86
GERALD L. YOUNU
approaches variously called human ecology, cultural ecology, social
ecology, ecological psychology, psychological ecology, and so on.
Advocacy should be generated for more general acceptance of a unifying
conceptual title: most likely the term human ecology, since it has the
longest history and the widest and most diversified use and because it
implies a focus on man.
Misuse of basic terms is prevalent in adaptation of the ecological
concept into the sciences of man. The word ecology itself is frequently
misused, e.g. in Freilich’s (1963) attempts to relate cultural forms to a
“type of ecology”, or Anell’s (1964) description of the “impact of
ecology” on social structure. Such misuse reflects a too common problem
with the fitting of an ecological perspective into the methodology of an
existing social science: the new practitioners are usually well trained in
social science but often untrained in ecology. And, they compound the
error by not bothering to read in basic biological ecology; repeated
scanning of their reference lists verifies this. Anthropologists (with
obvious exceptions) read in cultural ecology as written by other anthropologists, psychologists in ecological psychology, and so on.
Another confused usage is the phrase “ecological environment”, as
used by Barker (1968), Anell (1964), Bohannan (1963), and others. I
would suggest that every environment is ecological to the extent that
there are relationships or interactions between it and one or more
organisms. The term is a disconcerting redundancy. What the Sprouts
(1971) have termed the “semantic chaos” of ecological terms is not made
any clearer either by the introduction of un-needed neologisms’ such as
Wallace’s (1 969) “ecologism” for the ecological approach to sociology,
or Haher’s (1970) term “ecography” as a new scientific discipline. Nor,
for that matter, is much clarity added by the Sprouts’ (1966, 1971)
insistence on the French “milieu” to replace environment.
Resolution of the ambivalence in human ecology toward the uniqueness of man is needed and the limits or extension of biological determinism should be analyzed. Another problem is that of scale and the limits
of reality for an organism trying to adapt to accelerating change and a
rapidly shrinking globe.
Concern with a satisfactory unit in human ecology is fast being
resolved with focus on the ecosystem; this is rapidly becoming thought
of as the basic unit in human ecology, as it is already in bio-ecology.
However, no one seems very sure of how to define a human ecosystem
and no one can be positive what is meant when a student from another
discipline uses the term. Clarification is needed and on an interdisciplinary level.
Only a few may be mentioned here but it should be recognized that
nowhere in the paper is any concept given totally clear-cut definition,
GERALD L. YOUNU
approaches variously called human ecology, cultural ecology, social
ecology, ecological psychology, psychological ecology, and so on.
Advocacy should be generated for more general acceptance of a unifying
conceptual title: most likely the term human ecology, since it has the
longest history and the widest and most diversified use and because it
implies a focus on man.
Misuse of basic terms is prevalent in adaptation of the ecological
concept into the sciences of man. The word ecology itself is frequently
misused, e.g. in Freilich’s (1963) attempts to relate cultural forms to a
“type of ecology”, or Anell’s (1964) description of the “impact of
ecology” on social structure. Such misuse reflects a too common problem
with the fitting of an ecological perspective into the methodology of an
existing social science: the new practitioners are usually well trained in
social science but often untrained in ecology. And, they compound the
error by not bothering to read in basic biological ecology; repeated
scanning of their reference lists verifies this. Anthropologists (with
obvious exceptions) read in cultural ecology as written by other anthropologists, psychologists in ecological psychology, and so on.
Another confused usage is the phrase “ecological environment”, as
used by Barker (1968), Anell (1964), Bohannan (1963), and others. I
would suggest that every environment is ecological to the extent that
there are relationships or interactions between it and one or more
organisms. The term is a disconcerting redundancy. What the Sprouts
(1971) have termed the “semantic chaos” of ecological terms is not made
any clearer either by the introduction of un-needed neologisms’ such as
Wallace’s (1 969) “ecologism” for the ecological approach to sociology,
or Haher’s (1970) term “ecography” as a new scientific discipline. Nor,
for that matter, is much clarity added by the Sprouts’ (1966, 1971)
insistence on the French “milieu” to replace environment.
Resolution of the ambivalence in human ecology toward the uniqueness of man is needed and the limits or extension of biological determinism should be analyzed. Another problem is that of scale and the limits
of reality for an organism trying to adapt to accelerating change and a
rapidly shrinking globe.
Concern with a satisfactory unit in human ecology is fast being
resolved with focus on the ecosystem; this is rapidly becoming thought
of as the basic unit in human ecology, as it is already in bio-ecology.
However, no one seems very sure of how to define a human ecosystem
and no one can be positive what is meant when a student from another
discipline uses the term. Clarification is needed and on an interdisciplinary level.
Only a few may be mentioned here but it should be recognized that
nowhere in the paper is any concept given totally clear-cut definition,