Talk:Permaculture

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Permaculture article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 365 days

Permaculture has been listed as one of the Agriculture, food and drink good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: October 27, 2023. (Reviewed version).

Environment Mid‑importance

	Environment portal This environment-related article is part of the WikiProject Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page.EnvironmentWikipedia:WikiProject EnvironmentTemplate:WikiProject EnvironmentEnvironment articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Agriculture High‑importance

	Agriculture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Agriculture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of agriculture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AgricultureWikipedia:WikiProject AgricultureTemplate:WikiProject AgricultureAgriculture articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Forestry Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Forestry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the profession and science of forestry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ForestryWikipedia:WikiProject ForestryTemplate:WikiProject ForestryForestry articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Economics Low‑importance

	Business and economics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EconomicsWikipedia:WikiProject EconomicsTemplate:WikiProject EconomicsEconomics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Methodology

Outdated Source from 2003?

In 2024, we have several new scientific studies supporting Permaculture. I have added citations to 2 to the article and would like to add more.

The beginning of the methodology section with the claim that “Permaculture has been criticised as being poorly defined and unscientific” is cited to a personal blog post dating from 2003. Reading that article, the author makes clear that in 2003, there were no scientific studies on permaculture, and his goal was to encourage them. In light of the new studies, the blog post’s claims are now outdated and in some cases, contradicted by scientific evidence. Do critics still state that—in the light of the of recent studies—that there is no scientific evidence for permaculture? If that is the case, I would like to see an up-to-date source taking the recent studies into consideration. If not, is this section now out of date?

I’d like to hear what others think. Luckymortal1977 (talk) 02:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thoughts. On the methodology of permaculture, such as it is, I'm glad you have found 2 WP:PRIMARY papers offering it the bare beginnings of scientific evidence. There are two major things to bear in mind, however.

Firstly, since 2003, conventional agriculture has received literally thousands of scientific studies, and dozens, probably hundreds, of formal reviews (reliable secondary sources that evaluate the primary evidence).
Secondly, "permaculture" is an assemblage of many disparate practices, most of which have never been evaluated in any way, and which do not together form a coherent approach that has ever been tested as a whole.

The presence of a few primary research papers is a good thing for the article, and there were some already. However, they do not in themselves cover permaculture-as-a-whole, nor have they been validated by secondary study. The 2003 opinion is very far from "contradicted" by the fragmentary evidence that exists in 2024.

Finally, your post could itself be read as intentionally supporting or promoting permaculture, which would be contrary to WP:NPOV if reflected in the article. It's in pretty good shape; we should continue to reflect new research in the article, treating primary papers with due caution (they can always be refuted by later work). All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:30, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]