... Difficulty of distinguishing between Varieties and Species — Origin of Domestic ... and Origin— Principle of Selection anciently followed, its Effects— ...

Controversies in science have a tendency to be long-lasting. Moreover, they tend to wither rather than be solved by sorting out the arguments pro and con. Barring the sociological dimension, an important factor in the perpetuation of scientific controversies seems to be the contestants' passion for broad philosophical theses when it comes to defending their respective positions. In this paper one such controversy is analysed. It involves the alleged use of Popperian falsificationism to defend a position in (community) ecology some (...) years ago. The upshot of the analysis is that falsificationism is altogether irrelevant to the controversy's solution; philosophy, though, is utterly relevant if one limits it to elementary, uncontroversial, normative methodological principles. (shrink)

When data are limited, simple models of complex ecological systems tend to wind up closer to the truth than more complex models of the same systems. This greater proximity to the truth, or verisimilitude, leads to greater predictive success. When more data are available, the advantage of simplicity decreases, and more complex models may gain the upper hand. In ecology, holistic models are usually simpler than reductionistic models. Thus, when data are limited, holistic models have an advantage over reductionistic models, (...) with respect to verisimilitude and predictive success. I illustrate these points with models designed to explain and predict the numbers of species on islands. (shrink)

Traditional analyses of the curve fitting problem maintain that the data do not indicate what form the fitted curve should take. Rather, this issue is said to be settled by prior probabilities, by simplicity, or by a background theory. In this paper, we describe a result due to Akaike [1973], which shows how the data can underwrite an inference concerning the curve's form based on an estimate of how predictively accurate it will be. We argue that this approach throws light (...) on the theoretical virtues of parsimoniousness, unification, and non ad hocness, on the dispute about Bayesianism, and on empiricism and scientific realism. * Both of us gratefully acknowledge support from the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and NSF grant DIR-8822278 (M.F.) and NSF grant SBE-9212294 (E.S.). Special thanks go to A. W. F. Edwards.William Harper. Martin Leckey. Brian Skyrms, and especially Peter Turney for helpful comments on an earlier draft. (shrink)

There is a long history of controversy in ecology over the role of competition in determining patterns of distribution and abundance, and over the significance of the mathematical modeling of competitive interactions. This paper examines the controversy. Three kinds of considerations have been involved at one time or another during the history of this debate. There has been dispute about the kinds of regularities ecologists can expect to find, about the significance of evolutionary considerations for ecological inquiry, and about the (...) empirical credentials of theoretical studies of competition. Each of these elements is examined with an eye toward gaining philosophical clarification of the issues involved. In the process, certain shortcomings of contemporary philosophical theories are revealed. In particular, I argue that plausibility arguments based on background considerations are an important part of the model building tradition, but that current accounts of the structure and evaluation of scientific theories do little to illuminate this side of theoretical ecology. (shrink)

"Metalinguists" depict the truth conditions of counterfactuals in terms of logical relationships between certain kinds of sentences. Possible-worlds theorists more candidly acknowledge unactualized possibilities, which metalinguists end up having to postulate anyway. However, similarity is not the right criterion for picking out the relevant antecedent-worlds. Rather, the relevant antecedent-worlds are those in which the appropriate ceteris paribus conditions obtain. ;True ceteris paribus conditions are importantly distinct from two other ways of qualifying natural laws: ideality and normality conditions. Ordinary counterfactuals involve (...) less "back-tracking" than some philosophers have claimed. Control and randomization give experiments certain advantages, but problems can afflict even well-designed experiments. Inference from experiments to larger populations should be seen as a one-step, rather than a two-step, process of induction. ;Disputes arose over ceteris paribus conditions for experiments on character displacement and null models for island biogeography. The first dispute reminds us that some ceteris paribus conditions are incompatible with others. The second controversy illustrates the consequences of holding certain "other" factors constant, when they should be allowed to vary. Methodological critiques are not as likely to unseat a ruling paradigm like competition theory as are alternative explanations. The methodological paradigms of Popperian falsificationism and standard statistical hypothesis testing are incompatible with each other. ;Another dispute arose over ceteris paribus conditions for mathematical models of the relationship between the diversity and stability of ecological communities. This demonstrates that mathematical models involve some choices about ceteris paribus conditions that actual experiments do not. Special problems arise because of the possibility that stability is adaptive at the community level. Different modes of visual representation may have led scientists to adopt different ceteris paribus assumptions in this case. ;One rule of thumb for deciding between competing definitions of scientific terms is: Regard with suspicion any definition that turns a seemingly important empirical matter into an a priori exercise. Some, but not all, definitions of ecological "stability" are suspect according to this rule. The faulty definitions may have resulted from an over-emphasis on population dynamics. Machine metaphors of nature may have induced a related problem of experimental design. (shrink)