[NathanP]

Very helpful information.

I charge that in general it would be impossible to contribute any significant change in potato size and quantity directly attributable to the seed potato size.

Obviously, someone who has studied the matter in great depth for several years and written a scientific paper disagrees with you.

There are so many growing variables that regressive analysis is most difficult to apply

And the person who wrote the referred to paper said as much. But he did find ideal approximate best tuber size to plant for maximum yield, though this size differed depending on potato type.

with no practical significance

I thought there was great 'practical significance'.

apparently he/she has a non reflective following, who will take every opportunity to propagate the"conclusion" and it will become an Internet concept

Much like those who deny every bit of evidence that there are potatoes that grow from stolons?

Similarly to UPSIDEDOWN TOMATO PLANTERS

Without getting into any reasoning, I fail to see this as anything more than another unjustified personal attempt to take a 'cheap shot' at a popular idea.

I for one wont be planting two pound potato seeds, and see no future for TPS as a common planting source. To each his own

Good for you. I'm glad you are open minded about such things. While the conclusion of the paper confirms that there are ideal tuber sizes to aim for if you are planting entire fields of uniform potatoes, this would seem to bear little application to those not doing mechanized planting or TPS. Other than stating there are idea tuber sizes to plant, he acknowledges that size is not uniform across different plants. In principle it has generally applicable use, and probably more use for those using mechanized planting and harvesting with the same clone than those who are not.

Regardless of that, I found the paper very interesting and helpful. TPS does admittedly create far more variability in potato type, size, yield and growing habit than any potato from clonal tissue, and that is far more likely to be a factor in keeping TPS planting from being commonly used. That is the negative side of the variability. You can flip that upside down and also say that the same variability has a positive in contributing much greater diversity to the gene pool.

Argument from ignorance or argumentum ad ignorantiam in its most formal definition is a logical fallacy that claims the truth of a premise is based on the fact that it has not been proven false, or that a premise is false because it has not been proven true. This is often phrased as "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

There is also a logical fallacy in the claims you have been pushing, regarding your assertions that there is no evidence for potatoes growing from stolons in certain plants/species. There is mountain of personal attributed evidence in affirmation of this. As far as I am aware, statements of witness are, amazingly, still considered evidence in such minor things as court cases.

To each his own

If you really mean this, perhaps you will act with a tad more humility with how you approach topics you are ignorant on, (such as potatoes growing from stolons) and couch your language with a little less offensiveness towards those who do know more than you on the subject matter.