Greene Harry W
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Corson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-2701, USA.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2005 Jan;20(1):23-7. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2004.11.005.
Theories summarize science, tell us what to measure when we test hypotheses, and help us study nature better. Nevertheless, organisms themselves embody genetics, development, morphology, physiology and behavior, and they are the units of populations, communities and ecosystems. Biologists seek to understand organisms, their diversification and environmental relationships--not theories and experiments per se--and discoveries of new organisms and new facts about organisms reset the research cycles of hypothesis testing that underlie conceptually progressive science. I argue here that recent disagreements about the fate of natural history are thus more apparent than real and should not distract us from addressing important issues. The conservation of biodiversity requires factual knowledge of particular organisms, yet we know little or nothing about most species, and organismal diversity is often poorly represented in biological education. Accordingly, I urge those who are especially concerned with teaching and conservation to seek increased financial and curricular support for descriptive natural history, which is so fundamental to many of the applied facets of biology.
理论总结科学，告诉我们在检验假设时该测量什么，并帮助我们更好地研究自然。然而，生物体本身体现了遗传学、发育、形态学、生理学和行为，它们是种群、群落和生态系统的单位。生物学家试图了解生物体、它们的多样性以及与环境的关系——而不是理论和实验本身——新生物体的发现以及关于生物体的新事实重置了构成概念上不断进步的科学基础的假设检验研究周期。我在此认为，最近关于自然史命运的分歧因此更多是表面的而非真实的，不应分散我们解决重要问题的注意力。生物多样性的保护需要关于特定生物体的事实性知识，但我们对大多数物种知之甚少或一无所知，而且生物多样性在生物教育中往往体现不足。因此，我敦促那些特别关注教学和保护的人寻求为描述性自然史增加资金和课程支持，因为它对生物学的许多应用方面至关重要。
