ABSTRACT
There is a pressing need to distinguish fact from cultural opinions about the nature of Nature. This distinction is needed more clearly than ever because many design professionals reject science at the very time when the door is open for designers to join forces more strongly with engineering, ecological science, hydrology, physics, and mathematics. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. It sets set out a range of ideas to express ecological knowledge that can shift thinking in design away from 'ecological' opinion without facts, based on little information or knowledge. The author believes that a failure to recognise this distinction is a central impasse in design. Design has for too long taken two opposing views on how to consider ecology, views seemingly polarised between rigid empiricism and a loose choice, where one opinion is equal to any other opinion, whether informed or not.
