the [Merck Veterinary Manual](http://www.amazon.com/Merck-Veterinary-Manual-Cynthia-Kahn/dp/0911910506/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249130771&sr=8-1 (hardcover), which is subsidised by, er, Merck.

Based on what I see here, I would advise you to focus on getting the correct equipment set up and learning the details on how to grow cannabis from the grow book and equipment guide. https://www.amazon.com/Grow-Equipment-Guide-MArijuana-2015-08-02/dp/B01K3MMIJ0
Then pick up a recognized cannabis specific nutrient system, a 2 part. Nothing more complicated than that. It's all the same shit.
Your seedling is under stress and it won't be long before you have rotted the roots.
The Grow Book will put you straight and will save you a lot of time and effort.
That said, if you live in the U.S.,
Cogo's is one of the finest 2 part nutrient products out there, its also good value.
Good luck, bro.

(1) On Inborn Knowledge

If we're going to talk seriously, inborn knowledge is part and parcel of evolutionary epistemology - objective knowledge uncovered through trial and error. I recommend that you pick up either 'Behind the Mirror', by Konrad Lorenz or 'Conjectures and Refutations', by Karl Popper. The long and short of it is that inborn knowledge such as breast-feeding or universal grammar were both discovered through investigation - trial and error - through blind evolution.

(2) On Revelation

Even if revelation were true, one cannot test for it, just as one cannot test for a miracle or other single, non-repeatable event. No once can tell the difference between one that has had a true revelation and one who is mad.

(3) On Reason

So, what's the point of the bulk of your post supposed to say? Yes, reason and investigation are almost always wrong. There are an infinite possible theories to anything, and we've been very lucky we've been almost-right at all. But I'm not asking for certainty at all; I'm a falliblist. We can never know if our theories are true or false, but that doesn't mean that there are then alternatives to reason and investigation.

We do choose what we believe, but to be intellectually honest, we ought not to believe in things that have the same metaphysical nature as unicorns or Santa Claus; we ought to believe in the theories that survived the most criticism at present.

Living with Sheep: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Flock by Geoff Hansen and Chuck Wooster.

I don't have sheep myself, but I once spoke with a bit too much passion about them. This is probably the most useful one in my exhaustive collection of sheep-related books that I've gotten for my birthdays.

Sorry, this very likely won't be any help for you at all, but as I've seen a few people with Germany flairs in the sub who might wander by: This is the first book I bought, and quite educational. It's two books bound into one, a beginner and an advanced one. Beautiful pictures in it too.

this book is an excellent reference. the drug protocols are a little outdated, but the photos and diagrams of all the parasites, eggs and their life cycles are spot on. it's great to keep a copy near your lab area to flip through if you're ever not sure about something.

https://www.amazon.com/Veterinary-Parasitology-Reference-William-Foreyt/dp/0813824192

Ok well monoculture is not a factor of GMOs... Something may come for GMO plants, but at least they extend the time until bananas become endangered. And when the next pathogen comes up, hopefully we can have a new genetically altered strain to combat that, too.

> if you provide a gmo banana, then the other species will be discarded

If you don't have a GMO banana, then a fungus may make the banana go extinct, the "species will get lost". With a GMO banana, you at least have that banana, and you can use it to provide herd immunity to non-resistant bananas.

You may be interested in this book: Tomorrow's Table by Pamela Ronald. She's a geneticist at UC Davis, and her book is about explaining what GMOs are (especially in context to current other methods of breeding) and how organic farming and GMOs can and need to be used together to pragmatically increase sustainable agriculture.

http://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/

It is a series of articles about GMOs written by Nathanael Johnson. It is really well researched and written.


Also, this book: Tomorrows Table, by Pamela Ronald and R. W. Adamchak. It is written by a GMO researcher and an organic farmer who are married. Written with a lot of good citations, and very accessible to a lay person. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrows-Table-Organic-Farming-Genetics/dp/0195393570/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408658213&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=tomorrow%27s+tabe


Well done taking the first steps to educate yourself!

I just purchased both of these to supplement my normal A&P textbook. Maybe they could help you too! :)

Large Animal

Small Animal

I really like Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food by Pam Ronald and Raoul Adamchak. It's written by a husband and wife team—the husband is an organic farmer, and the wife is a rice geneticist. I found it to be a good primer on genetic engineering and the basics of organic farming. They take the position that genetic engineering and organic farming are both tools that should be employed in the future of agriculture.

US Davis is huge in plant genetics. One of their professors, Pamela Ronald, is a world expert in plant genetics and GM technology. Fun fact: her husband is an organic farmer and they wrote a book together about biotechnology and organic farming.

2 very expensive books:

Canine and Feline Behavior and Training: A Complete Guide to Understanding our Two Best Friends

Manual of Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Dogs and Cats

Brief reviews of some other cat behavior books:

http://www.infopet.co.uk/pages/2023.html

GMO is so good for struggling farmers, unfortunately some uninformed idiots think it's bad and dangerous but they don't know any of the facts. It's inevitable whether you try to stop it. it's coming, and it's a good thing. For further reading,

Here's Bill Gates, talking this year about GMO foods, breaking down why it's a good thing.

In the video he recommends a book called Tomorrow's Table

Also, Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis

It's written by the guy that started the X prize, he's an MIT professor and Harvard MD.

He basically says GMO foods are gonna change the poor parts of the word for the BETTER and goes on to describe the harm that kooks are causing trying to stop them.

Who in the world modded you down?

Great book on your supposition:
http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Within-Discovering-Intelligence-Living/dp/0151005516

If you have debunked the fact and theory of Evolution it would be a huge event, no? When will you be getting your Nobel Prize in Biology?

Perhaps you should read Karl Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery"
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415278449

GMO food crops that can be grown in an inherently "organic" way. Although current systems exclude GMO crops from being labelled as such because people are scared of the recombinant aspect of biotech crops, there is nothing inherently juxtaposed about the science of organic farming and genetically-modified crops. In the future we will have a greater focus on GMO tech that increases yield/nutrition/flavor without having to dump herbicides/pesticides on the field. An awesome book about this: http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrows-Table-Organic-Farming-Genetics/dp/0195393570

A good read: Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food

If you haven't read Tomorrow's Table I highly recommend doing so. Balance of approach is the future agriculture.

The grow book and equipment guide in amazon is from the grow boss https://www.amazon.com/Grow-Equipment-Guide-MArijuana-2015-08-02/dp/B01K3MMIJ0/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=grow+book+and+equipment+guide&qid=1562184488&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Fire, you won't need it.
Having to leave your home for a gas leak or perhaps a train derailment with hazardous chemicals. You won't need it.

Earthquake, maybe.
Flood, maybe if it's epic.
Buy a book instead, buy this one and learn to cook with a solar oven, maybe sign up for a defensive shooting class. But take survival slow, do lots of reading and you'll be far better prepared. Most of all allocate resources as you would with insurance premium. A little every month, remember you may never needs this.
Another tip, avoid miltary backpacks. Most are designed for your average dude. Invest in a good hiking backpack, try rei if you have one near you. Gender in backpacks and sleeping bags are specific.

While these are not all specifically about religion, here are a few things that I think everyone should read at some point in their lives.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (this is where the term 'paradigm shift' came from).

Karl Popper on politics

Karl Popper on science

Get some historical perspective on the philosophy of science

The Power of Myth

A History of God

This cartoon is a ridiculous overstatement of Popper's beliefs. Not to mention that "any movement that preaches intolerance and persecution must be outside of the law" is factually incorrect, as 1A guarantees the right of the Nazi to fly the flag and the protesters to protest the Nazi flying the flag.

If you are interested in the nuance of the intolerance paradox, read Conjectures and Refutations.

I was a freshman in 08 as an engineer (graduated now). I forget what our summer reading was, but I never heard of it prior to moving in, never read it, and still got my A in Eng101 and it was never mentioned. I may have gotten lucky. If your summer reading is mentioned in classes, I doubt it would be in E101, but instead your required general electives like Eng101.

However, sorry if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're awfully peeved about the cost of the book. Is this book it? If so, if you're upset about $13.63, just wait until your calculus book. Or physics clickers. Or every other cost associated with college.

My advice - pay the $13.63, read the book, and be ready to start your college career off on the right foot. Engineering isn't easy, so making sure you do well in your first classes is critical in cementing that GPA before later classes that are far more difficult.

>Here are a few articles about examples of GM crops promoting superbugs and superweeds:

There is no such thing as 'super' pests or weeds. That is a misnomer. There are weeds resistant to herbicides, yes, and pests resistant to the plant's GE defenses, yes, but they are neither super not new. The first herbicide resistant weeds were documented two decades before GE crops were on the market, and resistance breakdown (when a pest overcomes a plant's resistance) happens as a result of simple evolutionary biology and has no bearing on the origin of the resistance. It happens in non-GE crops as well, so if your argument against Ge crops is that the same laws of population genetics apply to them as apply to every other crop, you're against a lot more than just GE and should take up a stance against conventional breeding as well.

>Well-managed organic practices can reduce pest damage naturally without sacrificing yields.

Well, first off, citing the Rodale Institute on organic is like citing Monsanto on GE. Second, false dichotomy. Organic is a method of growing things. Genetic engineering is a way of improving a plant. The only wedge between them is ideological, not reality based (some say both should be used). That, really, is the biggest problem with organic. It's ideology, not science. There's nothing wrong with biological techniques, in fact, the world would be a lot better off it the could replace chemical based ones, however, that does not mean that the dogmatic organic approach is the right way to go, nor is an appeal to nature is valid, and furthermore, genetic engineering is a biological technique. Third, what happens when things are run not well but average? Here's the (study) referenced in your second link by the way.

edit: I should probably add that I'm not trying to dismiss the dangers of resistant weeds and pests, just that they are a poor argument against genetic engineering itself (also, they're dangerous because they threaten to take away the benefits GE has already provided, so to use them as an argument against GE is to start out admitting they have been very useful).

> For the next two years, I delved into the literature on Venezuela with renewed interest. Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold’s book, A Dragon in the Tropics, it turned out, was particularly well-researched and compelling. Since I could no longer get my writing published in any of the outlets for which I’d previously written, I redirected my energies into making a new film entitled In the Shadow of the Revolution with the help of a Venezuelan filmmaker and friend, Arturo Albarrán, and I wrote my political memoir for an adventurous anarchist publisher. But what preoccupied me more and more were the larger questions of socialism versus capitalism, and the meaning of liberalism.
>
> I’d visited Cuba twice—in 1994 and again in 2010—and now, with my experience of Venezuela, I felt I’d seen the best socialism could offer. Not only was that offering pathetically meagre, but it had been disastrously destructive. It became increasingly clear to me that nothing that went under that rubric functioned nearly as well on any level as the system under which I had been fortunate enough to live in the US. Why then, did so many decent people, whose ethics and intelligence and good intentions I greatly respected, continue to insist that the capitalist system needed to be eliminated and replaced with what had historically proven to be the inferior system of socialism?
>
> The strongest argument against state control of the means of production and distribution is that it simply didn’t—and doesn’t—work. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding—and in this case, there was no pudding at all. In my own lifetime, I’ve seen socialism fail in China, fail in the Soviet Union, fail in Eastern Europe, fail on the island of Cuba, and fail in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas. And now the world is watching it fail in Venezuela, where it burned through billions of petro-dollars of financing, only to leave the nation worse off than it was before. And still people like me had insisted on this supposed alternative to capitalism, stubbornly refusing to recognize that it is based on a faulty premise and a false epistemology.
>
> As long ago as the early 1940s, F.A. Hayek had identified the impossibility of centralized social planning and its catastrophic consequences in his classic The Road to Serfdom. Hayek’s writings convinced the Hungarian economist, János Kornai, to dedicate an entire volume entitled The Socialist System to demonstrating the validity of his claims. The “synoptic delusion”—the belief that any small group of people could hold and manage all the information spread out over millions of actors in a market economy—Kornai argued, leads the nomenklatura to make disastrous decisions that disrupt production and distribution. Attempts to “correct” these errors only exacerbate the problems for the same reasons, leading to a whole series of disasters that result, at last, in a completely dysfunctional economy, and then gulags, torture chambers, and mass executions as the nomenklatura hunt for “saboteurs” and scapegoats.
>
> The synoptic delusion—compounded by immense waste, runaway corruption, and populist authoritarianism—is what led to the mayhem engulfing Venezuela today, just as it explains why socialism is no longer a viable ideology to anyone but the kind of true believer I used to be. For such people, utopian ideologies might bring happiness into their own lives, and even into the lives of those around them who also delight in their dreams and fantasies. But when they gain control over nations and peoples, their harmless dreams become the nightmares of multitudes.
>
> Capitalism, meanwhile, has dramatically raised the standard of living wherever it has been allowed to arise over the past two centuries. It is not, however, anything like a perfect or flawless system. Globalization has left many behind, even if their lives are far better than those of their ancestors just two hundred years ago, and vast wealth creation has produced vast inequalities which have, in turn, bred resentment. Here in California, the city of Los Angeles, “with a population of four million, has 53,000 homeless.” Foreign policy misadventures and the economic crash of 2008 opened the door to demagogues of the Left and the Right eager to exploit people’s hopes and fears so that they could offer themselves as the solution their troubled nations sought to the dystopian woe into which liberal societies had fallen. In his fascinating recent jeremiad Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen itemizes liberal democracy’s many shortcomings and, whether or not one accepts his stark prognosis, his criticisms merit careful thought and attention.
>
> Nevertheless, markets do work for the majority, and so does liberal democracy, as dysfunctional as it often is. That is because capitalism provides the space for ingenuity and innovation, while liberal democracy provides room for free inquiry and self-correction. Progress and reform can seem maddeningly sluggish under such circumstances, particularly when attempting to redress grave injustice or to meet slow-moving existential threats like climate change. But I have learned to be wary of those who insist that the perfect must be the enemy of the good, and who appeal to our impatience with extravagant promises of utopia. If, as Deneen contends, liberalism has become a victim of its own success, it should be noted that socialism has no successes to which it can fall victim. Liberalism’s foundations may be capable of being shored up, but socialism is built on sand, and from sand. Failures, most sensible people realize, should be abandoned.
>
> That is probably why Karl Popper advocated cautious, piecemeal reform of markets and societies because, like any other experiment, one can only accurately isolate problems and make corrections by changing one variable at a time. As Popper observed in his essay “Utopia and Violence”:
>
> > The appeal of Utopianism arises from the failure to realize that we cannot make heaven on earth. What I believe we can do instead is to make life a little less terrible and a little less unjust in each generation. A good deal can be achieved in this way. Much has been achieved in the last hundred years. More could be achieved by our own generation. There are many pressing problems which we might solve, at least partially, such as helping the weak and the sick, and those who suffer under oppression and injustice; stamping out unemployment; equalizing opportunities; and preventing international crime, such as blackmail and war instigated by men like gods, by omnipotent and omniscient leaders. All this we might achieve if only we could give up dreaming about distant ideals and fighting over our Utopian blueprints for a new world and a new man.
>
> Losing faith in a belief system that once gave my life meaning was extremely painful. But the experience also reawakened my dormant intellectual curiosity and allowed me to think about the world anew, unencumbered by the circumscriptions of doctrine. I have met new people, read new writers and thinkers, and explored new ideas I had previously taken care to avoid. After reading an interview I had given to one of my publishers a year ago, I was forwarded an email by the poet David Chorlton. What I’d said in that interview, he wrote, “goes beyond our current disease of taking sides and inflexible non-thinking. I’m reading Havel speeches again, all in the light of the collective failure to live up to the post-communist opportunities. We’re suffering from a lack of objectivity—is that because everyone wants an identity more than a solution to problems?”
>
> Clifton Ross writes occasionally for Caracas Chronicles, sporadically blogs at his website, [www.cliftonross.com](http://www.cliftonross.com/) and sometimes even tweets @Clifross
>
> Note:
>
> 1 Considerable confusion surrounds the definitions of “socialism” and “capitalism.” Here, I am using “socialism” to mean a system in which the state destroys the market and takes control of all capital, as well as the production and distribution of goods and services. I am using “capitalism” here to refer to a market economy in which the state, as a disinterested party, or a “referee,” sets guidelines for markets but allows private actors to own and use capital to produce and distribute goods and services.

• • • • • -
          
          
          > (continues in next comment)