Patten Bernard C
Department of Zoology and Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, 30602, Athens, GA, USA.
Oecologia. 1993 Apr;93(4):597-602. doi: 10.1007/BF00328970.
For the abovementioned reasons, and with all due respect to the scholarship of Mansson and McGlade, who display a deep knowledge of thermodynamics and ecology, I cannot agree that Odum's use of energy concepts is "wholly discredited". Refinements from microscopic thermodynamics may not have been faithfully carried along in his work, but does ecology really need these? Remember - the "meal test".Having tussled with ecological complexity myself, I stand in awe of this man who has faced up to what most ecologists today are trying to deny - intractable, crushing, defeating complexity. If Odum has provided some of the first shaky stepping stones across this gulf, that's enough.I can finish by quoting from ny Festschrift paper again:It is often said of scientists who make unusual contributions against the grain of their disciplines that they are ahead of their time. In H.T. Odum's case, with maximum power, energy-circuit diagrams, emergy, transformity, and energy value the linchpins of a whole new theory of ecology, and paradigm within systems ecology, this can certainly be stated without hesitation. But in this instance, it is also possible to turn the observation around and suggest that ecology-as-science is behind its time, lagging the curve of need foreseen decades ago by a more pragmatic ecology-as-ethic and-concern. The growing man-and-environment tension, fostered by so-far unabatable growth of populations, technologies and economies, demands a science that incises complexity, finds the essence of systemness, and produces quantitative methods capable of moulding this essence to meet the imperatives of the new environmentalism. H.T. Odum has not, perhaps, provided a definitive theory to do this; no one could right now. But, he has given us an intriguing mix of "science", "art" and "religion" that stands as one of the singular legacies of 20th-century ecology, pointing the way toward a new ecology of complexity that must, I think from need, fully arise in the 21st century. His time has been behind him.
基于上述原因，尽管曼森和麦克格莱德学识渊博，对热力学和生态学有着深入的了解，但我不同意奥杜姆对能量概念的运用“完全不可信”这一观点。微观热力学的改进可能在他的研究中未得到忠实体现，但生态学真的需要这些吗？记住——“膳食测试”。我自己也曾与生态复杂性作斗争，我对这个人充满敬畏，他直面了当今大多数生态学家试图否认的东西——棘手、压倒性、令人挫败的复杂性。如果奥杜姆提供了一些最初跨越这一鸿沟的不太稳固的垫脚石，那就足够了。
人们常说，那些违背学科主流做出非凡贡献的科学家是超越时代的。就H.T.奥杜姆而言，最大功率、能量循环图、能值、转化度和能量价值是全新生态理论的关键要素，也是系统生态学中的一个范式，这一点无疑可以毫不犹豫地说。但在这种情况下，也可以反过来观察并认为，作为一门科学的生态学落后于时代，落后于几十年前一种更务实的生态伦理和关切所预见的需求曲线。人口、技术和经济的持续增长所加剧的人与环境之间日益紧张的关系，需要一门能够剖析复杂性、找到系统性本质，并产生能够塑造这种本质以满足新环境主义要求的定量方法的科学。H.T.奥杜姆或许没有提供一个明确的理论来做到这一点；目前也没有人能做到。但是，他给了我们一种有趣的“科学”“艺术”和“宗教”的混合体，这是20世纪生态学独特的遗产之一，为一种新的复杂性生态学指明了方向，我认为从需求来看，这种新生态学必然会在21世纪全面兴起。他的时代已经过去。
