Laws and Explanation in Community Ecology

群落生态学的规律与解释

• 批准号: 9112445
• 负责人: Kristin Shrader-Frechette
• 金额: $ 3.91万
• 依托单位: University of South Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-01-01 至 1992-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9112445&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Laws; Explanation; Community; Ecology

Under this grant, Dr. Shrader-Frechette is examining three methodological issues that are central to community ecology or population biology. (1) Are explanations in community ecology particular, as many biologists have claimed? (2) Are there empirical laws or laws of nature in community ecology? (3) Are there individually testable hypotheses, including null hypotheses, in community ecology? After evaluating these three methodological questions in terms of the arguments and examples that ecologists on various sides of the issues have employed, Dr. Shrader-Frechette will attempt to draw two sets of conclusions. One set concerns the nature of scientific explanation in ecology. The other set of conclusions concerns what, if anything, the status of law and explanation in community ecology might reveal about scientific law and explanation in general. This project promises to contribute to the on-going debates about whether the alleged explanations and laws of ecology are like those of the physical sciences; what is the empirical status of alleged ecological laws; what is the scope of realistic hopes for improving he "scientific" status of ecology; whether, and if so, in what sense, ecology is a science; and what the nature of explanation and law in ecology reveals about scientific law and explanation in general.

在这项资助下，Shrader-Frechette博士正在检查三个 对社区生态学至关重要的方法论问题， 种群生物学 (1)在群落生态学中 正如许多生物学家所说的那样，？ (2)有 是经验法则还是自然法则 (3)是 有个别可检验的假设，包括无效假设， 社区生态学？ 在评估了这三种方法之后， 生态学家提出的论据和例子 施拉德-弗雷谢特博士 我将试图得出两组结论。 其中一组涉及 生态学的科学解释本质。 另一组 结论涉及法律的地位， 群落生态学的解释可能揭示科学规律 一般的解释。 该项目承诺将有助于 关于所谓的解释和 生态学的规律就像自然科学的规律一样;什么是 所谓的生态法的经验地位;范围是什么 提高生态学“科学”地位的现实希望; 是否，如果是，在什么意义上，生态学是一门科学; 生态学的解释性和规律性揭示了 科学规律和一般解释。