Ecolog,
Chew says:
'We haven't come much closer to 'truth' than Charles Lyell did in 1832, when
he wrote (in the idiom of the day): "We may regard the involuntary agency of
man as strictly analogous to that of the inferior animals. Like them we
unconsciously contribute to extend or limit the geographical range and
numbers of certain species, in obedience to general rules in the economy of
nature, which are for the most part beyond our control.”'
I can't argue much (I don't want to wander off into the weeds too much)
with Chew's entire post, but I would only like to note that the elephant in
the room remains what we INTENTIONALLY (and "unintentional" by-products) do
and don't do that produces system feedbacks (that we can control only by
altering our intentional inputs). So much for the science, the "value-free"
aspect of the issue.
As an organism which has uniquely figured out how to manipulate our
environment rather that submit to it, we have "enjoyed" (hedonistically and
otherwise) the earth's bounty such that it has been profoundly changed. We
have two choices. We can ignore such changes or we can comprehend them and
act on that comprehension or decide not to so act.
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Chew" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 10:22 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Invasion, or progression?
My general views on this are a matter of detailed record here and in
several publications, all available at http://asu.academia.edu/MattChew .
(By the way, views of all my papers there now total over 3,200 – with 'The
Rise and Fall of Biotic Nativeness' alone at nearly 2000 – thanks again!)
Nobody has yet published evidence to support the idea that native - alien -
invasive - invasible and their ilk are actually ecological conceptions,
much less characteristics of species or populations or communities. That
is why, as Moles, et al 2012 (doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2011.01915.x)
pointed out, invasion biology's (or invasion ecology's, if you prefer)
results continue to be "idiosyncratic".
We very practically prefer predictability to unpredictability and stability
to change—particularly to unforeseen or unintended change. Sometimes it's
a matter of psychological comfort, nostalgia, regret, a sense of fairness
or justice or powerlessness… and sometimes it's a matter of survival. But
wanting things to be other than they are, even to the extent of organizing
a majority opinion or a putative consensus on the matter, doesn't
automatically mean we've agreed on the right idea. It certainly doesn't
confer the ability to make any particular desired future happen. Nor does
it make our intended ecological outcomes better than the unintended ones.
As usual, what CAN happen IS happening, whether we like it or not.
The history of biology is characterized by defaults to normative vitalistic
and teleological arguments that aren't susceptible to empirical evaluation
or demonstration. Ecology is still loaded with them. Even the 'more is
better' and 'different is better' commitments of biodiversity-based
conservation philosophy are no better grounded in reality than
preformationism, evolution via striving for perfection or deterministic
succession to climax communities. We haven't come much closer to 'truth'
than Charles Lyell did in 1832, when he wrote (in the idiom of the day): "We
may regard the involuntary agency of man as strictly analogous to that of
the inferior animals. Like them we unconsciously contribute to extend or
limit the geographical range and numbers of certain species, in obedience
to general rules in the economy of nature, which are for the most part
beyond our control.”
I hope to see you in Portland at Symposium 22, "Conservation In a
Globalizing World"; Session ID 7614, Friday, August 10, 2012, 8:00 AM -
11:30 AM
Matthew K Chew
Assistant Research Professor
Arizona State University School of Life Sciences
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