this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] grubberfly@mander.xyz 75 points 7 months ago (7 children)

cam someone spoon-feed me this meme? i don't get it.

[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 204 points 7 months ago (5 children)

All plants require different levels nutrients to grow. If the same plant is grown repeatedly in the same soil then the soil will run out of the nutrients that plant needs and growing that plant becomes difficult. By rotating through plants with different nutrient requirements, the soil can maintain a sustainable balance of nutrients.

We now use the scientific method to argue ideas, but in the past ideas could just be laughed at if people thought they sounded dumb. People laughed at ideas like the sun being the center of the solar system and doctors needing to wash their hands before surgery. Refusal to accept these ideas held humanity back from technological advancement.

[–] exocrinous@startrek.website 60 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Hey, we still laugh at scientists who propose good ideas

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What's that quote - something like "science progresses one funeral at a time"? Even scientists have their favourite theories that they'll defend in the face of logic and evidence.

[–] Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 14 points 7 months ago

Humans gotta human!

[–] reattach@lemmy.world 45 points 7 months ago

Good explanation. Crop rotation also decreases plant diseases and insect damage.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago (2 children)

People didn't just laugh at those ideas, they actively punished the people who proposed them.

[–] embed_me@programming.dev 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Execution is punishment? 🧐

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Would you consider it a reward?

[–] DeletesItLater@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Pros and cons.

[–] eskimofry@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Well you don't have to witness utter morons destroying the planet...

[–] Neon@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)
[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Because change is costly and therefore a risk. When it seems that resources are scarce, risks are dangerous, and it can seem rational to destroy ideas that cost more resources, lest your imagined model of society collapse for lack of resources as the idea takes over.

It's always conservatism, in other words.

[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Let's not take the religious aspects out of it though.

The church said earth was the center so saying the sun was the center was going against the church which was blasphemy. Blasphemy punishable by lifelong imprisonment or death.

Likely both as dungeons weren't exactly life friendly.

[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Because many considered any change to be an affront to Gods will. So they killed free-thinkers to prove God infallible

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Because they challenged the notion that mankind is the center of and purpose for the universe.

[–] Woovie@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

I feel like this is something that would happened at one of my past shitty jobs or in a crappy friend group.

[–] Xephonian@retrolemmy.com 2 points 7 months ago

We now use the scientific method to argue ideas, but in the past ideas could just be laughed at if people thought they sounded dumb.

Used to before the whole covid scam anyway. Now it's "trust the science" which of course is an oxymoron. The whole point of science is that we don't trust it, we verify it. And that wasn't allowed.

[–] Person264@lemmings.world 50 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

You can't really grow the same crop in the same field season after season (without fertiliser), because they'll sap the specific nutrients they need from the soil. If you do that over and over eventually the soil wont have any food for that crop. Growing something different each season that takes different nutrients from the soil lets it recover the other ones. I don't know how it recovers on its own, circle of life stuff probably. Modern farming can cheat by artificially replenishing the nutrients with fertiliser.

[–] Gnugit@aussie.zone 18 points 7 months ago

It also makes it stronger against disease.

[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

The problem is that even with crop rotation much of our soil is still nearly depleted. Most farmers aren’t doing enough varied rotation or rest cycles or regenerative farming since anything other than the same 2-3 crops isn’t profitable for them

[–] jlow@beehaw.org -1 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Never thought about it that way, so if farmers (at this point probably mostly international big farming corporations) would just rotate their crops, they would not have to buy as much fertiliser, destroy the environment and probably a tonne of other disgusting stuff that comes with mono-cultures, like the excessive need for fertilisers? Yeah, that checks out 🥵 ("It's too much work! Other crops don't sell!")

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

would just

Farmers have been rotating crops for hundreds of years man. Corporate farms rotate crops too. Step down off that soapbox for a moment.

The whole joke is that the person in the image would have made fun of the idea in ancient times, killing the food supply of early civilization and setting us all back by thousands of years.

[–] wandermind@sopuli.xyz 7 points 7 months ago

Yeah, the point of the joke is that crop rotation has been practiced for literally thousands of years. It was an agricultural invention which gave ancient cultures significantly higher crop yields, enabling a huge number of societal, cultural and scientific developments. The joke is based on the idea that before crop rotation was discovered, some people might have considered it a silly idea, delaying the developments enabled by the significantly increased crop yields.

[–] onion@feddit.de 18 points 7 months ago

They do rotate, for example soybean -> corn because soybeans add nitrogen to the ground which corn needs a lot of

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago

Also mixing crops (or non-farmable plants) has big benefits, but it's currently cheaper to use chemically-derived fertilisers and go the monoculture route.

[–] Coasting0942@reddthat.com 3 points 7 months ago

If only a government could artificially change the artificial incentives, without worrying about the votes they get from the minority who farm and are citizens.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Unobservant idiots will always try to hold progress back.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

"Science progresses at the march of funerals" as they say

[–] SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

As others have said, a monoculture will drain those specific nutrients.

Beans are kinda special being a nitrogen fixer. Lot of plants will drain nitrogen so we fertilize as supplement.

Plant beans, squash, and corn together and you won't need to rotate your fields and the plants will form a sort of symbiosis working together.

[–] Darth_Reagan@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

farmers will rotate crops because they leech and release different nutrients from/into the soil. its common to follow up certain crops with beans because they release nitrogen or something into the soil. i'm sure someone else has a better understanding of how it works.

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 10 points 7 months ago

In addition to what Darth_Reagan said, it's for pest control as well. By keeping a plant in the field for more than one season, you provide a food source for pests whose parents went there to feed the previous one. Some diseases only impact certain crops and can stick around in the dead matter only to attack your vulnerable new plants.