Very Short Introductions
I just finished reading two ‘Very Short Introductions’ (henceforth ‘VSI’) books (from Oxford University Press), both very good. The first was ‘Ecology’, and the second ‘Earth Systems Science’. Both served their purpose, and I now feel pretty well introduced to both subjects.
The books have a good balance of theory and case studies, always fleshing out ideas with real world examples, which reinforced my understanding of the ideas. Both were also rather depressing, because as you can imagine, the more you learn about how ecosystems operate, and about how the larger systems of our planet operate, the more you understand what a perilous situation we are in right now.
‘Ecology’ felt more familiar to me, and a lot of the general concepts, and a few of the case studies were already familiar to me from my reading in biology and evolutionary science. Much of the focus was on the dynamics at play between different species of animals, and between animals and their environments. What is interesting is that at first sight, Ecological systems can look seductively straightforward to model. Population dynamics and balances in a community seem to follow pleasingly ‘simple’ rules as different food sources increase and decrease according to certain variables, and the repercussions echo up the trophic levels. Of course this is one of humanity’s greatest foibles of the ego — thinking these dynamics are simple when instead they are potentially infinitely complex. In this world of unintended consequences we have a terrible track record of botching even well intentioned interventions in natural systems, based on our newest, shiniest models. Australia in particular is a pale shadow of its former self, bio-diversity wise, and almost all because of repeated blunders and attempts to fix them with more blunders.
Another key idea I took from the Ecology VSI was to conceive of ecosystems as flows of energy (and resources). Energy pretty much exclusively comes in from the sun, and from there the planet, and life explodes with complexity in making use of it, channeling it, transforming it and spending it.
The Earth Systems Science VSI had some similar crossover concepts, in that it also deals with complex systems. I wasn’t quite sure what the subject was until reading the book, but it is kind of geological timescale, grand scale geography, with a lot of climate and atmosphere science as the focus. It views the Earth kind of as Gaia (although certainly not imbuing it with any kind of consciousness or intention) — a self regulating complex system in its own right. Once again, energy enters the system almost exclusively from the sun (of course volcanoes play a huge role in the earth system), and there are then myriad incredibly interesting and complex processes that take place, from the cycles of gas in our atmosphere, to the chemical compositions and transformations in the rocks and oceans, to the huge impact on the system of all life. The book focused a lot on feedback mechanisms, and thresholds — two pillars of any complex systems. There were some wonderful factoids in the book — one I like in particular (since I am currently in the Cederberg region of South Africa, enjoying incredibly clear and bright views of the depths of the milky way at night) is the observation that if you look into the night sky, about one out of every ten stars you see, will have orbiting it a planet earth sized or somewhat bigger, probably with surface water! That makes star gazing a lot more trippy.
Conceptually I love complex systems. Perhaps it is because of Jeff Goldblum playing the chaos theorist, Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park (probably fave movie of all time…). I have touched upon the theory somewhat in my studies in cognitive science, and I’m sure the maths is beyond me. My intuition, and hope though is that people without the requisite mathematical foundation, can still understand a lot about complex systems by way of good visualisations, and that this understanding will be incredibly helpful and useful. My hope is to leverage people’s visual systems and unconscious but very real understandings of physics and maths to create powerful visualisations of complex natural systems, that leave people more enlightened and fascinated with them.
