Chapter 1 Hypothesis Testing in Ecology Ecologists apply scientific methods to solve ecological problems. This simple sentence contains more complexity than practical ecologists would like to admit. Consider the storm that greeted Robert H. Peters’s (1991) book A Critique for Ecology. | Chapter 1 Hypothesis Testing in Ecology Charles J. Krebs Ecologists apply scientific methods to solve ecological problems. This simple sentence contains more complexity than practical ecologists would like to admit. Consider the storm that greeted Robert H. Peters s 1991 book A Critique for Ecology . Lawton 1991 McIntosh 1992 . The message is that we might profit by examining this central thesis to ask What should ecologists do Like all practical people ecologists have little patience with the philosophy of science or with questions such as this. Although I appreciate this sentiment I would point out that if ecologists had adopted classical scientific methods from the beginning we would have generated more light and less heat and thus made better progress in solving our problems. As a compromise to practical ecologists I suggest that we should devote 1 percent of our time to concerns of method and leave the remaining 99 percent of our time to getting on with mouse trapping bird netting computer modeling or whatever we think important. A note of warning here None of the following discussion is original material and all of these matters have been discussed in an extensive literature on the philosophy of science. Here I apply these thoughts to the particular problems of ecological science. Some Definitions Let us begin with a few definitions to avoid semantic quarrels. Scientists deal with laws principles theories hypotheses and facts. These words are often used in a confusing manner so I offer the following definitions for the descending hierarchy of generality in science 2 CHARLES J. KREBS Laws universal statements that are deterministic and so well corroborated that everyone accepts them as part of the scientific background of knowledge. There are laws in physics chemistry and genetics but not in ecology. Principles universal statements that we all accept because they are mostly definitions or ecological translations of physicochemical laws. For example no .
