From the book: What is to be done with political ecology? Nothing. What is to be done? Political ecology!

Two issues of vagueness, which may together exhaust its philosophical interest, are, first, to solve the sorites paradox and, second, to explain the notion of a borderline case. I’ll try to make a little headway on both issues.

This paper analyzes the concept of biodiversity in conservation biology and assesses potential methods for its measurement.

A quarter of a century ago, a group of scientists and conservationists introduced ‘biodiversity’ as a media buzzword with the explicit intent of galvanizing public and political support for environ...

Conceptual analysis of health and disease is portrayed as consisting in the confrontation of a set of criteria—a “definition”—with a set of cases, called instances of either “health” or “ disease.” Apart from logical counter-arguments, there is no other way to refute an opponent’s definition than by providing counter-cases. As resorting to intensional stipulation is not forbidden, several contenders can therefore be deemed to have succeeded. This implies that conceptual analysis alone is not likely to decide between naturalism and normativism. (...) An alternative to this approach would be to examine whether the concept of disease can be naturalized. (shrink)

"At places distant from where you are, but also uncomfortably close," writes David Takacs, "a holocaust is under way. People are slashing, hacking, bulldozing, burning, poisoning, and otherwise destroying huge swaths of life on Earth at a furious pace." And a cadre of ecologists and conservation biologists has responded, vigorously promoting a new definition of nature: biodiversity --advocating it in Congress and on the Tonight Show; whispering it into the ears of foreign leaders redefining the boundaries of science and politics, (...) ethics and religion, nature and our ideas of nature. These scientists have infused the environmental movement with new focus and direction, but by engaging in such activities, they jeopardize the societal trust that allows them to be public spokespersons for nature in the first place. The Idea of Biodiversity analyzes what biodiversity represents to the biologists who operate in broader society on its behalf, drawing on in-depth interviews with the scientists most active today in the mission to preserve biodiversity, including Peter Raven, Thomas Lovejoy, Jane Lubchenco, and Paul Ehrlich. Takacs explores how and why these biologists shaped the concept of biodiversity and promoted it to society at large--examining their definitions of biodiversity their opinions about spirituality and its role in scientific work the notion of biodiversity as something of intrinsic value and their views on biophilia, E. O. Wilson's idea that humans are genetically predisposed to love nature. Takacs also looks at the work of twentieth-century forerunners of today's conservation biologists--Aldo Leopold, Charles S. Elton, Rachel Carson, David Ehrenfeld--and points out their contributions to the current debates. He takes readers to Costa Rica, where a group of scientists is using biodiversity to remake nature and society. And in an extended section, he profiles the thoughts and work of E. O. Wilson. "When I'm asked, 'should we save this species orthat species, or this place or that place?' the answer is always 'Yes!' with an exclamation point. Because it's obvious. And if you ask me to justify it, then I switch into a more cognitive consciousness and can start giving you reasons, economic reasons, aesthetic reasons. They're all dualistic, in a sense. But the feeling that underlies it is that 'yes!' And that 'yes!' comes out of the affirmation of being part of it all, being part of this whole evolutionary process. And agreeing with Arne Naess that each species, each entity, should be allowed to continue its evolution and to live out its destiny... just do its thing, as we say. Why not? And the 'why not?' is there's too many people."--Michael E. Soule, from an interview in The Idea of Biodiversity "An important contribution, a first distanced examination of a critical, modern topic by a scholarly, honest broker."--E. O. Wilson, Harvard University. (shrink)

[D]iversity is rather like an optical illusion. The more it is looked at, the less clearly defined it appears to be and viewing it from different angles can lead to different perceptions of what is involved.Magurran The complexity of the biodiversity concept does not only mirror the natural world it supposedly represents; it is that plus the complexity of human interactions with the natural world, the inextricable skein of our values and its value, of our inability to separate our concept (...) of a thing from the thing itself. Don't know what biodiversity is? You can't.Takacs INTRODUCTIONThe neologism “biodiversity” entered the vocabularies of science, bioethics, the media, and the environmentally aware public during the 1980s; its longer version, “biological diversity,” has been in use since the late 1970s. After the National Forum on BioDiversity in Washington, D.C. in 1986 and the publication of the proceedings of that conference, use of the term “biodiversity” increased very rapidly. The number of scientific publications on biodiversity issues has grown exponentially since the late 1980s and currently exceeds 3,000 per year. The term has also quickly gained popularity outside the scientific realm, and has become a household word widely used by politicians, the media, and at least to some extent the general public. (shrink)