How is ecology viewed and used?
ESA is exploring how ecology relates to other scientific disciplines. One expression of this exploration is the invitation to scientific practitioners and researchers in related disciplines to become members of ESA. And we want to know what you think.
Over the last sixty years, teachers and pundits of all types have used the following quote from Robert A. Heinlein, Farmer in the Sky, Bees and Zeroes, page 121.The trouble with ecology is you never know where to start because everything affects everything else.
Often, the quote is the launch into an explanation of what the writer, teacher or other communicator thinks ecology is. Did Heinlein mean that ecology is not understandable Or, did he mean that understanding ecology demands that you understand everything else there is to know about biology What does understanding ecology or a lack thereof mean for other disciplines?
What is your take on ecology? We’d like to know more about how ecology is viewed and how ecological science is used. Please post your thoughts.
And for ESA membership information, please contact rachel@esa.org.
Contributed by Fran Day, ESA Director of Development
One Comment → “How is ecology viewed and used?”
For the last 30 years various disciplinary adjectives have appeared in front of the word “ecology” such as evolutionary, behavioral, chemical, physiological, mathematical, economic, political, spatial, geographical, and even some curious adjectives such as “deep.” This suggests to me that ecology provides a remarkably robust framework that helps to explain the functioning of all these different disciplines. So Hutchinson’s “ecological theatre” really does seem to set the stage for the evolutionary play as manifested by variable behaviors, chemistries, physiologies etc. So I’d argue that with ecology you can start anywhere because it will always lead somewhere.