A typology of scientific bottlenecks to natural resources development
A preliminary systematic framework for considering the scientific bottlenecks to the development of natural resources is presented, as a basis for discussion and refinement. In giving particular attention to problems of resource use in developing countries, two main types of scientific bottlenecks are recognized. One concerns the quality and quantity of information on natural resources, and the use that is made of that information. The second relates to the quality and quantity of local manpower in the ecological and related sciences that is available to developing countries, and to the conditions that affect the promotion and stability of scientific endeavor in these countries.Action strategies for combatting these bottlenecks are proposed. These strategies emphasize the need to improve the scientific basis for the predictable use of natural resources, to facilitate multi-directional links of scientific cooperation between countries, and to help develop national self-reliance in research and management activities. They stress such principles of action as the promotion of a problem-oriented, interdisciplinary approach within specific geographic units, and the combination of research, training and demonstration within particular field activities. These features of suggested research run counter neither to scientific method nor to the freedom of scientific endeavor. They do, however, entail a change in the way that much research is conceived and organized. More particularly, they entail the incorporation of additional dimensions in the overall research effort, including that of a perception approach to problems.
Enhancing the credibility of ecology: Can research be made more comparable and predictive?
A sounder theoretical basis for extrapolation and prediction, typologies of what is and what is not comparable, and representative natural areas for long-term field research are three geographically-based ingredients of comparative research in ecology. Two types of conceptual model allow assessment of the effects of phylogenesis and environment on ecosystem structure and functioning. The first is based on ‘fixing’ of genetic variables and study of biological performance along a gradient of environmental conditions — an approach of sequential analysis of environmental gradients. The second is based on ‘fixing’ of environmental variables and comparison of performance of different phylogenetic stocks in non-contiguous geographical areas — an approach entailing matching of disjunct ecological analogues. The two approaches are important complements in examining hypotheses of convergent and divergent evolution, in helping to define what really can be compared in comparative ecological research, and in contributing to ecology becoming a more predictive and credible science.
Thinking Ahead: Unesco and the Challenges of Today and Tomorrow (review)
half of the book is on cultures as systems by the well-known biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy. I find that his perspective is more allied to functionalism than to structuralism. Despite the topical range suggested in the book’s title, its usefulness resides primarilyin the way it collates a number ofstructuralist-semiotic approaches to the analysis of literary artworks. The essays of Jan Mukafovsky were written during the 1930s and 1940s and deal with general theoretical studies of art and of aesthetics. There are also specific analyses of examples of film, theatre and the visual arts. Mukaiovsky (1891-1975) was a member of the Prague linguistic circle and has sometimes been referred to as the initiator of ‘structural aesthetics’. Until this book was produced, the only samples of his work translated into English dealt with literary art. I must point out that his view of structure differs in several important respects from that elaborated by contemporary structuralists, a distinction that perhaps should have been noted by Peter Steiner in his extended introduction encapsulating Mukaiovskjh ideas. The assumption is usually made that cultural events and artifacts have an observable structure at the level of phenomenal/empirical reality and an unsuspected deep structure whose rules underlie the world of appearances. Mukaiovsky’s notion of structure, especially with reference to the visual arts, is both more explicit and more ambiguous. It is a holistic perspective, accommodating relations between the form of a work, anthropological constants, social organization, the intent of an artist and the response of audiences. The essays are written in a convoluted philosophical style, owing a considerable debt to the German idealist tradition. This fact, along with the paucity of examples cited (there are no illustrations) and the absence of a full-spectrum analysis of the historical contexts considered, will not, 1 believe, endear him to sociologists of art. This is unfortunate, because he proposes several assumptions worth testing. 1 was especially struck by a relationship between his view of art as a social activity and the views of the early Marx, who is not mentioned. Although Mukaiovsky’s views are mainly speculative, and his essays contain much thick prose, thereareenough suggestiveinsights to make it worthwhile for anyone interested in theorizing about art to study them.