Darwin and Dokuchaev Some terms Pedogenic soil forming

Darwin and Dokuchaev

Some terms • Pedogenic: soil forming • Vegetable mould: topsoil • Factorial approach/state factor approach: CLORPT model • Euarasian steppe: vast grassland area • Bioturbation: mixing by organisms • Stonelayer: layer of stones • Jargon: vocabulary of a profession, not accessible to lay people • Occam’s razor: law of parsimony • Russian Chernozem: prairie soil

“profound role of conceptual models in guiding explanatory thought” • “when a scientific theory, model or approach becomes mainstream, i. e. , it becomes conventional wisdom in a practitioner’s mind”. • “innocent unbiased observation is a myth”.

1. Why did I give you this paper to read at this point in the semester? 2. Were the authors dismissive of Dokuchaev’s model? 3. What forms the “hole” in Dokuchaev/Jenny’s “O” factor? 4. What economic motive/agenda was Dokuchaev’s work serving? 5. What are the reasons the authors give for the factorial approach superseding the bioturbation approach? What factors operated against Darwin’s message? 6. Explain Dokuchaev’s approach and model and Darwin’s process-oriented approach. 7. How does the CLORPT model serve the Occam’s razor law? Do you agree? 8. How do the authors use Darwin’s approach to explain stonelayers and Mima mounds?

Worm work