Abstract
Clearly, good science permits us to “understand nature,” i.e. to explain or predict or both. Exactly what is meant by this is unclear and varies between intellectual traditions. Since the publication of the seminal works by Volterra, theoretical ecology has continued to involve an interplay between natural history, applied mathematics, and genetics. While the curious tensions between these three traditions may not have been critical during the early pioneering stages of ecological development, they now require examination.
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Slobodkin, L.B. (1980). Completeness and Craft Standards in Ecological Theory. In: Barigozzi, C. (eds) Vito Volterra Symposium on Mathematical Models in Biology. Lecture Notes in Biomathematics, vol 39. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-93161-1_12
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