From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Distribution: world
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 92 06:23:45 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <149180017@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com writes:

 > >Sorry, Alan, but this argument constitutes a fallacy of composition;
 > >you cannot predict the behaviour of a system by adding all the "little
 > >functions" it might possibly contain.
 >  
 > I said nothing about *prediction* -- I said that the "little" functions 
 > (population-level functions) "add up" to "larger" functions (ecosystem-level).
 > I.e. the latter functions are *composed of* the former ones, even when they are
 > emergent properties of the ecosystem level: removing population-level functions
 > degrades ecosystem-level ones, in the same way that removing cell- and tissue-
 > level functions degrades organ functions. *Prediction* and *composition* are
 > not one and the same thing. 

Hm, yes, I can see your functionalist approach to describe system
dynamics. Am not at all certain that your predictions (e.g. "that
removing cell- and tissue-level functions degrades organ functions")
hold in the circumstances. One can argue that dysfunction has already
set in, and we have a job to get the cancer into remission.

 > >Humans are at least as much a keystone species as owls . . .
 >  
 > If you are thinking of the northern spotted owl, it is *not* a keystone
 > species. It is an indicator species, which is something entirely different:
 > an indicator species is one whose presence indicates that certain functions
 > are occurring. Removing it need not alter those functions. A keystone species
 > is one whose removal has repercussions and causes extinctions throughout a 
 > subcommunity. Humans are ecological dominants to be sure, but that is not 
 > synonomous with keystone species. Even when humans maintain what Rappoport
 > calls an "anthropocentric ecosystem" with a species inventory that would change
 > if the humans were removed -- letting the ecosystem "revert" -- this is not a 
 > result of the coevolution of humans and the other species involved.

Alan, you have not disputed what I said; it just becomes a word game
with all these endless variations on a theme. I remain very acutely
uncomfortable with your abstract model of ecosystem functions, although
I am also aware that Americans adhere far more strongly to a Darwinian
evolutionary hypothesis than we do here, none of which enlightens us
in any way as to how various impacts might be examined for their
actual effect on what environments.

In this particular case I do not want to enter debate with you on how
you define your own words, I simply keep wondering when your field data
is to be presented, that any other of us could have a look at it to get
a line on the substance of your arguments.

 > >What *type* (not level) of disturbance are you referring to here?
 > >Disturbance by, say, a major volcanic eruption is quite of a different
 > >order to that by a keystone species, such as humans. The problem,
 > >again, is in determining what impact of a species represents a plague
 > >of that species.
 >  
 > The key point is that ecosystems respond to some extent in the same way 
 > (e.g. moving back towards earlier successional states) to a wide range of 
 > *different* types of disturbance (short of total obliteration, e.g. under 
 > lava flows). By "extreme disturbance" I was thinking of disturbances which
 > disrupt the soil community -- e.g. clearcut logging can be an extreme
 > disturbance, particularly on slopes.

Well, sure. We are referring here to disturbance and all I was fishing
for was some clarification from you about what you meant by it. Would
it not be better to get some surveys done, that actual cases can be
studied instead of us having to rely on the arguments of somebody who
speaks for management in favour of the environment against others in
favour of human "needs"?

I don't care about your politics, beyond the fact that these issues
are of global concern and we might get started sometime on a forum
of scientific relevance. Frankly, if research is to be obstructed and
obfuscated by all this verbiage we are all in the shit, in my book.

How about some data from somebody?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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