Laws and Explanation in Community Ecology

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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.