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Ecology, a Romantic Science?

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Ecology, a Romantic Science? CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 ARTICLES ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE? Josep M. Camarasa* Ecology is an unusual scientific discipline with characteristics which it shares with very few others (it is, for ex- ample, a science of synthesis, its multiple roots, holistic focus, etc.). These characteristics and the history of the discipline show ecology to be a science which is deeply marked by the Romantic thought of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and which has reached its high points in periods which coincided with a flourishing of Romantic thought –understood as a critique of contemporary civilisation from within, or a critique of modernity. Contents 1. Justification 2. ‘Normal’ science and scientific revolutions 3. Ecology, a Romantic science? A science that differs from others Romanticism and modernity: an ongoing dialectic Science and Romanticism: the emergence of ecology 4. Holism and reductionism in the history of ecology The protohistory of ecology: from Humboldt to Haeckel Ecology’s view of itself: from the name to the thing The ecology of the inter-war period: the emergence of key concepts The ecological revolution of the 1950s and 1960s: matter, energy and information Not yet a fully? ‘normal’ science: recent developments 5. What now? When is the next revival due? * Josep M. Camarasa is an advisor to the Scientific Secretariat of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. 6 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE? 1. Justification ceda with Romanticism, not to mention Schubert, Schumann, Gericault and C. D. Friedrich. Howev- Ecology as a Romantic science? This affirmation er, few would manage to name even one Romantic will, no doubt, be greeted by many with a smile of scientist, despite the fact that the period generally condescension, confirming them in their view that associated with the Romantic movement (late 18th ecology is not a ‘serious’ science. Others, howev- century and the first half of the 19th century) pro- er, for a variety of reasons will choose to disagree. duced many outstanding scientists. Who, for ex- In all likelihood, few ecologists will agree; some will ample, would succeed in naming Alexander von hold that the last thing their field needs is such a Humboldt, Sadi Carnot, Richard Owen or Hans dismissal. The academic world in general will, at Christian Oersted, to name but a handful of the very least, have reservations, or at worst, will reject most distinguished scientists of that time, as Ro- it outright. More than a few readers will no doubt mantic scientists? Darwin himself, in his life and be surprised to find the name of a scientific discip- work, was a Romantic, albeit restrained in his later line in such close company with an adjective deriv- years by the staid hypocrisy of Victorian society. ing from a social, cultural and artistic movement of the past, held, by the majority, to be anti-scientific or, at least, concerned with issues far removed from the realm of science. Perhaps, there would be Few people would manage to name even one wider acceptance for the view that ecology is a sci- ence with Romantic roots; however, as will be- Romantic scientist. come clear below, the discipline has myriad and di- verse roots, most of which date further back than the Romantic movement, although the Romantic period was perhaps the time when all these roots Perhaps we should not find this so unusual. For met and the discipline began to crystallise. most people would also be hard put to name one classical, modern, neo-positivist or post-modern However, any shock generated by the above affirm- scientist. For the majority of our society, the image ation is unnecessary to say the least. While true of science is that of a phenomenon without a histo- that in layman’s language the term ‘romantic’ has ry or, at most, with a history presented in terms of come to mean prone to sentiment and novella-like, indefinite progress, forever moving in the same and nothing could be further removed from a sci- well-defined direction, from which but a handful of ence –a body of methodically ordered doctrine heretics stray from time to time. Indeed, the image constituting a given field of knowledge, yet, any of science conveyed by academic and scientific in- reasonably well– educated person realises that this stitutions and by scientists as a collective in gener- is not what is meant by Romantic literature, music al is an anti-historic image which divests science of or painting, or Romantic philosophy. He or she will, its past development and ‘cleans’ it of any possible to some extent, succeed in relating names such as impurities associated with its origins, providing an Chateaubriand, Schiller, Lord Byron and Espron- image of a coherent, definitive body of theories, 7 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 ARTICLES knowledge and techniques –solid, free of fissures demic norms, that the work is by its nature unfin- and devoid of history. Or if it has history, it is a histo- ished and always liable to further modification, ry with a set purpose, endeavouring since its in- the title tends to be interpreted in the sense of ception to reach the point it now occupies, a view THE vegetation or THE fauna (as if unique and which ignores the inherent contingency of any phe- cast in stone) of a given location, now and for nomenon developing over the course of time. One ever. The work however is merely an abstraction need only look at how any scientific manual pre- of the given moment in time in which the work sents its subject matter. Subject areas are never re- was written and published (dates that rarely co- lated to each other in terms of how discoveries in incide), and of the methods used in studying or one area stimulated research which led to further gathering data. Such an interpretation overlooks discoveries in another or the same area. Subject the following facts: matter is invariably ordered by means of more or less logical schema, discarding chronology and 1. That one thousand years ago (or ten thousand the personality of those who have contributed to years ago, or last month, or in one hundred the development of theories or descriptions. Only in years’ time) the vegetation or fauna or the loca- highly public cases (Darwin and evolution; Pasteur tion in question may have been or may be differ- and microbes; Einstein and relativity) do we find ent, given that all living things have a history. ‘heroes’ in science. Indeed, this often occurs in mistaken contexts; Darwin’s evolution, for exam- 2. That the interpretation of phenomena or ob- ple, is frequently presented in the context of popu- jects could be different if other criteria or meth- lation genetics which Darwin himself could not ods were used (for example, increased focus on even have dreamt of, or Pasteur is alluded to in a certain groups of animals rather than others or discussion on prokaryotic cell morphology, a con- use of more qualitative than quantitative meth- cept which was to emerge years after the French ods, or vice-versa). chemist’s death. In other words, if humans have a history, nature and all of its components also have a history, and science, like all human endeavour, has a future, Nature and all of its components also have a which makes it contingent; in other words, it is conditioned by what has gone before. history, and science, like all human endea- vour, has a future, which makes it contingent. 2. ‘Normal’ science and scientific revolutions Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that humans, This holds true both in Physical and Mathematical, despite the growing evidence to the contrary, are and Life and Earth Sciences. Take a book title still all too ready to see themselves as conceptu- such as The Vegetation of Andorra or The Fauna ally outside nature and it is therefore difficult for of Minorca, in which regardless of the fact that them to conceive themselves as part of it. This the authors warn us, in compliance with aca- applies to learning about nature, to mastering it, 8 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE? exploiting or destroying it, protecting it and (in the The scientific revolution seems to be the price to supreme example of presumption) saving it. be paid in order to avoid the stagnation of re- search (or its becoming merely formalistic and All this despite the fact that centuries have passed monotonously repetitive). However, as in the case since Descartes observed, admittedly from a pure- of all revolutions, the process is not without casu- ly mechanicist perspective, that the movement of alties. Knowledge which, for one reason or an- the mechanism of a watch was no less ‘natural’ other, is not incorporated into the new corpus than the flight of migrating swallows.1 bound to the new paradigms is soon marginalised and destined to oblivion.2 However, the advance of knowledge and the transmission of this knowledge to society is not a simple process; it is neither linear nor accumu- 3. Ecology, a Romantic science? lative, but complex and subject to the general historical circumstances of a given period, not to However, let us ask again: can a science be ter- mention the specific circumstances of the scien- med Romantic (or Classical, or Post-modern, or tific community, at both local and global level. It Baroque)? More specifically, is there any justification is now some years since Thomas S. Kuhn for saying that ecology is Romantic? What does this (1922-1996), the North American science histor- science do that makes it different to others? ian, pointed out that the history of science (i.e., the history of the production of knowledge) com- A science that differs from others prises periods of two main types: The history of science shows ecology to be - Periods of what Kuhn refers to as normal science, characterised by a number of unique features.
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