‘Shifting gears ain't easy’: Disciplinary resistances to perspective shifts in soil science and how to move forward

Abstract

Over the last decade, the fact that novel perspectives on various aspects of soils have remained strongly controversial long after they emerged, without any kind of consensus being reached about them, raises question about the underlying reasons for this phenomenon. The on-going debate on the usefulness of aggregates to describe the functions of soils illustrates some of the key aspects of that question. Similar debates on other soil-related issues also appear stalled, or have been for a long time and are only now moving forward. This might suggest a fundamental aversion to change, which when it gets overcome, only does so slowly. However, at the same time, somewhat surprisingly, researchers appear willing to quickly seize opportunities provided by new idea or novel perspectives on other topics. In that context, the objective of the present article is to analyse in detail what may cause such contrasting reactions to novelty. We consider, then ultimately dismiss, explanations based on how strongly or not novel perspectives have been actively promoted, on how access to suitable technology may impede or only slow down perspective shifts and on whether a recent theory of the ‘slowed canonical progress in large fields of science’ applies to the relatively small soil science community. Then, taking soil aggregates as a case in point, we come to realize that it is the extent to which a novel perspective mandates an interdisciplinary approach that determines whether or not it is adopted quickly. From that standpoint, we envisage a number of practical actions that could be taken to facilitate in the future the emergence in soil science of interdisciplinary research efforts, which we argue are absolutely essential to successfully tackle the enormous complexity of soils and to come up with satisfactory answers to the daunting environmental and food security problems we currently face in their management.