Biodynamics is a Hoax is a new blog by Stuart Smith. He writes, in his introductory post,
I created this blog to offer an alternative view to Biodynamics and to engage the Biodynamic community in debate over the merits and efficacy of Biodynamic farming. I challenge any Biodynamic farmer or supporter to defend the writings of Rudolf Steiner. I submit that if you believe in science you cannot believe in Biodynamics, and the corollary is just as true, if you believe in Biodynamics you cannot believe in science. As you can tell by the title I believe that Biodynamics is a hoax and deserves the same level of respect the scientific community has for witchcraft, voodoo and astrology.
Among the comments, I found (in addition to several intersting replies by Smith himself — the thread is worth reading) this one.
Unfortunately, regarding a debate there cannot be a rational one. On one side is spirituality. On the other science. When someone believes the horn of a steer confers a magic and unknown power to animal excrement which can be transferred to a plant or that there is a magic, unknown property in bacteria-made ammonia that makes the nitrogen-hydrogen bonds in it different than those in man-made ammonia, there’s not much point in arguing.
I want to call attention to one more of the recent comments, because this one is particularly interesting. It’s written by a farmer who claims to be a former student and practioner of biodynamics.
http://biodynamicshoax.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/introduction/#comment-82
‘Not only is bio-dynamics immeasurable by current scientific standards, biodynamic farmers have made a committment to adhere to this farming system that chooses not to use modern scientific advances. [...] once a farmer goes bio-dynamic, it takes about 7 years before his soils are completely depleted of nutrient balance. By then, he has been ranting and raving to others about how great the system is and how much money he is saving without all those horrible NPK combos. However, when the fertility finally is exhausted, he has to stick to the story he has been telling or face a huge embarrassment. It’s at this point that he starts cheating. [...] Stuart is right. But he won’t convince the BD practitioners to admit it. So many of them have wasted years of thier lives on this and anthroposophical beliefs that they can’t stop now and admit to being wrong. They are so blinded by the “goodness of being seen to be good and special in spiritual and environmental ways”, that they can’t see the reality of science anymore.’