Due October 11. Sagoff, M. 1997. The principles of theoretical ecologists can not predict and are not falsifiable, and thus, by implication, they are not confirmable and thus are devoid of scientific significance. This requirement is an important conceptual condition for doing ecology because otherwise crucial notions, such as resilience or stability, could not have any meaning. These questions are unanswerable because we do not know which qualities of ecosystems are the identifying, genuine, or defining ones.
Ecosystems are unaffected by organic evolution.
This is because natural selection operates only on creatures that breed true, that is, creatures that enjoy genetic inheritance. Accordingly, they are not subject to evolution. We should have to account for any order, design, harmony, or structure we impute to ecosystems by appealing to some cause other than evolution. The only other cause is agency, human or Eternal. This ethic of preservation, which frankly regards creatures as miraculous in their improbability, values every species as intrinsically marvelous and worthy of respect and admiration, but does not pretend that it fits into a larger design or plan.