The first dispute reminds us that some ceteris paribus conditions are incompatible with others. Methodological critiques are not as likely to unseat a ruling paradigm like competition theory as are alternative explanations. The methodological paradigms of Popperian falsificationism and standard statistical hypothesis testing are incompatible with each other. Another dispute arose over ceteris paribus conditions for mathematical models of the relationship between the diversity and stability of ecological communities. This demonstrates that mathematical models involve some choices about ceteris paribus conditions that actual experiments do not.
Special problems arise because of the possibility that stability is adaptive at the community level.
Different modes of visual representation may have led scientists to adopt different ceteris paribus assumptions in this case. The faulty definitions may have resulted from an over-emphasis on population dynamics. Machine metaphors of nature may have induced a related problem of experimental design.