Chance and Change: Ecology for Conservationists [Hardcover]

William Holland Drury Jr. (Author), John G.T. Anderson (Editor), Ernst Mayr (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520211553 | ISBN-13: 978-0520211551 | Publication Date: June 21, 1998 | Edition: 1

The result of a lifetime in the field and in the classroom, Chance and Change challenges many of the tenets of establishment ecology. Charging that most of the environmental movement has ignored or rejected the changes in thinking that have infiltrated ecological theory since the mid 70s, William Drury presents a convincing case that disorder is what makes the natural world work, and that clinging to romantic notions of nature's grand design only saps the strength of the conservation movement. Drury's training in botany, geology, and zoology as well as his life-long devotion to work in the field gave him a depth and range of knowledge that few ecologists possess. This book opens our eyes to a new way of looking at the environment and forces us to think more deeply about nature and our role in it.
Chance and Change is intended for the serious amateur naturalist or professional conservationist. Drury argues that chance and change are the rule, that the future is as unpredictable to other organisms as it is to us, and that natural disturbance is too frequent for equilibrium models to be useful. He stresses the centrality of natural selection in explaining the meaning of biology and insists the book and the laboratory must be checked at all times against the real world. Written in an easy, personal style, Drury's narrative comes alive with the landscape--the salt marshes, dunes, seashores, and forests--that he believed served as the best classroom. His novel approach of correlating landscape evolution with ecological principles offers a welcome corrective to discordance between what we observe in nature and what theory tells us we should see.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Most politically active environmentalists, writes the late biologist William Drury, have at least some knowledge of equilibrium theory, "the characteristic ecology taught in introductory textbooks" through which the so-called balance of nature is explained. Believing that this theory, if oversimplified, can lead to doctrinaire reactions (the view, for example, that human economic development is necessarily harmful to the environment), Drury proposes a more complex understanding of nature that takes into account chance and change, and that recognizes that "natural disturbance is too frequent for equilibrium models to be useful." Discussing notions such as microcosm versus macrocosm, the great chain of being, and succession, Drury offers a vigorous textbook that deepens our understanding of how the world works. --Gregory McNamee

From Library Journal

Writing for both the amateur naturalist and the professional conservationist, Drury challenges traditional ecological theories with the argument that nature is not the result of a grand design. He argues instead that the natural world is a result of chance, disorder, and unpredictability. According to Drury, the theory that nature progresses toward a state of equilibrium through a series of steps contradicts the Darwinian principle of natural selection. With his background in botany, geology, and zoology, Drury demonstrates the interdisciplinary nature of ecology as he explores the effect of geological, physical, and biological processes on the landscape. Using the coasts, salt marshes, and forests as his laboratory, he argues that we are not on the verge of environmental collapse. His work reveals a lifetime of research, which is evident as he compares "what ought to be," according to historical ecological thought, with "what is" based on his observations. His impact on the discipline has been so considerable that others finished the manuscript of this book after his death. The result is a thought-provoking work. Highly recommended for all academic libraries.ATeresa Berry, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 209 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (June 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520211553
• ISBN-13: 978-0520211551
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 2.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,347,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opening critique of Clementsian ecology, November 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Chance and Change: Ecology for Conservationists (Hardcover)

This is an amazing work whose only fault is that it was not published by a larger house. Drury clearly outlines his argument against the commonly held notion of a balance of nature. He finds the idea of ecological communities succeeding to climax a distasteful one, and rightly so. Drury advocates actually thinking about problems rather than hiding behind an orthodoxy that seems to know all the answers.

He realizes that the world is a continually changing, dynamic place with an unpredictable quirkiness. It is not, as is so often assumed, a world where "ecosystems", left to their natural states, will go back to what they "ought" to be. He argues that we should conserve the world because we can, and not because of abstract notions of the intrinsic value of life. We want to save the world because we like critters, and we should fess up to it.

Drury was not a scheming wise-user, as may be inferred from his criticism of the environmentalist movement. He just wanted people to think about what they had learned about ecology in the century since Clements and Forbes.

Think people think!