Love Your Monsters_ Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene - Michael Shellenberger [36]
21 Quoted in: Hagen, J.B. 1992. An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. 75.; Many ecologists took this position that “without a strong theoretical core . . . we [ecologists] shall all be washed out to sea in an immense tide of unrelated information." Watt, K. E. 1971. “ Dynamics of populations: A synthesis.” Eds. den Boer, P.J., and G.R. Gradwell. Dynamics of Populations: A Synthesis. Wageningen, Netherlands: Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation. 569. Ecology continues to confront a "constipating accumulation of untested models" (Schoener ,TW. 1972. “Mathematical Ecology and its Place Among the Sciences.” Science. 178: 389–391) after indulging in "a feast of theory [that ecology] isn't quite ready to digest." Futuyma, Douglas J. 1975. Review, 50 Q. Rev. Biology. 217.
22 Simberloff, Daniel. 1980. “A Succession of Paradigms in Ecology: Essentialism to Materialism and Probabilism.” Synthese. 43: 3–39. See also, McIntosh, RP. 1985. The Background in Ecology: Concept and Theory. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.; Woodwell, G. 1976. “A Confusion of Paradigms (Musings of a President-Elect).” Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 57: 8-12.
23 Schugart, Herman. 2000. “Ecosystem Modeling.” In Sala, Osvaldo E., Jackson, Robert B., Mooney, Harold A., Howarth, Robert W., Odum, E. P. 2000. Methods in Ecosystems Science. Springer. 384.
24 For a discussion of the lack of testing of theory in ecology, see Belovsky, G.E., Botkin, D.B., Crowl, T.A., Cummins,K.W., Franklin, J.F., Hunter, M.L. Jr., Joern, A, Lindenmayer, D.B., MacMahon, J.A., Margules, C.R., Scott J.M. 2004. “Ten suggestions to strengthen the science of ecology.” BioScience. 54(4): 345-351. These authors lament the development of “ecology as mathematics unimpaired by the bounds of nature.”
25 Levin, S.A. 1999. Fragile Dominion: Complexity and the Commons. Reading, MA: Perseus Books. 6.
26 Levin, S.A. 1981. “The role of theoretical ecology in the description and understanding of populations in heterogeneous environments. American Zoologist. 21: 865-875. 866.
27 A. O. Hirschman has explained this familiar phenomenon. “In the academy, the prestige of the theorist is towering. Further, extravagant use of language intimates that theorizing can rival sensuous delights: what used to be called an interesting or valuable theoretical point is commonly referred to today as a 'stimulating' or even 'exciting' theoretical 'insight.'" Hirschman added that in the United States, “an important role has no doubt been played by the desperate need . . . for shortcuts to the understanding of multifarious reality that must be coped with and controlled and therefore be understood at once . . . As a result of these various factors, the quick theoretical fix has taken its place in our culture alongside the quick technical fix.” Hirschman, A.O. 1987. “The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding.” Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look. P. Rabinow & W. Sullivan eds. 177-178.
28 Van Valen, L. and F.A. Pitelka. 1974. “Commentary -- Intellectual Censorship in Ecology.” Ecology. 55: 925-926.
29 Mitchell, Rodger, Mayer, Ramona A., and Jerry Downhower. 1976. “An Evaluation of Three Biome Programs.” Science. 192: 859-65.; See also: Aronova, Elena, Baker, K.S., and N. Oreskes. 2010. “Big science and big data in biology: from the International Geophysical Year through the International Biological Program to the Long-Term Ecological Research, 1957–present.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences. University of California. 40(2): 183-224. The current example of massive waste of public funds on Big Ecology is the NEON Project (http://www.neoninc.org/) which layers a lot of expensive infrastructure on the cybernetic-engineering-biochemical-computer-modeling effort to reach the amorphous goal that the IBP and LTER were supposed to achieve of understanding how the ecosystem