Something I’ve been thinking about recently is the hegemony of quantitative ecology. I’d love to see more qualitative work. More natural history, more philosophy of ecology, more nature-society theory.
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Yes, but it's not a tradeoff. I'm often lamenting the fact that some qualitative ecology would gain to be more grounded. And the other way around. But that's probably biased by my perspective as someone who is extremely quantitative in order to have societal relevance.
I’d say qualitative work is just as grounded in their literature as quantitative. I do definitely think there’s a tendency for us quantitatives to start from a position of “yes but our side actually has the truth” when true objectivity isn’t really achievable
Of course it's equally grounded in its literature - but qualitative literature is often equally guilty of ignoring quantitative literature. I don't think "more of either" is the solution, v. "paying more genuine attention to the other half of the field".
Yeah as you can see in a separate thread I qualified this as more of a complaint about quantitative ecology not engaging enough with qualitative. In my experience, qualitative work pays a lot of attention to quantitative, considering it’s often critiquing some aspect of it
Ben, I have disagree as it really isnt a trade off as assumed here. Each are critical ways to investigate and improve how we understand the natural world and we need each #ScientificTransculturalism Would be curious to have your take on this https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209196121
What is needed are efforts to integrate these efforts instead of focusing on one or the other - how quantitative and natural history inform and feedback to each other
I definitely agree. I think there’s a history of tension between reductionist and holist ecological frameworks that needs to be reconciled in some way. Certainly interested in efforts to do that
It is exactly that long-held tension that, we think, is the source of lack of scientific progress in many areas of biology including ecology. It’s good to have the tension but what is lacking is the opposite - #ScientificTransculturalism - as a solution
I get what you're saying. I met with an algal scientist recently who felt no need to be able to visually ID algae because they just run the eDNA and trust that's what's there. I feel sorry for scientists who are divorced from the organisms they study.
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