The Universe, The Evolution of the Perverse, And a Rice Problem

8/8/2019 The Universe, The Evolution of the Perverse, And a Rice Problem

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Fellow in the Developmental Genetics Depart-

ment.His interests in weather-crop interactions

and instrumentation led him to co-author with

Prof. Ian Woodward the textbookPrinciples and

Measurements in Environmental Biology. On

sabbatical at the University of California-Davis,

he took over Professor Bob Loomis teaching

load and conducted research on the relationship

between biological nitrogen fixation and photo-

synthesis with Professor Don Philipps. On

returning to the UK, the pioneering research of

Johns group at GRI Hurley uncovered a major

error in the technique widely used for measuringnitrogen fixation. This was followed by the

discovery of a mechanism controlling diffusion

in legume root nodules. He built a theoretical

model of a nodule with Dr. Fraser Bergersen in

the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial

Research Organisation (CSIRO) while on a

sabbatical in Australia.

John left the research service and set up his

own consultancy business, Creative Scientific

Solutions. He also became a part-time lecturer in

systems analysis in the Business School of theWycombe College of Brunel University. This

work led him to interact vicariously with the

private sector, but he kept an interest in research

and wrote several models for research groups in

Europe and the UK. Being in business and

teaching business people for five years gave him

a very different perspective on life from the one

he had held as a researcher.

The opportunity to solve important problems

relevant to poor people brought him to IRRI,

where he is systems modeler/crop ecologist and

head of the Climate Unit in IRRIs Agronomy,Plant Physiology, and Agroecology Division.

About the author

John Sheehy did his

BSc in physics, his

MSc in electronics,

and his PhD in agricul-

tural botany and physics

at the University College

of Wales. He was a

Nuffield Foundation


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The authors unofficial CV


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This publication is rather unusual. I wantto discuss science, the scientist as partof an organization, and, finally, using

some of my own work, illustrate some of thechallenges and uncertainties faced by a scientistworking in international agricultural research. Ibelieve that a change in perspective is an impor-tant aide to understanding and problem solving

and I hope to convince you of its value.As a preamble, I compare a definition of

science (Maddox 1988) with that of history(Fernndez-Armesto 1995). You can see thatthere is a substantial difference between the two.

interpretation of past events in human affairs.In this short publication, I cover a span of

only (!) 15,000 million years. I want to illustratethe increasing pace in the evolution of inventionand its implications for scientists. I want tocapture the different perspectives of a scientificorganization. IRRIs scientific community has aview of what it considers the organization to be

about and I present that view. The other impor-tant views are the administration and humanresources view and the finance offices view.The people in these different disciplines havedifferent jobs and perspectives on the manner inwhich the organization functions. So there is aperspectives issue to be explored.

When I first came here and gave a seminaron modeling as part of my interview, I said itwas important to change our perspective, that,for too long, crop physiology had been domi-nated by models led by carbon supply throughphotosynthesis. I said that approach was staleand we needed a fresh start. By considering anitrogen-led approach to crop physiology, weobtain a different perspective on growth anddevelopment. Novel questions such as thoseconcerning carbon limitations to growth, feed-back effects from nonstructural carbohydrates,and what controls carbon allocation withinplants arise (Sheehy et al 1996).

Pablo Picasso used the technique of super-imposing images from different vantage points.

Here we have two views of a person, a frontview and side view. The result produces some-thing novel; it is not just a sterile operation.Picassos second image takes the same basicidea, but superimposes more detailed images.Again we have a change in perspective, produc-

The universe, the evolution of the perverse, and arice problem

John E. Sheehy

Science1 is the collective and cumulative

attempt to understand the natural

universe.

History2 is a creative art, best produced

with an imagination disciplined by

knowledge and respect for the sources.

The two definitions would definitely answer theproblem often posed in school: explain thedifference between science and history. But thedefinition of history begs the question, What isart? It reveals a remarkable view that history isproduced and without historians there would beno history. I would have added to the definitionof science the fact that science is creative. In myopinion, science is a highly creative discipline. It

requires imagination disciplined by knowledgewith respect to the published literature. The twodefinitions would then resemble each other.Therefore, to differentiate them, I would add thatscience is about discovery and invention,whereas history is about rediscovery and the


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Stone tools emerged a few million yearslater, but the style of those tools remained in astate of technical arrest, showing little or nosigns of innovation for a million years. The

ing something that is both fascinating andinformative. I hope this demonstrates thepotential benefits to be gained from a change in

It is not easy to decide where andwhen to begin this paper, which hasa temporal and spatial context, so I will

start at the very beginning.We cant go back farther

than 15,000 million years tothe Big Bang (Hawking1988), which, if physicaltheories are correct, was theinstant in which the universebegan. Ultimately, life as weknow it stems from thepeculiarities of that moment,in which the physics ofrelationships between matterand energy were shaped.

Our planet Earth aggre-gated under the influence of

gravity and subsequentmeteor impacts some 4,000million years ago. About3,996 million years later,following three massiveextinction of life forms (thelast claiming the dinosaurs),our remote ancestors evolved(Fortey 1997).

Evolution of science and invention

perspective. I want to use this technique tochallenge some of the ideas held at IRRI in asomewhat dogmatic manner.

EarthNow

6 billionyearsago

Bigbang expansion

Inflationary expansion

12 billionyears

ago

Proto-galaxiesovertook light,

lost contact

Proto-galaxiesin contact


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chronology, in years, of invention isinteresting: from simple stone tools2,000,000 years ago to the transistor50 years ago (Table 1).

Science began at about the timeof the Iron/Writing Age; a mere

3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Sciencewas predated by invention. Modernscience was founded by the Greeks(600 BC), who used philosophicalprinciples rather than gods to ratio-nalize the world. After the ancientGreeks, little or no progress wasmade in science for a thousand years.We may not fully realize it, but thehuman race seems to have lived instates of arrested progress in scienceand technology throughout most ofits history (Fernndez-Armesto1995). Progress in inventiveness hasoccurred in discontinuous bursts, but,except for the period following thecollapse of the Roman Empire, the pace ofchange has increased. The interval betweenmajor inventions is diminishing, perhaps in partas a result of the increase in the number ofscientists. This has created the impression thatall problems can be readily solved; as a conse-quence, the pressure on scientists to achieve

breakthroughs has increased alarmingly.

Table 1. The chronology of invention (years ago).

Simple stone tools 2,000,000Bifaced tools 750,000Fire 500,000Burials 100,000Polished stone tools 50,000Cave paintings 30,000Metal (Cu) work 7,000The wheel 5,000Iron tools 3,000Writing 3,000Science 2,500Telescope (A.) 400

Electric light 120Gasoline engine 114

Airplane 96Transistor 50


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salt is formed. The portrait of the French Ambas-sador to England and his friend, the Bishop ofLavaur, was painted in 1533, at 10:30 a.m. on 11April. The scientific instruments give the dateand time, the books and musical instruments addto the impression of learning associated withpower in the Middle Ages. During the Renais-sance, an explosion in the arts was accompaniedby the freeing of some minds from superstition.

The Greeks had several astronomicaltheories concerning Earths position in theheavens with respect to the planets and stars.Ptolemys theory that Earth was the center of the

The changes resulting from scientificadvances have not occurred uniformly. There arestill places in the world where people live in astate close to that of our Stone Age ancestors. Itis salutary to remind ourselves that ancient cropyields may not have been too dissimilar to those

in todays developing world. Wheat yields in2400 BC in the Tigris valley averaged 1.8 t ha-1,with the maximum values in Babylon estimatedat 12 t ha-1. The low yield of many ancient cropsprobably resulted from the high demand forstraw (Sinclair 1998) rather than a poor under-standing of how to select high-yielding cultivars,particularly in the Roman Empire. It may also bethe case that progress in agriculture has beenmore discontinuous and much slower.

The collapse of the Roman Empire arrestedscientific and technological developmentin Europe for nearly a thousand years.

The flowering of creativity is fostered byeconomic wealth and historically has occurredsimultaneously in the arts, craftsmanship, andscience. Significant progress in these fields ofhuman endeavor began again in about AD 1500.The salt cellar (1540), made by Benvenuto

Cellini, an Italian from Florence, shows Neptuneand Ceres who represent the water and earth.Their legs are intertwined, showing that whenyou have these two elements coming together

Origins of scientific conflicts between empiricists and rationalists


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universe gained universal acceptance, becomingpart of religious belief in the Catholic Church,the religion of medieval Europe. The theorysuggested that Earth is the center of the universeand that the planets were suspended on spheresthat rotated around Earth. The outer sphere

carried all of the stars; beyond that sphere washeaven and beneath the earth was hell.

Copernicus in 1543 concludedthat Earth was not the center ofthe universe and that itrotated around the sunwhile spinning on itsaxis. The idea wasso outrageous thatthe Churchbanned hisbook. Forpublicizingthe concept,GiordanoBruno(Manchester1992) wascondemned bythe Church as aheretic andburned at thestake. Galileo

narrowly avoided thesame fate approxi-mately a hundred yearslater. This harsh, repressiveclimate effectively ended thedevelopment of scientific ideas in Italy. Theinitiative passed to England, where, at the timeGalileo was imprisoned, Newton was explainingthe mechanism controlling the movement of theplanets in terms of a force called gravity. Hepredicted that the planets moved around the sunon elliptical pathways. The intellectual contribu-

tion of Newton is immense and, even though histheory was subsumed into Einsteins theory ofgeneral relativity, his equations are still used formost calculations of terrestrial motion.

Newton, the towering scientific genius of hisage, believed in empiricism, that is, that onegoes from observation to scientific theory. That

view was not shared elsewhere in Europe, whereEuropeans believed that intellectual intuitionwas the true source of all knowledge. Conse-quently, a schism developed between British andContinental science, the echoes of which existeven today. The United States inherited the

empirical tradition and with hybrid vigor addedto the tradition of doing being seen to do!

Cultural background can make a bigdifference in the way we approach

scientific problems. In amulticultural organization

such as IRRI, this is avery important

message.Physics in

the 20th centuryhas movedaway fromthe grasp ofthe nonspe-cialist. Sincethe middle ofthe century, ithas beenimpossible to

be both anexperimentalist

and a theoretician

in the field ofelementary particlephysics. There is an

irreducible strangeness inquantum mechanics, the theory

used to describe matter at the subatomicscale. A particle is described as a wave functionand its behavior requires a statistical interpreta-tion. There appears to be a duality in nature; insome circumstances, particles behave as waves.There is even an uncertainty principle thatrelates to the fact that the position and momen-

tum of a particle cannot be predicted precisely.The complexity of modern physics has made itremote from public understanding and hasprobably contributed to a decline in funding forphysics toward the end of this century(Weinberg 1988).

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K

arl Popper (1989), the eminent scienti-fic philosopher, analyzed the differencebetween empiricism and rationalism

and suggested that neither view was entirelycorrect and that all approaches in science arewelcome, but must be examined critically. Oneof the most disturbing statements made duringthe course of his analysis is worth quoting:Erroneous beliefs have an astonishing power tosurvive, for thousands of years, in defiance ofexperience, with or without the aid of anyconspiracy. This is a chilling reminder of ourcollective responsibilities in ensuring that we donot encourage such erroneous beliefs by promul-gating bad science!

Popper states that the belief that we progressin science from observation to theory is wrong.He suggests that we continually try to imposeregularities on the world and we try to interpretthe world in terms of laws invented by our-selves. In other words, we jump to conclusionsand only discard them later if observations showthey are wrong. We do not proceed from obser-

2. Good theories prohibit things.3. A genuine test of a theory is an attempt to

falsify it!You will note that attempts to verify or validateare impermissible as tests.

Popper goes on to say that some genuinelytestable theories, when found to be false, are re-interpreted by introducing some ad hoc assump-tions. This either destroys or lowers the status of

the theory. One of the great experiments inphysics confirmed Einsteins theory of relativity.Einstein had predicted that light would be bent

vation to theory! We progress by making conjec-tures and refutations, by trial and error. Further-more, all laws and all theories remain conjec-tural or hypothetical even when we believe we

can doubt them no longer. Data collection is notby itself science nor does it give the collectorany special status. We only become a scientistwhen we translate data into new information.The accumulation of unused databases, alegacy for others, is a sure sign that the errone-ous belief that we progress from data to scien-tific theory is believed zealously.

How do we tell the difference betweenscience and pseudoscience? After all,pseudoscience sometimes gets it right

and real science sometimes gets it wrong. Theastrologer may predict correctly that you willwin a lottery. We know scientists often get itwrong, enough said! Popper says that it is easyto look for verification for every theory if welook for confirmations and he has outlined the

guidelines for a genuine test of the difference:1. Confirmations only count when there is a riskof the theory failing.

Science and pseudoscience

Conjectures and refutationKarl Popper

Erroneous beliefs have an astonishing power to

survive, for thousands of years, in defiance of

experience, with or without the aid

of any conspiracy .

K. Popper. Conjectures and refutations:

the growth of scientific knowlege.

Routledge, 1989


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by gravitational attraction, a quiteastonishing prediction becauselight does not have any mass. SirArthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) decided to test the theory,so, during the night, he took a

photograph of a star and tookanother during an eclipse of thesun. The position of the star hadapparently moved because thelight from the star was being bentby the gravitational attraction ofthe sun. This confirmed thevalidity of the theory. If theexperiment had failed, physicistswould not have said, Letsrecalibrate our model, they would have aban-doned the theory.

You will note that by definition calibrationof models renders them unscientific! The use oftools, which are unscientific, confers on theirpredictions the reliability of horoscope forecastsbased on astrology.

The scientist is therefore a professionaldoubter who attempts to falsify the theories of

get two transistors onthe end of my littlefinger. Today, awafer-thin siliconchip with an area of 1cm2 contains sevenmillion transistors.This astonishing featof miniaturization has

enabled the communica-tion era to take place. ThePCs on our desks, thecalculators, the mobilephones, and other para-phernalia of modern lifeuse small amounts ofpower to execute complextasks.

others. The almost unconscious forces shapingthe perverse nature of scientists begin to revealthemselves. Scientists are doubters; they shoulddoubt everything and accept nothing at facevalue. (We thus have the making of an indi-vidual who is difficult to manage in conven-tional terms.)

Before 1449, there were approximately30,000 books in Europe. In 1450,Gutenberg invented moveable metal type

and by 1500 there were some nine millionbooks. The information revolution had begun.The growth of native languages was stimulatedand the use of Latin as a lingua franca in Europeended. Five hundred years later (1948), WilliamSchockley invented a device, the transistor,

which ranks with the wheel in its impact onhuman affairs. It has revolutionized not onlycommunications but also almost every machinemade in the modern world. Transistors are evenimplanted in human beings to sustain life(pacemakers) or enhance the ability of peoplewith brain damage to communicate.

When I was a student, in the 1960s, buildinga portable miniature electrocardiogram, I could

Fabrication of measuring technology

Eclipse: gravity bends light from thestar around the sun

Night time, true position of the star observed

THEORY OF RELATIVITY

Cap

Base Emitter

Collector

(attached

to

case)


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Unlike the printing press, the transistor hasemphasized global communications through itsrole in computer communications (Internet) andemphasized the use of English as a globallanguage.

In 1983, a gas chromatograph with a coil 1.5

m long was built on a 25-cm2 silicon chip. Ithink that is an absolutely stunning demonstra-tion of the power of miniaturization techniquesapplicable to silicon.

I think it is interesting to ask the question,Why do we not have an instruments group atIRRI housing electronics and electromechanicalskills? Our inability to fabricate novel appara-tuses must say something about the nature of ourscience. It is vital that we remember that wemust not make the measurable important, butrather the important measurable!

Next, Im going to consider the scientistas part of an organization. I spent sometime outside of publicly funded re-

search, and it is a very, very different world.

Perhaps, as a result, I think about the IRRIorganization in a somewhat different way thando my fellow scientists. First, let me give youanother definition.

An organization is an orderly structure inwhich people cooperate for a common purpose.The organization has properties (hard and soft),a structure (mechanistic or organic), a missionstatement, objectives, plans, and policies.

Scientists in the 20th century are embeddedin organizational structures that create microcli-mates conducive to fostering or limiting their

creativity. Usually, they inhabit projects thatdemand resources. The management system thatcontrols the resource flow has to be sufficientlyresponsive to enable unexpected peaks indemand to be met. This is best achieved throughsome significant devolution of power over

The scientist and the organization

Hard properties Soft properties

expenditure. Clearly, it is in this area thatindividual aspirations and policies often conflict.

If I were a scientist who had never worked

in a business school and somebody asked me todraw a diagram of a scientific organization, Iwould have drawn something like Figure 1. Iwould put the administration at the top, abovethe scientific habitat, following the pre-Coperni-can idea that paradise is upward and hell is

Organization


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Fig. 1. The administrative habitat.

below. In this

scheme, requests aresent upward, but ofcourse there is abarrier betweenparadise and Earth, somost requests dontseem to ever getthrough. The peculiarthing is that, if theydo penetrate thebarrier, they seem totake a long time to

get responded to andthe response oftenemerges as a restric-tion. Anyway, Ihappen to believethats a misguidedview of an organiza-tion.

There are tall organizational structures withmany levels contained within them so that thetop management is extremely remote from theworkers. Other structures are flat, having fewer

levels in them. Another not uncommon structureis the matrix, often found in hi-tech organiza-tions. The matrix is really very simple: on topsits the chief executive, along one axis of thestructure are the divisions, and along the otherare the projects. It is well recognized thatconflicts do occur between project managers anddivision heads. Nonetheless, this interdiscipli-nary approach increases productivity and helps

Matrix organization

Vertical flows of functional authorityHorizontalflowsof

projectauthority

ChiefExecutive

Production Marketing Finance Research

Project Amanager

Project Bmanager

Project Cmanager


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solve difficult problems. In a simple matrix, thechief executive has a direct line of communica-tion with the project managers as well as thedivision heads.

In contrast, the IRRI matrix is some sort ofstructure with the director general at the apex;below him is FEAR: finance, external relations,administration, and research. The divisions arealong the top axis and the programs along thevertical axis. The cross-ecosystems programdoes not fit in the matrix structure. It crossesboth the divisions and the programs and another

dimension would be needed to contain it.Furthermore, IRRI has imposed another layer ofmanagementprogram leaders to manage theproject leaders. But even more peculiar than thatis the mode of operation. A project leader runs amulti-disciplinary project under the overallguidance of the program leader. But the programleader can be in a project. So, the project leaderwho used to have the program leader as a boss

has now become his boss in the project! Afurther complication is that the project leader hasa division head as another boss, but when thedivision head joins the project, the project leaderbecomes his boss. All this change in who is bosswhen and where does cause confusion andadministrative constipation. But Im sure that itwas well intentioned when it was constructed. Ithink it is unfair for me to be critical withoutputting forward some other organizationaloption, which I will do later.

In my opinion, individual creativity is not

continuous, it occurs in bursts, often in responseto the stimulus of a problem, an economicpressure, or perhaps even vanity. Science is apassion and like all passions sometimes it burnsintensely and at other times the flame goes out.The time engaged varies with the intensity of thepassion and, for that reason, and others, I do notfavor rigid definitions of the work week. I favorflexibility, but I also favor clear, clean, well-

Note: FEAR = finance, external relations, administration, and research, PBGB = plant breeding, genetics, andbiochemistry, APPA = agronomy, plant physiology, and agroecology, SWSD = soil and water sciences division, EPPD =entomology and plant pathology division, SSD = social sciences division, AED = agricultural engineering division,RSS = research support services.


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structured guidelines. I recognize the fundamen-tal conflict between the concepts. It is the role ofsenior management to resolve such conflicts in apragmatic manner. Nonetheless, there is adichotomy in attempting to create an environ-

ment that fosters creativity through its flexibilityand at the same time has a well-defined manage-ment structure.

Administrators need to understand that theinnate cause of perversity in scientists is linkedwith good scientific training. Success in scienceis often the result of serendipity and so isunpredictable. The pace of scientific changemeans that scientists operate in a highly pres-

sured and competitive environment. In myopinion, the administrative organization needs tobe supportive, flexible, responsive, and flat. TheIRRI structure, like a modern transistor, shouldhave about five distinct layers: the first contain-

ing management and financial services, thesecond research support services, the thirdstrategic research, the fourth tactical researchprograms, and the fifth information and net-works. Each layer would be headed by a direc-tor. We would then have the BD (big director) asthe chairperson on a committee of five layerdirectors.

Inform

ation

&

Netwo

rks

P1

Director1

Director2

Director3

Director4

Director5

BigDirector

Tactica

l

Resear

ch

Strate

gic

Resear

ch

Resear

ch

Servic

es

Financ

e

&

Admin

P2 P

3


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At the beginning of the 20th century,physics, chemistry, and biology weredistinct and different sciences. The

ultimate unity of all the sciences at the molecu-lar level has now been recognized. The discov-ery of the structure of DNA has been as revolu-tionary as the discovery of planetary motion byCopernicus. The age of the gene, genetic modifi-cation, life spans of centuries, and humancloning raise issues every bit as disturbing as thequestions raised during the Renaissance. Never-theless, the significant differences between thesciences at higher levels of integration remain.Experiments in physics, chemistry, and labora-tory biology are quantitatively repeatable, those

in field agriculture are not. The weather, variablesoil resources, and unpredictable variation inpest and disease profiles all ensure that distin-guishing between erroneous and valid conclu-sions is not easy. Nonetheless, we believe thatcrops behave in a mechanistic manner so that asuperior plant character in one crop is likely tobe a superior character in another (such as erectleaves) (Fig. 2). High yields necessarily involveharvests of large amounts of nitrogen (Sinclairand Sheehy 1999). My Japanese collaboratorProfessor Takeshi Horie and others (1997)showed that the number of spikelets per unit

The difference between repeatable and nonrepeatable science

The DNA ladder

Fig. 2. Relationship between leaf angle and leaf area index

in rice.

Fig. 3. Number of spikelets per unit area of ground as afunction of crop nitrogen content.

ground area is related to plant nitrogen concen-tration (Horie et al 1997) (Fig. 3). The demandfor this nitrogen cannot be met by the roots and

so high yields must be funded out of storednitrogen. This requires a higher leaf area forstorage and more erect leaves. Therefore, erectleaves are a necessary adaptation to allow a highleaf area for nitrogen storage.

Leafangle

(deg)

Leaf area index

Yield (t ha1)


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T

o meet thedemand forfood from

Asias rising popula-tion, a 40% increase inrice yield is requiredby 2020. For 30 yearsin the tropics, however,10 t ha-1 has remainedthe maximum value,regarded as a thermo-dynamic yield barrier.Here we show that theyield barrier can besurpassed, givensufficient nitrogen tomaintain the critical concentration for metabolicactivity, and that these productive crops showedan unusual growth pattern.

At IRRI, Philippines, in the dry season of1997, crops of the elite indica-type rice cultivarIR72 and current lines of the new plant type(NPT) were transplanted and irrigated in thestandard way (Rice Almanac 1997) with weeklyapplications of nitrogen fertilizer totaling 420kg ha-1, and with strings across some plots to

prevent lodging in IR72. The yields of bothIR72 and the NPT were 11.6 t ha -1 (at 14%moisture content), a year without tropical stormsand consequent lodging. The NPT, which doesnot lodge, suffered damage from the stripedstem borer (moth larva, Chila suppressalis(Walker)) during grain filling. The harvest index(grain dry matter as a fraction of aboveground

A rice problem: a peculiar growth pattern on route to high yields

Table 2. Comparison of the actual performance of IR72 and the new plant type, 1997 dry-season experiment.

GYa Straw wt. HarvestSpikelet no. m-2

% filledProductive

Cultivar(t ha-1) (t ha-1) index grain no.

tillersFilled Unfilled Total (no. m-2)

NPT 11.62 15.51 40 50,340 28,762 79,102 63.4 305(0.54) (0.88) (1) (3,280) (1,171) (4,021) (1.4) (12)

IR72 11.63 8.4 55 44,030 12,949 56,970 77.38 540(0.67) (0.33) (1) (2,219) (1,240) (2,984) (1.5) (31)

aGY = grain yield at 14% moisture content.

dry matter) was 0.55 for IR72 and 0.40 for theNPT.

Yield is influenced by the time-course ofgrowth, through accumulation, storage, andremobilization of carbohydrate and nitrogen, andby final biomass, through harvest index. Incontrast to the usual pattern of a logistic curveexhibited by annual crops, we found an apparentplateau around the time of flowering (Fig. 4, aand b). From the start of flowering, harvestswere every two days and it was this frequency of

sampling that revealed the plateau. The growthanomaly could be the slowing of growth duringflowering, deviation from expected curve A, orvery rapid growth afterward, deviation fromcurve B (Fig. 4a). It is interesting to note that ifharvests had been every one or two weeks, as iscommon, a standard logistic-type curve wouldhave appeared acceptable.


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Several doubts arise:1. Is there an artifact in the yield vs time data?2. Does the artifact result from an unusual form

of sampling error?3. Is there a genuine slowing down of growth?4. Is that slowing due to photosynthesis or

respiration, or both?5. Are diseases and pests exerting a strong

downward pressure during flowering?6. Are the primary rate processes big enough to

power growth rates observed?7. Should we fit the simplest curve or the best

within reason?I can think of no reason why a sampling

error should occur only during flowering or whythe same pattern is observed in two cultivars. Ithink we can dismiss (1) and (2). The curve-fitting procedure, however performed, indicates

Fig. 4. The growth of aboveground biomass (points) of a ricecrop (cultivar IR72) grown in the dry season at IRRI,Philippines: (a) the solid line is the growth curvebacktransformed from a cubic polynomial, chosen forparsimony and interpretability of the coefficients, fitted to thenatural logarithm of biomass to make variances morehomogeneous. The broken lines A and B are logistic curves;(b) logistic curves fitted to the same basic data set as in (a),

selecting one data point at weekly intervals.

that there are changes in growth rate; in responseto (3), the data suggest a genuine slowing downof growth. I find it astonishing that we do nothave the data required to answer the questionposed in (4). Measurements have been made, butthey are patchy and many have systematic

errors. A gap in knowledge exists. The issue ofpests and diseases raised in (5) is difficult toquantify; the damage we observed continueduntil harvest. There did not appear to be aspontaneous recovery in any damaged materialsand issues of compensation do not arise at thislate stage of growth. The answer to the questionraised in (6) is probably, but we need measure-ments to confirm that the rates are sufficientlylarge and sustainable until maturity. There is nosimple answer to (7). The best fit that passesthrough all points is nonsense and so the curvechosen can become a matter of judgment unlesswe choose the simplest plausible curve, in thiscase a cubic.

Changes in incident solar radiation and thefraction intercepted by the crops from the startof flowering were too small and inconsistent toaccount for the slowing of growth.

Other possible explanations for slow growth(movement of dry matter between roots andshoots, loss of weight as shed pollen, loss ofweight from decay of dead plant matter) do not

seem able to account for the size of the phenom-enon. Increased respiration or decreased photo-synthesis, or both, could cause the slowing ofgrowth. Extra respiratory costs may be associ-ated with transferring stored carbohydrate andnitrogen from leaves and stems to the fillinggrain. Photosynthesis may be decreased by anabundance of soluble carbohydrate whenvegetative growth has ceased and grains to befilled are becoming available only gradually. Ifthe results are interpreted as a marked upswingin growth after flowering, an alternative expla-

nation is required.The critical nitrogen management imposed

enabled these crops to sustain two or three liveleaves per tiller through to final harvest, a timewhen most leaves are usually dead. Conse-quently, during grain filling, we calculate (usingthe model Oryza1) that photosynthesis declinesby only about 50%, whereas it is reported that


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respiration decreases ninefold over the sameperiod. The difference between the rates of thetwo processes would provide the resources forthe late surge in growth. Further experiments arerequired to establish whether such unusualpatterns of growth are commonplace in high-

nitrogen conditions. However, given the vari-ability of weather and pests from year to year,further ambiguity may be expected.

I

t is curious to reflect on the fact that much

of our science is based on trying to explainin a rational way what we see or sensearound us, yet our evolution seems to be rootedfirmly in chance. Furthermore, scientificprogress has been intermittent and society canlose interest in technical progress. Nonetheless,the pace of change has increased and, because ofthat, we live in an uncomfortable world, usingvalue sets derived before the era of biotechnol-ogy. Moral dilemmas abound. To prosper, wehave to make sure that our science is alwaysrelevant, explicable, and appealing to ordinary

people if funding, one measure of acceptability,is to continue. We should be confident that thepursuit of higher yields, through environmen-tally sustainable methods, by multidisciplinaryteams is both a valid and noble goal.

I would like to end by quoting a few linesconcerning the 21st century from the book

Millennium by Felipe Fernndez Armesto

Finale

We can be optimistic about raising riceyields now that the 10 t ha-1 yield barrier hasbeen breached. Our inability to explain theanomalous growth pattern suggests that we donot yet have a complete understanding of thephysiology of high-yielding crops and that

further progress will be aided by that betterunderstanding.

(1995).

Ourdescendentswill seepopulationincreaselevel off toa pointwhere it canbe handledby advancesinagronomy

whichunder thepressure ofpopulationgrowth and the need to exploit new and previ-ously under-used environmentswill replacemedicine in the next century as the life-savingwonder science of the world.


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Page No.

2 Superimposed Images by Pablo PicassoThe sketchbooks of Picasso. Catalogue ofan exhibition at the Royal Academy ofArts, London, 11 September-23 Novem-ber 1986.

2 Big Bang Expansion and InflationaryExpansion

Inflation in a low-density universe.Martin A. Bucher and David N. Spergel,

Scientific American, January 1999, p 42-49.

The Planet Earth

Modeling the impact of climate changeon rice production in Asia, edited by R.B.Matthews et al. CAB International, 1995.

3 Ancient Palaeolithic Stone ToolsR. Fortey. Life: an authorized biography.Flamingo, 1997.

4 King Menkaure and QueenKhamerernebty II (Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston) The New EncyclopediaBritannica, Volume 18.

4 Red Ochre Cave Paintinghttp://www.jimhopper.com/paleo.html

4 Salt Cellar by Benvenuto Cellini(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)The art book. Phaidon Press Limited,1996 Edition.

4 The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein(National Gallery, London)

The art book. Phaidon Press Limited,1996 Edition.

5 Ptolemys TheoryS.W. Hawking. A brief history of time.Bantam Press, 1988.

7 TransistorUnderstanding solid-state electronics: aself-teaching course in basic semiconduc-tor theory. Texas Instruments Incorpo-rated, 1978.

7 Integrated Circuit on a FingertipTechnology and economics in the semi-conductor industry. G. Dan Hutchesonand Jerry D. Hutcheson.Scientific American, January 1996, p 40-46.

8 Silicon Gas ChromatographSilicon micromechanical devices.James B. Angell, Stephen C. Terry, andPhillip W. Barth. Scientific American,April 1983, p 36-47.

9 Matrix Organization StructureT. Lucey. Management informationsystems. DP Publications, Ltd AldinePlace, London W12 8AW.

12 DNA StructureThe World Book multimedia encyclope-dia. World Book Inc., 1995.

12 Molecule of DNARothamstead Experimental Station, 1997.

15 HealthworkerPublisher 97 CD DeLuxe.

Illustrations


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Fernndez-Armesto F. 1995. Millennium.

Bantam Press.

Fortey R. 1997. Life: an authorised biography.Flamingo.

Hawking SW. 1988. A brief history of time.

Bantam Press.

Horie T et al. 1997. Physiological characteristics

of high-yielding rice inferred from cross-

location experiments. Field Crops Res.

52:55-67.

Maddox J. 1988. The expansion of knowledge.

In: The Oxford history of the twentieth

century. Oxford University Press.

Manchester W. 1992. A world lit only by fire:

the medieval mind and the Renaissance.Macmillan.

References

Popper K. 1989. Conjectures and refutations: the

growth of scientific knowledge. Routledge.

Sheehy J et al. 1996. A nitrogen-led model ofgrass growth. Ann. Bot. 77:165-177.

Sinclair TR. 1998. Historical changes in harvest

index and crop nitrogen accumulation. Crop

Sci. 38:638-643.

Sinclair TR, Sheehy JE. 1999. Erect leaves and

photosynthesis in rice. Science 283:1456-

1457.

Weinberg S. 1988. Physics in the 20th century.

In: The Oxford history of the twentieth

century. Oxford University Press.


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Data are facts, events, transactions, measured quantities and so forth.

Information is data that have been processed in such a way as to be meaningful to the person

who receives the information.

Science is the collective and cumulative attempt to understand the natural universe.

History is a creative art, best produced with an imagination disciplined by

knowledge and respect for the sources.

Theory is a model containing a set of rules used to explain observations.

Organization is an orderly structure in which people cooperate for a commonpurpose.

Glossary

Iwould like to give special thanks to Anaida

Ferrer for doing so much of the hard work

in collecting information and assembling

this manuscript from the bits and pieces of a

rough outline of the seminar on which this paperis based. I would like to acknowledge the

contributions of Manny Panisales and Lingkod

Sayo who prepared many of the figures and

photographs. Finally, I would like to acknowl-

edge the editorial assistance and encouragement

of Bill Hardy, who suggested turning the semi-

nar into this publication.

Acknowledgments


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Documents

The Universe, The Evolution of the Perverse, And a Rice Problem