paghat wrote:
In article ,
X-No-Archive: yes wrote:

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 17:54:36 GMT, "Travis"
wrote:

Tom Jaszewski wrote:
There is never any point in a discussion with you when you've
dug yourself in.

Consider reading the introductory page of the last "Compost
Science and Utilization.

Where exactly are the peer reviewed articles?


Interesting bunch here...peer review is valid unless we're
discussing Monsanto and round up.....

Join Paggers in remaining clueless...or read...


http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/...-tea-notes.pdf

Unfortunately the main "authority" used by the politically duped
folks at ATTRA is Elaine R. Ingham, the crackpot who was bounced
around from college to college unable to win tenure until she was
asked to resign from her final position for using University of
Oregon fascilities to promote her private business of selling
compost tea. Her misrepresentations are numerous & ATTRA has leapt
in as pre-believers who didn't compare Ingham's faked data with
actual field studies. Although to be fair, ATTRA has not
collectively produced this literature, it is strictly promo
literature by one man, Steve Diver, who seems to have bamboozled
the naifs at ATTRA into actually breaking the law & putting their
funding at risk. Diver is a friend & business associate of Ingham.
He's obviously approached compost tea as a religion, & taken Ingham
as his priestess -- because it is hard work to avoid the actual
data as he has done.

Diver says of Ingham's self-published promotional booklet on which
he bases his information, "I highly recommend this mannual," &
throughout the text cites & paraphrases Ingham as the primary
authority -- not for scientific data (for which there is none to
support her claims) but Diver just writes promotionally, as in this
choice turn of phrase: "Dr. Elaine Ingham, a microbial ecologist,
has elevated our collective knowledge of the soil foodweb," even
incorporating Ingham's personal, invented titles (a doctor of
microbial ecology, gimme a break), which is entirely promo-jargon.
He even works in her company name, Soil Foodweb in a most novel
context. One has to give Diver credit for not promoting his own
tapes at the same time; he does sell them.

Diver might be a reliable source of OTHER agricultural information,
but for compost tea is merely a vendor promotor. He has elsewhere
posted advertisements on the web & in newsgroups for such things as
Ingham's $50 slide & video set for others who want (like himself)
to give presentations & sell compost tea products. A typical
example of his Ingham promotion appears he
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture/2003-January/017161.html
Nowhere does Diver ever cite the peer-reviewed evidence, for the
same reason Ingham dares not do so.

Bare in mind that the best scientific data available on the very
slight but actual values of compost teas do not find that aerated
teas are in any way superior, & in some ways inferior -- these
promotions are for aerated teas because they require expensive
equipment & it's a profitable scam. A true believer in compost
teas, rather than a scoundrel out for a buck, would be showing how
the pricy equipment is a complete waste of money. So even as
believers go, Diver was ENTIRELY the wrong gent to be providing
information for ATTRA to deposit on line exclusively & illegally to
promote specific vendors of worthless products, rather than show
fellow believers how to do it better for free.

Diver's other major "authority" is BBC Laboratories which is a
sciency sounding name for yet another vendor of compost teas. All
the information ATTRA fobs off on the public is vendor-provided.

By law ATTRA is not permitted to advertise or endorse specific
products, companies, or individuals. In promoting Ingham, her
business, & even including photographs of the recommended products,
the ATTRA articles on compost tea are actually illegal. I will
forward this post to ATTRA & to relevant congressmen, as they've
definitely stepped over the line repeatedly promoting Ingham's
business & products, which they wouldn't've been permitted to do
even if she weren't a known crackpot & falsifier of data.

But it's lucky for you you found Ingham paraphrased as it would seem
you've finally joined the ranks of the many vendors rightly
embarrassed by their former Vendor Goddess & no longer willing to
cite her directly, but only through her main remaining advocate.
I'm sure it still stings that you mistakenly posted in this ng, in
failed support of Ingham & compost teas, her paranoid replies to
why actual field research keeps failing to support her claims.

She went totally loony inventing that idiotic story about the
REASON field tests show aerated teas have no effect on pathogens is
because the researchers sneak into the fields at night and POISON
THEIR PLANTS ON PURPOSE so that the scientific evidence will be
negative & against compost tea effectiveness. I also liked her
stuff about scientists having a a secret "HIDDEN AGENDA" so
nefarious & sinister she cannot make sense of it even to herself
let alone to her letter's readers. This really is like a
schizophrenic pretty convinced of things no matter how great the
disconnect from reality. But what is certain, in Ingham's world,
you can't trust the scientists -- you can trust only herself &
other vendors for the truth.

She further claimed in that posted letter that her research WOULD be
forthcoming in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. She lied. It
remains exclusively self-published promotional literature.

She not only fabricates data, she fabricates her own educational
background, taken to task by Dr. James Moore when she claimed to
have done some of her research at his side. She later said it was a
completely different James Moore, some chap who mows golf courses,
but that seems to have been another of her Invisible Playmates
since no lawn-mowing "Dr." Moore has ever come forward to
substantiate her diluted claim.

It's unfortunate that greenies at ATTRA, who should know better,
have embraced Ingham's laughable & entirely vendor-oriented
pretend-research which has been rejected from every peer-reviewed
agricultural journal so that she has to publish leaving out
testable data.

It's tragic that ATTRA would lend its organization name to Steve
Divers merelyh to put the stamp of approval on a crazy woman like
Ingham & ignore all actual research. And I use the word "crazy"
advisedly since Ingham has shown a tendency toward paranoid
delusions & conspiracy theories when confronted by actual research
data.

Anyone who wants to believe the myths will naturally be drawn AWAY
from the peer reviewed science & to this crackpot's notorious
promotional literature. I will separately repost a bit of our old
discussion of Ingham form the last time you talked yourself into a
painted corner searching your heart out for any real science &
lighting exclusively on Crazy Ingham. Anyone who just wants to sell
the products, like Divers & I would guess yourself, will also not
care that Ingham fabricates data, fabricates her expertise, &
self-publishes her non-science after failing to convince any
peer-reviewed agricultural journal to take her seriously.

-paggers

Please keep us updated with regard to the congresspersons and ATTRA's
response.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8
Sunset Zone 5