Is Wilderness a Myth?

[wayno]

never has so much been written about such a simple question?
is wilderness a myth? NO!

[Pteropus]

Well it is a complicated question that deserves some consideration
And maddog asked several questions that all go hand in hand with the wilderness question.

[maddog]

An enjoyable debate, and a subject that will no doubt occupy minds on future walks.

It is a rare forum where people can debate a idea however contentious, take opposing sides, and all the while play the ball and not the man.

Good luck with the reading Pteropus.

Cheers

[wayno]

personally some of the messages in the thread could have been truncated, far too much information to remain intersting for me, if you dont know the various plants being discussed its going to be a bit lost on people

[Pteropus]

personally some of the messages in the thread could have been truncated, far too much information to remain intersting for me, if you dont know the various plants being discussed its going to be a bit lost on people

haha well I think maddog and I enjoyed ourselves

[maddog]

personally some of the messages in the thread could have been truncated, far too much information to remain intersting for me, if you dont know the various plants being discussed its going to be a bit lost on people

It is an Australian book, written within an Australian context. The vegetation communities discussed just focused the argument. The alternative would have got us no further than a boorishly debating a definition of wilderness.

To the extent that the historical thesis (or hypothesis to the scientist) becomes accepted, it will be influential in determining the direction of land management in this country. So a book worthy of critical thought, and much debate.

And truncation is what the Equipment thread is for. But surely you don't just think about gear on your walks?

[walkinTas]

This is bound to further upset those hoping for shorter post.
Still, this timeline might help.

JURASSIC PERIOD: - from 208 to 144 million years ago (m.y.a.).
Stretching and rifting of Gondwana and Laurasia begins in the late Jurassic. The ancient flora is dominated by conifers, ferns, cycads, gingkos, lycopods and ferntails. Fossils of some of these ancient species have been found at places like Lune River in Tasmania.

CRETACEOUS PERIOD: - from 144 to 65 million years ago
125 m.y.a. – Africa leaves Antarctica. India separates and Australia moves rapidly north (20cm/pa.)
100 m.y.a. – Africa and South America separate. Flowering plants evolve in west Gondwana.
90 m.y.a. – Flowering plants migrate to all continents.
80 m.y.a. – New Zealand separates from Australia and climate much warmer. Tasmania does not separate from Antarctica. First Nothofagus are seen in Antarctica. Southern conifers still dominate Australian flora. First Proteaceae seen in Australia Nothofagus spreads to Southern Australia (via Antarctica and Tasmania).
70 m.y.a. – Ilex is the first flowering plant in Australia.
65 m.y.a – Terminal Cretaceous Event leads to sudden cooling and mass extinctions.

TERTIARY PERIOD: - from 65 to 1.6 million years ago, divided into five epochs; Palaeocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene and Pliocene

PALAEOCENE: - from 65 to 58 million years ago.
Casuarina, Banksia, Myrtaceae, Restionaceae, Winteraceae, and Epicridaceae appear.

EOCENE: - from 58 to 40 million years ago
50 m.y.a. – India collides with Asia to form the Himalayas. Climate is mainly warm and wet.
45 m.y.a. – Australia finally separates from Antarctica and the land connection between Tasmania and Antarctica is lost.
Grass pollen appears in the fossil records. A rich sub-tropical rainforest covers most of Australia.

OLIGOCENE : - from 40 to 24 million years ago.
Antarctica cooler and drier and glaciers start to form.
Australia collides with New Guinea. Tasmania has been carried north and lies about 65ºS. Temperate rainforest widespread across South America, Antarctica and Southern Australia are dominated by Nothofagus.
Australian plants now develop in isolation for the next 30 million years.
25 m.y.a – The first Acacia and Eucalyptus appear in Australia.

MIOCENE : - from 24 to 5.3 million years ago.
20 m.y.a – Antarctica stranded over the southern pole and is noticeably cooler.
17 m.y.a – Antarctic flora succumbs to the cold.
15 m.y.a – Southern Ice Cap forms. Australian Closed forests changing to wet sclerophyll forest (tough waxy leaves). Dry Forests changing to Open grasslands.
10 m.y.a – Australia still drifting north at 6-7cm p.a. arrives in the sub-tropic and is drying. Eucalyptus, Acacia, Casuarina, and grasses become dominant. Fire becomes an important factor in shaping flora.
5.3 m.y.a. – Terminal Miocene Event. Cold, dry, Arid period.

PLIOCENE: - from 5.3 to 1.6 million years ago
Antarctica freezes over. Northern Ice Cap forms. Australia collides with Timor region. Tasmania gets to 42ºS is now cold, temperate and moist.
5 m.y.a. – sub-tropical forest species migrate to refuges in North Queensland and New Guinea. Asia plants invade from the north. Myrtaceae dominate.
3 m.y.a - bipedal apes.
2.5 m.y.a. - Homo habilis
2 m.y.a. – Dry sclerophyll woodlands and grasslands expand. Deserts begin to form and expand.
1.8 m.y.a - homo erectus.

QUATERNARY PERIOD: - from 1.6 million years ago to present day, divided into two epochs; Pleistocene and Holocene.
PLEISTOCENE: - from 1.6 to 0.1 million years
ICE AGE. Sea levels fall and rise many times. Australia is still drying. Intermittent land bridge across Bass Strait.
0.5 m.y.a. - Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans evolve,
0.2 m.y.a - Homo sapiens sapiens (Modern Man).
c 60,000 y.a. – Man first arrives in Australia.
51,000 to 40,000 y.a. – In Australia, about 50 species of megafauna go extinct including marsupials, reptiles and birds. Most of the macropods that went extinct were browsers.
Australian continent continues to become more arid.

HOLOCENE: The modern era from c 12,000 y.a.

(reference GONDWANA TIMELINE by Dr. Keith Corbett)
Edit: added human evolution (reference - wikipedia).

[walkinTas]

Australian aborigines are known to have practised "fire-stick" farming in open woodlands and grasslands (where these existed). This practice continued over 1000 of years. This did NOT lead to the evolution of fire tolerance - that took 10 million years, but rather, promoted fire tolerant plants and grasses and hinder fire-susceptible flora. The fact that there was a significant change in Australia flora in the Pliocene period is not disputed (in science). There is some evidence that fire-stick farming, along with the massive climate fluctuations of the Pliocene Ice Ages were contributing factor that lead to the significant change in the species that dominated the Australia flora. This period also saw a large reduction in rainforest across Australia. The change of flora may have been one major factor that contributed to the extinction of megafauna as flora that formed the diet of megafauna was replaced by fire-tolerant, but less palatable flora. Rather than "create" the open woodland and grasslands of Australia, fire-stick farming perpetuated grasslands and favoured fire-tolerant plants. Fire tolerance includes three major groups of plants - those that regenerate rapidly from buds beneath protective bark (Eucalypts and their relatives}, those that regenerate from ground level or sub-subterranean tubers or roots (including many grasses) and those that regenerate from seed stores and/or fire tolerant seeds or seed protected by fire-tolerant seed capsules.

Reading the first chapter of Bill Gammage's book, one might think that much of this is newly discovered. I can assure you all of the above was well discussed in my undergraduate course at VCAH in the early '80s.

Is wilderness a myth. Absolutely NOT - the mesopelagic zone and beyond is the largest single habitat on earth, and is almost entirely wilderness - large tracks of it totally unexplored. Wilderness is that part of earth shaped by nature over the ages, where native and endemic flora and fauna flourish. We diminish wilderness when we choose to reshape the landscape or when we deplete native flora and fauna populations, or when we introduce non-native flora and fauna.

[Pteropus]

This is bound to further upset those hoping for shorter post.
....15 m.y.a – Southern Ice Cap forms. Australian Closed forests changing to wet sclerophyll forest (tough waxy leaves). Dry Forests changing to Open grasslands.
10 m.y.a – Australia still drifting north at 6-7cm p.a. arrives in the sub-tropic and is drying. Eucalyptus, Acacia, Casuarina, and grasses become dominant. Fire becomes an important factor in shaping flora....

I said it so much more succinctly than your timeline walkinTas

It is widely accepted that many of our flora evolved in wetter regions and that Australia drifted north into drier climes and the flora had to adapt. This is why many of the dry land plant species in Australia are actually from families that have their rainforest counterparts: Mytaceae, Proteaceae, Fabaceae, Sapindaceae etc. The presence of Aboriginal people using fire did not change this in the 40,000 – 100,000 years they have been here. Our flora adapted to a drier, hotter and possibly fire-prone environment over millions of years, before humans arrived here. Aboriginal people just took advantage of the properties of the vegetation, to burn and survive fire.

Is wilderness a myth. Absolutely NOT - the mesopelagic zone and beyond is the largest single habitat on earth, and is almost entirely wilderness - large tracks of it totally unexplored. Wilderness is that part of earth shaped by nature over the ages, where native and endemic flora and fauna flourish. We diminish wilderness when we choose to reshape the landscape or when we deplete native flora and fauna populations, or when we introduce non-native flora and fauna.

Too true...lets exploit that zone....oh, they are already looking at doing that...

[maddog]

Is wilderness a myth. Absolutely NOT - the mesopelagic zone and beyond is the largest single habitat on earth, and is almost entirely wilderness - large tracks of it totally unexplored. Wilderness is that part of earth shaped by nature over the ages, where native and endemic flora and fauna flourish. We diminish wilderness when we choose to reshape the landscape or when we deplete native flora and fauna populations, or when we introduce non-native flora and fauna.

Too true...lets exploit that zone....oh, they are already looking at doing that...

By introducing the ice-age into the discussion, you have made an important contribution walkingTas. But I feel that you may have chosen truncation over clarity in other areas, so I am left with a few questions unanswered.

Do you consider indigenous peoples living a traditional lifestyle consistent with wilderness values?

Also, what flora and fauna do you consider native. Is the Dingo a native animal, etc? One definition of 'native', that Tim Low accepts, is that any plant or animal that made its way to Australia without the assistance of Europeans is native. This makes the Dingo a native dog, etc, consistent with a wilderness definition that includes Aboriginal peoples as a part of an ecosystem. But is this what you mean by native?

And finally, in the interests of clarity. Is it acceptable to actively manage a 'wilderness area' to preserve 'wilderness values'? For example to maintain biodiversity, fill vacant ecological ecological niches, etc. Or do we just accept change as it occurs to avoid directly 'reshaping the landscape' that we have found ourselves with today? If we do not actively manage a wilderness but accept change, for example that brought about by introduced weeds, at what point do we no longer consider a landscape wilderness?

In regard to the 'mesopelagic zone and beyond is the largest single habitat on earth', and its possible future exploitation, the ecologist Paul Colinvaux (in 'Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare') has this to say of the sea:

The worlds oceans make up a vast desert, desperately short of nutrients and with living things spread most thinly through them. This is the shocking message of our enquiry into the blueness of the sea. I use the word "shocking" with care. Our generation has been treated to tales about the sea as the last frontier, as a place of wealth, of riches, of production. No journalist seems to be able to write on the subject of feeding the hungry without mentioning farming the oceans, as if they were some great untapped source of food for people. But they are not. The oceans are deserts with little more food in them than we are taking out already.

Cheers

[jackhinde]

Very interesting commentary. I really think you should get a copy pteropus (and yes you picked the right banks quote i was refering to). One thing not discussed in regard to the book as yet is the multitude of references Gammage made to how frequently the Aboriginals set fires- they would seem to have burnt areas nearly every day. Regular children of the ashes and positively pyromaniac.
One of the greatest example of the phenomenom I made reference to earlier in regards to vegetation can be seen on the wangaderry tableland. The scrub is thick with an understorey regrown since the fire in 2001, it is "30 foot scrub" (you can't see a person 10 metres ahead). The eucalypts are quite dense, standing straight and tall to at least 25 metres, and about 500 mm in diameter (perhaps 80 to 100 years old?). Scattered amongst this are the parent trees, dwarfed by the tall offspring. These parents are 30 to 40 metres apart, gnarled, over a metre in diameter, many with fire hollows at the base. They do not grow straight and true, instead most branch heavily only a few metres from the ground- they look like completely different species and clearly spent the first century or two of their lives growing with no competive need to grow up toward the light- only out. I suspect these ancients once spread their boughs over grassy meadows, the rocky crags now mulched and covered would have held a wealth of critters...
Here is something to ponder: most organisms are ectothermic (invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles), if tree canopy cover is increased how will they receive adequate heat to exist at ground level? Simple experiments whereby chainsaws are taken to trees on ridgelines (to simulate fire) have already shown to increase numbers of the endangered broad headed snake and the geckos they prey upon. Freshwater Turtle populations are crashing- it is a slow motion collapse as they are such long lived species, but the crash is more apparent in national parks than agricultural areas- could it be that they simply are unable to bask due to overshading of the rivers?
The declaration of wilderness allows people to "lock it up and leave it". I think this is the wrong path, our environment needs to be actively managed.

[walkinTas]

I said it so much more succinctly than your timeline walkinTas .

Succinct requires finesse! Not necessarily my forte.

The declaration of wilderness allows people to "lock it up and leave it". I think this is the wrong path, our environment needs to be actively managed.

OMG yes! How could nature possibly survive it we didn't actively manage it? God only knows how the planet got by for 4500M years without us.

[Pteropus]

I really think you should get a copy pteropus

It's on the list.

...One thing not discussed in regard to the book as yet is the multitude of references Gammage made to how frequently the Aboriginals set fires- they would seem to have burnt areas nearly every day...

Perhaps, but there has to be the right conditions and fuel to burn of course. One argument is that fire was more a function of the fact that Aboriginals carried hot coals wherever they travelled, simply because it is difficult to get a fire going at a new destination and it was more efficient to cary fire when they travelled. Coals were inevitably dropped and fires broke out. That is not necessarily management, which assumes purpose with outcomes, but would certainly effect the landscape.

...the Aboriginals set fires- they would seem to have burnt areas nearly every day. Regular children of the ashes and positively pyromaniac...

Are you sure that is not you?

...and anyone who goes walking with me will be well aware of my love of fire!
...Burn it clean, and burn it again, and again, and again...

One of the greatest example of the phenomenom I made reference to earlier in regards to vegetation can be seen on the wangaderry tableland. The scrub is thick with an understorey regrown since the fire in 2001, it is "30 foot scrub" (you can't see a person 10 metres ahead). The eucalypts are quite dense, standing straight and tall to at least 25 metres, and about 500 mm in diameter (perhaps 80 to 100 years old?). Scattered amongst this are the parent trees, dwarfed by the tall offspring. These parents are 30 to 40 metres apart, gnarled, over a metre in diameter, many with fire hollows at the base. They do not grow straight and true, instead most branch heavily only a few metres from the ground- they look like completely different species and clearly spent the first century or two of their lives growing with no competive need to grow up toward the light- only out. I suspect these ancients once spread their boughs over grassy meadows, the rocky crags now mulched and covered would have held a wealth of critters...

Maybe so, but how do you know that is not what a eucalypt forest structure was pre-Aboriginal contact? To grow in a thick scrub and then burn one every 10 - 20 years when natural fires came, instead of maybe low intensity burns every 2 or so years? I think, from all we have collectively written, that we all agree that the Aboriginals changed the structure of vegetation in many Australian landscapes, and it is on that that the original question about wilderness, and whether it is a myth (exists/existed) or not, is based upon. But as to why or how much they changed it, or if it was beneficial to the landscape? Who knows? Perhaps we need a fire ecologist to comment?

...Here is something to ponder: most organisms are ectothermic (invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles), if tree canopy cover is increased how will they receive adequate heat to exist at ground level? Simple experiments whereby chainsaws are taken to trees on ridgelines (to simulate fire) have already shown to increase numbers of the endangered broad headed snake and the geckos they prey upon...

Ectotherms adapted to forest might do better in a forested area than in open areas simply because they have different requirements, such as cover from predators. And ones adapted to rocky out crops such as broad-headed snakes might do better in an open area. These animals have their niches and the environment is changing constantly. Studies show greater biodiversity in woody areas than in open ones though. Species have to occasionally deal with catastrophic disturbance and most are generally resilient. The difference today is, humans have modified surrounding landscapes and source habitats from which populations might have been able to recolonise a disturbed patch might have been cleared and populations wiped out. Or burnt, over and over again by some zealous land manager...

...Freshwater Turtle populations are crashing- it is a slow motion collapse as they are such long lived species, but the crash is more apparent in national parks than agricultural areas- could it be that they simply are unable to bask due to overshading of the rivers?
The declaration of wilderness allows people to "lock it up and leave it". I think this is the wrong path, our environment needs to be actively managed.

Could this be simply because there is less area covered by national parks and conservation areas than is covered by agricultural regions? Or that national parks are not the optimal habitats for turtles, often since they are generally the most marginal habitats and were conserved simply because they are not the best areas for agricultural development? There is plenty of evidence that humans like to settle in biodiversity rich regions, simply because they are the best places to live for humans and other animals and plants alike. And that areas conserved in national parks are, in many cases, the areas that were left over. Anyhow, that is very generalist, but just some rambling thoughts....

[maddog]

Scattered amongst this are the parent trees, dwarfed by the tall offspring. These parents are 30 to 40 metres apart, gnarled, over a metre in diameter, many with fire hollows at the base. They do not grow straight and true, instead most branch heavily only a few metres from the ground- they look like completely different species and clearly spent the first century or two of their lives growing with no competive need to grow up toward the light- only out. I suspect these ancients once spread their boughs over grassy meadows, the rocky crags now mulched and covered would have held a wealth of critters...

Glad you brought it up. The same thing can be seen in Northern NSW. Magnificent fully figured remnant trees, surrounded by a biological desert of twiggy regrowth.

It is also worth noting that Gammage, like Pteropus, is a keen bushwalker. Unlike many 'Google Earth' ecologists, they spend time in the field.

The snake study you refer to is 'Canopy Removal Restores Habitat Quality for an Endangered Snake in a Fire Suppressed Landscape' Jonathan K. Webb, Richard Shine, Robert M. Pringle. Copeia, 2005(4):894-900. 2005. It was conducted in a 'wilderness area'.

The concluding comments are interesting. It is not just the cold blooded that suffer:

Finally, we note that many other plants and animals may face extirpation as a result of vegetation encroachment. For example, some of Morton National Park’s endangered plants could suffer from light exclusion or competition that accompanies canopy closure (e.g., Carlsen et al., 2000; Munk et al., 2002). The endangered Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) may also be threatened by vegetation thickening. Previous discussions of the conservation of the charismatic rock wallabies have focused on predator control (chiefly foxes, Vulpes vulpes, Hone, 1999), but multiple causes for the Brush- tailed Rock Wallaby decline are more likely. Petrogale penicillata favors sunny north-facing cliff aspects and basks during winter, and it may require a mosaic of open grassy areas for basking, foraging, and for detecting predators. Prior to European settlement, several Aboriginal tribes used our study plateau as a major traveling route between the coast and western ranges (Sneddon, 1988), and they probably burnt the plateau both to facilitate travel and to create open grassy habitats suitable for macropod prey (Flannery, 1994). If foxes are wholly to blame for the extinction of P. penicillata, why did rock wallabies persist on our study sites until 1995 (Webb, pers. obs.), more than 150 years after fox introduction?

In conclusion, we suggest that canopy removal is an effective tool for conserving reptile habitats on accessible rock outcrops where vegetation overgrowth is a serious problem. Prescribed burns should be used to maintain an open canopy above rock outcrops in more remote areas. Sandstone rock outcrops contain many endemic species and have a high conservation value, yet scientists have studied only a handful of species (Recher et al., 1993; Goldsbrough et al., 2003). Future experimental studies are urgently needed to investigate the efficacy of various management tools (fire, understory clearing, canopy removal) for conserving the flora and fauna of these important and understudied ecosystems.

Pteropus will be busy when he finishes reading Gammage

The declaration of wilderness allows people to "lock it up and leave it". I think this is the wrong path, our environment needs to be actively managed.

OMG yes! How could nature possibly survive it we didn't actively manage it? God only knows how the planet got by for 4500M years without us.

Nature in the 'wilderness' surrounding the Chernobyl reactor is doing just fine, so yes nature will survive almost anything. But what diversity will survive management by neglect in the name of 'wilderness'?

[Pteropus]

Pteropus will be busy when he finishes reading Gammage

hahaha despite apparent evidence to the contrary, I am busy enough with reading. You would be surprised, I am sure...



(gets back to the field..I mean Google Earth... )

[maddog]

(gets back to the field..I mean Google Earth... )

To avoid causing offence, I have edited my post.

Kind Regards,

Maddog.

[walkinTas]

Do you consider indigenous peoples living a traditional lifestyle consistent with wilderness values? Also, what flora and fauna do you consider native.

There is not a simple, easy answer. We consider Nothofagus gunnii to be endemic Tasmanian. Rightly so, it evolve here and is found nowhere else. Ancestral Nothofagus however did not originate in Tasmania, but "invaded" via the land bridge with Antarctica. At what point can a plant or animal be said to have become "native" (i.e. now occur naturally)? A coconut floats across the ocean to an isolated Island. A palm tree grows. Palms naturalise on that Island. At what point can we now say Palms are native to that Island?

The history of evolution is littered with just such stories involving both plants and animals. The history of human evolution is no different. Different "human" and "pre-human" species evolved. They migrated and travelled to new lands. At some point in evolution we can say this group of humans, or this species, is "native" to this or that region? This is the whole essence of evolution. Species find a niche that suits them, and they take up residence there. Climate changes over millions of years, the best adapted offspring exploit the new environmental niches. When the changes are more rapid than evolution and adaptation can manage, the species goes extinct.

And finally, in the interests of clarity. Is it acceptable to actively manage a 'wilderness area' to preserve 'wilderness values'? For example to maintain biodiversity, fill vacant ecological ecological niches, etc.

The declaration of wilderness allows people to "lock it up and leave it". I think this is the wrong path, our environment needs to be actively managed.

This is the whole conserve versus preserve debate. Should we simple protect and area from harmful forces or should we aim to keep it in its current state forever. The modern concept of conserving nature through National Parks began at Yellowstone in Wyoming. The idea was to conserve natural areas for future generations to enjoy. The original concept seems to have been very much about protecting spectacular bits of nature so that it would not be exploited by a few, but rather remain "natural" and be there for all to enjoy. Even that ideal was a struggle, as many tried to exploit the tourist potential of the National Parks. Even today, development and economic interests often are seen to be more valuable that conservation. Ideas about protecting plants and animals and managing and maintaining biodiversity have evolved more slowly over time and at times in conflict with other aims and ambitions.

Despite my response above, the truth is that it would be hard to leave vast tracks of land to be totally natural. Even on remote beaches in Southwest Tasmania, where humans rarely go, weeds (introduced species) and rubbish need to be actively managed. However, the concept of what should and shouldn't be managed has changed. Wolves, for example, once seen as undesirable, have now been reintroduced to National Parks in the USA and Europe. The whole Macquarie Island experience should show just how hard (and expensive) it is to manage conservation. I think the idea of minimal interference has merit and should not be lightly dismissed - nature can get by without us - but no interference at all is not always the only or the best strategy.

This is really the OP question - and a question we all struggle with when we're out there - are there any totally wild and natural, unspoilt areas? Can we keep them? If we go there will that spoil those natural places? If we don't go there will they be lost anyway? Fortunately there are still places on this planet where the touch of humankind has been relatively light. The Wollemi Pine survived. LNT encourages us all to try and keep such places as undisturbed as possible, but as we now know, human impact has reached global proportions.

No journalist seems to be able to write on the subject of feeding the hungry without mentioning farming the oceans, as if they were some great untapped source of food for people. But they are not. The oceans are deserts with little more food in them than we are taking out already.

We have already overpopulation much of the planet. We have modified environments so that they will better support our species. We are uniquely masterful in our ability to manipulate the environment for our survival, but every now and then nature will remind us that we are not in control.

[Pteropus]

(gets back to the field..I mean Google Earth... )

To avoid causing offence, I have edited my post.

Kind Regards,

Maddog.

No offence was taken, so don't worry about it. I was more amused, since you were making assumptions

In taking part in this discussion, we are all just putting ideas forward. We all have agreed that fire has played a significant part in shaping vegetation and that Aboriginals played a major role in shaping vegetation structure. I think that our main disagreement was more on how much of the continent was burnt and with what frequency. And whether grasslands were more prevalent than forest. If you look at my original posts I point out that last one is a matter of scale, and that first explorers did record that some forests and woodlands had widely spread trees with grass growing under them. But the extent of these forests and woodlands was much much greater than remains. That is why the first settlers spent so much time trying to tame it. They called it 'improvement', a word that is still used by graziers to this day.

This is partly why we have so-called wilderness areas, conservation areas and national parks. Because the settlers, and their descendants to this day, spent so much time converting native vegetation into pasture and fields for cropping. It was expected of them. Habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions, and now we are trying to maintain what natural habitats we have left, while still trying to exploit it at the same time. That is the difference between conservation and preservation. Preservation is very rare, and few areas are 'locked up'. Conservation, on the other hand, implies use of something without the complete destruction of it. Most biodiversity on Earth occurs on managed lands, and so that is the challenge, conserving biodiversity while exploiting it at the same time. But it is a losing battle, which I think makes wilderness areas so much more important. Whether they are in a modified state compared to pre-European times or not is mostly irrelevant. They are the areas MOST like what was here previously, before Europeans arrived, and they conserve a whole bunch of species and communities. Since the areas that surround them are more often than not in a drastically modified state, burning a wilderness because of a possible misconception that it needs it, might do more harm than good, if there is no possibility of re-colonisation from the surrounding areas.

...We are uniquely masterful in our ability to manipulate the environment for our survival, but every now and then nature will remind us that we are not in control.

I agree, and sometimes we forget this, to our own detriment.

[maddog]

No offence was taken, so don't worry about it. I was more amused, since you were making assumptions

I never assumed you took offence Pteropus. But you can take it as a complement that you were distinguished from many of your colleagues. Funny that some researchers of the natural world go to great lengths to avoid it, don't you think?

Habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions

Is the main cause, or was the main cause? A counter argument, for which there appears to be considerable evidence, is that management by neglect of natural areas including 'wilderness' is a greater threat to biodiversity than clearing is today.

They are the areas MOST like what was here previously, before Europeans arrived, and they conserve a whole bunch of species and communities.

That assumption is in dispute. Gammage provides a convincing case that much of what we have today does not represent the landscape (or 'wilderness') of 1788, and a whole bunch of species would prefer that it did. You have not successfully demonstrated otherwise.

Since the areas that surround them are more often than not in a drastically modified state, burning a wilderness because of a possible misconception that it needs it, might do more harm than good, if there is no possibility of re-colonisation from the surrounding areas.

But there is considerable evidence that suggests that much of the Australian landscape would benefit from the reintroduction of pre 1788 fire regime, as would the dependent fauna. We just have to work out what it was. As walkingTAS pointed out, they lived with fire or perished.

And is it not possible, the assumption that management by neglect is the correct course of action, is an equally dangerous proposition?

[Pteropus]

Habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions

Is the main cause, or was the main cause? A counter argument, for which there appears to be considerable evidence, is that management by neglect of natural areas including 'wilderness' is a greater threat to biodiversity than clearing is today.

It is long established ecological theory that habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions. I have not seen it said otherwise and I doubt anyone is going to say that allowing natural areas to remain natural is going to overtake clearing as the main cause of extinction. I think your argument is that these areas are not necessarily natural, but burning them on a regular basis might not necessarily be as natural as you believe.

They are the areas MOST like what was here previously, before Europeans arrived, and they conserve a whole bunch of species and communities.

That assumption is in dispute. Gammage provides a convincing case that much of what we have today does not represent the landscape (or 'wilderness') of 1788, and a whole bunch of species would prefer that it did. You have not successfully demonstrated otherwise.

Are you suggesting cleared paddocks with the odd tree here and there, or with housing estates is closer to the natural state of the Australian landscape pre-European? I used upper-case for “most” to make it clear that the current areas of bushland is most similar to what was there previously, not is what it was like. I have stated that the vegetation strucure has probably changed. And most species that have the luxury of occurring in a protected area are more often than not better off where they are, compared to ones that occur outside protected areas.

Since the areas that surround them are more often than not in a drastically modified state, burning a wilderness because of a possible misconception that it needs it, might do more harm than good, if there is no possibility of re-colonisation from the surrounding areas.

But there is considerable evidence that suggests that much of the Australian landscape would benefit from the reintroduction of pre 1788 fire regime, as would the dependent fauna. We just have to work out what it was. As walkingTAS pointed out, they lived with fire or perished.

There is evidence to suggest that Aboriginal use of fire in the landscape has been over stated. Furthermore, fire frequency and use has increased since European settlement. This might interest you: http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/fir ... e-activity
The theory of fire-stick farming is contentious and possibly outdated. There is a school of thought that Aboriginals may not have been actively managing the landscape with fire at all.

Furthermore, as we all stated before, fire is a natural part of the landscape in Australia and the plants are adapted to it. Natural areas will burn at some stage, with or without our help. They are generally resilient to it and we see it time and time again. It is generally accepted that hazard reduction burns are not very effective at preventing that, and people who claim otherwise are mostly misinformed. Consequently, the wilderness areas will get a fire every now and then, whether from a stray lightning bolt, a ‘controlled’ burn or an arsonist’s match.

And is it not possible, the assumption that management by neglect is the correct course of action, is an equally dangerous proposition?

Perhaps, but that would need testing. There is not much evidence for it, and in fact, there is more evidence to the contrary, that biodiversity thrives where it is allowed. Management is mainly focused at the community and landscape levels, and very rarely is it undertaken for single species management, like a few case studies mentioned in previous posts.

[walkinTas]

It is long established ecological theory that habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions.

Habitat change is a major contributor to species decline. Habitat loss is a more violent example of habitat change. Wide scale human clearing of habitats is (in ecological terms) a relatively recent occurrence, but has had significant impact. The introduction of feral predatory animals has possible had an equal effect in many cases. Plant invasion by "introduced" species is also a significant threat to biodiversity.

The theory of fire-stick farming is contentious and possibly outdated. There is a school of thought that Aboriginals may not have been actively managing the landscape with fire at all.

I think there might be a difference in understanding of what fire-stick farming was. Was it planned? Was it management? Or was it simply opportunistic? There is good evidence from contemporary writing by early settlers that Aborigines did not aimlessly wander, but rather moved in predictable cycles from one area to another to take advantage of conditions in each area at certain times of the year. This knowledge would have been oral history handed down across the generations by story telling and Dreaming. Aborigines may have burned areas to aid a hunting event - opportunistic. They may have burned areas as they passed through (say in the dry season) with the knowledge that when they returned at another time the new grass would be lush and game would be plentiful - forward planning maybe, but is this management or systematic farming?

Furthermore, as we all stated before, fire is a natural part of the landscape in Australia and the plants are adapted to it. Natural areas will burn at some stage, with or without our help.

I'm sure you don't mean that fire is natural in the "whole" of Australia. In "the interest of clarity" it should be stated again that the Australian landscape has changed very significantly over the 10million years since fire and climate shaped the fire tolerant species. Since all species are not fire tolerant, it is obvious there have always been niches where fire was not a natural event. There still are many such habitats: deserts, alpine regions, wet lands, rainforests, to name just the obvious. Many of the Australian conifers are now very limited in distribution, and are much less abundant than they were before European settlement, due to logging and to their vulnerability to fire. Obviously these habitats were not subject to regular burning. It is also debated how often fire occurred in wet sclerophyll forests. There is evidence that some Eucapytus species in these forest have begun to evolve away from their fire-tolerant ancestor and now no longer respond well to fires. E.regnans is an example tends not to recover well by reshooting.

Furthermore, fire in grasslands is not unique to Australia. There is good evidence that fire is important in many grassland savannah. Frequent fires tend to be lower intensity, and this might well be important for the long term survival of species.

But there is considerable evidence that suggests that much of the Australian landscape would benefit from the reintroduction of pre 1788 fire regime, as would the dependent fauna. We just have to work out what it was.

There is also evidence to suggest that weed species and invading plant species might repopulate burn areas quicker that native species.

[walkinTas]

Some of you might like to read this paper on the 10 Australian ecosystems most vulnerable to tipping points.

The Burning Question: Aborigines, Fire and Australian Ecosystems by D R Horton.

"The 'fire stick farming model, which suggests that Aborigines changed the frequency and nature of fires in order to manipulate animal and plant resources, is now widely accepted in Australian phehistory. A re-examination of the biological evidence suggests that Aboriginal use of fire had little impact on the environment and that the patterns of distribution of plants and animals which obtained 200 years ago would have been essentially the same whether or not Aborigines had previously been living here. It is further suggested that 'fire stick farming’, had it been attempted, would in fact have been counter productive economically because of the adverse effects it would have had upon small species of animals. Aborigines observed and made use of an existing natural fire regime in Australia, they did not attempt to develop a new one.

No comment because I haven't read it. ...yet!

[maddog]

Habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions

Is the main cause, or was the main cause? A counter argument, for which there appears to be considerable evidence, is that management by neglect of natural areas including 'wilderness' is a greater threat to biodiversity than clearing is today.

It is long established ecological theory that habitat loss through clearing is the main cause of species extinctions. I have not seen it said otherwise and I doubt anyone is going to say that allowing natural areas to remain natural is going to overtake clearing as the main cause of extinction.

The point here is that in Australia broad scale clearing of the type that caused such extinctions is largely a thing of the past. For example, the NSW O&H Annual Report 2010 on Native Vegetation:

(http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resou ... AR2010.pdf)

Figure 3.1 puts clearing in the modern era into perspective.

Approved clearing.pdf

(75.29 KiB) Downloaded 531 times

So we are in the post broad-scale clearing era, yet the extinctions continue. You are flogging a dead horse. Why?

And is it not possible, the assumption that management by neglect is the correct course of action, is an equally dangerous proposition?

Perhaps, but that would need testing. There is not much evidence for it, and in fact, there is more evidence to the contrary, that biodiversity thrives where it is allowed...

But what biodiversity is that? Is it the biodiversity that can be counted within the convenience of a quadrat, or is it biodiversity at a regional or national scale?

Yet another paper supportive of Gammage's position is:

Ian D. Lunt. (1998). Two Hundred Years of Land Use and Vegetation Change in a Remnant Coastal Woodland in Southern Australia. Australian Journal of Botany.CSIRO. pp 629-647.

And in relation to biodiversity the following is particularly interesting:

The Ocean Grove story provides a fascinating example of the problems inherent in conserving dynamic ecosystems. Which vegetation do we want to conserve (or could we possibly conserve) in the future: the present sheoak scrub, a golden wattle stand, or an open savannah of ‘gum, oak and honeysuckle’?...The case study also provides a valuable example of changing landscape perceptions over the past 200 years. The ‘thickly timbered’ reserve of today bears little resemblance to the areas of ‘thick timber’ mapped a century earlier: tree densities have increased over 100-fold... The non-interventionist reserve management which has characterised the Ocean Grove woodland since the 1960s, especially the absence of fire, is now typical of ecosystem management across most of sub- coastal and lowland Victoria. Consequently, numerous instances of shrub encroachment, and declines of threatened species and ecosystem diversity may be attributed, at least in part, to long-term fire exclusion (e.g. Gleadow and Ashton 1981; Day et al. 1984; Molnar et al. 1989; Offor 1990; Scarlett and Parsons 1990; Bennett 1994; Lunt 1995; Fisher 1996; McMahon et al. 1996; Middleton et al. 1996). To conserve biodiversity in the future, ecologists and land managers must develop and instil an informed philosophy of active vegetation management, rather than perpetuating a pervasive attitude of passive non- intervention. Biodiversity conservation must involve human interaction, and will not be well served by a nebulous rubric of ‘maintaining natural processes’.

Is this a pattern emerging?

Cheers

[maddog]

Some of you might like to read this paper on the 10 Australian ecosystems most vulnerable to tipping points.

The Burning Question: Aborigines, Fire and Australian Ecosystems by D R Horton.

"The 'fire stick farming model, which suggests that Aborigines changed the frequency and nature of fires in order to manipulate animal and plant resources, is now widely accepted in Australian phehistory. A re-examination of the biological evidence suggests that Aboriginal use of fire had little impact on the environment and that the patterns of distribution of plants and animals which obtained 200 years ago would have been essentially the same whether or not Aborigines had previously been living here. It is further suggested that 'fire stick farming’, had it been attempted, would in fact have been counter productive economically because of the adverse effects it would have had upon small species of animals. Aborigines observed and made use of an existing natural fire regime in Australia, they did not attempt to develop a new one.

No comment because I haven't read it. ...yet!

It will be interesting to know how the author, in denying the practice of 'fire stick farming' by the Aborigines, accounts for landscapes of the type described in Gammage's book.

[taswegian]

Nature in the 'wilderness' surrounding the Chernobyl reactor is doing just fine, so yes nature will survive almost anything. But what diversity will survive management by neglect in the name of 'wilderness'?
(maddog)

This is very true.
A rare plant was found a while back on side of Midlands Highway (?)
Treatment/ preservation was to exclude from contact by humans. In effect it was abandoned to nature, neglected.
It was soon discovered to be going into decline and 'normal' care and maintenance of roadside was resumed and it continued to survive.

Also oddly as it sounds, actively worked areas can have pockets of land that don't get touched and are a perfect habitat for survival for some plant species.
Gravel pits/ quarries are one case in mind.

[maddog]

Roadside Wallaby Grass?

Roadside Wallaby Grass appears to prefer disturbed open sites rather than 'intact' sites, the majority of which occur on roadsides. The open, and disturbed, nature can be maintained by slashing/mowing or fire, however, bare ground exposure as a result of this process may lead to the establishment of weeds (TSS 2009).

http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/s ... n_id=84360

[Pteropus]

...A counter argument, for which there appears to be considerable evidence, is that management by neglect of natural areas including 'wilderness' is a greater threat to biodiversity than clearing is today...The point here is that in Australia broad scale clearing of the type that caused such extinctions is largely a thing of the past. For example, the NSW O&H Annual Report 2010 on Native Vegetation...So we are in the post broad-scale clearing era, yet the extinctions continue....

Are we really in a ‘post broad-scale clearing era’? Your example from the NSW Annual report on the state of native vegetation suggests the contrary and that broadscale clearing conintues on:

...Together, these reports demonstrate that extensive areas of native
vegetation are being actively managed and conserved, and that the commitment to bring
broadscale native vegetation clearing to an end is being actively pursued
...There was a total reduction in the area of woody vegetation in NSW of 117,500 hectares (0.15 per cent of the area of the state; see page 10). These major changes occurred as a result of forestry; cropping, pasture and thinning; fire scars; and rural and major infrastructure.
...The total net reduction in the area of woody vegetation in NSW over the period 2009 to 2010 was 117,500 hectares or 0.15 per cent of the area of NSW. Figure 5.1 shows the proportion of clearing by land use category and fire. The measured woody vegetation change rates for all periods are shown in Table 5.1 and Figure 5.2.

figure 5.2

Clearing.jpg (53.34 KiB) Viewed 17656 times

Broad-scale clearing still occurs, and though there may be slight reductions , the there is still an increasing trend in total vegetation cover lost, which coincides with increasing numbers of threatened species: This might be of interest

You are flogging a dead horse. Why?

Habitat loss is by no means a ‘dead horse’ and is most definitely still considered the primary threat to species, in Australia and globally. Suggesting otherwise ignores the literature. There is also the problem of extinction debt, which is attributed to previous clearing history.
You seem confident in your assumptions that management by neglect is now a bigger threat than habitat loss, yet you are not in line with the current scientific view on the matter. At the risk of being boring, here is the tip of the ice-berg on literature from a quick search of recent literature:
Kutt et al. (2012)
Lindenmayer et al. (2010)
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

As walkinTas pointed out, invasions of plants and animals also have a strong impact. And sure, some management is required, that is not in dispute. But as walkingTas also pointed out, increased fire frequency can increase weeds, etc. The paper by Laurence et al. that he suggested, supports this argument. But there is increasing suggestion that climate change will exacerbate the issue of habitat loss, increasing the negative effects on biodiversity by many magnitudes (e.g. Mac Nally et al. (2009): Mantyka-Pringle et al. (2012)). There are predictions of increased fire frequency resulting from climate change. Increased fire frequency can have detrimental influences on species assemblages (e.g. Woinarski et al. (2004))

While there is no doubt some merit to Gammage’s view of the landscape, it is not the be-all end-all. Have you considered that perhaps it is Gammage who is flogging the dead horse? maddog, when you started the thread, you asked questions that invited us to comment on Gammage’s book. Again, as Walkintas pointed out, much of Gammage's hypotheses are not new, and have been around for some time, and many simply accept, without question, that ideas such as ‘fire-stick’ farming and management of large tracts of Australian vegetation by indigenous populations are just as it was. However, more recent discoveries show that some of these activities might not necessarily have been the case. For example, Mooney et al. (2011) used the charcoal record to show that there was no difference in fire regimes that would correspond with the arrival of humans, and the only evidence of increased fire activity in the past 40,000 years was with the arrival of Europeans, 200 years ago. On the other hand, von Platen et al. (2011) show that fire frequencies in dry eucalypt forests of south-east Tasmania had a mean fire frequency of 0.7 fires/decade in pre-European times, with a decrease in frequency immediately after settlement. However, that study shows that there was a sharp increase in fire frequencies from the mid 1800s. The low fire frequency in pre-European times does suggest that perhaps the aboriginals were not as active in managing the landscape with fire as much as is commonly believed.

I realise that you never suggested that we increase fire frequencies, and have pointed out that we don’t necessarily know the fire regimes the Aboriginals used, but conversely, perhaps letting nature take its course is the best way for conservation. That might include allowing natural fire to occur, rather than initiating them at inappropriate intervals. Management is a complex issue and cannot be applied in an ad hoc manner. It needs to target an issue and there are no real rules-of-thumb. Transferability of conservation actions from one area to another will not necessarily work. The science knowledge is often changing, as do management priorities. Fire ecology is gathering momentum too and increasing our understanding of how ecosystems respond to fire. We may even get the answers one day and yes, hopefully that information will be used to manage areas in the most optimal way possible.

But what biodiversity is that? Is it the biodiversity that can be counted within the convenience of a quadrat, or is it biodiversity at a regional or national scale?

Biodiversity (variety of life) is measured in several different ways, from your quadrat to satellite imagery. Species distribution maps are one of the methods used to present biodiversity. And there are several measures of biodiversity, such as species richness and abundance etc. I am mainly referring to species richness. Maintaining more species in functional populations, rather than less, is preferable reducing the number of species. Sure, that’s a very general statement, but there is an overall declining trend in species richness across Australia, so it might be better to have 100 species in a patch, with low to moderate abundances, rather than 3 species of high abundances. The scale of most management is the landscape scale, and that would also be the scale of most fires. Increasing species richness in landscapes might therefore be the best outcome, subject to management priorities of course.

Yet another paper supportive of Gammage's position is:
Ian D. Lunt. (1998). Two Hundred Years of Land Use and Vegetation Change in a Remnant Coastal Woodland in Southern Australia. Australian Journal of Botany.CSIRO. pp 629-647.
And in relation to biodiversity the following is particularly interesting...

One thing I find interesting about your selection of quote from Lunt (1998) is that it supports my example from the Brigalow Belt in my first post in this thread

However, if you were go back in time to pre-European days and enter one of the remaining forests on the ground, such as Barakula SF roughly in the centre of the image, you would likely find the trees much larger but less densely packed than you might today...

Tree densities are often greater than in pre-European times, and this is mostly due to previous disturbance such as clearing or fire. As to the requirement to actively manage it, that depends on what that management involves. There is no point in implementing some active management strategy without knowing what the impacts are. Impacts could likely be negative or positive. That particular example you gave is intriguing but I wonder what the state of the same site is now? Has it been managed? What were management priorities? Did management work? Maybe in that particular case it was applicable? Maybe the science has changed? In that example, there had been historical landscape change through bark collecting, timber harvesting and livestock grazing. And perhaps fire too? These legacies would have had some impact on the vegetation and the lack of fire does not necessarily mean the area needs it. I’m not saying the vegetation doesn't can't handle a good fire either, I am just saying it might not really need it to persist. Any managment should of course, be subject to review on a case by case basis.

Is this a pattern emerging?

I am not sure what you mean but I do see a pattern, that you support Gammage’s view without critically assessing it. I am not put off reading Gammage, but I am now a little wary, because the science has moved on from some of his ideas. In an earlier post I said that there was a danger of historical revisionism based on small or selected case studies, and I feel that these might be interpreted or extrapolated across broader extents than they were intended. On the topic of management, sure, management is required, but what is the optimal management? In the context of the so-called wilderness areas that you alluded to in your first post, I think interfering with inappropriate active management such as regular fires could do more harm than good. That is my view. As to what an appropriate fire management strategy, who knows? It would most definitely be a case by case action, not just an ad-hoc, burn the bush because it needs it.

Anyhow, that’s all I am going to add for now. I personally had some fun contemplating this thread, but now I feel we have come to a disagreement. I am not trying to change your mind, just trying to inform. Arguing on internet forums is probably one of the biggest wastes of time and I doubt you and I are really going to agree on some of these themes. Maybe we can agree to disagree?
Cheers
Andrew

[maddog]

Clearing has undoubtedly had an impact on many ecological communities in Australia. You mentioned the Lowland Sub-Tropical Rainforest Community, the ‘Big Scrub’ of Northern NSW. It has been suggested that its area was reduced from an estimated 75,000 ha to just 300 ha. But this clearing occurred before 1900 (Floyd)

In regards to the current situation, the NSW State of the Environment report (SoE) 2009 summarises thus:

Until now, land clearing has been the major threat to the extent and condition of native vegetation in New South Wales, but over the past six years the overall area of woody vegetation has remained stable. New native vegetation legislation commenced operation in 2005, providing better control of broadscale clearing and improving vegetation management. Net positive gains in overall vegetation extent and condition are expected as current programs mature.

And NSW is not alone in this trend. The Assessment of Australia’s terrestrial biodiversity 2008, noted:

… broad-scale land clearing has been largely brought under control in the jurisdictions that accounted for most of the clearing in 2002: New regulatory frameworks in Queensland and New South Wales have dramatically reduced the level of approved clearing of remnant vegetation nationally in the past five years.

While the Australian SoE 2011 (to which you referred) reported:

Overall, national rates of broadscale land clearing have fallen dramatically. However, substantial clearing continues in many areas. In addition, the legacies of past land clearing will continue to operate for some decades as old trees and small remnants of native ecosystems isolated in mostly cleared landscapes die, and recruitment of new plant seedlings, fungi and animals is hindered by changed fire regimes, altered soil properties, exposure to predators and reduced ability to find mates. Addressing these legacy effects will be complex, long term and potentially expensive.

So, there are legacy management issues that we are left with as a result of past clearing practices, but the broad-scale clearing of years gone by has been largely regulated out of existence. Thus the statement:

So we are in the post broad-scale clearing era, yet the extinctions continue. You are flogging a dead horse.

The broad-scale clearing has largely ended, so the broad-scale clearing is the dead horse. We need to look at the other problems including our current land management practices, theories, and assumptions.

On the other issues:

Scientists have a history of developing all kinds of hypotheses, particularly in more recent times (perhaps this is due to the pressure to publish).

Gammage on the other hand, over a decade or so, gathered many historical records and compares them with what we see today. The vegetation patterns are clearly very different. There was more grass and fewer trees. He also notes that remnant trees are of a different structure to many of the trees we see today. He suggests that Aboriginal land management using fire was far more complex than some like to admit – and that the Aboriginal people of Australia had created ‘the greatest estate on Earth’. The obvious implication of Gammage’s thesis is that aboriginal management created the landscape, and the diversity of flora and fauna of the nation (to a greater or lesser extent) became dependent on it. There would seem to be a reasonable amount of credible scientific support for this position.

If Gammage is correct, to 'conserve biodiversity in the future, ecologists and land managers must develop and instil an informed philosophy of active vegetation management, rather than perpetuating a pervasive attitude of passive non- intervention. Biodiversity conservation must involve human interaction, and will not be well served by a nebulous rubric of ‘maintaining natural processes’ (Hunt,1998). Though perhaps Einstein is correct when he said a problem can not be solved with the same consciousness that created it.

While there may be an alternative ‘scientific’ explanation for the pre-European landscape pattern, and the ‘science’ may have ‘moved on’. But new does not mean improved, and for it to be considered a credible rebuttal of Gammage's thesis, it would have to be able to explain why those pre-European vegetation patterns, so clearly evidenced in the historical record, existed. And why they so quickly disappeared in the absence of Aboriginal ‘fire-stick farming’.

Does the latest charcoal study do this?

And why should you believe we should agree, or in fact that we don’t? We have debated Gammage's thesis that Australia was no wilderness, it was the 'greatest estate on Earth'. Not our beliefs.

I am sure you would agree however, that walking is distinguished from lesser forms of physical activity in that it allows the participant to think, as they walk. Bushwalkers may choose to think about the natural world that surrounds them.Those who consider Gammage’s thesis, will likely take those ideas walking, develop and improve on them.

Cheers,

Maddog

[walkinTas]

@maddog - I'd like to thank you for posting this topic. It has lead me to some very interesting reading.

Scientists have a history of developing all kinds of hypotheses....

This is a bit like saying "Human's have a history of breathing". Hypotheses and research defines science. THE Science on any given topic, at any given point in time, is the whole collection of published papers on that topic. One difficulty that the casual reader has, is that we aren't across the whole body of published work.

Another difficulty is the time sequence. New research builds on old research and challenges old theories with new findings. Science is a continuum. When reading science it is important to know the order in which the papers were published. Sometimes papers present new evidence that builds on old evidence to reinforce published theory. Sometimes papers are written to present new evidence that contradicts or corrects old evidence and an old theory - and presents a new or improved theory.

Picking up one paper is like picking up one piece of a jig-saw puzzle; it might be a key piece that helps build the picture, or it might be a piece that doesn't seem to fit anywhere - until you examine a couple more pieces. And if I take this analogy just a bit further, sometimes you might have pieces from more than one version of the puzzle. To the lay reader, this can appear as a dog's breakfast. Anyway, my apologies for this little rant, but I don't think science is necessarily the bedlam popular opinion would have us believe it is.

It is also important to distinguish between scientific theory and general speculation (and scientific evidence compared to anecdotal evidence). Gammage's book is not a scientific paper.

[maddog]

One difficulty that the casual reader has, is that we aren't across the whole body of published works. I don't think science is necessarily the bedlam popular opinion would have us believe it is.

The journal Nature on the state of science :

There is increasing unrest in global science. The number of retractions is rising, new examples of poor oversight or practice are being uncovered and anxiety is building among researchers...Building on solid foundations was an architectural principle understood by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, yet we may be constructing our castles on swampland.

Although most mistakes are unintentional and sometimes unavoidable, there are also deliberate efforts to deceive...

The inherent uncertainty of research provides a safe haven for data omission, manipulation or exaggeration. Because interpretation of data is an imperfect science, there are few consequences for those tempted to oversell their findings. On the contrary, such faulty embellishment can help to determine whether a study is published — and where. More­over, because failure to reproduce a published finding can be due to innocent factors, significant errors or falsehoods may be overlooked or simply pass unchallenged. As a result, modern science can churn out a flotsam of dead-end data that pollute the literature and waste precious resources.

...One may argue that if a study is ignored it does no harm, but superfluous publication clutter is not benign. Minimally, it adds chaff to the wheat, but it also promotes mediocrity by example. More importantly, it provides meticulously documented evidence of apparent waste to funders and the public.

In a culture of publish or perish, the continuing growth in the number of scientific journals is hardly a surprise. But does this proliferation of papers reflect better science, or merely dilution? When a third of all papers are never cited, it is reasonable to question why so many are published. If the answer is simply as a form of accepted currency to indicate productivity, then our evaluative systems must become less reliant on publication quanta.

http://www.nature.com/news/we-must-be-o ... es-1.11353

Gammage's book is not a scientific paper.

Agreed. Gammages book is not a scientific paper, it is a historical thesis with some credible scientific support.

And a very interesting historical thesis it is.

Cheers