Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the reliance of modern agriculture on petroleum products for food production.
Albert Allen Bartlett's statement underscores the paradox within modern agriculture, where the production of food is heavily dependent on petroleum, an unsustainable resource. It emphasizes the need to rethink agricultural practices and their environmental impacts, urging a transition towards more sustainable methods that do not rely on fossil fuels.
In practice
In a lecture on environmental science, this quote can be used to discuss the impact of fossil fuels on food systems.
'Smart growth' destroys the environment. 'Dumb growth' destroys the environment. The only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste. It's like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.
The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.
Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.
I think we need to move to the moons of Mars and learn how to control robots that are on the surface. It's not the impatient way of getting there, but Mars has been there a long time.
Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.
It takes years to realize the multiple benefits of science; without adequate, sustained funding for research, the careers of many bright, young scientists may come to a screeching halt.
Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health.
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