Ken, thanks for pointing out that I might have gone too far, or that what I said sounded more negative than I intended.
>> I think that any "group" with more than 2-3 members tends to become clique-ish and dogmatic self-impressed. The few that escape that fate are to be applauded.
"Tends to", not "all of them are".
>> I have not yet checked out the WA MG program
I should have added "and I know even less about MG programs in states where I don;t live".
My intention in most of the rest of my post was to say what I, personally, would have a problem with in ANY program that teaches that there is only ONE answer to questions about anything as complex and varied from person to person as home gardening.
I think we all agree that any 3 gardeners have at least 4 opinions about the best way to do anything.
You pointed out that MG programs derive information from universities. True. However, I notice that, despite access to those same sources of scientific information, that there are still multiple opinions - not only about "the best way for a hobbyist to do something, given their circumstances, desires, energy levels and budget.
Even the underlying science or reality is disagreed upon, for example "organic people" vs "fertilizers and herbicides". Some people think only native varieties "should" be planted. Others want to create rare and beautiful plantings of exotic things. Others want to produce fresh food cheaply.
What I notice online is that hardly anything has just one, universally-agreed-upon-answer.
I wish I had not conveyed the impression that I thought "all MGs are dogmatic or doctrinaire". What I should have said more clearly is that my experience with groups is that bureaucratic behavior and dogmatic opinions are unintentionally encouraged in a group setting, and it often tends to bring out the worst in people.
Or I could have said that any organization that tries to present just one set of answers to gardening questions is trying to do something that I would find very uncomfortable for myself.
Overall, I mostly agree with you for dumping on what you thought I meant. But mostly, I didn't want to go as far as you heard in my post.
In one area, though, we may very well disagree. Let's see. I'll try to beat-to-death the area that I think we disagree about.
>> Boy, that's a real problem, huh? Horticulture based on scientific principals.
The distance between what is provable in a controlled lab setting, and advice for real-world questions where the human factor is paramount, is huge.
Scientists can reach reasonable consensus about principles only when they talk about highly controlled, specific situations. Experiments. And generalizations SO high-order that their application to specific situations is not even the same FIELD (science) ... applications are engineering.
Gardening is somewhere between engineering and arts-and-crafts.
I'd be surprised and impressed if MG help desks teach horticultural principles so abstract that they could be proven by controlled experiments. Aren't the questions usually "what should I do?", and seldom couched in terms like "hydrostatic pressure" or "population ratios" or Milli-seiverts per square meter (if that really is a valid unit).
Farming may be more cut-and-dried, since the goal can usually be boiled down to profitability, and other goals are often ignored.
"Practice" is different from "principles" by a gap as large as the number of uncontrolled or unknown variables in a garden, including the gardeners.
Even in controlled experimentation, , scientific research literature is mostly contradictions and unresolved questions until a field matures enough that it moves to other issues ... and then those "agreed-upon, proven principles" only stand until a new technology comes along that lets scientists take a closer look.
For example, when they got DNA sequencing tests, almost everything that taxonomists had "proven" about bacteria was shown to be wrong, and even many higher plants were thrown into confusion when centuries of "knowing THE right answer" were proven wrong.
Science should not be turned into dogma by organizations motivated to appear as all-knowing or Masterful. Maybe programs like extension services and MG advice desks NEED to give simple answers that are consistent.
The fact that I would not be comfortable in that setting is not a condemnation that anyone but me should care much about.
Are we cool, or at least agree on what we disagree about?
