66
QERALD L. YOUNG
-a society whose dynamism would be internalized rather than directed
toward expansive growth’ ’.
A point of difference must again be raised, a difference between the
diversity of natural populations and that of human populations.
Diversity in animal or plant populations is assumed to be species
diversity. But there is only one species of man. So how important is
diversity to him? Does the ecological rule-that the more diverse a
system, the more stable it is-apply to man? What kind of diversity,
then? The diversity of the total is in this respect quite important, for
stability, for a genetic pool etc., but is the well-being of the common
man served by an unseen diversity as the human systems around him
become more and more homogenized?
Margalef’s (1969) comments that diversity may have reached the
“desirable status” of being measurable “but much ambiguity remains
concerning definition a.nd measurement of stability”, are probably
acceptable for natural ecosystems (such as a lake), but neither have been
satisfactorily defined OT measured for human systems. The situation
may even be reversed from that in biology. It is obvious that human
populations have not in any way achieved stability: pick up any newspaper and read about the chaos; watch the numbers increase on the
clock in the Census Bureau for a short while. The amount of diversity
in human populations, at present, is obviously large, but what is the
trend: toward more or less? And what are the potential effects?
The concepts of diversity and stability are introduced here briefly,
not because they commonly occur in the literature of human ecology:
they receive little more than superficial treatment. They are introduced
because they should be there. Both appear to be essential to the wellbeing of human ecosystems and to that of individuals within the system.
And both appear to be threatened; the fact that this threat cannot
easily be identified and measured does not make it any the less real.
Human ecologists should make an effort to incorporate increased
analysis of these essential concepts into their attempts to understand
the world of man.
E. T H E I N T E R A C T I O N CONOEPT
Essential to an understanding of the ecology of man are techniques
for measuring the nature, extent, and limitations of human (inter)relationships. Sells (1963) states that “all theorists appear to agree that
behavior, even at the most primitive levels, represents the result of some
form of mediated transaction between organism and environment”. He
calls this the “principle of interaction”. Parsons (1968) notes that it is
“almost pure tautology to say that human ‘social’ phenomena are cases
QERALD L. YOUNG
-a society whose dynamism would be internalized rather than directed
toward expansive growth’ ’.
A point of difference must again be raised, a difference between the
diversity of natural populations and that of human populations.
Diversity in animal or plant populations is assumed to be species
diversity. But there is only one species of man. So how important is
diversity to him? Does the ecological rule-that the more diverse a
system, the more stable it is-apply to man? What kind of diversity,
then? The diversity of the total is in this respect quite important, for
stability, for a genetic pool etc., but is the well-being of the common
man served by an unseen diversity as the human systems around him
become more and more homogenized?
Margalef’s (1969) comments that diversity may have reached the
“desirable status” of being measurable “but much ambiguity remains
concerning definition a.nd measurement of stability”, are probably
acceptable for natural ecosystems (such as a lake), but neither have been
satisfactorily defined OT measured for human systems. The situation
may even be reversed from that in biology. It is obvious that human
populations have not in any way achieved stability: pick up any newspaper and read about the chaos; watch the numbers increase on the
clock in the Census Bureau for a short while. The amount of diversity
in human populations, at present, is obviously large, but what is the
trend: toward more or less? And what are the potential effects?
The concepts of diversity and stability are introduced here briefly,
not because they commonly occur in the literature of human ecology:
they receive little more than superficial treatment. They are introduced
because they should be there. Both appear to be essential to the wellbeing of human ecosystems and to that of individuals within the system.
And both appear to be threatened; the fact that this threat cannot
easily be identified and measured does not make it any the less real.
Human ecologists should make an effort to incorporate increased
analysis of these essential concepts into their attempts to understand
the world of man.
E. T H E I N T E R A C T I O N CONOEPT
Essential to an understanding of the ecology of man are techniques
for measuring the nature, extent, and limitations of human (inter)relationships. Sells (1963) states that “all theorists appear to agree that
behavior, even at the most primitive levels, represents the result of some
form of mediated transaction between organism and environment”. He
calls this the “principle of interaction”. Parsons (1968) notes that it is
“almost pure tautology to say that human ‘social’ phenomena are cases