ABSTRACT
Despite many advances, most of the quantitative methods applied in these activities still assume that effect metrics for lower levels of biological organization adequately predict effects at higher levels; i.e., effects to individuals predict population consequences, and population effects predict community change (Kooijman 1987; Van Straalen and Denneman 1989; Wagner and Løkke 1991). For instance, the core premise of tiered risk assessment for pesticides (Dialogue Group Members 1994) is that effects are unlikely at higher levels if one is not detected at a lower level of biological organization. Cairns (1983) argued aggressively that there should be simultaneous testing of several levels of ecological organization. He argued that effects at lower levels, although grossly indicative of the probability of effects at higher levels (e.g., Slooff et al. 1986), lack suf cient predictive potential to
warrant their exclusive use in the rst tiers of testing. The materials described in this book support such an argument. Given the abundant contrary evidence in the ecological literature, why does this issue remain unresolved in ecotoxicology 30 years after Cairns voiced his objections?*
The explanation might best be introduced using Otto Neurath’s ship at sea metaphor for the conduct of science. “Neurath has likened science to a boat which, if we are to rebuild it, we must rebuild plank by plank while staying a³oat in it…. Our boat stays a³oat because at each alteration we keep the bulk of it intact as a going concern” (Quine 1960). Known as the Neurathian bootstrap, it seems to give context to the dif culty in our discipline that displays such slow change. Understanding can be broadened further by acknowledging that ideas ³ow more freely within any group than among groups. This innate group behavior fosters conceptual isolation in our eld. But, according to the strength of weak ties concept (Granovetter 1973, 1978, 1983), the solution to a novel problem for any group-ecotoxicologists, for example-is most likely to come from outside that group.
