Hello Jen,
Is 'Ecology' simply 'Geography' under another Name?* As any ecology textbook will tell, the e-word dates back to the 1880s.
However, in recent decades it has captured the news-media, politics, and academe. But is it simply old wine in new bottles? Geography has long been concerned with the landscape effects of interactions between humans, vegetation, animals, and the non-living elements such as air, soil, and water. Some geography teachers complain that their discipline is being neglected, in favour of more trendy versions (IAG Newsletter No. 57, p.17).
A fast growing area of ecology is 'landscape ecology', which brings history into play to understand landscapes. Have we come full circle, back to geography (maps) and history (chaps)? Am I missing something? Is scale an essential difference, with geography broad, and ecology detailed? Is there, perhaps, a quasi-religious tendency in ecology, whereas geography looks at the plain facts? Do ecologists tend to dislike humans? Is one discipline a subset of the other? Are they both actually disciplines? I hope some incisive minds out there will sort this out.
Regards
Davey Gam Esq.
Those clever Scandinavians have done it again. Oikos has a sister journal called 'Ecography'.
So you'll believe if David tells you eh but not Luke? I don't know Pandora at all. Just emailed and received.
Keep pasting there Luke - you are doing a great job. I have read David Jones' recent post about TGGWS and I AM impressed, even if your friend Pandora did not convince me. I would enjoy a bit more personal dialectic (non-abusive) on this blog. Any'ow, I must get on with writing a few boring papers on ecology - er, geography.
I thought Eratosthenes's maps weren't bad for a bloke with no GPS or datum.
Some of us are spending too much time trying to gather enough autoecology to make a synecology.
🙂
{And I know you prefer the gentler art of the personal dialectic - but my tediously boring cut and pastes {if not baits for nong nong detection} are usually thoughtfully excavated and presented; Jen also tells me most people don't click links - so what can you do}
Good one Luke,
I see no evidence of cut-and-paste in that effort. I think my main beef with ecology is the pretentious language and obscurity. Someone pointed out, long ago, that obscurity is needed when you have nothing to say. Sir Ernest Gowers took issue with eco-blather some decades ago. He mentioned a cartoon in which a small girl was pointing at her young brother and saying "Mummy! Johnny's polluted his environment again". I think Sir Ernest also suggested that ecologists might call a shovel an "ecotome".
I regard Oikos as one of the better ecological journals, so was pleased to see an article in there called "How to write consistently boring scientific literature." (Sand-Jensen 2007). It's worth a read. Might it apply to climatologists?
Eratosthenes rules, OK?