Photo: Glacier National Park. Copyright Delena Norris-Tull, 2013.
Ecosystems, Economics, and Paradigm Shifts
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn published his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I was first exposed to his work in 1990, when I entered the Ph.D. program in Science Education at the University of Texas. Kuhn’s ideas about the manner in which scientific knowledge is advanced was indeed revolutionary to me.
Kuhn (1970, p. 2-3) states that, “In recent years,… a few historians of science have been finding it more and more difficult to fulfil the functions that the concept of development-by-accumulation assigns to them… [T]hese same historians confront growing difficulties in distinguishing the ‘scientific’ component of past observations and belief from what their predecessors had readily labeled ‘error’ and ‘superstition.’ The more carefully they study, say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the more certain they feel that once current views of nature were, as a whole, neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those current today. If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are to be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite incompatible with the ones we hold today… Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded. That choice, however, makes it difficult to see scientific development as a process of accretion.”
Kuhn proposes that new scientific knowledge, rather than emerging by the slow accumulation of previous knowledge, comes about through scientific revolutions. These revolutions often involve the rejection of previous knowledge, the ideas that formed a body of knowledge, or ways of thinking about that knowledge, previously shared by the group of individuals within that scientific field. These scientific revolutions often meet with strong opposition from the practitioners within that field and can represent dramatic changes, or paradigm shifts, in the way new knowledge is perceived. Kuhn (p. 23) states that, “a paradigm is an accepted model or pattern… [We] must recognize how very limited in both scope and precision a paradigm can be at the time of its first appearance. Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has come to recognize as acute.”
In 1982, Fritjof Capra published The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture. In his book, Capra describes previous and current paradigms within the sciences. “The paradigm that is now shifting has dominated our culture for several hundred years, during which it has shaped our modern Western society and has significantly influenced the rest of the world. This paradigm comprises a number of ideas and values that differ sharply from those of the Middle Ages; values that have been associated with various streams of Western culture, among them the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. They include the belief in the scientific method as the only valid approach to knowledge; the view of the universe as a mechanical system composed of elementary material building blocks; the view of life in society as a competitive struggle for existence; and the belief in unlimited material progress to be achieved through economic and technological growth. During the past decades all these ideas and values have been found severely limited and in a need of radical revision (Capra, 1982, pa. 30-31).”
Capra (p. 21) points out that, “At the beginning of the last two decades of our century, we find ourselves in a state of profound, world-wide crisis. It is a complex, multi-dimensional crisis whose facets touch every aspect of our lives… For the first time we have to face the very real threat of extinction of the human race and of all life on this planet.” He goes on to state (p. 26), “To understand our multifaceted cultural crisis we need to adopt an extremely broad view and see our situation in the context of human cultural evolution. We have to shift our perspective from the end of the twentieth century to a time span encompassing thousands of years; from the notion of static social structures to the perception of dynamic patterns of change. Seen from this perspective, crisis appears as an aspect of transformation. The Chinese, who have always had a thoroughly dynamic world view and a keen sense of history, seem to have been well aware of this profound connection between crisis and change. The term they use for ‘crisis’ – wei-ji - is composed of the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’”
"Strive as much as possible to become proficient in the science of agriculture, for in accordance with the divine teachings the acquisition of sciences and the perfection of arts are considered acts of worship" (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, section 126).
Shoghi Effendi said that, “The crisis that exists in the world is not confined to the farmers. Its effects have reached every means of livelihood. The farmers are in a sense better off because they at least have food to eat. But on the whole the crisis is serving a great purpose. It is broadening the outlook of man, teaching him to think internationally, forcing him to take into consideration the welfare of his neighbors if he wishes to improve his own condition” (Hornby, 1932, p. 130).
“The Chinese philosophers saw reality, whose ultimate essence they called Tao, as a process of continuous flow and change. In their view all phenomena we observe participate in this cosmic process and are thus intrinsically dynamic. The principal characteristic of the Tao is the cyclical nature of its ceaseless motion; all developments in nature - those in the physical world as well as those in the psychological and social realms - show cyclical patterns (Capra, 1982, p. 35).”
Unfortunately, many scientists tend to view systems as static. When I first began to study ecosystems, in the 1970s, ecosystems were viewed as starting out unstable and evolving to stable, static states. I remember being taught, in the 1970s, that the plants within an ecosystem go through a series of successional stages, culminating in a stable end-point. For example, an open field will eventually evolve into an old-growth forest, which is considered a static, stable end-point. It was not until much later that I began to realize that there are rarely any static end-points. More recent research finds that forest succession, including the consumers that rely on the plants for food, is less predictable than previously thought. “Recent studies have revealed a dynamic and increasingly complex picture of forest succession that suggests the possibility of multiple successional pathways and nonlinear effects of varying disturbance severities” (Hilmers, et al., 2018).
As a forest ages, it becomes more vulnerable to forces, such as fire, insect infestations, and human interventions (such as the destruction or timbering of forests, or the replacement of a diverse forest with monoculture crops, or replacement of forests with human habitations), which tend to return the forest to an earlier dynamic state, starting the cycle again. I have come to conclude that all ecosystems are dynamic and ever-changing.
I would like to propose that we may be on the cusp of a paradigm shift in the way we perceive the problem of invasive plants. The current paradigm is that these non-native plants are “weeds,” plants that must be removed from the settings in which they have invaded. I propose that that view of invasive plants allows us to ignore the possible benefits these plants may provide. What if, rather than unhealthy invaders, these plants are an important part of a dynamic ecosystem? What if they are trying to restore land, land that has usually been disturbed by human interventions, to a more diverse state? Or what if some invasive species are crucial in preventing soil loss in disturbed sites?
References:
Next Sections:
Ecosystems, Economics, and Paradigm Shifts
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn published his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I was first exposed to his work in 1990, when I entered the Ph.D. program in Science Education at the University of Texas. Kuhn’s ideas about the manner in which scientific knowledge is advanced was indeed revolutionary to me.
Kuhn (1970, p. 2-3) states that, “In recent years,… a few historians of science have been finding it more and more difficult to fulfil the functions that the concept of development-by-accumulation assigns to them… [T]hese same historians confront growing difficulties in distinguishing the ‘scientific’ component of past observations and belief from what their predecessors had readily labeled ‘error’ and ‘superstition.’ The more carefully they study, say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the more certain they feel that once current views of nature were, as a whole, neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those current today. If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are to be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite incompatible with the ones we hold today… Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded. That choice, however, makes it difficult to see scientific development as a process of accretion.”
Kuhn proposes that new scientific knowledge, rather than emerging by the slow accumulation of previous knowledge, comes about through scientific revolutions. These revolutions often involve the rejection of previous knowledge, the ideas that formed a body of knowledge, or ways of thinking about that knowledge, previously shared by the group of individuals within that scientific field. These scientific revolutions often meet with strong opposition from the practitioners within that field and can represent dramatic changes, or paradigm shifts, in the way new knowledge is perceived. Kuhn (p. 23) states that, “a paradigm is an accepted model or pattern… [We] must recognize how very limited in both scope and precision a paradigm can be at the time of its first appearance. Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has come to recognize as acute.”
In 1982, Fritjof Capra published The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture. In his book, Capra describes previous and current paradigms within the sciences. “The paradigm that is now shifting has dominated our culture for several hundred years, during which it has shaped our modern Western society and has significantly influenced the rest of the world. This paradigm comprises a number of ideas and values that differ sharply from those of the Middle Ages; values that have been associated with various streams of Western culture, among them the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. They include the belief in the scientific method as the only valid approach to knowledge; the view of the universe as a mechanical system composed of elementary material building blocks; the view of life in society as a competitive struggle for existence; and the belief in unlimited material progress to be achieved through economic and technological growth. During the past decades all these ideas and values have been found severely limited and in a need of radical revision (Capra, 1982, pa. 30-31).”
Capra (p. 21) points out that, “At the beginning of the last two decades of our century, we find ourselves in a state of profound, world-wide crisis. It is a complex, multi-dimensional crisis whose facets touch every aspect of our lives… For the first time we have to face the very real threat of extinction of the human race and of all life on this planet.” He goes on to state (p. 26), “To understand our multifaceted cultural crisis we need to adopt an extremely broad view and see our situation in the context of human cultural evolution. We have to shift our perspective from the end of the twentieth century to a time span encompassing thousands of years; from the notion of static social structures to the perception of dynamic patterns of change. Seen from this perspective, crisis appears as an aspect of transformation. The Chinese, who have always had a thoroughly dynamic world view and a keen sense of history, seem to have been well aware of this profound connection between crisis and change. The term they use for ‘crisis’ – wei-ji - is composed of the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’”
"Strive as much as possible to become proficient in the science of agriculture, for in accordance with the divine teachings the acquisition of sciences and the perfection of arts are considered acts of worship" (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, section 126).
Shoghi Effendi said that, “The crisis that exists in the world is not confined to the farmers. Its effects have reached every means of livelihood. The farmers are in a sense better off because they at least have food to eat. But on the whole the crisis is serving a great purpose. It is broadening the outlook of man, teaching him to think internationally, forcing him to take into consideration the welfare of his neighbors if he wishes to improve his own condition” (Hornby, 1932, p. 130).
“The Chinese philosophers saw reality, whose ultimate essence they called Tao, as a process of continuous flow and change. In their view all phenomena we observe participate in this cosmic process and are thus intrinsically dynamic. The principal characteristic of the Tao is the cyclical nature of its ceaseless motion; all developments in nature - those in the physical world as well as those in the psychological and social realms - show cyclical patterns (Capra, 1982, p. 35).”
Unfortunately, many scientists tend to view systems as static. When I first began to study ecosystems, in the 1970s, ecosystems were viewed as starting out unstable and evolving to stable, static states. I remember being taught, in the 1970s, that the plants within an ecosystem go through a series of successional stages, culminating in a stable end-point. For example, an open field will eventually evolve into an old-growth forest, which is considered a static, stable end-point. It was not until much later that I began to realize that there are rarely any static end-points. More recent research finds that forest succession, including the consumers that rely on the plants for food, is less predictable than previously thought. “Recent studies have revealed a dynamic and increasingly complex picture of forest succession that suggests the possibility of multiple successional pathways and nonlinear effects of varying disturbance severities” (Hilmers, et al., 2018).
As a forest ages, it becomes more vulnerable to forces, such as fire, insect infestations, and human interventions (such as the destruction or timbering of forests, or the replacement of a diverse forest with monoculture crops, or replacement of forests with human habitations), which tend to return the forest to an earlier dynamic state, starting the cycle again. I have come to conclude that all ecosystems are dynamic and ever-changing.
I would like to propose that we may be on the cusp of a paradigm shift in the way we perceive the problem of invasive plants. The current paradigm is that these non-native plants are “weeds,” plants that must be removed from the settings in which they have invaded. I propose that that view of invasive plants allows us to ignore the possible benefits these plants may provide. What if, rather than unhealthy invaders, these plants are an important part of a dynamic ecosystem? What if they are trying to restore land, land that has usually been disturbed by human interventions, to a more diverse state? Or what if some invasive species are crucial in preventing soil loss in disturbed sites?
References:
- Capra, F. (1982). The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture. New York: Bantam Books.
- Hilmers, T., Friess, N., Bässler, C., Heurich, M., Brandl, R., Pretzsch, H., Seidl, R., & Müller, J. (June, 2018). Biodiversity along temperate forest succession. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13238
- Hornby, H. (1988). Lights of Guidance: A Baha’i Reference File. New Dehli, India: Baha’i Publishing Trust.
- Kuhn, T.S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second Ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
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