Not too long ago I was in a meeting of our school's University Curriculum Committee, where the topic of discussion was SCSU's General Education "diversity" requirement. A list was being made of ways that diversity is determined or measured: age, gender, national origin, religious group, etc. There were a number of social scientists in the room and they each argued for the category of people whom they are interested in. I, only partially seriously, wrote the formula for Shannon diversity on a sheet of paper and held it up. After a query and brief explanation several people recognized my point, but nevertheless students cannot currently satisfy the diversity requirement by taking my "Communities and Ecosystems" class.
Bill Cook -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 8:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Defining biodiversity, and does the term capture the public's attention? Among scientists there are many different definitions which serve different purposes. This would be too complex to try to present to the general public. Basically we need a politically acceptable definition which we can work with in public which synthesizes as much as possible the varying scientific concepts. For example, various definitions of species richness seem to be well understood, including simply the number of species. On the other hand, functional diversity includes a lot of really disgusting detritivores which may not appeal to many people. Bill Silvert ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ritchie, Euan" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: segunda-feira, 13 de Dezembro de 2010 23:05 Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Defining biodiversity, and does the term capture the public's attention? Hi everyone, I have just returned from the Ecological Society of Australia meeting and among other issues, there was much discussion about the term biodiversity. Many people argue that this term is hard to define, and importantly, the public have no idea what it actually means and therefore they have less connection/concern to preserve/conserve species and habitats. I thought it would be interesting to hear how others define biodiversity, and if this term isn't helpful for conveying the importance of species diversity to the public, what term(s) should we use? Over to you, Euan
