The structure of the two ecological paradigms

Acta Biotheoretica 48 (1):15-46 (2000)
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Abstract

Ecological theory is built upon assumptions about the fundamental nature of organism-environment interactions. We argue that two mutually exclusive sets of such assumptions are available and that they have given rise to alternative approaches to studying ecology. The fundamentally different premises of these approaches render them irreconcilable with one another. In this paper, we present the first logical formalisation of these two paradigms.The more widely-accepted approach - which we label the demographic paradigm - includes both population ecology and community ecology (synecology). Demographic ecology assumes that the environment is relatively stable and that biotic processes, governed predominantly by resource availability, are the most important of ecological and evolutionary influences. Moreover, ecological processes are assumed to translate into directional selection pressures that drive significant evolutionary change on a local scale through the process of optimisation.

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References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
The origin of species by means of natural selection.Charles Darwin - 1859 - Franklin Center, Pa.: Franklin Library. Edited by J. W. Burrow.
The Structure of Biological Science.Alexander Rosenberg - 1985 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Structure of Biological Science.Alexander Rosenberg - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (1):119-121.

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