Excerpt
I must confess to being a bit confused and somewhat dismayed by what I perceive to be the current inattention to the pursuit of new science in soil and water conservation. Indicative of the views I've heard are such contentions as “we know how to do this stuff and “the most important thing is that people agree with what we're doing.”
At the same time, I am constantly amazed at how many things I don't know and how much new information I am able to glean from today's ongoing scientific progress. It also is illuminating to realize how many times the “politically correct” or majority view of the moment turns out to be wrong. We blindly accept popular ideas at significant risk. They may turn out to be right, but history teaches us that often is not the case.
I realize this may sound like the ruminations of an old fogey-particularly to today's young professionals. But we all were young professionals once. At that time, we were convinced we had most if not all the answers. There was little left to learn. We didn …
Footnotes
R. Neil Sampson, is president of The Sampson Group, an international consulting firm. He served several years as executive director of American Forests and as the chief executive officer for the National Association of Conservation Districts.
- Copyright 2002 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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