Philosophical Issues in Ecology

Dobzhansky’s (1964) sweeping generalization, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” provocatively captures the centrality of evolutionary theory in biological science (see also Dobzhansky 1973). But his rally call is also grievously partial. Ecology casts the same indispensable light in biology, particularly on evolution. Although the term ‘ecology’ was not coined until 1866 (Haeckel 1866), ecological insight was an integral part of early evolutionary thinking, it is at the core of Darwin’s theory, and it will be crucial to future theorizing about how evolution has shaped the biological world. Evolutionary theory’s central concepts— e.g. adaptation and natural selection—and its compelling accounts of biological phenomena—e.g. the transmutation of species and fit between organisms and environments—all reflect an ecological perspective. Apart from its contribution to evolutionary theory, ecology also endeavors to explain significant portions of the living world directly. It is, for example, canonically characterized as the study of interactions between organisms and the environment. Its explanatory scope therefore includes not only these interactions but also the distributions and abundances of species they produce throughout the globe. Given these ambitious goals, the sophisticated experimental tests and mathematical theories developed to achieve them deserve much more attention from philosophers of science. And despite an ecological perspective underpinning much of evolutionary theory, even philosophers of biology have paid relatively little attention to ecology, largely due to disciplinary inertia. Similarly, the typical undergraduate exposure to biology for pre-medicine and non-biological majors often consists Philosophical Issues in Ecology