This has been an interesting thread. I may have missed something, but I don't recall anyone mentioning David Takacs' book 'The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise' (Johns Hopkins, 1996) which includes interviews with then-prominent (mostly still active) ecologists and conservation biologists and examines most of the conceptual points made here so far. As an inspiration or motivation, biodiversity still appeals to those who consider it more scientifically substantial-sounding than 'nature'. However, our various attempts to define it in 2010 echo those made 15 years ago, both in their earnestness and futility. It cannot be made simultaneously comprehensive and precise. If biodiversity is all-inclusive, it is useless in scientific practice, and we must conceptually pull it to bits to work with it. In 1996 Takacs paid relatively less attention to the second part of the original question here: "Does the term capture the public's attention?" Well, how can we know? Using the popular but admittedly fraught 'Googling' method, a Google News search done just now returned 2,625 hits for 'biodiversity' but 60,249 for 'nature'. As a term, biodiversity, like "free market", sounds appealing. The devil is in the details.
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
