Along
a riverside in Virginia, upstream of Natural Bridge.
From field investigation, to theory and to practical application what are the goals of ecological thinking?
1830-2004
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Along
a riverside in Virginia, upstream of Natural Bridge. |
Just as science, as a word defining a particular viewpoint, did not exist in the 1700s, so ecology as a word was only first used by Henry David Thoreau in America and Ernst Haeckle in Germany during the middle of the 19th century. They used the term to refer to what Darwin had called a study of some living thing in the midst of its surroundings. The development of ecological concepts in biology took a century or more and is a fascinating study of how natural history died out only to be replaced by field ecology, that is the study of species and individuals in the inherent "organic and inorganic conditions of existence" to use Darwin's language.
Revolutions
Nature viewed from a ecological, stochastic and contingent perspective.
Duty to change behavior due to impacts
Vocabulary
Carrying capacity and assimilative capacity contrasted
Ecological versus economic values
Nature defined in Greek traditions and etymology
Goals:
Robie House,
Chicago; Frank Lloyd Wright, 1900s.
The adoption of new developmental concepts
Preserving biological diversity
Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam will flood this city's riverfront.
Practice:
Important summary of ecological problems
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