I love these questions so much. In grad school, our professor had us read Karl Popper’s article, “Limits to a scientific understanding of man,” which made a big impression on me. And in the film about the Large Hadron Collider, “Particle Fever,” one of the theoretical physicists had as his goal in life to discover (or develop) the one equation that explains the universe. I resist this reductivism. Your own example of the microbiome of soil points to the need for humility in the face of such complexity. And this post demonstrates the need for environmental humanities to pair with environmental science. We are a curious species, and our questions can come from many perspectives, including mathematics and philosophy.
Such great questions. Your term "understanding" is interesting in itself. If, for example, a friend is down with a problem and goes to you for sympathy because they know you are "understanding," it's not because you have a quantitative analysis of their problem, but because you are able to empathize. I would argue that this ability, to understand outside of quantitative certainties is essential for any true knowing. Indeed, I feel our capabilities for numerical analysis is hindering our ability to truly understand of where we are. We seem to be backsliding toward a Newtonian, mechanical view of the world.
I agree, we'll never fully understand things. The only law of ecology, to me, is contingency. Everything is contingent on something else. However, for me, it's about being able to understand things from a first principles perspective. When you boil everything down to its inner workings, what are the key components that will enable you to build a simple model that can recover some of what's happening on the ground.
Interesting post. In my dotage, I have given a fair bit of thought to these ideas (although never seemingly enough to write anything up). Mine have been along the lines of "Does microbial ecology have a philosophy? Should it?" I am more of an Imre Lakatos kind of guy rather than Karl Popper re what constitutes science. For Lakatos, a field is good science if it is progressive – either theoretically (by producing novel hypotheses) or empirically (if the novel predictions are empirically validated). In the realm of biology, progress is commonly viewed as the process of discovering mechanisms.
Hence, determining mechanisms is a noble cause. But (as others have noted here), ecological systems are less likely to be deterministic (rigidly captured by equations) than probabilistic (in which history and contingencies can matter a lot). But that does not preclude 'understanding' in terms of identifying principles that may broadly apply to those histories and contingencies.
Also note that in biology generally, finding a 'mechanism' often reveals another layer of the onion in which there is always a deeper explanation of the mechanism (think the human innate and adaptive immunity systems -- we have learned a lot about mechanisms, but as COVID has shown us, there are much deeper levels still to be understood).
Yes, completely agree it feels like onion layer after onion layer can get peeled off. Is that the meaning of 'true understanding' then, going to that very last layer of the onion? It's probably not useful to do that, not for answering a certain question.
I think the whole field of complex systems is an attempt to get a full-understanding, but when feedback comes (like the 2008 economic crisis) we realize that our models are not “sophisticated enough” and then we end up developing “more enhanced stochastic differential models”. There isn’t really an end to how complicated we can get because you can keep unfolding each variable that comes up and break it down into its constituents.
The idea to have a full understanding such that a simulation would always reenact what happens without abstraction is, while enticing, dysfunctional. In fact, I daresay it is more a recreational activity than a purposeful pursuit. Because eventually feedback that would undermine a whole layer of assumptions that the complex system is based upon might come, and then we’d just end up having a chaotic set of models.
I think we should look at some threshold that tells us how much is enough. An understanding that allows us to reach conclusions that allow us to develop solutions that are within our control rather than ones that aim to make us play God.
If we end up creating some nano-robots that can fully modify a micro biome, then maybe a thorough understanding of it would be relevant then. But we’re not yet at the level of technological maturity to terraform planets or build Dyson spheres yet.
I think it is important for a scientist to remain humble in ensuring that their models and understandings are not overly complicated that taking action based on them would be possible. It would also help policymakers and funders allocate their resources more efficiently in a manner that ensures scientists contribute and remain relevant to their communities.
There was a paper by a B. Boashash on The Principles of Excellence in Engineering Education where he discusses the aspect of cultural relevant in more detail, but from a MENA region perspective.
I love these questions so much. In grad school, our professor had us read Karl Popper’s article, “Limits to a scientific understanding of man,” which made a big impression on me. And in the film about the Large Hadron Collider, “Particle Fever,” one of the theoretical physicists had as his goal in life to discover (or develop) the one equation that explains the universe. I resist this reductivism. Your own example of the microbiome of soil points to the need for humility in the face of such complexity. And this post demonstrates the need for environmental humanities to pair with environmental science. We are a curious species, and our questions can come from many perspectives, including mathematics and philosophy.
Yep, the word humility captures perfectly the sentiment!!
We only ever see certain facets of reality with our instruments.
Such great questions. Your term "understanding" is interesting in itself. If, for example, a friend is down with a problem and goes to you for sympathy because they know you are "understanding," it's not because you have a quantitative analysis of their problem, but because you are able to empathize. I would argue that this ability, to understand outside of quantitative certainties is essential for any true knowing. Indeed, I feel our capabilities for numerical analysis is hindering our ability to truly understand of where we are. We seem to be backsliding toward a Newtonian, mechanical view of the world.
I agree this is a very interesting term. There are entire books on ecological understanding...
I agree, we'll never fully understand things. The only law of ecology, to me, is contingency. Everything is contingent on something else. However, for me, it's about being able to understand things from a first principles perspective. When you boil everything down to its inner workings, what are the key components that will enable you to build a simple model that can recover some of what's happening on the ground.
Interesting post. In my dotage, I have given a fair bit of thought to these ideas (although never seemingly enough to write anything up). Mine have been along the lines of "Does microbial ecology have a philosophy? Should it?" I am more of an Imre Lakatos kind of guy rather than Karl Popper re what constitutes science. For Lakatos, a field is good science if it is progressive – either theoretically (by producing novel hypotheses) or empirically (if the novel predictions are empirically validated). In the realm of biology, progress is commonly viewed as the process of discovering mechanisms.
Hence, determining mechanisms is a noble cause. But (as others have noted here), ecological systems are less likely to be deterministic (rigidly captured by equations) than probabilistic (in which history and contingencies can matter a lot). But that does not preclude 'understanding' in terms of identifying principles that may broadly apply to those histories and contingencies.
Also note that in biology generally, finding a 'mechanism' often reveals another layer of the onion in which there is always a deeper explanation of the mechanism (think the human innate and adaptive immunity systems -- we have learned a lot about mechanisms, but as COVID has shown us, there are much deeper levels still to be understood).
Thanks for writing!
Yes, completely agree it feels like onion layer after onion layer can get peeled off. Is that the meaning of 'true understanding' then, going to that very last layer of the onion? It's probably not useful to do that, not for answering a certain question.
I think the whole field of complex systems is an attempt to get a full-understanding, but when feedback comes (like the 2008 economic crisis) we realize that our models are not “sophisticated enough” and then we end up developing “more enhanced stochastic differential models”. There isn’t really an end to how complicated we can get because you can keep unfolding each variable that comes up and break it down into its constituents.
The idea to have a full understanding such that a simulation would always reenact what happens without abstraction is, while enticing, dysfunctional. In fact, I daresay it is more a recreational activity than a purposeful pursuit. Because eventually feedback that would undermine a whole layer of assumptions that the complex system is based upon might come, and then we’d just end up having a chaotic set of models.
I think we should look at some threshold that tells us how much is enough. An understanding that allows us to reach conclusions that allow us to develop solutions that are within our control rather than ones that aim to make us play God.
If we end up creating some nano-robots that can fully modify a micro biome, then maybe a thorough understanding of it would be relevant then. But we’re not yet at the level of technological maturity to terraform planets or build Dyson spheres yet.
I think it is important for a scientist to remain humble in ensuring that their models and understandings are not overly complicated that taking action based on them would be possible. It would also help policymakers and funders allocate their resources more efficiently in a manner that ensures scientists contribute and remain relevant to their communities.
There was a paper by a B. Boashash on The Principles of Excellence in Engineering Education where he discusses the aspect of cultural relevant in more detail, but from a MENA region perspective.
Yes! Thanks for writing.
Again the idea of humility is a central theme.