Preface
The ecologist today is faced with two major difficulties of communication, one fundamental to the science and the other concerning relations
with his fellow men. The fundamental difficulty is that of combining a
broad understanding of complicated ecosystems with an accurate
account of detail. This dilemma, faced by all scientists and reporters of
science, is well described by Viza (1973)* in introducing a new journal
on “Differentiation”:
“The difficulty starts when one wants a synthetic view, to plan the
key experiments and collect the relevant papers. If one of the dangers
of this approach is over-generalization and simplification the converse is
also common: focusing the experimental approach on a very restricted
area, and, at the end of the exercise, losing its object, which becomes
entangled in a complexity of details. . . . ”
This problem is, in itself, sufficient justification for publications which
allow an author scope to elaborate general principles and support
them with accurate data and careful reasoning.
The second problem, of communication with a wider audience, is
currently affected by public awareness of the human relevance of
ecological problems. It is influenced by the demand for “relevant”
ecological research and speedy answers to practical problems. We now
h d widely circulated “ecological” journals atacking the academic
ecologist for obscurantism and irrelevance, frequently using as examples
themes whose “relevance” was first detected by the very victims of these
attacks! It is tempting, but unhelpful, to respond angrily. Nevertheless,
some of the criticism is justified: there has been unimaginative, timeeerving, ecological research motivated neither by a search for scientific
understanding nor for practical results. The training of few ecologists is
broad enough to encompass the whole of ecology and we often have
difficulties in appreciating the significance of work in an unfamiliar
field. We all require continual re-education in this rapidly expanding field.
These are the primary justihations for a publication such as the
present, and these same reasons provide the criteria for acceptable
review articles. In terms of scope we should aim to cover a wide field
extending into borderlands with genetics, taxonomy, biometrics and
many more, but we must also transverse in “depth” from the broad
generalization to the technical problems of experimentation and to
*Vim, D., 1973. Editorial. Dz’iffeerentiation, 1, 1-2.
vii
The ecologist today is faced with two major difficulties of communication, one fundamental to the science and the other concerning relations
with his fellow men. The fundamental difficulty is that of combining a
broad understanding of complicated ecosystems with an accurate
account of detail. This dilemma, faced by all scientists and reporters of
science, is well described by Viza (1973)* in introducing a new journal
on “Differentiation”:
“The difficulty starts when one wants a synthetic view, to plan the
key experiments and collect the relevant papers. If one of the dangers
of this approach is over-generalization and simplification the converse is
also common: focusing the experimental approach on a very restricted
area, and, at the end of the exercise, losing its object, which becomes
entangled in a complexity of details. . . . ”
This problem is, in itself, sufficient justification for publications which
allow an author scope to elaborate general principles and support
them with accurate data and careful reasoning.
The second problem, of communication with a wider audience, is
currently affected by public awareness of the human relevance of
ecological problems. It is influenced by the demand for “relevant”
ecological research and speedy answers to practical problems. We now
h d widely circulated “ecological” journals atacking the academic
ecologist for obscurantism and irrelevance, frequently using as examples
themes whose “relevance” was first detected by the very victims of these
attacks! It is tempting, but unhelpful, to respond angrily. Nevertheless,
some of the criticism is justified: there has been unimaginative, timeeerving, ecological research motivated neither by a search for scientific
understanding nor for practical results. The training of few ecologists is
broad enough to encompass the whole of ecology and we often have
difficulties in appreciating the significance of work in an unfamiliar
field. We all require continual re-education in this rapidly expanding field.
These are the primary justihations for a publication such as the
present, and these same reasons provide the criteria for acceptable
review articles. In terms of scope we should aim to cover a wide field
extending into borderlands with genetics, taxonomy, biometrics and
many more, but we must also transverse in “depth” from the broad
generalization to the technical problems of experimentation and to
*Vim, D., 1973. Editorial. Dz’iffeerentiation, 1, 1-2.
vii