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SCIENCE STUDIES EVENTS
HOW PLANETS MOVE AND POPULATIONS GROW:
MATHEMATICS IN POPULATION ECOLOGY
Mark Colyvan
Department of Philosophy,
University of Queensland Australia, and
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of
Technology
Lev Ginzburg
Department of Ecology and Evolution, SUNY Stony Brook
February 14, 2003
Friday, 12:30pm
Preston Seminar Room
The standard mathematical models in population ecology assume that a
population's growth rate is a function of its environment. In this
paper we investigate an alternative proposal according to which the rate
of change of the growth rate is a function of the environment and of
environmental change. We focus on the philosophical issues involved in
such a fundamental shift in theoretical assumptions, as well as on the
explanations the two theories offer for some of the key data such as
cyclic populations. We also discuss the relationship between this move
in population ecology and a similar move from first-order to
second-order differential equations championed by Galileo and Newton in
celestial mechanics.
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