Subject: SD and critical pedagogy

Posted by Karl North on 10/10/2008
In Reply To:SD and critical pedagogy Posted by Eric Stiens on 10/10/2008

Message:

If anyone on this forum needs to be persuaded of the pattern Eric describes below, here is an example from SD research at an Ivy League university. A major effort has been underway for a while in animal science at Cornell to model scenarios of better nitrogen absorption in the rumen of the high production dairy cow, the pride of genetic research in its dairy science department. The simulation model focuses only on the rumen and how to chemically or biologically restructure its processes to absorb more nitrogen. If one were really to take seriously Sterman and Forrester in their admonition to "challenge the clouds", the research problem would provoke a line of questions that goes like this:
1. Why is it a problem that this type of cow fails to absorb all nitrogen? ANSWER: otherwise it comes out in the urine, escapes from farms down the watershed, polluting everything to the Chesapeak bay (this is what is happening now, and suggests the need for a much larger model ).
2. Why is that? Why can't it absorb all the nitrogen that cows did before genetic manipulation 'improved' them? ANSWER: Because the high production cow needs massive amounts of concentrate feeds in order to survive (relevant model is now at the level of the whole cow).
3. Why is that? Why does the dairy farmer need a high production dairy cow anyway? ANSWER: In order to survive in the present political economy of milk (relevant model is now at the level of the political economy).
4. Why is that? Why does our political economy require such a distortion of dairy cow genetics as to cause this nitrogen excretion problem? Who profits (not the farmers)? Cui bono? (relevant model is now at the level where it questions the institutions of capitalism, which is taboo in our academic culture, and the scientists at Cornell know it in their bones, and never go there).
Those who are familiar with Senge's "Five Whys" tool from The Fifth Dimension will recognize its use here.

The reductionist research paradigm that produced the high production dairy cow generated, as always, many other 'unexpected consequences' besides excess nitrogen excretion: early death (1.8 lactations is the national average for all dairy cows), udders so enormous they often require bras to keep them attached to the cow, chronic foot problems because the cow is now too heavy, chronic indigestion from the concentrate feeds, and many ripple effects from these direct consequences, across the farm and its environment. However, the reductionist research paradigm fits hand-in-glove with the 'needs' of a political economy whose decision rules structure it to reward short term profit at all cost.

Follow Ups:

SD and critical pedagogy - John Sterman 10/12/2008 
SD and critical pedagogy - Eric Stiens 10/17/2008