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Numerical Abstraction in Agricultural Science

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Science Cultivating Practice

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Abstract

Limitation and control of the fluctuation of living nature lies at the basis of agricultural science. Different disciplines have different ways to analyse, understand and control the instability of natural processes. Physiologists and phytopathologists for example often kill plants and animals to get a stable situation. Others, like physicists and agricultural-mechanical engineers, simply concentrate on more stable (i.e. non-living) elements in agriculture like water or machines. Another way of dealing with the fickleness of nature is to assume that phenomena and processes are very regular and stable. Once that assumption is made, the objects studied can be expressed in figures or equations. This principle of quantification or numerical abstraction is very common in many disciplines of agricultural science and the life sciences in general. Besides attaching numbers to plants and equations to processes, numerical abstraction also implies the application of the law of large numbers. What seems highly variable and deviating when looking at some individual cases might appear to be rather constant and continuous when considered in large quantities. The various solutions are often developed in combination, and they are not only employed by scientists, but by government administrators too. After all, stability and control are highly valued assets by state leaders. Science and government often joined forces in the imposition of numbers and standards, which is one of the elements in the story that follows.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Harro Maat

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  1. Harro Maat
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© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Maat, H. (2001). Numerical Abstraction in Agricultural Science. In: Science Cultivating Practice. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2954-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2954-3_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5864-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2954-3

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