# Talk:Permaculture

Outdated Source from 2003?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 In light of the new studies, the blog post’s claims are now outdated and in some cases, contradicted by scientific evidence.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 If not, is this section now out of date?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)

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)
I am simply stating the article could be strengthened by providing better citations to critics. Objectively, the citations here are badly out of date, of poor quality, and actually contradict the verbiage on wikipedia. People visiting the citations will not find evidence for the statements in on wikipedia. These citations wouldn’t pass on a college freshman paper and probably wouldn’t pass on other wiki articles.
There’s no basis for the unfair ad-hominem accusation as to my motives. “Assume good intentions,” I believe is the rule, unless there’s some evidence to the contrary.
Citation 4, used to support the claim that permaculture is poorly defined and unscientific, is in fact actually in article (on a pro-permaculture website) making the exact opposite point: that permaculture is now specifically defined and backed with better scientific support. The citation does not support the claim on wikipedia. A citation that actually supports the claim on wikipedia would be an improvement.
The next sentence appears to be an unsourced claim: “Critics have pushed for less reliance on anecdote and extrapolation from ecological first principles, in favor of peer-reviewed research to substantiate productivity claims and to clarify methodology.” This is not exactly reflected in either citation, and a citation would improve this.
Citation 5 is an uncited opinion article originally posted to Peter Harper’s personal blog in 2003. Harper is a worthy source, but his business is a competitor to permaculture in the “alternative technology” space. I’m not certain this 2003 CONDITIONAL critique reflects his  current views, as some of the claims are now indeed contradicted by fact and history. For example, this very wikipedia article now contradicts his 2003 assumption that in permaculture lacks a clear definition. Most of the article is that he finds the people who like permaculture personally distasteful. The article actually concludes by SUPPORTING the work of 3 foundational originators of permaculture, which isn’t reflected in the wiki article. In 2018 Harper contradicted his 2003 opinion here: https://retrosuburbia.com/published-media/retrosuburbia-comments-by-peter-harper/
I think the article could be greatly improved by a more objective, more academic, and not badly outdated citations that actually support our claims. Luckymortal1977 (talk) 18:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
I note your opinions, without necessarily agreeing with them. Harper is certainly a strong source on this subject; as an acknowledged expert, his blog is a reliable source for an opinion. Wikipedia articles can't say everything (and it's not appropriate to try to do so). On [4], the source indeed is supportive of permaculture, but it does support the statement that the approach has been characterised, fairly or not, as unscientific: that is indeed its item "1)", which it seeks to rebut. No attack was launched in my earlier reply; I noted that your comments could be taken that way (or not), the matter being undetermined: but as for "no basis", no, the entire tenor of your remarks seemed to be pro-permaculture, and I quite rightly wondered why, and took a moment to caution you: that is not the same thing as an attack. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:23, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Agree with the assessment that the criticism on the page is badly supported. If there is going to be a Issues section or a Criticism section I think that's fine but it needs to do more than quote a blog post from 20 years ago. The fact that most of the criticism in the Methodology section is from one source from 2003 and that somehow that qualifies to also be included in the lead section feel like an issue re: MOS:LEADREL and WP:UNDUE.
Happy to hear any other input, if more relevant criticism can be found and cited that would be great, otherwise the lead section as well as the Methodology section need to be restructured. I will do this some time next week if there are no issues. Underswamp (talk) 15:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, you may have a point procedurally, but a blog by an authority is a reliable source, and 20 years is a short time in agriculture. More to the point, there is a reason why agriculturalists do not spend much time on permaculture: they are agreed that it's pretty much irrelevant to agriculture, as it's weakly supported by theory (that's being kind to it) and there's no way of scaling it up to farm scale and profitability. Farmers don't spend a lot of time on planting by the moon, either, for the same reason. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:04, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

My edit focused on the Header and the Issues sections, which have been rehauled. 
Previously the header was two paragraphs, with one paragraph summarizing seemingly the entire article, while the other paragraph closely matching the methodology subsection of Issues. I have tried to make the header match up more closely with the article itself. The Issues Methodology subsection was also heavily reliant on one blog post from Peter Harper in 2003, and in my opinion didn't even match the conclusions of that source. I have added his revised and published version of the same piece, updated in 2013, and have added some information and perspective from "A Critical Review of Permaculture in the United States" by Robert Scott and "Permaculture for Agroecology" by Ferguson and Lovell. I have also tried to compress some of the defense of Permaculture which was a bit long winded.
Please let me know if you see any issues with the edit, I'd be happy to discuss improvements to the page!
Underswamp (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2025 (UTC)