It has been politely suggested that the Franklin "bacteria" quotation is dubious. It is worse than that, in two ways.
First, the salient facts are readily available but were apparently never checked or even questioned before they were posted. Such naive and incurious assertions should not be emanating from ESA email addresses – no matter how useful they seem for promotional purposes. Second, as the instructor for an upper-division undergraduate (BIO-) course in the History of Biology, I regret to report that ecology students (and the professionals they become) share today's generally profound historical illiteracy–and apathy. This is a pity in a field whose motivations, hypotheses and conclusions are so deeply affected and occasionally even determined by cultural and intellectual fashions. If you don't know the history of ecology, you don't know ecology. Matthew K Chew Assistant Research Professor Arizona State University School of Life Sciences ASU Center for Biology & Society PO Box 873301 Tempe, AZ 85287-3301 USA Tel 480.965.8422 Fax 480.965.8330 [email protected] or [email protected] http://cbs.asu.edu/people/profiles/chew.php http://asu.academia.edu/MattChew
