Maurice,
Appreciate you giving your opinion , and I could not agree more with the statements: "However, the most important comment I will make applies to all information that is daylily related. Information that can be relied on needs to be objective and supported by factual data. Typically that means published scientific information; biological information about daylilies that can be relied on definitely needs objective sources."
If I had read the "Random Thoughts" article by John Benz with out knowing any of the history of the debate over changing the "dormancy" term to "deciduous" I would not have expected such a reply or been skeptical of every statement made in the Benz article as I read it.
Still, I loved reading the article and love people putting out information they truely believe is correct, only by putting such info out in print can it be criticized, debated and corrected if necessary.
My main question as I read the article (being his objection to using the term "deciduous" seem to rest on this statement) is it true that:
"The most basic and absolute requirement for a plant to be listed as deciduous is that such plants must shed or drop their leaves every fall."?
So I wondered if the entire debate over the use of the term "Deciduous" could have been based on a non agreement over the actual definition of the word (not likely)?
Of course I think we all can agree that published scientific information is not always free of bias, but at least it is put out there for debate and conformation .
So I looked for the definition using the highly scientific tool "Google". Well, I was surprised to find an article that seems to suggest the definition of the term is not fully agreed on.
"So far as I can determine, the terms persistent and deciduous lack clear definitions — certainly not in terms capable of intersubjective application. And it would seem that they are not understood in a consistent manner among botanists."
http://w3.biosci.utexas.edu/pr...
Now my main point here is that the lay person like myself, without the necessary training needed to understand the science often being discussed find it very hard at times to figure out just what is bias and what is fact. Facts so often ends up changing.
Now I have to go look for what are the things that contribute to freeze resistant ?
I started writing this article before Davi wrote her post, I love it also. I was trying to come up with a term but did not...she did "well accepted jargon."
I was trying to find a way to say I can also appreciate scientific studies and articles written with "well accepted jargon", they are both subject to debate in my opinion.
