ABSTRACT
This chapter distinguishes at least two ways of thinking about ecology. The scientific studies of biologists, concerned with the interactions among organisms - whether taken individually or in groups - and between organisms and their environment. On the other, ecology can be regarded as a method of approaching problems, and as supplying a metaphysics that applies to far more than living systems. The chapter explores the relations between scientific ecology and ecology as a metaphysical stance let people start by looking at the sorts of things said by metaphysical ecologists. J. J. Gibson argues that the environment of a perceiving animal is different from the physical world. The chapter illustrates the use of null hypotheses, in the case of the hummingbirds. Great controversy in recent ecology has focused on the issue of whether certain phenomena need to be explained in biological terms at all.
