iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

As Suzanne Simard brings out a new book, and a film inspired by her "Mother Tree"/ "Wood Wide Web" hypothesis is in development, please be aware that - to use the technical jargon - it's mostly bollocks. A huge media phenomenon, running miles ahead of the science. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Nearly Wild @nearlywild.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Is it all connected? Yes, of course it is. Is it all connected in the way we think it is? No, of course not.

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donaldé @donalde.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Am off to see her speak in a fortnight. I’ll ask her about this. She speaks at length in FTMT about the early hostility to her work. Presuming this has now changed.

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Democracy Crisis @democracycrisis.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

How many McDonald's are there in Iran?

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Dan Papworth @thelivesaroundus.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Yes, around the time it was first promulgated I was working on the idea that other forms of life should be considered our equals, that we need them and are not particularly superior. So I love the idea of woodland communities. But my faith doesn't make it so. www.hive.co.uk/Product/Dan-...

hive.co.uk

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David Bruce 🇳🇬🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @dab13rp.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

As Carl Sagan said, every science has the misfortune to be encumbered with a pseudoscience.

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Hugh Williams @hugh69williams.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

I'm sure it is as real as ADHD.

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Alec. K. Thomas @alecken.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Is this the same kind of story of Etangled life?

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Citizen Wolf @citizenw0lf.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

I read the abstract of the paper U cited. It sounds very much like AI generated 'information'. LLMs scour published info (both good & terrible), outputs it all as fact & this output is then referenced in a circle-jerk by those using AI leading to incorrect & sometimes dangerous conclusions.

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Magpie-A @anothermagpie.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

That recent (Guardian) article about her new book didn't hide how much she veered away from scientific practice.

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James Bullock @jmbecologist.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Best to see the WWW as a metaphor; rather like the niche, keystone species, and ecological tipping points (see the paper below). Ecologists often fail to see beyond the metaphor www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

A User’s Guide to Metaphors In Ecology and Evolution

Biologists energetically debate terminology in ecology and evolution, but rarely discuss general strategies for resolving these debates. We suggest fo…

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Darkening Skies @disturbedsleep.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Is this related to Merlin Sheldrake's 2020 book "Entangled Life"? Chapter 6 is actually titled "Wood Wide Web" and references Simard's 1997 study suggesting carbon could pass between plants in a natural setting. He focuses on Monotropa and it's an interesting read. Is it bollocks? Possibly.

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Gary Easton @garyfungi.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

In the words of Justine Karst. Less hype,more hyphae.

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Peter Flynn @docum3nt.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The mushrooms I gathered this morning tell me the Ents are displeased, so beware.

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Pamela Banting, PhD 🇨🇦 @pamelabanting.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

I'm sceptical of the sceptics who are attacking the work and the scientist because she used a metaphor, and moreover a metaphor of the feminine, to encapsulate or focus the work of fungi and trees. 1/3

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Tree Bird @oakwoods.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

She complains science has 'a lot of rules' which are 'suffocating' in the recent somewhat fawning Guardian article on her work. Science is too slow, she feels, if it takes 50 years to work something out. So let's just make it up instead!

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Bob Williams @bob-uu.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Well, that paper in #Nature is three years old, so things may have moved on since then, but I agree that hypotheses need to be supported by evidence.

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Little Richardjohn @littlerichardjohn.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Is this a 'Cyber-Gaia' scenario? Gawdelpus.

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James Chapeau 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @dystopianpiscean.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Can't see the forests for the trees

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Bob S @brighousebob.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

As a professional in the field I've sat round many a dinner table using similar "technical jargon" but people desperately want it to be true.

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aislingirwin.bsky.social @aislingirwin.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Journalists have in general failed to probe her scientific work. That is why she was astonished, and threatened legal action, when I asked her critical questions during an interview for this piece www.nature.com/articles/d41... @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

nature.com

The ‘Mother Tree’ idea is everywhere — but how much of it is real?

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Seshee @sesheegoniwee.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Thanks for this viewpoint and the article. But I enjoyed her book. And most (if not all) of economic science is bollocks. That bothers no one, apparently. At least Simard's book is inspiring and made people more aware of the importance of soil.

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Kate Nicholls @katenicholls1.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

I’m not sure ‘bollocks’ is helpful. Constant reevaluation and gathering new data requires us to keep our eyes and minds open. Here is a paper published in 2025 that has some interesting data! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40445563/#:~....

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Increase Blast Resistance and Grain Yield in Japonica Rice Cultivars in Flooded Fields - PubMed

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi establish symbiotic associations with a wide range of plant species. Root colonization by AM fungi improves the uptake of mineral nutrients in the host plant, mainly phosphorus, in exchange for photosynthetically fixed carbon. Rice is one of the most important cerea …

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