Edaphology is the study of soil (edaphic) effects. Until about 25 years ago, it was mostly synonymous with agricultural soil science as distinguished from pedology, the study of soil in its natural setting. Edaphology now encompasses the new field of environmental soil science, with its more formal emphasis on interdependent living processes in soil.

Conner's A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives and 'Low Mechanicks' does for science what Howard Zinn did for American history. It is an altogether winning attempt to tell the story of the ordinary working person or peasant's contribution to our knowledge of the natural world. Just as scholars like Zinn remind us that a slave, Crispus Attucks, was the first casualty of the American Revolution, so does Conner show that humble people were on the front lines of the scientific revolution.