A Critique for Ecology

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Jul 26, 1991 - Nature - 366 pages
This book offers a critique of contemporary ecology, which could be applied to any discipline. Author Peters contends that science is a device to offer information about nature through predictions, but that a substantial part of ecology cannot be science because it provides no concrete information and much of the rest of ecology provides data of such poor quality that it can only be called soft science. Although instances of these deficiencies have often been identified, the pervasiveness of the problem has not been fully acknowledged, nor have the similarities among different problem areas been appreciated. If ecology and environmental science are to grow to meet the needs of the present decade and next millennium, scientists in these fields will need much more acute critical abilities than they have yet demonstrated. Professor Peters argues specifically that a return to simple questions of fact, to observations, and to questions of general relevance to science and society can make ecology a useful, practical, and informative science, which is desperately needed to meet the problems of our age. This thought-provoking and perhaps controversial book will be of particular interest to ecologists, but all scientists, from undergraduates to senior academics and professionals, can benefit from reading it.
 

Contents

Crisis in ecology
1
Some preliminary disclaimers
2
Ecologists against ecology
4
Sociological evidence against ecology
6
Evidence from the deepening environmental crisis
10
Academic ecology poses unanswerable questions
13
Summary Scientific growth depends on scientific criticism
14
Criteria
17
Legitimate roles for historical understanding in ecology
170
Summary Explanations in ecology
176
Weak predictions
178
Accuracy
189
Imprecise and qualitative predictions
196
Generality and specificity
211
Economy
216
Appeal
218

logic science and theory
18
Hypotheticodeductive science
21
Criteria for judging scientific theories
26
Summary A hierarchy of scientific criteria
36
Tautology
38
The principle of evolution by natural selection
60
Summary Two tools for two jobs
73
Operationalization of terms and concepts
74
Operationalization of concepts
76
Typologies and classifications
80
Conceptual variables stability and diversity
92
Nonoperational relationships
96
Atheoretical concepts
97
the effects of poor examples
100
Summary The costs of nonoperational concepts for ecology
104
Explanatory science reduction cause and mechanism
105
alternate goals for science
106
an unattainable goal
110
Causality
128
Instrumentalist research
136
Summary The twin perils of mechanistic and causal explanations
146
Historical explanation and understanding
147
Historical explanations and ecology
154
Summary Practicality and appeal
219
Checklist of problems
220
The Introduction
221
Methods
229
Results
235
Discussion
239
Extensions and hypotheses
250
Summary The challenge of good science
254
Putting it together competition
256
The prevalence of competition
257
Operationalization
259
Tautology
263
Historical explanation
266
Mechanisms of competition
268
The theoretical status of competition theory
270
Summary The muddles of ecology
273
Predictive ecology
274
The attractions of predictive ecology
290
Summary A scientific alternative for ecology
304
References
305
Index of names and first authors
345
Subject index
352
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 313 - NISBET. 1971. Inter-relations between developmental models in geomorphology, plant ecology and animal ecology.

Bibliographic information