ΠΕΔΟΠΕΔΟMETRONMETRON The Newsletter of the Pedometrics Commission of the IUSS Issue 27, August 2009 Chair: Murray Lark Vice Chair & Editor: Budiman Minasny covered. From now on scientific knowledge was to be FromFrom thethe different. If we invoke Newton we do not set out to explain why ChairChair the apple falls, but instead we show how the simple axioms of the law can be expanded into a wide- ranging set of explanations of, apparently, disparate Dear Colleagues, phenomena. Why the apple falls is an excellent ques- tion, for another day. Welcome to this special issue of Pedometron, pub- lished to mark the biennial Pedometrics conference Now I don’t think that Darwin’s theory ever had, or which this year takes place in Beijing. I trust that we could now have, this particular status. One can de- shall have a fruitful meeting, the first in this series to duce a lot from the principle of natural selection, but take place on the continent of Asia. it is not a starting point or axiom. Darwin actually started from some other axioms — a law that organ- There have recently been moves afoot among evolu- isms tend to inherit traits from their parents and a tionary biologists to stop speaking of ‘Darwin’s theory principle (from Malthus) that living things are in com- of evolution’ and, instead, to call it ‘Darwin’s law of petition for the limited resources which they need to evolution’. This is to stymie creationists who like to survive and breed. The theory of evolution by natural say ‘evolution is only a theory’. Now I am all in fa- selection rests on these more fundamental phenom- vour of stymieing creationists, but I think that this ena which by Darwin’s time were sufficiently well- idea is misguided. The underlying assumption is that understood for him to use this way (we understand the use of the word ‘Law’ is best explained by think- them much better now, of course, and the inheri- ing of it as sitting on a scale of certainty such that Law >> Theory > Hypothesis >> Wild bath-time specu- lation. I am not convinced that this is true. Inside This Issue Richard Feynman was one of the great physicists of the 20th century, but when giving the lectures that From the Chair 1 make up his brilliant Nature of Physical Law he turned The Richard Webster medal 3 th to the 18 century and Isaac Newton for the locus An introduction to Beijing 4 classicus of a scientific law. We all know how New- An introduction to CAU 6 ton, escaping from the plague to the countryside, was Report from EGU, Vienna 7 allegedly struck by a falling apple. According to the popular account he asked ‘why did the apple fall?’, The nine chapters of mathematical art 11 and promptly invented his law of universal gravita- The Gods of soil 12 tion. As a schoolboy I was perturbed that studying Did you miss this? 13 Newton brought me no closer to an understanding of Pedometrics family tree 14 why the apple fell. Actually Newton’s insight was The Agua Salud Project 16 different. He recognized that some simple mathe- Book Review 19 matical axioms could provide an account of the mo- Soil Bibliometrics 21 tion of a falling apple, the motion of the moon around the earth and the motions of planets around the Sun. Profiles 25 Nothing new needed to be invoked when changing Zhou Shi scale from an orchard to the Solar System. This is John Crawford why Newton faced opposition from contemporaries, Pedomathemagica 27 such as Leibniz. They thought in scholastic terms, and did not consider that an advance had been made in knowledge unless an efficient cause had been un- ΠΕΔΟMETRON No. 27, August 2009 1 From the Chair tance of traits is no longer a law of biology, it rests on (rightfully) has been given to the CSIRO report written more fundamental cell biology and chemistry). Biolo- by Philip Beckett and Stein Bie in 1978 on the basis of gists do not always get this, which explains the curi- their earlier visit to assess soil survey practice in Aus- ously naive comment by Richard Dawkins in Unweav- tralia. Beckett and Bie plotted the log of the number ing the Rainbow that the law of least action is ‘not of soil classes from different surveys (at various lev- entirely satisfying as an ultimate explanation’ of the els) against the log area of the survey. However (and phenomena that it describes. some who have cited this report as the first study of the phenomenon have passed over this) they specifi- Now an obvious question is whether there are any cally decline to compare the relationship to the spe- laws of pedometrics. By a law, to recapitulate, we cies–area relationship in island biogeography because mean some simple axiomatic statement from which the soil classes tended to be conceptually broader in we can unfold a number of different and useful re- surveys of large areas (so are not comparable to spe- sults. In some respects the assumption of intrinsic cies). They also reported that the evidence for a re- stationarity is such a law. It is, essentially, untesta- lationship between number of classes and area (on log ble, although its plausibility may be assessed. The -log scales) was weak — R2 values of 0.33 and 0.39. idea that soil variation can be treated as fractal is another law, and one that certainly has been unfolded May I take this opportunity to thank Yuanfang Huang into conclusions in pedology and physics; but, to say and his colleagues at China Agriculture University for the least, it is creaking a little. I recently asked one organizing Pedometrics 2009, to welcome all dele- fractal practitioner what the main thing is that fractal gates to the meeting, and to greet our colleagues who analysis of soil has taught us. ‘That the soil is not are unable to attend. fractal’, was the candid answer. With best regards Another possible law is analogous to a law of ecology, the species–area relationship of island biogeography Murray by which the number of species on an island depends on its area. Some recent papers in the soil literature have suggested that such a relationship might hold for Beckett, P.H.T. & Bie, S.W. 1978. Use of soil and soil types. This might turn out to be fruitful, but I land-system maps to provie soil information in Austra- have two reservations. First, MacArthur & Wilson lia. Division of Soils Technical Paper No. 33. CSIRO. (1967) suggested that observed species–area relation- ships might be directly deducible from a (truncated) MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. 1967. The theory of log-normal distribution of the relative abundance of island biogeography. Princeton. species. If so, then the underlying law might be this distribution, which would be easier to test than num- ber/area relationships. Second, some attention One World One Soil by David van der Linden ΠΕΔΟMETRON No. 27, August 2009 2 The Richard Webster Medal: an award by the Pedometrics Commission of the International Union of Soil Sciences The Richard Webster Medal: an award by the Pedometrics 4) The Pedometrics Commission will pay for the recipient's Commission of the International Union of Soil Sciences travel expenses to attend the Pedometrics meeting where the keynote address will be given. The Richard Webster medal was established before the last World Congress of the International Union of Soil Sciences 5) Members of the Awards and Prizes Committee shall be (IUSS). The award is for the best body of work that has ad- ineligible to receive the medal while serving on the vanced pedometrics (the subject) in the period between the Committee. IUSS World Congress of 2006 and the next one in 2010. How- ever, achievements before that period will also form part of 6) The award of the Richard Webster Medal shall not be the evaluation (see more detail below). The award will be presented to any one individual more than once. made at the next meeting of the IUSS World Congress. The Nominations procedure first award was made to Professor Alex McBratney (University of Sydney) at the World Congress in Philadelphia 1) Nominations for the Richard Webster Medal should be (USA). made by a colleague or colleagues who know the per- son’s work well. The nomination should include a rés- Guidelines for the award of the umé and a short statement (a maximum of 750 words) Richard Webster Medal summarizing the relevant qualifications of the nominee with respect to the conditions outlined in the section, The official rules are also at http://www.iuss.org/popup/ requirements and eligibility, above. Webster_medal.htm 2) The proposer(s) should submit the following on behalf of Requirements and eligibility for the award of the Richard their nominee two months before the next IUSS confer- Webster Medal ence (August 2010), i.e. before the 1st of June 2010: 1. Soil scientists eligible for the award will have shown: a)their published work for the four-year period be- tween consecutive IUSS meetings, a)a distinction in the application of mathematics or statistics in soil science through their published b)a suitable curriculum vitae that gives: works, all previous publications, b)innovative research in the field of pedometrics, positions held, c)leadership qualities in pedometrics research, for research undertaken, example, by leading a strong research team, education of others, d)contributions to various aspects of education in teaching courses developed, pedometrics (e.g. supervision of doctoral students, and leadership and management of research teaching of pedometrics courses in higher educa- projects.