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Ecological Stability, Model Building, and Environmental Policy: A Reply to Some of the Pessimism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Jay Odenbaugh
Jay Odenbaugh*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary. 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 4G5; email: jpodenba@ucalgary.ca.
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Abstract

Recently, there has been a rise in pessimism concerning what theoretical ecology can offer conservation biologists in the formation of reasonable environmental policies. In this paper, I look at one of the pessimistic arguments offered by Kristin Shrader-Frechette and E. D. McCoy (1993, 1994)—the argument from conceptual imprecision. I suggest that their argument rests on an inadequate account of the concepts of ecological stability and that there has been conceptual progress with respect to complexity-stability hypotheses. Such progress, I maintain, can supply important resources for conservation biologists in determining environmental policies.

Type
Science and Values
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue S3: No. 3 Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 2001 , 2001 , pp. S493 - S505
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

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Footnotes

‡

I thank Marc Ereshefsky, Greg Mikkelson, and Anya Plutynski for their help with the manuscript.

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