Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Environmental problems are thus typically more difficult than medical
problems to solve because the chain of causal events is more difficult to trace.
Sorting through such complexity scientifically is not insurmountable, but it
represents the single most important challenge facing ecological science
(Levin 1999). It requires following a systematic procedure that allows one
to develop understanding of how the components of natural systems fit to-
gether and function.That systematic process is scientific methodology.
In attempting to provide reliable scientific knowledge, ecology, like any
other scientific discipline, follows certain scientific methodology. Ecologists
use any or all of several scientific methods including (Romesburg 1981;
Mayr 1982):
1. Induction
2. Retroduction
3. Hypothetico-Deduction
These methods offer different perspectives about nature and the degree of
causal understanding of its functioning. In the following, I provide a brief
overview of these methodologies.
Induction
Induction is the fundamental step in any scientific enterprise. Induction pro-
vides the foundational understanding of natural pattern or process that de-
mands explanation. In an ecological context, induction is the formalization
of natural history observations. Let me illustrate with an example.
An important goal in ecology is to derive explanations for patterns of
species diversity in nature. Suppose we asked the question:What is the re-
lationship between the diversity of insect species in an area and the diver-
sity of herbaceous plant species comprising their habitat? Suppose also that
there were no published data yet available to answer this question.The only
recourse, then, is to go into the field and gather those data by sampling.
Let's assume that we chose to sample in three different areas.The three
areas range from a plant monoculture in the low diversity case to a multi-
ple species plant mix in the high diversity case. Let us assume, for the sake
of argument, that species in our example can be identified by their appear-
ance, or morphology.A simple count of morphologically different types re-
veals that the low diversity area has four insect species residing on the single
plant species. A similar count reveals that the medium diversity area con-
