Re: [ECOLOG-L] Does Marching Delegitimize Science?

[Warren Aney]

Thanks, J. A.  I agree.  Marching in protest may make you feel you are doing 
something but it doesn't say much positive about what should be done.  As 
science professionals we should be meeting with or otherwise directly informing 
our leaders and communities on what should be done based upon the best science. 
 In my experience, spending 15 minutes in discussion or testifying as a science 
professional can make a difference.

-Original Message-
From: "John A." 
Sent: ‎4/‎18/‎2017 13:10
To: "ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU" 
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Does Marching Delegitimize Science?

I would like to know if anyone else is concerned whether scientists 
participating in a march, which is inherently political, may further erode 
public confidence in science as objective and nonpartisan.

It seems to me that given the current climate, any march in protest of 
specific policies runs the risk of being seen—or misrepresented—as an attack on 
the majority party, which would only further reinforce certain stereotypes of 
scientists, and make it all the easier for politicians to dismiss them as just 
another special-interest group that can be safely ignored.

The fact is that a march presents no rational arguments, invites no 
constructive dialogue and changes no minds.  The format of a march lends itself 
to confrontation and exclusion—the very opposite of the successful engagement 
which science so desperately needs.  Worse, it surrenders any message to 
interpretation by the media, and may ultimately serve to trivialize the very 
issues the marchers had thought to support.

I have to wonder at the effect on science policy, if every person who had 
planned to march instead scheduled meetings with their senator, representative 
and local state delegate.  A face-to-face meeting in a quiet office or 
conference room, without the noise and shouting of a protest march, has a far 
better chance to be effective.  Politicians can always shrug off a 
thirty-second clip on the news, especially if it shows chanting, drumming and 
handwritten cardboard signs.  But when local constituents schedule an 
appointment and present their concerns like professionals, the information has 
a better chance of being considered and remembered.

Not all politicians will make themselves available, to their discredit; but 
for those that do, a face-to-face meeting opens the prospect of real dialogue 
and follow-up contacts, with the potential for long-term exchange.  I would 
suggest that this sort of patient, personal and nonconfrontational approach may 
be far more valuable to the scientific community than participating in a brief 
event which is structurally incapable of presenting complex concerns with the 
nuance they deserve.


  Respectfully,


  J. A.

Re: [ECOLOG-L] Reducing Population Size in Natural Populations of Organisms - A Question

[Warren Aney]

I remember reading an article several years ago that said increasing population 
density, human and non-human, results in increasing homosexual or asexual 
behavior as an ostensible means for reducing reproduction rates.  I don’t 
remember if this was just a hypothesis or if it was based on scientific 
analysis.

 

Warren W. Aney

Senior Wildlife Ecologist
9403 SW 74th Ave.
Tigard, OR  97223
(503) 539-1009
a...@coho.net

 

 

 

From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news 
[mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of Jessa Madosky
Sent: 22 January, 2016 08:13
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Reducing Population Size in Natural Populations of 
Organisms - A Question

 

You might also consider cases where individuals hold territories and 
territories are necessary for breeding success.  In some cases territories 
simply shrink in size with higher pop. numbers, but in many there is a minimum 
territory size and thus a limit to the # of potential territories.  
Overpopulation can result in territories too small for breeding success (due to 
female mate selection for example) or result in some individuals not being able 
to maintain a territory and thus not being able to breed.  As other people have 
mentioned, I wouldn't argue that it is conscious, but it can lead to a 
reduction/limit in birth rate.

Jessa




Jessa Madosky, PhD
Assistant Professor
Biology Department

University of Tampa

Vice President for Membership - Society for Conservation Biology

Chapters Committee Chair - Society for Conservation Biology

President Elect - NA Section of SCB

Education Committee Chair - NA Section of SCB





 

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 9:38 AM, Howard S. Neufeld  
wrote:

Hi all - I am currently working on an abstract about global climate change for 
a regional biology meeting in the southeast, and I wanted to say something 
about the control of natural populations of organisms, but I am not sure if the 
statement I want to make is true, so I’m asking for some advice and counsel on 
this.

 

Here’s the question: Has any population of organisms (humans excluded) 
regulated and reduced their population size by lowering their birth rate 
instead of increasing their death rate?  And have any slowed their rate of 
increase by raising the age at first birth?  Most of the examples I know of 
natural population control do so by increasing the death rate.

 

Some further comments: If resources get scarce as populations increase in 
density then behavioral changes could lead to reductions in the birth rate, but 
under resource scarcity I would assume that the death rate would go up also.  I 
know about density-dependent and density-independent controls on population 
growth, but here, I’m looking for explicit examples where populations decrease 
birth rate without increasing the death rate. 

 

You may wonder why I’m asking this.  It's because I’m wondering if humans can, 
in the long-term, reduce their population by lowering the birth rate without 
increasing the death rate.  Yes, some countries are already on that path 
(Japan, for example), but economists and social and political scientists seem 
to have a problem with such demographic changes, particularly in a free-market 
situation where an aging population, even if sustainable, is viewed as less 
competitive and therefore at risk of losing out (whatever that means) to 
younger, more dynamic populations.  It suggests to me that ecology and society 
are fundamentally at odds here, and that future societies may require paradigm 
shifts in the way they operate if humans are to actually create a sustainable 
society.  But that’s another story.

 

For now, I’d be really interested to hear explicit examples if anyone has any.

 

Thanks.

Howie Neufeld

-- 
Dr. Howard S. Neufeld, Professor
Director, Southern Appalachian Environmental Research and Education Center 
(SAEREC)
Chair, Appalachian Interdisciplinary Atmospheric Research Group (AppalAIR)
 
Mailing Address:
   Department of Biology
   572 Rivers St.
   Appalachian State University
   Boone, NC 28608
   Tel: 828-262-2683; Fax 828-262-2127
 
Websites:
Academic: http://biology.appstate.edu/faculty-staff/104
Personal: http://www.appstate.edu/~neufeldhs/index.html
SAEREC: http://saerec.appstate.edu
AppalAIR: http://appalair.appstate.edu
Fall Colors:
  Academic: http://biology.appstate.edu/fall-colors
  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FallColorGuy 

 

Re: [ECOLOG-L] teaching evolution in ecology courses

[Warren Aney]

Good discussion!  My first encounter with this religious/evolution conflict
was in high school many decades ago.  I was very intrigued by science class
descriptions of dinosaurs and fossils.  During a Sunday evening youth
gathering led by our conservative Presbyterian pastor I asked him about the
difference between the biblical story he was teaching us that describes
creation as a fairly recent event with no mention of much older dinosaurs
and other fossils.  His answer:  Those were previous creations that
failed.  My unspoken reaction: So God made mistakes!   It took me a long
time to recover a religious perspective.  Now I am still Presbyterian and
have no trouble talking about evolution with my progressive church friends.

I've led tours and nature walks and taught church classes that included
evolution-related features.  If I thought that an audience might not all
accept evolution, I'll just use the preface scientists say. rather than
disturb them by implying that I was promoting rather than just describing a
viewpoint. And, as described in some of the previous posts, the task of a
class instructor is not to change student beliefs but rather to teach them
the information they need to understand (but not necessarily accept)
scientific principles.

And evolution is not a belief  -- it's a little weak to say I believe in
evolution when evolution is a scientific theory that explains, describes
and predicts biological development.  We don't say I believe in calculus
but, even if we don't fully comprehend it, we know that it provides useful
tools and methods for turning numerical information into reliable facts.

 

 


Warren W. Aney

Senior Wildlife Ecologist

9403 SW 74th Ave.

Tigard, OR  97223

(503) 539-1009

a...@coho.net

 

 

 

From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of wresetar
Sent: 05 July, 2015 12:51
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] teaching evolution in ecology courses

 

You are absolutely correct - it is a sticky wicket.   But to the extent that
Christianity as a whole is viewed as a religion, albeit with many
denominations, it is (perhaps -  always context dependent) worth at least
dispelling the widespread notion that opposition to evolution is a universal
Christian thing.  This is certainly the impression one gets from many
elements of mainstream media, even those that know better.

 

William J. Resetarits, Jr.

Professor of Biology and

Henry L. and Grace Doherty Chair in Freshwater Research

Department of Biology

The University of Mississippi

P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: (662) 915-5804

Fax: (662) 915-6554

http://www.olemiss.edu/resetaritslab

 

Experiments are only experience carefully planned in advance.   R. A. Fisher

 

You can't step twice in the same river.   Heraclitus

 

From: Malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccallum.ta...@gmail.com
Date: Sunday, July 5, 2015 at 2:40 PM
To: William Resetarits wrese...@olemiss.edu
Cc: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU ECOLOG-L@listserv.umd.edu
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] teaching evolution in ecology courses

 

I think the value of what you just mentioned is that most people don't know
that there is no issue with their own religion and evolution.  

 

However, where I was coming from is a step different from that, because most
whose religion have no issue, end up having no issue.  

However, there is a serious risk of the student thinking you are criticizing
their religion, which will literally cause tons of grief.  When you say,
plenty of religions have no problem with it, SOME (not all or even most)
will interpret that more like other religions have no problem, so what is
wrong with yours? or other sorts of imagined criticisms.  Its a real tight
rope with some of the extreme religious views.  Also, I suspect that teh
approach you take is going to be very dependent on the kind of student you
are dealing with.  I suspect that the students you get at Ole Miss are
significantly more prepared than a open (wide-open) enrollment university.
The approaches to students are completely different.  I learned this going
from LSUS to TAMUT to UMKC.  At UMKC students largely knew exactly why they
were in school ad how to be their.  They were more prepared, but by NO MEANS
were they on average smarter.  However, your approach would have worked well
with most of them, I suspect.  IF students have poor academic backgrounds
(in attainment or in exposure) their ability to interpret your motives are
also poorly developed.  At least that is my experience.  I'm sure others
have plenty of other views. 

 

On Sun, Jul 5, 2015 at 2:32 PM, wresetar wrese...@olemiss.edu wrote:

While care needs to be taken to avoid seeming confrontational, it may also
be worth pointing out to students, if the issue arises, that even in this
country a large majority of the populace belong to religions that do not
consider their doctrine and the theory of evolution to be incompatible.

Re: [ECOLOG-L] a non Ivory Tower view of invasive species

[Warren Aney]

Wayne, as I understand the situation western junipers in the northern Great
Basin are a native species once managed by naturally recurring wildfires.
Fire control has allowed this species to increase in density and occurrence,
dominating landscapes where it was once only spotty and localized.  I'm sure
there are other instances where human intervention has resulted in
unintentional changes to native species mixes and relationships.  In this
case, junipers are not really invasive on a landscape scale since they were
long time natives -- maybe intrusive would be a better descriptor.

Warren W. Aney.

-Original Message-
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of Wayne Tyson
Sent: 12 September, 2011 06:41
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] a non Ivory Tower view of invasive species

Warren (and others), how might the juniper invasion on Steen's Mountain
(or other invasions of indigenous species, particularly dominant,
long-lived indicators) fit into this discussion?

WT


- Original Message -
From: Warren W. Aney a...@coho.net
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] a non Ivory Tower view of invasive species


I was speaking from a contemporary perspective, Manuel.  From a very long
term perspective perhaps we can say that a species that somehow translocated
into another ecosystem may have initially disrupted that ecosystem but after
a few thousand generations the species and the ecosystem evolved together to
form a coherent and mutually productive stability. There is a hypothesis
that Native Americans disrupted the American ecosystems resulting in the
extinction of several large mammal species shortly after their arrival.  But
after a few thousand generations it appears that they became a component of
the American ecosystems, sometimes managing certain ecosystem elements to
their benefit but certainly not disrupting and degrading these systems to
the extent that Euro-Americans did (and continue to do so).

Taking your island fauna example, consider the Galapagos finches.  Charles
Darwin concluded that there was probably a single invasion of a finch
species eons ago, but these finches evolved into different species so as to
fill various ecological niches, resulting in a diverse and stable set of
finch-inhabited ecosystems.  Certainly introduced rats could also eventually
evolve along with the ecosystems to become a stable component.  But in the
short term that ecosystem is going to be disrupted, and in the long term
that ecosystem is going to be a somewhat different system.  We humans, as
overseers have the ability and duty to evaluate that current disruption
and that future potential.  There are those of us who say let nature take
its course and there are those who say manage for human values - I say we
should be following the axiom of Aldo Leopold: A thing is right when it
tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.  We need to evaluate and
manage invaders with that axiom as our beacon.



Warren W. Aney
Tigard, Oregon



  _

From: Manuel Spínola [mailto:mspinol...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 11 September, 2011 04:54
To: Warren W. Aney
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] a non Ivory Tower view of invasive species



Hi Warren,



Take an island, you have native birds and later in time you have black
rats that you consider invaders, but why those native birds are in the
island, they needed to be invaders at some point in time.



If Homo sapiens originated in Africa, from where the native Americans are
from?



Best,



Manuel



2011/9/10 Warren W. Aney a...@coho.net

There can be a meaningful ecological difference between an organism that
evolved with an ecosystem and an organism that evolved outside of but
spread, migrated or was otherwise introduced into that ecosystem.  An
organism that evolved with an ecosystem is considered a component that
characterizes that ecosystem.  An introduced organism that did not evolve
with that ecosystem should at least be evaluated for its potential modifying
effects on that ecosystem.

Am I being too simplistic?

Warren W. Aney
Senior Wildlife Ecologist
Tigard, OR

-Original Message-
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of Manuel Spínola
Sent: Saturday, 10 September, 2011 12:22
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] a non Ivory Tower view of invasive species


With all due respect, are not we all invaders at some point in time?

Best,

Manuel Spínola

2011/9/10 David L. McNeely mcnee...@cox.net

  Matt Chew anek...@gmail.com wrote:

  We can compose effectively endless lists of cases where human agency has
  redistributed biota and thereby affected pre-existing populations,
  ecological relationships and traditional or potential economic
  opportunities.  Those are