Models in ecology: ubiquitous, idealized, useful
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Models in ecology: ubiquitous, idealized, useful Jay Odenbaugh: Ecological models. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019, 75 pp, $18.00 PB Max Dresow1 · Daniel Stanton2
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Many are the books on ecological models written by ecologists, for ecologists. Jay Odenbaugh has given us something different—a book on ecological models written by a philosopher for a joint audience of philosophers and ecologists. The book assumes little prior knowledge of philosophy or ecology, making it an ideal starting point for a variety of interested readers. And at a slender 75 pages, even the most time-starved ecologist should have little trouble finishing it. Ecological Models is part of the Cambridge Elements in the Philosophy of Biology series. This collection, now thirteen entries strong, aims to provide “concise and structured introductions to all of the central topics in philosophy of biology,” as well as a venue for authors to “[develop] new ideas and arguments from a unique viewpoint.” Although Odenbaugh’s topic is ecological models, the book functions equally well as an introduction to scientific models in general, with illustrations drawn from the ecological sciences. These illustrations are deftly handled, and are supplemented with concise and useful “Technical Discussions” to aid comprehension. Yet for all this, Ecological Models is very much a philosopher’s book— a guided tour through some problems about models that philosophers have found interesting. It should not be mistaken for a book about ecologists’ own philosophical problems: problems about trade-offs in model-building, say, or optimal strategies for achieving general knowledge of ecological systems. Ecological Models is organized into three chapters. The first is concerned with the nature of ecological models, and begins with a “working definition” of a model, namely a representation that abstracts and idealizes (6). Abstraction, in philosophical parlance, is a process by which features of the representational
* Max Dresow [email protected] Daniel Stanton [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
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target are omitted from the representation itself. So for example, highway maps do not typically represent topology, even though no actual road is perfectly flat. Idealization, by contrast, is a process that attributes to a target some property or properties that it lacks. Idealized representations, then, are literally false: There are no frictionless planes or infinitely large populations. Some philosophers have discerned a puzzle in scientific idealizations, since according to a popular account, science aims to disclose a literally true picture of what the world is like. The puzzle would disappear if idealizations were used like Wittgenstein’s ladder, and kicked away once they had served their provisional purpose. But this does not seem to be the case. W
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