In My Op_2(Anderson).qxd

A goal of professionalism is always to try to do better. The broad field of wildlife ecology as an applied science produced many accomplishments during the twentieth century. However, as we look ahead, it seems clear that we must accept the challenge to do better—indeed, far better. Here we focus attention on the general subject of improving the quality of our science, for this will lead to better resource management. An insightful entree into this important subject is Romesburg’s (1991) paper, which we believe has been overlooked in comparison to his betterknown and award-winning paper a decade earlier (Romesburg 1981). The Journal of Wildlife Management devoted a special section to “reliable knowledge” in 1991, 10 years after Romesburg’s original paper. Now, 11 and 21 years later, we must face the fact that insufficient change has been made in the quality of our science. There is a high level of heterogeneity in our science products; some are quite exemplary, while too many are simply poor. Some people in our profession lack the education or experience to distinguish the good (e.g., valid, well done) from the poor (questionable validity, poorly conceived or executed). Romesburg would surely conclude that we have some better bungalows, but no Taj Mahals (Romesburg 1991:744) are on the drawing boards, much less funded. Wolff (2000) and White (2001) provide recent perspectives and urge more rigor in our work, and O’Connor (2000) and Swihart et al. (2002) offer a sense of urgency for change. We believe nearly In My Opinion