Beyond Equilibria: Historical Approaches to Ecology and Evolution

Ecologists and evolutionary biologists, especially those with theoretical and mathematical leanings, have tended to dismiss historical approaches as descriptive, smacking of particularities, allowing few generalizations (or even being untestable), and even antithetical to scientific explanation. By contrast, the concept of biological equilibrium pervades every aspect of ecology and evolution, from the popular notion of the 'balance of nature' to sophisticated mathematical analyses of critic...