Darwin and von Humboldt

I discuss agian the interesting paper on Nature about the determinants of productivity.  I discuss it again since it is very good science, and yet the interpretation is flawed by philosophical biases that are not fully recognized.

The paper says that productivity is directly related to size and age and indirectly related to climate. I said in the previous post that indirect relationship are considered not real by ecologists. It took much time in law to ackowledge that indirect responsability are as real as direct responsabilities. But there is another consideration, this time concerning the history of science. We have two main schools in ecology: the German and the anglo-saxon. German school was founded by Alexander von Humboldt, anglo-saxon school by Darwin. The German school focuses on the relationship betwwen the physical environment and the organisms, whereas the anglo-saxon school tries to explain ecosystems relying only on organisms. Representatives of the German school often define their appraoch as "holistic", but this word makes little sense; what matters is emphasis on the physical environment.

The above papers shows that both the physical environment (the climate) and the organisms (size and age) play a role in productivity. The physical environment has only indirect effect. but this is trivial, since the effect of environment on ecosystems is always mediated by organisms. And yet you have not the full explanation if you do not consider the physical environemtn. Organisms are immersed in the environment, and are shaped by it, although of course a very relevant part of their life are organism to organism relationships (as stressed by Darwin in the Origin of Species).

But anglosaxon think generally that the German approach is unscientific, and anglo-saxon are hegemonic. Therefore climate cannot be a determinant of productivity.