Informative ecological models without ecological forces

Synthese 197 (6):2721-2743 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Sagoff (2016) criticizes widely used “theoretical” methods in ecology; arguing that those methods employ models that rely on problematic metaphysical assumptions and are therefore uninformative and useless for practical decision-making. In this paper, I show that Sagoff misconstrues how such model-based methods work in practice, that the main threads of his argument are problematic, and that his substantive conclusions are consequently unfounded. Along the way, I illuminate several ways the model-based inferential methods he criticizes can be, and have been, usefully informative.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,074

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Differentiating and defusing theoretical Ecology's criticisms: A rejoinder to Sagoff's reply to Donhauser (2016).Justin Donhauser - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 63:70-79.
Sagoff on Ecosystems as Self-Organizing Systems.Rachel Fredericks - 2013 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 16 (3):258-261.
Modelling as Indirect Representation? The Lotka–Volterra Model Revisited.Tarja Knuuttila & Andrea Loettgers - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4):1007-1036.
Theoretical ecology as etiological from the start.Justin Donhauser - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 60:67-76.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-08-03

Downloads
99 (#215,940)

6 months
13 (#279,648)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Justin Donhauser
Bowling Green State University

References found in this work

How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Nature's capacities and their measurement.Nancy Cartwright - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Inference to the Best Explanation.Peter Lipton - 1991 - London and New York: Routledge.

View all 44 references / Add more references