Primer on Natural Resource Science

Preface

Preface My introduction to the philosophy of science occurred in 1987 when I was charged with teaching a graduate course in wildlife research methods; the course was to include lectures on the philosophy of science. I realized then that I was a Ph.D. with 17 years of wildlife research experience, and I had not been exposed (nor had I exposed myself) to philosophy-of-science issues. Preparation of those lecture notes piqued my interest in the broader aspects of science, or the nature of science, as it applies specifically to field ecology. The nature of science includes the philosophy but goes beyond into realms of sociality, creativity, practice, methodology, and logic. I imagine that current graduate students in the natural resource sciences receive minimal exposure to the nature of science. This lack of exposure reduces the rate at which sound knowledge accumulates. Students have little or no idea what a research hypothesis is, but they are likely overexposed to the now-infamous null hypothesis, which I argue is one form of nonscientific hypothesis. Induction? Retroduction ? Deduction? The hypothetico-deductive method? These processes are never or rarely addressed in graduate curricula. Nor are graduate students taught that their greatest hindrance as budding scientists is their speciation; evolution has dealt them severe handicaps they had better know about and deal with if they want to leave better approximations of truth in their theses, dissertations, and career legacies. These same evolutionary handicaps also suppress scientific creativity. Creativity is thought to be a strong correlate of the rate at which knowledge grows in a discipline. Graduate students receive training, possibly extensive, in data analysis tools such as statistics and model selection. However, they receive no training on the roles of these tools in the grand panorama of science, in part because practicing statisticians, though a species of scientist, seldom know how natural resource science works. Nor do these statisticians apprehend the clamor of nature, and they cannot put the proper perspectives on the rote procedures they teach. Graduate students need to know the role of statistics in natural resource science; it is a minor tool that does not eliminate the need for human judgment. The first part of this book I have classified under the heading “Perspectives.” It starts with a discussion of the nature of science with x Preface a focus on natural resource science, and it explicitly or implicitly introduces the remaining topics in the book. Chapter topics include types of hypotheses, reasoning (induction, deduction, retroduction), the nature of facts, physiological and social shortcomings of humans as scientists, methods of increasing creativity, and critical thinking. The objective of the first part is to provide an overview of the cultural, logical, and inspirational aspects of natural resource science. I have classified topics in the second part of the book under the heading “Practice.” These topics include observational versus experimental science; the role of mathematics; the role, misuses, and danger of statistics; model selection; and model interpretation. When discussing statistical issues, I focus on “what they don’t tell you in class.” The topics in the second part also include a discussion of means versus ends in natural resource science; humankind has a tendency to exalt means (methods) at the expense of ends (growing knowledge). Also, exaltation of means results in mandated behaviors, most of which do not cut across all of science. I conclude with a chapter on publishing your results, a mandate that does cut across all of science. The objective of the second part is to provide an overview, warts and all, of the more or less mechanical parts of science. I aimed this primer at graduate students (M.S., Ph.D.) in wildlife science and other natural resource sciences, but I believe it will be useful for more mature scientists as well. The primer is comprehensive in that it introduces several key concepts in science. However, it is not comprehensive in that books have been written on each of the concepts I introduce. In essence, I have reduced that knowledge to lengthy abstracts. I hope students of natural resource science will delve more deeply into these topics, as their conscience dictates. I end each chapter with a perspectives section. The purpose of this section is to accent key topics in the chapter and put them in context relative to a larger view of science than the chapter covers. I will try to refrain from using the word should in the perspectives because, as Petr...