I'll grant you that ecology is a new science, but not that it began only in the second half of the twentieth century. Ernst Haeckel mistook the rootstock of modern biology, natural history, for one of its branches and gave it the term ecology in 1869. He gave this "new" science essentially its current definition. A good deal of what we call ecology was being practiced by then. Many consider Charles Darwin to be the "Father of Ecology." Certainly, his treatise on earthworms and soil formation was ecology. He initiated what many still consider to be the only actual "theory" in ecology. By the early 20th century there were intense interdisciplinary arguments over the scope of ecology, and the Ecological Society of America was founded in 1915. Elton authored textbooks with "Ecology" in the title by 1930. Cowles work on Indiana dunes was published in the late 19th century.
Surely our history is important enough for us to remember it properly. David McNeely ---- malcolm McCallum <[email protected]> wrote: > Conversely, ecology is generally accepted as a new science appearing > only in the second half of the 20th century!
